to shudder when I hear DS1's teacher speak

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I've been to see DS1's yr5 teacher this afternoon and had a generally good meeting.

I have no problem at all with her as a teacher and DS1 is thriving in her class, but her spoken grammar is dreadful.

TBH, DS1 is never going to have perfect Queen's English, having the parents he does and living where we do, but this is from a teacher. I'm more than capable of dropping in an "ain't" or dropping an "H", but do speak properly (enough) in a professional situation.

She doesn't seem able to keep her speach in check. She has a particular problem with done instead if did and during our short meeting used it several times. e.g "DS1 done well in Science today." "The whole class done Maths yesterday afternoon"

AIBU?

I don't think children at this stage understand the type of English they should be using. When my daughter's Class R teacher (now thankfully gone) made errors, I told dd the teacher was wrong. Normally I always support teachers, but when they are wrong, I refuse to. Any letter to "Dear mum's and dad's" simply got forwarded to HT with corrections.

If a teacher said "we done maths today", my child would not be turning up tomorrow morning.

(and there are better places than Oxford and Cambridge to study English!)

Our deputy says 'Maffs'. Makes my teeth itch. And 'Eefoss'.

What's Eefoss?

Ethos!

Haitch?, Haitch? It's aitch!!! Also, seeing displays with 'compared to' instead of 'compared with' and 'different to' instead of 'different from'. Apostrophes for possession - argh! Bought and brought mixed up. BTW, speech therapists don't teach 'th' in either form (soft as in 'thumb' or hard as in 'that') because so many people say it incorrectly it's not worth them teaching it properly. I, however, do not mind split infinitives (as demonstrated!).

Teachers, however, have to teach 'th', so do have to say it properly. And she can in that context, I've observed her.

No, am with you on split infinitives - language does evolve to a certain extent, but there are definite limits.

Haitch is standard in Irish English iirc, and I think the different to/from are distinctions between UK and US English, so I can understand how there'd be a blurring there. I wouldn't have a problem with those, tbh, and am a big fan of the "split" infinitive. Bought/Brought brings in ambiguity/communicative confusion, so those are the ones which bug me most.

Something went wrong. People are supposed to learn from teachers. Teachers should be well educated enough to do this, and shouldn't be afraid of improving children's life chances.

Haitch!! janpa - it drives me to distraction and the Head Teacher bloody well does it!

I am drumming "aitch" into my class relentlessly, although some of them insist that I am wrong!

Cat, is your HT of Irish extraction?

Nope!

Seriously, the haitch/aitch thing seems to be a real shibboleth, and I do wonder if it stems from anti-Irish feelings aeons ago.

I don't know, Habbibu - I just know my parents used to be really irritated when my brothers and I were small if we said "haitch", so I guess it is just one of those bugbears of mine...I seem to be in a tiny minority of "aitch" users where I am.

I am going to write and ask if the Queen says "aitch"

'Must of', NO, 'must have'. 'Less than', NO 'fewer than'. 'Sum' means add - you cannot ask children, or anyone for that matter, to do a takeaway sum - it's a contradiction - argh! Whoever got me started on this! It will keep me awake all night!

I recently heard an adult woman saying to another "Can you borrow me some ....". Apparently she never had understood the difference between lend and borrow!

At least my own dear sproglets have impeccable diction and grammar. Although the less said about the lad's spelling, the better.

MY son has proved himself to have a REMARKABLY wide vocabulary recently, Goblinchild....

"Less than" can be fine, can't it? "I like it less than the last one" for example.

Like I said, Cat, it's a shibboleth, as there's no communicative/grammatical problem with it, but it really seems to raise hackles, which suggests to me there's a non-linguistic social reason, perhaps stemming back to anti-Irish feeling that makes it irritate people so much - not saying that people who don't like it now are anti-Irish, just that it's possible that that's why the initial drumming in may have stemmed from.

Doubt the queen says haitch. What is the german word for "h"?

We had an creative arts training day last Tuesday - the lady who led the afternoon was an ex-secondary teacher. One of the first things she said was 'I'm not going to learn you.....'. Aaaargh!

I hate gin.

You just haven't had the right gin, Feenie. Educate your palate with some Shetland gin.

I think my mum and dad just thought it was common tbh!

They MAY hate the Irish - my grandmother is Irish, and tells my mother what to do gives my mother unsolicited advice quite a lot...

Fantastic!