To wonder how people make it to adulthood without knowing

[Staffy1]

That a Christmas tree decoration is called a "bauble", not "ball ball"? Or how they make it through junior school without knowing the difference between "his" and "he's"? What happens in schools these days and don't people ever read anything?

There was a TA in a school I worked in that was absolutely terrible, misspelling names etc.
When she went around the classroom labelling things and popped a huge sign on the back drawers that read 'DRAWS' and another reading 'CUBBOARD' I had to say something. Amazingly, I'd been off and apparently they had remained labelled like that for over a month.

Not everyone receives the same standard of education or has a family where things like this are taught or made explicit elsewhere. Also some children are not able to access/comprehend certain things in education for whatever reason including special educational needs and they become adults who later are unable to do things a majority are able to. It's not always an easy concept to grasp because some things come naturally to us or appear to be part of common sense or we are taught it and imagine everyone else was too but were being silly and didn't listen- ultimately there are many reasons why people can't do what seems basic to others and it's not straightforward.

Companies are complicit in this. First result after dictionary one when you google "draws".

Nothing different is happening in schools ‘these days’ than has always happened in schools, there have always been people who just can’t spell some words, there have always been dyslexics, there have always been people whose home lives are chaotic and so they have more important things to worry about than spelling.

Several of the examples make me high rate!

In the long gone days before social media, there wasn't the awareness of these bloopers, because the majority didn't write anything for public scrutiny. We saw signs on shop windows with things like 'potatoe's' but that was about all.

Some of the semi literate online outpourings are worrying (rare on here) but they are hardly surprising when we hear that a large minority of children start school never having seen a book. There are libraries, but who takes their small children to choose books? Parents who read.

@AdobeWanKenobi

There was a TA in a school I worked in that was absolutely terrible, misspelling names etc. When she went around the classroom labelling things and popped a huge sign on the back drawers that read 'DRAWS' and another reading 'CUBBOARD' I had to say something. Amazingly, I'd been off and apparently they had remained labelled like that for over a month.

Absolutely no excuse for that! As a Teaching Assistant, she should be able to correct spelling in the pupils not get it so wrong herself. Or is there no requirement for TAs to be able to do the basics many of us could do at nursery school, or mid-juniors at worst.

If something can be "writ large", with "large" as an adjective, how do I know that something "spelt wrong" isn't using an adjective, lazylinguist? Apart from looking it up in the dictionary, obviously?

'Writ large' is a red herring, as it's an idiomatic expression. In the sentence "He spelled the word wrong/wrongly", it is perfectly obvious that 'wrong' is being used as an adverb. For example if you said "He spelled the word bad", or "He wrote the word slow", it would not only be incorrect to use an adjective there, it would actually sound misleading if read aloud. It would sound as though you meant that he was spelling the actual word 'slow' or writing the word 'bad'.

Identifying 'wrong' in that sentence as an adjective rather than an adverb is to misunderstand the grammar of the sentence, although it doesn't really make any difference to the facts of the situation it's describing. Either way, the word was incorrect because the boy spelled it incorrectly.

I reckon this has a lot to do with mishearing (as a child or an adult), and then trying to make sense of what you have heard.

As a child I also thought it was “cowpol” I was given when ill. In my head, it made sense. I knew what a cow was (what is a cal??) and I thought pol could be short for pollen - I’d hear of that. So I thought “cowpol” was specially made from milk from cows who had eaten the right pollen. (I know....).

As an adult I once listened to a group of children singing and noticed that they had made the words make sense to them. The song was “Give me oil in my lamp”, and they were belting out “Sing Lasagne to the King of Kings” with great gusto. I reckon they had made the words make sense to them. Lasagne = word I know, whereas Hosanna= not sure what that is.

Happens with spelling of names too I reckon. Some people will want to give their child a unique spelling of a name, but I’m sure many others have heard a name they like but not necessarily seen it written. I once saw Abbey-Gale on a child’s coat peg, and have often come across Neve and Shivon alongside Niamh and Siobhan.

@lazylinguist

If something can be "writ large", with "large" as an adjective, how do I know that something "spelt wrong" isn't using an adjective, lazylinguist? Apart from looking it up in the dictionary, obviously?

'Writ large' is a red herring, as it's an idiomatic expression. In the sentence "He spelled the word wrong/wrongly", it is perfectly obvious that 'wrong' is being used as an adverb. For example if you said "He spelled the word bad", or "He wrote the word slow", it would not only be incorrect to use an adjective there, it would actually sound misleading if read aloud. It would sound as though you meant that he was spelling the actual word 'slow' or writing the word 'bad'.

Identifying 'wrong' in that sentence as an adjective rather than an adverb is to misunderstand the grammar of the sentence, although it doesn't really make any difference to the facts of the situation it's describing. Either way, the word was incorrect because the boy spelled it incorrectly.

But what if he wrote the word real bad and real slow? (only joking!)

I have never come across this with adults...???

ravenmum Well that's obviously fine then!
I don't correct people's grammar and spelling on t'internet unless they are being offensive or are criticising others' Spag while getting it wrong themselves! But I am certainly guilty of allowing myself to be sucked into long grammar-based discussions while I should be doing other things .

