To think an English teacher should know the correct pronunciation of Glamis?

[susannahmoodie]

As in Thane of......?

Or is it now ok to say "glam-mis"??

Totally agree Bathtime.

As Kissinger said, "Academic Politics Are So Vicious Because the Stakes Are So Small".

BathtimeFunkster I assume you have a degree from an ex-poly - chip on shoulder, much?

No, I'm ashamed to admit that I also have a degree from the University of Edinburgh.

Sadly, it does seem to have become a bit of a magnet for the dim and snobby.

whatthese why does it matter if the degree is from a red-brick or an ex-poly? Why is that what's important to you?

I'd much rather the quality of degrees were judged on, er, their actual quality.

Depends if it was being taught as a set text or as an extract. Also age of children and why they were studying it.

If they were learning about metre it would be confusing to use wrong number of syllables.

I have a PhD in English and history and I had no clue how it was pronounced. And here's the thing: contrary to popular belief on Mumsnet, academics in the arts and humanities do not tend to equate knowledge and learnedness with running around correcting other people's pronunciation or grammar. Nor do they see that kind of thing as the be-and-end-all of scholarship. People tend to be more interested ideas and the ways that they are expressed. I've seen very, very brilliant people misspell words. Who cares?

It's the equivalent of complaining that a biologist who can teach your kids about cells in a brilliant way but pronounces 'cytokinesis' idiosyncratically. Does it really matter? The main thing is whether the teacher can break down the play and bring it to life for your children, leading them through it so that they can understand the basic ways in which it works. The mispronunciation of 'Glamis' doesn't affect their ability to do that.

In relation to a PP: yes, it's quite possible to get an English degree without reading Macbeth. The number of works that can be crammed into 3 years of study really isn't huge and most people take considerably longer to master a particular era (even an early one, where it is actually possible to read most of the stuff coming off the press - as soon as you get beyond the mid C18 it becomes pretty impossible to read everything published across a relatively short 50-year period. I've been working in my field for years and there are still absolutely tons of things I haven't read).

There's also a bit of an irony in being pernickity around Shakespearean language, given that the reason he stands at the pinnacle of the canon is his tendency to tear up the rulebook of language and to invent all kinds of creative new ways of using it. If there had been a Mumsnet or a grammar police back in his day, his plays would have spawned AIBU threads galore: 'Hamlet: AIBU to think that 'barefaced' is NOT a word'/'AIBU: what, exactly, is a 'wrangling pedant', Willy?'/ 'AIBU: is it just me or is Shakespeare just wrong in the way he transforms nouns into verbs?'

Less worried about an English teacher's inability to pronounce Glamis than the reports I'm getting from 13 yo dd of the use of "we was" and other grammar gems and questionable spelling by her English teacher. Still, YANBU.

God forbid a teacher should make a common human error like mispronouncing a word in front of your precious loin fruit! Their education hangs in the balance for sure.

I agree it is the quality of the degree that is important. Having a degree in English Literature, I am genuinely astonished that someone with a degree in the subject could be so ignorant and I wanted to understand what sort of University would enable someone to graduate in a subject without an underpinning of the basics.

I now understand why the traditional 4 year Scottish degree, with a broad underpinning in 1st year, has been so prized.

Hurrah for shovetheholly!

Probably learnt all that in an ex-poly

Notmrstumble - do you mean your child's English teacher actually says 'she was' herself? Please tell me that is not what you meant! That makes "Glammis" fade into insignificance!

Well put shovetheholly

" I have a PhD in English and history and I had no clue how it was pronounced "

Must be from some dodgy ex poly then

One is reminded of this:

Quite.

I now understand why the traditional 4 year Scottish degree, with a broad underpinning in 1st year, has been so prized.

A whole extra year to devote to the study of snobby prejudices is golden

NotMrsTumble that is dreadful. That would annoy me.
MY DH is from Bisham, and spends his life telling disinterested people that it is pronounced Bis-am,not Bish-am, when they make the mistake of pronouncing it that way.
I'm going to see how he pronounces Glamis.

Shoevetheholly the mispronunciation of Glamis is not an idiosyncratic mistake, because it upsets the metre of the text and how it was written to be performed, which very much undermines the teacher's ability to support children's basic understanding of the language and how it works.

I now understand why the traditional 4 year Scottish degree, with a broad underpinning in 1st year, has been so prized.

Was it in that prized first year that you learnt to pronounce Glamis, then? How thoroughly impressive. I mean, I spent seven years at University studying English to PhD level and didn't study Macbeth (sadly I only read about two thirds of Shakespeare's plays during that time, and a couple of dozen by his contemporaries, which I realise now is a bit substandard). Someone really ought to close down the much more highly rated than Edinburgh department at York down and revoke our degrees.

Jeffrey I am very sorry you have never read Macbeth or seen it performed. I suggest you do so. You have a treat in store.

Unfortunately phrases such as "last week we was writing a critical essay". The spelling annoys me less. Think the whole thing annoys dd more than me though. I may have spawned a pedant

I tend to agree that incorrect pronounciation is not generally a major issue.

BUT

The "Thane of Glamis ..." quote is a key passage in the play and if you pronounce it with two syllables it wrecks the metre. So yes, I'd have to raise an eyebrow at a teacher that is teaching one of Shakespeare's most well-known plays, but has never thought "Hey - that's weird - how come that really famous line has 11 syllables when every other line in the play only has 10. I wonder if there's something odd about the pronounciation".

"Glarms/Glarmz" - I nearly choked on my coffee. Always "Glamz", anything else makes me shudder.

I agree with those who say it should be pronounced "Glaams" (not "Glamz"). That's what I've always heard.

I would expect an English teacher who was teaching Macbeth to know how it was pronounced because I would expect them to have seen the play or heard excerpts.

In the scheme of things, I can think of much worse, like a poster we had on MN last year whose child's English teacher thought that Pride and Prejudice was a "Victorian" novel.

A few months ago we were looking at sixth forms for DD. At one we went to, the English teacher came across as much more inspiring and enthusiastic than any of the other teachers, and I had the sense she was a really great teacher. But then she mentioned that the class would be studying The History Boys, which, she said, was set in the 1950s. I saw the original NT production and of course it's set in the 1980s. I was a bit shocked by that.