to have less and less faith in DS teacher

[OrlandoWoolf]

He has to find some plurals for his spelling test.
Either she's being really clever or she does not actually know.

Dice

As she "has form" on homework mistakes and spelling errors - I suspect she does not know the mistake she's made.

[sashh]

I use die and dice, never dices.

My mother is even more old fashioned, she measures with a rule, a ruler apparently is the queen.

Don't get me started on the university lecturer who changed my British spellings to American and kept saying we were doing an exercise so we would be 'more readier' for work.

[SconeForAStroll]

I am having this exact internal battle at the moment. DD's teacher is appalling not very good. I am getting very annoyed at having to reteach the subject of the homework every weekend as poor dd comes home befuddled because the teacher has told her that a metaphor cannot be personification.

And before I get jumped on, I was a primary teacher too. I do know how stressful it can be, but it isn't right to give a child a maths test that is supposed to take 40 minutes and watch it be finished in 10 and then ignore the child for thirty minutes.

[chocoluvva]

My DD had a Y6 teacher who wouldn't accept (when queried by a pupil) that 'Beans is tasty' is incorrect. I can see how she thought that - 'Rice is tasty' eg, but the children lost respect for her.

[OrlandoWoolf]

Well, I normally take what DS says with a large pinch of salt but he is adamant about it.

[YouTheCat]

Oh fgs - seriously? She thinks die is the plural? Is this person not capable of looking in a dictionary?

I know you can't expect a primary teacher to know everything, but I'd expect them to be able to google and use a dictionary.

This teacher should not be teaching.

[BlackeyedSusan]

we use die in this house. cbeebies use it as well. (on at least one occasion)

[OrlandoWoolf]

Well according to DS, the teacher thinks die is the plural of dice
Will need to check his spelling book.

[Talkinpeace]

Choose your battles.
Save energy for the things that really matter.

[chocoluvva]

It's amazing how quickly language changes - take the singular of 'rice' for example. Does anyone still use 'rye' as the singular? Do they heck - they crack into the ryvita without a thought for the ramifications. Hardly anyone over the age of forty uses rice-cakes these days.




(Apologies - I'm in a very silly mood).

[LifeHuh]

This is some of the homework,stored at the time for future irritation. Knew it was worse that just circle... (sorry OP,I'm feeling pain on the whole dice/die thing as well!)

A list of word to sort into boxes by beginning or ending - the implication being that these are the prefix or suffix.
One of these words is subtraction-suffix 'tion',I'm happy with that.But we also have words ending in 'ough'(enough),'ial'(special) and station(to go in the suffix 'tion' box).
At the other end we have the prefix 'a'and ,amongst other word,'again'.

Surely prefixes and suffixes do not cover any group of letters which can end or begin a word?(so not 'ough'etc,and ,in english, what about the 'as'at the beginning of ascend?)

Ooh,it annoyed me like stink at the time and it is annoying me all over again now!

[LifeHuh]

Yes FredFredGeorge! That was my point exactly! Circle and circus are related words,but the actual prefix used in English,which is what the children were learning about,is "circum"
Perfectly happy with circumflex,circumnavigate,circumference...but not circus.
Or circle. Actually while I accept "cir" may be a greek prefix denoting round,I think teaching Yr 3 British children using that is nuts - as it will be absolutely no help to them in RL.Some of the other words were similiar in that they were words from Latin,with a Latin prefix - but not useful when looking at English usage...

[SE13Mummy]

My 8-year-old and 4-year-old regularly tell me it is die if there's only one. I've no idea who they've been talking to as neither DH or I call it a die and DH is a pedant usually.

On the other hand, a worryingly high proportion of my Y6 class believe that the plural of sheep is sheeps or sheepis .

[OrlandoWoolf]

We've done chateau as chateaux.

[perfectview]

Fredfredgeorge - don't I know it!

[harticus]

Plurals of uncountable nouns drive me mad.
'Accommodations' being the worst.

[FredFredGeorge]

BalloonSlayer circ is not a prefix in the word circus because it doesn't modify the word us.

circum is a common prefix for around - used in circumnavigate, circumcision, circumvent, circumscribe etc. and yes it's completely connected to circus (which is just from ring/circle) but it's not a prefix.

Stadia vs Stadiums you appear to be losing that one perfectview

[perfectview]

Don't get me started on 'stadiums'

BBC I am looking at you.

[Taz1212]

I just checked and both my DS(11) and DD(8) knew what the singular of dice was so it appears I am being successful in my mission to pass pedanticism to the next generation.

[BalloonSlayer]

"circus" (related to words like circumference but as far as I know "cir" isn't a prefix.Someone is going to tell me I'm wrong now ,aren't they

Umm well it's the "circ" bit I think you need to be looking at.

Without googling anything at all, AFAIK a "circus" is something round, eg Piccadilly Circus, a circle is round, a circumference is the measurement around the edge of a circle, you circumnavigate something by going around it. It's not hard to work out that the prefix Circ- denotes something round.

And who was it mentioned "dices potatoes" FGS? That's a VERB, not a plural noun. < gimme strength >

[Pixel]

We use 'die' here, as in 'the die is cast'.

[FredFredGeorge]

LiegeAndLief the controversy is if data can be used as a singular, not as a plural, some people think it's only plural.

Can I be a pedant and point out none of you are pedants if you're correcting language, language doesn't have a correct form, so you cannot be pedantic about it surely?

[LiegeAndLief]

Hang on, there are loads of people who use data as a plural word. They're called scientists. If I'm reviewing something where someone has written "the data shows" or "the data is", I correct it!

I also correct misuse of apostrophes and commas. Now that I think about it, I am clearly a pedant and my colleagues probably all hate me.

[WhereDoAllTheCalculatorsGo]

Why on earth would somebody say 'no one uses die for the singular anymore'? Of course they fucking do, because that's what they are called.

[OrlandoWoolf]

Like I said, I was always taught die was the singular of dice.

I have taught that in my class. No one ever taught me that dice could also mean a single die

I must have missed the memo.