@lazylinguist

That's probably true about people getting stuck on the 'ly' ending, but in this case, I'd think the point is that adding 'ly' makes it unambiguous: you're putting emphasis on the act of spelling rather than the thing that was spelt.

No, it doesn't alter the meaning at all. There is no ambiguity. The word 'wrong', in that position in that sentence, could not possibly be an adjective.

Oh, ok. How come? I was reading it as qualifying 'thing'. Can you explain to me? Do the technical version - I don't have the best grammar but I'll understand if you explain and I'd like to know.

@lazylinguist

If something can be "writ large", with "large" as an adjective, how do I know that something "spelt wrong" isn't using an adjective, lazylinguist? Apart from looking it up in the dictionary, obviously?

'Writ large' is a red herring, as it's an idiomatic expression. In the sentence "He spelled the word wrong/wrongly", it is perfectly obvious that 'wrong' is being used as an adverb. For example if you said "He spelled the word bad", or "He wrote the word slow", it would not only be incorrect to use an adjective there, it would actually sound misleading if read aloud. It would sound as though you meant that he was spelling the actual word 'slow' or writing the word 'bad'.

Identifying 'wrong' in that sentence as an adjective rather than an adverb is to misunderstand the grammar of the sentence, although it doesn't really make any difference to the facts of the situation it's describing. Either way, the word was incorrect because the boy spelled it incorrectly.

Ah, sorry, I've cross posted, and yes, that makes sense with 'bad' etc substituted, and I should have known that.

But come on - you can't just dismiss the 'writ large' example as idiom! It's idiom because it's survived for ages, sure, but at one point it would have been standard, wouldn't it? So what happened, in terms of grammar? What is the grammar of 'writ large' doing that 'spelt wrong' can't do?

Ok well think about how we use adjectives normally in sentences. There are two main ways of using an adjective in a sentence to describe a noun.

You can use it as an 'attributive adjective' - i.e. one that comes right in front of the noun- e.g. 'the red coat', 'the wrong word' etc.

Or you can use it as a 'predicate adjective' - one that comes after the noun, following a verb (usually the verb 'to be', but sometimes other verbs of seeming, looking, appearing, for example, e.g. 'the coat is/was/seems/looked red'.

Word order is very important in English. The job a word does in a sentence is sometimes only apparent from its position in the sentence, unlike in other languages, where things like cases, adjective endings etc would make the meaning clear even if you mixed up the word order. For example if you say 'The dog bit the man", it's only the word order that tells you who was bitten and who was biting. In German you could tell whichever way around they were.

Adjectives don't really go straight after nouns with no verb in between.

I'm trying to think of some examples where they do. For example you could say "He declared the plate empty", but that's a slightly unusual structure and, arguably, there is an understood 'to be' in there. Or there's the 'writ large' example, which is, again, unusual and idiomatic (but I'd probably argue that 'large' was being used as an adverb there anyway).

I should add... I am not an English teacher (most secondary school Emglish teachers don't seem to know much about this stuff anyway!), just a French, German and Spanish teacher with a general interest in grammar.

@cruisecrazy

My main gripe is the use of the word "like". It drives me nuts, it seems some people cannot make a comment without like every other word. What is there to like?

There is a similar one which I am noticing more and more, which is a tendency to use “obviously” as a filler word. “So I was obviously going to the shops and they obviously had no bread left so obviously I got crumpets instead”. They do this even when the point of the story is to tell you about something that they know you would not find remotely obvious. It’s a weird tic. Main culprits seem to be from the SE of England.

But come on - you can't just dismiss the 'writ large' example as idiom! It's idiom because it's survived for ages, sure, but at one point it would have been standard, wouldn't it? So what happened, in terms of grammar? What is the grammar of 'writ large' doing that 'spelt wrong' can't do?

Yep, I looked that up. I found one dictionary that said 'large' could be used as an adverb. It gave the example "He lived large". And even my smallish OED says that 'small' can be an adverb as well as an adjective, so you could happily say 'writ small'.

So I'd argue that the expression 'writ large' is archaic in both its use of the past participle 'writ'instead of 'written' and its use of 'large' as an adverb, which is now uncommon except in certain idiomatic expressions.

Will that do?

Re: like, obviously etc. Yes, they are like verbal tics. Every age has its own set of them, and every generation finds the next generation's ones as irritating as their parents found theirs.

@lazylinguist

I’m a teacher. People do this precisely because they never read. I mean, I watch telly with subtitles because I need to know how to spell names etc.See also: trickle treat.

I’m a retired teacher and agree wholeheartedly.

I'm a teacher and partially disagree. Reading helps a lot, but some people absorb spelling and grammar less well from reading than others do, even if they are intelligent. Dh and I have both been prolific readers since a young age. He is intelligent with a history degree from a very good university. He's a headteacher. He knows bugger all about grammar and his spelling is ok but not great.

So the spelling of a not-very-bright person with a non-languagey brain might not benefit massively from being a keen reader. Their vocabulary, comprehension skills, cultural knowledge etc would still benefit though, of course.

