To not want to be called "thick"

[WickedEmoji]

I am quite annoyed. DS's who are teens at the stage where they are always right and know everything just called me thick because I didnt know some obscure grammar that is now taught to year 6.

I am of the generation that was never formally taught grammar at school. I acheived all A and B grades, went to uni, had a career and achieved managerial status. All without knowing what a subjunctive clause, adjective noun phrase or whatever they are calling them, are.

Children use grammar, such as the use of I, me, you, we, with out knowing the technical terms of subject and object case or first person or second person perspectives.

A lot of the angst about teaching grammar is about the notion that if a child learns the technical terms it will improve their language use. It doesn't, as a general rule. (And on rules, there are things like bever start a sentence with never, I before e, which always have "exceptions") Generally language comes from immersion.

There are writing techniques that need to be taught, absolutely, but writing is more "artificial" than speech as you do not have the tone and body language context to draw on.

Language is not a recipe and its usage changes. The ability to communicate is more important than being able to name the technical term of the sentence type you just wrote.

So AIBU to be annoyed that I am considered "thick" because I do not know the technical terms?

(And yes, I have probably made grammatical errors in this post, and will have pedants pick them up, but I feel I have been fairly clear -as is the point if communication- so engaging in my grammar mistakes rather than the discussion says more about them than me)

Do they think the war poets were ‘thick’? Because they wouldn’t have been taught it either. Nor would Shakespeare, nor would any of their favourite authors.

Sorry, is that a joke? You think the War Poets and Shakespeare weren't taught grammar? Shakespeare went to a grammar school, so called because they were founded with the explicit purpose of teaching Latin, beginning with Latin grammar. Literally every other subject that they taught was squeezed in to spare moments here and there, the whole school day was dedicated to learning Latin. Boys were whipped for speaking English. Most of the War Poets had a classical Victorian education (Brooke, Sassoon, Owen, Graves). Some of the lesser known War Poets, those who weren't officers, were less educated, but any of them who went to a decent school would have had a classical education including Latin, Greek, and English grammar.

I genuinely couldn't tell if you were joking or not, apologies for the serious answer if so.

I’m in my late 30’s and was taught basic grammar at school. I can still remember learning how to form paragraphs in what would now be called Year 2.

Not sure how old you are OP, or indeed where you went to school?

That’s not a slur on primary school teachers btw...just on how obscure grammar was suddenly added to the curriculum!

I don't know these terms either (like you, I wasn't taught them). And I'm an Oxbridge Professor

Fear not, much of the grammar being rammed down the throats of Years 5 and 6 was unknown to many teachers before it appeared in government directives for improving standards, the terms go far beyond what I was taught back in a Grammar School, back in the stone age.

I'd be finding their requests for a lift or the new WiFi code 'invalid'

I’m in my late 30’s and was taught basic grammar at school. I can still remember learning how to form paragraphs in what would now be called Year 2.

Commas after fronted adverbials, just one example of a convoluted piece of grammar in the year 6 curriculum, if you find out what it means it's simple and unnecessarily complicated at the same time.

@MonaMinute

I hear what you're saying about fronted adverbials specifically. To my mind it's not a 'proper' linguistic term, it's just a particular combination of two perfectly normal terms which the primary curriculum gurus have decided to shunt together. So fronting is a real thing, and adverbial phrases are a real thing, but the only reason they make such a fuss about fronted adverbials is because it's perceived as a rote way of the dreaded 'making writing more interesting'. I don't know why they don't teach fronting as a technique more generally and stop trying to make fronted adverbials a special thing.

In brief: grammar should be taught explicitly in schools. But fronted adverbials are a lot of fuss about nothing very special.

Which generation is it who weren’t taught grammar at school? I was, my parents were and my 11 year old is being taught it. When did they take a break?

From the 70s onward, I believe, up until kids who are currently in Year 11, who were the first to do the new version of the SATs. I'm 48 and went to a good grammar school. We were taught basic punctuation at primary/middle school and probably what a noun, a verb and an adjective were, but that's about it. All the grammar I learned was through Latin and MFL. Did you go to a state school in England?

Hello fellow MFL teachers . I entirely agree about the fronted adverbials bollocks. Also it's utterly ridiculous that they cram Spag for the SATs and then drop it, never to be mentioned again after Year 6. Still - at least we MFL teachers don't have to teach them what a noun is any more eh?

