not sure of grammar

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Please help me correct or improve this speech below:
Hello everyone! Good morning to my fellow graduates, parents, teachers, visitors especially to Teacher Mel, our School Directress.

Fellow graduates, today is the moment that we have been waiting for – our graduation in Advance Casa. I can say that the St. Therese of Lisieux Montessori School has well- equipped us with knowledge and skills to take on to the next level of our education – to become Grade 1.

Montessori is not just learning the 3Rs: reading, writing and arithmetic but also friendship, love and confidence. I still remember the first activity we had in our school which I failed to participate because I was so nervous and shy and just cried and cried. But my teachers never gave up on me, never failed to guide and encourage me in every school activity. Now I can say, I’ve overcome my shyness and develop my confidence.

My Ate Nicole and Kuya Ken are alumni of this school and I am proud to say that they are doing well in their respective classes because the experience they had in Montessori has helped to shape their character and attitude. Plato said “The direction in which education starts a man will determine his future.” Montessori has given me - us fellow graduates - a good start in our educational life!

Thank you Montessori teachers, especially to Teacher Rica and Teacher Amie, for your guidance and support.

To my classmates, thanks for the memorable times we shared together. Congratulations!

Let me end this by sharing with you the message of Walt Disney, “All our dreams can come true...if we have the courage to pursue them.”

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@nickenclau,

Hello everyone! Good morning to my fellow graduates; parents, teachers, visitors; especially to Directress Mel. (but why: You have to explain what makes her so special)

Fellow graduates, (I'd say grads) now's the moment we've been waiting for - graduation in Advance(d?) Casa. St. Therese of Lisieux Montessori School has well-equipped us with knowledge and skills to take on the next level – Grade 1.

Montessori is not just 3Rs but also friendship, love and confidence. I can still remember our first activity (was what?)--in which I couldn't participate because I was so nervous and shy; I just cried and cried. But my teachers never gave up on me, encouraging me in every activity, overcoming my shyness and helping me develop confidence.

My Ate (?) Nicole and Kuya Ken are also alumni, and I'm proud they're doing so well thanks to Montessori having shaped their character and attitude, demonstrating as Plato said, “The direction in which education starts a man will determine his future.” Montessori has provided me - us, fellow graduates - the best possible start!

Thank you Montessori teachers, especially Teachers Rica and Amie, for your guidance and support. My classmates, thanks for memorable times; and congratulations!

Finally let me share Walt Disney's message: “All our dreams can come true...if we have the courage to pursue them.”

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@dalehileman,

thank you dalehileman

1 Reply

@nickenclau,

Quite welcome Nick

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@nickenclau,

Nick, I don't like to end sentences with a preposition. I don't mind in normal discourse, but in a formal speech, especially in the first sentence, I would say the following:

Fellow graduates, today is the moment for which we have been waiting., etc.

If you go to this extent in normal conversation, it may begin to sound pedantic, but, as I said, this is a speech.

2 Replies

@Lola,

Quote:

Nick, I don't like to end sentences with a preposition.

That's another of those old wives tales, Lola, that never had anything to do with the English language. It really is quite amazing just how wedded people can become to ideas that are arrant nonsense.

And actually, Nick didn't end the sentence in a preposition, he ended it in a noun.

Fellow graduates, today is the moment that we have been waiting for – our graduation in Advance Casa.

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@Lola,

Lola's absolutely right, Nick. That very thought had crossed my old mind but I lean to the colloquial

LYL

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@dalehileman,

Quote:

Lola's absolutely right,

What is Lola right about, Dale? Do you know the history of this bit of nonsense?

2 Replies

@JTT,

Quote:

What is Lola right about, Dale? Do you know the history of this bit of nonsense?

I didn't say it was a rule. I said I don't like to do it. The cadence of the sentence is not as pleasing with the preposition wagging loose out there, flapping in the breeze. It's a matter of taste and timing.

