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?

@EBearhug

We're never taught it, and there's no real reason for "the red big bag" to be wrong, but no native speaker would say it.

But we are taught it. If a child said it, an adult would correct them to "big red bag", and if the child asked "why?" they'd probably just be told, "it's just the way it is. We get taught most of the rules as young children without being taught the metalanguage round it. Parents just correct children, "the dog ran away, not runned away." We don't tend to go into a long explanation about having to learn all the irregular past participles once they've got to grips with the regular -ed suffix on most verbs. We just repeat the words without explaining the grammar and repeat and repeat.

Also, in cases of syntax like this, we know that brains learn it naturally through hearing language. Hence the many people around the world for centuries that could speak their native language without ever learning grammar rules or even to read and write. In a world where we are all given the tools to absorb written as well as spoken communication, the most basic rules and structure of our native language become almost innate. Studies have even showed that babies absorb the grammatical structure of their mother's language while they are still in her womb, just from hearing her voice!

Oh good for you. But not everyone can or is motivated to achieve what you have. Maybe another teenager in your position would have found an outlet in sport. Or something practical like building work. Why should it matter how good their spelling is?

Not everyone has easy access to a local library by the way. Mine was over an hour away with infrequent busses and no one to drive me. And many from difficult backgrounds genuinely don’t have anywhere quiet enough at home to just sit and read (a luxury if you have screaming parents in the background!).

@CatteStreet the Uralic group if languages also use endings to signify possession, rather than an apostrophe. In some at least there is no verb for "to have", the ending on the noun serves the purpose of indicating who it belongs to. Very interesting. And in some the pronoun is dropped entirely because the ending on the noun signifies who is the subject, so the pronoun is not really necessary in informed speech.

@Areweallsheepnow82

Oh good for you. But not everyone can or is motivated to achieve what you have. Maybe another teenager in your position would have found an outlet in sport. Or something practical like building work. Why should it matter how good their spelling is?

Not everyone has easy access to a local library by the way. Mine was over an hour away with infrequent busses and no one to drive me. And many from difficult backgrounds genuinely don’t have anywhere quiet enough at home to just sit and read (a luxury if you have screaming parents in the background!).

Yeah, the "luxury" of my flat where I had no heating or cooker, damp on the walls and could see my breath in the air, and often I'd have no money for electricity so would have to read by candlelight. But at least it was peaceful and quiet, that was a real luxury yes after the place I had left to go there. Thanks for pointing that out.

I also love sport. It's not an either/ or thing. My point was that in the UK the vast majority of people who want to develop these skills has the access to free education and resources to do so. And support in the case of disabilities etc. As you say, some people may not wish to. But it is then disingenuous to present it as though they were prevented from doing so because in the majority of cases, it was their choice not to.

I was the one who said that, in a way, 'reign it in' made sense - not to me as such, because I know it's 'rein', but I can imagine it makes sense to people who have heard the expression and know the meaning - to exert restrictive control over something - but don't know it's a riding metaphor.

@PolkadotGiraffe

I also love sport. It's not an either/ or thing. My point was that in the UK the vast majority of people who want to develop these skills has the access to free education and resources to do so. And support in the case of disabilities etc. As you say, some people may not wish to. But it is then disingenuous to present it as though they were prevented from doing so because in the majority of cases, it was their choice not to.

That just isn't really true, is it?

It's not that someone sits down and makes a conscious choice not to bother learning. IME, many people believe they're stupid, and the limitation isn't access to support and help, it's them. So they think there's no point accessing support, because the support is there for the bright people who can use it, not for idiots like them who can't.

You would not believe how many perfectly intelligent people believe they're stupid and not worth helping.

@ColdTattyWaitingForSummer

I went to school in England in the 80’s - early 90’s.. definitely remember doing spellings, but not much grammar. Most of what I know comes from reading. But my brain works that way, similarly Ds1, but dyslexic ds2 just doesn’t have a brain that works that way. We “see” words differently, and he certainly doesn’t learn by osmosis the way some of us do. I’ve been doing some grammar work with him - as I could see it was really letting down his written work - and I’ve actually learned a lot too. I could write correctly because I “knew” it, but it’s interesting learning the names and the whys of different parts of speech (I can still never remember when to use affect versus effect though!)