Yeah, hold onto that response when they next want some money/a lift/ clothes/dinner etc. - tell them their request is 'invalid' and that they've been very 'thick' in dishing out the insults. Also explain how they've hurt your feelings in being so disrespectful. Be calm when telling them.
It's not the particulars, they're being smartarse with you.
Curb it pronto or it will get worse.

They were very rude and your husband didn’t have your back. Sad on both counts.

The grammar thing is irrelevant.

My response would have been one of:

"Oh. I suppose I'm too thick to earn the money that pays the bills to keep a roof over your head. You had better sleep in the garden and find your own dinner tonight."

"Speak to me like that again and you lose your phone & pocket money for ths next year. I'm too thick to keep paying those for you. Who's next?"

@WickedEmoji

They said "wow, you are NOT clever, are you?" So it was not direct, but implied, then it degenerated into an argument with me defending myself and my education. And then DH wisely pointed out it was an argument I was never going to win, so to walk away.

Aware most of my post was unnecessary, but felt the need to make my point as I ahdbt been able to with the teens

They are 14/15 rather than 11!

There's a real respect issue there, they shouldn't have the audacity to say that to your face even if they think it, and DH should have pointed out their rudeness to them.

YANBU for not wanting to be called "thick".
YABU for your general attitude. You seem to think that you're better than your children and that anything you don't know is useless and pointless anyway. It must be fun being so perfectly imperfect.

I’m mid-40’s, have a post-graduate level education and wasn’t taught any grammar at school.

This is not an education issue but a behavioural one, this is plain rudeness.

They were being rude.

We covered nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs and things like direct and indirect speech at school (90s). English lit then went into techniques such as alliteration, onamatapeia and juxtaposition. I did languages A-level so covered things like tenses (perfect/ imperfect) and passive voice then.

Grammar is important, but it is pretty useless without context. We've swerved from the sublime to the ridiculous. A bit more foundation probably wouldn't have gone amiss, but I'm finding that I have a 7 year old getting hung up on expanded noun phrases when it's enough of a chore getting about 3 sentences out of him. Meanwhile DH with his PhD hasn't got a clue. I probably was applying expanded noun phrases at that age and being praised for lots of descriptions and details without encountering wanky terminology until over 30 years later. Really, at that end of it all the twaddle such as fronted adverbials just exist as part of the process of turning education into a tickbox exercise by making it easier to quantify children's writing. It's not necessarily better quality for it, and it certainly quenches creativity.

That doesn't mean I'm anti-grammar, it just needs to have context and be applied in a practical way.

I did, during a particularly tedious part of lockdown congratulate a ranting DS (9) on his excellent application of an expanded noun phrase as he unleashed a torrent of insults at his sibling. It defused the moment nicely

Mind you if my son is rude to me I deal with it, I dont give a biography of my life i deal with the behaviour and no I do not need my husband standing up for me, I am a person in my own right and don't need saving by a bloke.

If my husband is rude to my son he deals with it

I wouldn't have argued with mine if they'd said that. Arguing just validates their position and weakens you in their eyes.

Mine would have got a hard stare and a response of "How very rude that was. You should reconsider your comment", and if they didn't immediately apologise then for a day or two every request for assistance would be met with something like "I don't help people who are rude and unapologetic". They usually apologise quite quickly.

Later, when everyone had cooled down, I'd be having a chat about the difference between aptitude and knowledge.

And I'd probably read up on some obscure grammatical rule just to pick them up on it and give them a taste of their own medicine/teach them that if you live by the sword then you die by the sword. But I'm a bit of a bitch like that .

This is about rude know it all teens, not the value and teaching of grammar,

You know you aren’t ‘thick’. Why rise to it?

@lazylinguist

Year 6. Still - at least we MFL teachers don't have to teach them what a noun is any more eh?

Haha very true

This is about rude know it all teens, not the value and teaching of grammar

Teen DD saw this and commented that maybe this wasn’t rude, just facetious, and that it wouldn’t warrant a harsh response...just the full force of my sarcasm 🤣

@CountFosco

Being insulted by your teens is surely a rite of passage? If I listened to what my kids think I'd never kiss their father or listen to music or watch TV shows I enjoyed or go for a walk or visit a museum or eat the food I like. It's nothing to do with grammar.

Being insulted by your kids is a rite of passage?

I'ld be upset & disappointed were I to hear any child insult their parents & shouldn't be normalised.

They didn't actually call you thick did they?

They said you are not intelligent. Which you then extrapolated to think they were calling you thick. Not the same. And the self justification of your non thickness in your original post sort of supports your children opinions. You're children know you better than us.