1 Reply

@Lola,

Fellow graduates, today is the moment for which we have been waiting.,

Quote:

AN INTERNET PILGRIM'S GUIDE TO STRANDED PREPOSITIONS

"Preposition stranding" refers to cases where the object of a preposition has apparently "moved" to some other location in the sentence, leaving the preposition "stranded". It's easy to google up some examples:

...

2. Her father had a similar problem that he simply lived with [ ].
3. My great-grandfather was a collector of comics and baseball cards, which we used to fight over [ ].

...

2a. ?Her father had a similar problem with which he simply lived [ ].
3a. ?My great-grandfather was a collector of comics and baseball cards, over which we used to fight [ ].
...

Haj Ross named this process "pied piping", conjuring an image of the wh-word luring the preposition out of its original position, just as the Pied Piper lured the rats and children out of Hamelin. Preposition-stranding is scorned by some prescriptivists, even though it has been used by well-respected writers for centuries.

In fact, in random examples like those above, pied piping is often awkard and pretentious-sounding. In cases like (2a) and (3a), where the preposition is closely associated with the verb, pied piping is particularly inappropriate. The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language (CGEL) goes as far as to suggest that preposition-fronting is ungrammatical when the preposition is specified by the verb (p. 275), as in "*the letters across which I came".

http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/000743.html

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@JTT,

I still like the how it sounds the way I wrote it. You can do it any way you like.

1 Reply

@Lola,

Quote:

I still like the how it sounds the way I wrote it.

... where the preposition is closely associated with the verb, pied piping is particularly inappropriate.

1 Reply

@JTT,

Quote:

What is Lola right about, Dale?

Lola's observations about the ped of ending with prep and the possibility that her audience might prove stuffier than I had imagined

Quote:

Do you know the history of this bit of nonsense?

I'm not sure JTT to what history you have reference but if you mean the preceding postings then no, at 82 with incipient Alz's I quickly forget all

1 Reply

@dalehileman,

Quote:

the possibility that her audience might prove stuffier than I had imagined

And why on earth would anyone worry about a bunch of stuffed shirts who break the very rule they, on occasion, tout?

And why on earth would anyone worry about a bunch of stuffed shirts who worry about a prescription that was never a rule of the English language. John Dryden invented it to suggest that he was a better writer than some of his peers. He frequently broke his own rule, which, as I've noted, was never a rule.

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Unless it's her official title, I'd replace "Directress" with "Director". In the last few decades, there's strong support for doing away with such gendered words. Most women on stage prefer simple "actor" for both sexes, for example. "Aviatrix" is just "aviator", or "flier" or some such. "Mailman" is now officially "letter carrier", "fireman" is usually "firefighter", and so on. A simple "director" should be sufficient.

Is this supposed to be a speech a kid just graduating from the Montessori equivalent of kindergarten and going on to first grade, a kid 5 or 6 years old is supposed to give, or have I missed something?

0 Replies

Quote:

I can still remember our first activity (was what?)--in which I couldn't participate because I was so nervous and shy;

I remember our first activity--I couldn't join in because....

Do 5-year-olds usually quote Plato?

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@JTT,

Quote:

Quote:
I still like the how it sounds the way I wrote it.

... where the preposition is closely associated with the verb, pied piping is particularly inappropriate.

Yes, well, JTT some of us are more rule bound than others.

2 Replies

@Lola,

Clearly, Lola.

0 Replies

@JTT,

Quote:

And why on earth would anyone worry about a bunch of stuffed shirts who break the very rule they, on occasion, tout?

Up with which we must not put

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@Lola,

Quote:

Yes, well, JTT some of us are more rule bound than others.

I thought you said that it wasn't a rule, Lola. Smile

But regardless, we are all rule bound. There are millions of real rules that you, and other people, actually do follow. There are grammar books, real grammar books, not the silly style manuals from which nonsense prescriptions come, filled with descriptions of many of these rules. The CGEL has some 1800 pages describing these rules and it's readily acknowledged, because language is so complex, that there is much to learn about how language is used.

1 Reply

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