I was once asked to help a friend's daughter with her homework. We sat down and looked at the page she was on, and I tried to talk to her about what it said, but it soon became clear that neither of us could understand what the other meant. She couldn't read it properly and I couldn't understand why - her attempts were weird, and even when I pointed at something and read it, she was obviously still confused. We were both confused! You could really tell that our brains did not work the same. A month later she was diagnosed as dyslexic.

My bf did very badly at school but was interested in history, so started making himself read books from about age 13, having never previously read. But the main reason he got through the school system as well as he did is that he grew up in Germany, where you get a lot of marks from coursework (with teachers who know you), and you can choose to get a lot of marks from oral presentations, in which he did really well. The system does make a difference, even if you are motivated.

And yes, some people are totally demotivated. Sad, really.

Reign and rein - kind of similar to stationary and stationery, right? Just a tiny spelling difference. But I'm willing to bet that at least some of the people saying that it's obvious it must be "rein it in" can't tell me which spelling refers to envelopes :)

@SarahAndQuack I have seen many, many people at the various schools I went to make a conscious decision not to learn.

In my own case I was given no support at home or school, and my disability wasn't diagnosed until adulthood.

As I said we do not have equal starting positions and I'm a huge advocate of equality of opportunity and rectifying that so that all people have the support they need to succeed in whatever they choose to do. While it's better now than it was, we are still a long way from that.

However, the point of my earlier post to which you refer was that even in the absence of that support at home or school, it can be done. And that even with the support it requires a desire to do it to make it successful. As usual a debate goes into nature/ nurture/ other factors with various posters claiming one is the supreme and only reason for the problem. It isn't and it never is: it's always a combination of them and my point was that one essential component - in my opinion and experience - is the desire to do so.

@SarahAndQuack reading your post again I think we are saying very similar things. The support is there, the structures, unlike when I was young. Some people do not use them because of their own choices (whether this is based on insecuritites of whatever else). But for equality of opportunity, all that can really be done is to offer everyone the same chance to do so if they choose to (although as I said in a previous post, I believe we are far from equality of opportunitiy: banning private schools, funding state schools properly and reinstating state grammar schools would be a good first step).

I think we are saying similar things.

I just find it terribly sad that, IME, for so many people it's not a case of them choosing to think they won't bother, it's a case of them deciding they're not worth it or they'll never be intelligent enough. Of course with teenagers sometimes it gets covered up with bravado about 'me, nah, can't be bothered with school' or with any of us with 'no, there was no support for me'. But it's about being afraid of failing, so you don't try.

And that even with the support it requires a desire to do it to make it successful.

I think this is so true.

I absolutely agree with that @SarahAndQuack. And a huge part of that is the ethos in school culture and in families. That it's considered in some parts of society "cool" to be ignorant and "uncool" to be studious/ academic. Poorer people used to embrace education as an opportunity and that needs to return. To encourage children that this is something important, that social mobility matters and that for most people the best route out of poverty is education, not social media etc. And for them to believe that they are equally capable of it as someone who has a much more expensive home/ education.

This is where I think grammar schools really helped, although they were abolished in lost places long before I was born and I never went to one! And clearly a modern system could be made not to have this arbitrary cut-off at 11 and be more fluid. I think what grinds people down is the idea that there is no route to a better life so why bother. And unless you are particularly stubborn (🙋🏻‍♀️) that is true, when it wasn't a few decades ago. Also free university....

@ polkadot

I didn’t call your personal circumstances a luxury did I. Just posting out that for many children finding somewhere to quietly read just sadly isn’t possible.

It annoys me when someone says “well I did XYZ so therefore everyone else should be able to”.

Nurture aside - people have different strengths and motivations. Someone who hasn’t taught themselves to be a good speller shouldn’t be criticised as lazy. They shouldn’t be criticised AT ALL.

Some people are good at spelling at some aren’t. And that is perfectly ok.

In the same way that some people are good at public speaking or sport or sales, and some people aren’t. Unless someone’s weakness is actually hurting someone else, why should it matter?

It's not just cool/uncool.

You ask on MN if people think schooling is important, and everyone will tell you they're good, committed parents who try to instil a love of learning in their children.

But if you want a demonstration of how anti-intellectual society is, start a thread asking if a woman should use 'Dr' as her title when she has a PhD.

There's a massive amount of nastiness around trying to 'better yourself' intellectually, as well.