When you say that your husband “knows bugger all about grammar” @lazylinguist, do you mean that his written English is often incorrect, or that he writes perfectly well but knows no grammatical theory? I’m sure that a lot of people know instinctively how good English should sound, having picked that up from reading.

If his writing contains grammatical and spelling errors, are you saying that he does not consider that important in his role as headteacher? Or does he manage the issue by getting other to check his drafting? I appreciate that a headteacher may come from a science or mathematical background rather than an arts subject but surely good writing is needed for all subjects (eg scientific papers) so the headteacher should be modelling it?

@lazylinguist

Ok well think about how we use adjectives normally in sentences. There are two main ways of using an adjective in a sentence to describe a noun.

You can use it as an 'attributive adjective' - i.e. one that comes right in front of the noun- e.g. 'the red coat', 'the wrong word' etc.

Or you can use it as a 'predicate adjective' - one that comes after the noun, following a verb (usually the verb 'to be', but sometimes other verbs of seeming, looking, appearing, for example, e.g. 'the coat is/was/seems/looked red'.

Word order is very important in English. The job a word does in a sentence is sometimes only apparent from its position in the sentence, unlike in other languages, where things like cases, adjective endings etc would make the meaning clear even if you mixed up the word order. For example if you say 'The dog bit the man", it's only the word order that tells you who was bitten and who was biting. In German you could tell whichever way around they were.

Adjectives don't really go straight after nouns with no verb in between.

I'm trying to think of some examples where they do. For example you could say "He declared the plate empty", but that's a slightly unusual structure and, arguably, there is an understood 'to be' in there. Or there's the 'writ large' example, which is, again, unusual and idiomatic (but I'd probably argue that 'large' was being used as an adverb there anyway).

I should add... I am not an English teacher (most secondary school Emglish teachers don't seem to know much about this stuff anyway!), just a French, German and Spanish teacher with a general interest in grammar.

That's really interesting, thank you. I hadn't thought about it being unusual to put an adjective after a noun, but now you mention that, I think I probably do that quite a bit because it's the way my mum/grandparents speak. I could be wrong, but I think in Welsh you do it more, and they're English-speaking Welsh.

In the 'declared empty' bit you're definitely presuming 'to be,' aren't you? Otherwise it doesn't make sense. But then I only think that because I am translating into Latin to figure out the grammar, which I know a lot of us do, and which is probably not the best way to do English grammar.

I'm not really an English teacher either - I teach English but literature, not language, and I know my limitations with explaining formal grammar.

@lazylinguist

But come on - you can't just dismiss the 'writ large' example as idiom! It's idiom because it's survived for ages, sure, but at one point it would have been standard, wouldn't it? So what happened, in terms of grammar? What is the grammar of 'writ large' doing that 'spelt wrong' can't do?

Yep, I looked that up. I found one dictionary that said 'large' could be used as an adverb. It gave the example "He lived large". And even my smallish OED says that 'small' can be an adverb as well as an adjective, so you could happily say 'writ small'.

So I'd argue that the expression 'writ large' is archaic in both its use of the past participle 'writ'instead of 'written' and its use of 'large' as an adverb, which is now uncommon except in certain idiomatic expressions.

Will that do?

Yes, thank you!

I was actually hoping to know why 'writ' is used there, because it's peculiar, isn't it? 'Written' sound to me like a more archaic form - is it the same structure as 'gotten' or 'forgotten'? Whereas 'writ' looks as if it should be the modern form?

@Meruem

Some people just aren't that bright. I genuinely don't mean that in a nasty way. We all have different levels of intelligence and spelling is really difficult for some people. I feel like there's this assumption on MN that we all start from a level playing field and if we don't learn/achieve xyz, it's our own fault. Some people just aren't as bright as others, and that's ok. Or it should be.

General knowledge can be linked to intelligence, but isn't exactly the same thing is it? Knowledge depends on what you've come across on your life and how good your memory is as well as intelligence. Whenever there's a thread about 'I didn't know x,y,z' there are new things to learn for almost anyone.

" I could be wrong, but I think in Welsh you do it more, and they're English-speaking Welsh."

In Welsh, the adjective usually comes after the noun, yes, just like in French. I'm not aware of that as something that has seeped into Wenglish though.

Ooh! What bit of Wales are you from? I like your name. Which I guess illustrates the adjective-after-noun very neatly.

This is so nuanced. My mother is a school teacher she corrected me and Coached me at every stage. I do the same with my dds and dd1 is an obsessive reader so it's all shored up in our house with the spelling and grammar. We are a bit precious about it in our family. Other people are precious about other things. For example if my kids were super sporty they are disadvantaged being raised by me 😂.

That's really interesting, thank you. I hadn't thought about it being unusual to put an adjective after a noun, but now you mention that, I think I probably do that quite a bit because it's the way my mum/grandparents speak. I could be wrong, but I think in Welsh you do it more, and they're English-speaking Welsh.

You actually use adjectives straight after the noun with no verb when you're speaking English? That's really interesting, especiallyif it's a carry-over from Welsh! Can you give me an example of a sentence where you'd do that? I'm fascinated.