This is where I think grammar schools really helped, although they were abolished in lost places long before I was born and I never went to one!
How do you think they help? They are common where I live, and tbh it just means there's further separation between the haves and have-nots. I remember being shocked at a parent's evening when one parent said her 6-year-old was never going to go to a grammar school.

--> parents'
Wouldn't normally bother to correct it, but given the context ... :)

@Areweallsheepnow82

@ polkadot

I didn’t call your personal circumstances a luxury did I. Just posting out that for many children finding somewhere to quietly read just sadly isn’t possible.

It annoys me when someone says “well I did XYZ so therefore everyone else should be able to”.

Nurture aside - people have different strengths and motivations. Someone who hasn’t taught themselves to be a good speller shouldn’t be criticised as lazy. They shouldn’t be criticised AT ALL.

Some people are good at spelling at some aren’t. And that is perfectly ok.

In the same way that some people are good at public speaking or sport or sales, and some people aren’t. Unless someone’s weakness is actually hurting someone else, why should it matter?

I wasn't saying that because I did something everyone else should be able to. I was using my own experience as a counter-example to disprove the assertion that certain things inevitably prevent someone from learning certain skills when my case disproves that.

As previous posts have highlighted, there is an interplay between various factors, it is complex, and I find it frustrating when debate becomes polarises and oversimplified and blames the situation solely on one of the many factors that create these problems.

Written communication however is more essential than an ability in sport, for example, to function in society and not be excluded. It is necessary for understanding current affairs, finance (e.g. Mortgage or credit contracts), helping children with homework, in an increasingly online world also just simply being able to communicate with others in an articulate and clear manner.

Also to read around various subjects to expand your general knowledge and ideas, because to live in the world where your direct experience is your only point of reference, makes your world very small indeed. And to understand history, because one of humanity's biggest problems is not doing this and repeating the same mistakes over and over again. All of this requires language skills to access and then to analyse, even just in your own mind, in a logical and rational manner.

I don't think it's really comparable to sporting prowess (great as that is), because some people can live without that perfectly happily, yet an inability to read or write properly is significantly life-limiting.

@ravenmum

Reign and rein - kind of similar to stationary and stationery, right? Just a tiny spelling difference. But I'm willing to bet that at least some of the people saying that it's obvious it must be "rein it in" can't tell me which spelling refers to envelopes :)

StationAry means stAnding still. StationEry means Envelopes.

Simple way to remember those two.

@ravenmum

This is where I think grammar schools really helped, although they were abolished in lost places long before I was born and I never went to one! How do you think they help? They are common where I live, and tbh it just means there's further separation between the haves and have-nots. I remember being shocked at a parent's evening when one parent said her 6-year-old was never going to go to a grammar school.

Not if they were available in all areas (so the expensive postcode part which exists now due to scarcity was removed). They used to be a step towards meritocrisy over cronyism. These days the entrance requirements could be designed to look at innate learning abilities over knowledge to a large extent. It is not impossible to implement, particularly if as I said in my earlier post, there was fluidity between the schools.

I'm getting a bit confused here - so at what age is the cut off between helping and encouraging someone to spell things or use correct grammar, and being rude and nasty?

Because the reason given for many poor spellers is that they didn't have the right background and/or help, but if we try to tell posters on here the correct way we are accused of bring grammar Nazis or spelling Nazis. So presumably it must be the difference between student and non-student - I won't say adult or child, as there are many people studying who are well past the age of majority.

I went to school in the 50s/60s, and children were encouraged/made to Speak 'properly' in class, not use the local, strong dialect which was also grammatically wrong. 'We was' and 'was you?' being common errors. I believe that helped with reading, spelling and grammar. It also helped with job applications and interviews.

I asked my daughter, who went to school 70s/80s if the teachers ever corrected speech, and she said it didn't happen.

Not if they were available in all areas (so the expensive postcode part which exists now due to scarcity was removed).
I live in Germany, where they're available in all areas. The area my kids went to school was a poor postcode. Germany did very badly in the PISA report due to the education gap, with the grammar schools receiving a lot of criticism. People who went to grammar school tend to have children who go to grammar school, even though the children get in based on their marks at the end of primary school.

(We also have free universities, and people call themselves Frau Dr. or Frau Prof. Dr. the whole time :) )

@Seymour5 I remember it as a stationAry cAr. But it's still a mistake people make all the time, like reign/rein.