To be genuinely shocked by the apparent illiteracy of Andrea Jenkyns?

[sorrynotathome]

Have we really reached the point where it is acceptable for a senior MP to publish a serious (presumably) document that is barely legible?! It's not a text or a tweet or a Mumsnet post for goodness' sake. It reads as though she spoke it into her phone and hoped for the best. If this is what passes for communication nowadays, no wonder people struggle to connect and constantly misunderstand each other.

You can see what she means because you're bringing prior knowledge of her position, the type and purpose of the letter and current and past political events. Your comprehension is being greatly aided by the contextual knowledge that you already have and not by the text itself.

If this had been written by a Y6 child and other pieces for said child were of similar quality, this child would not meet the age related expectations for writing for the end of KS2. Annually, Y6 children who do not meet that standard are reported as lacking the necessary level of literacy for secondary school and the wider world. If children can be told that they are not literate to a sufficient level, i.e. illiterate, then the same standard can and should be applied here.

Oh of course you're right, it starts Dear Sir Graham.

Whoops, so many people being sacked/resigning this week that I got confused. My points do all still stand though.

I'm old enough to remember when a backstabbing resignation letter of a rebelling MP would have been a stiletto blade of an assassination, shade thrown so subtly that the target would need to read it twice to even realise they'd been attacked.
Now we're down to "only Suella had the balls to tell the truth". Is this what it's going to be like now? Forever? I find myself (a lifelong Labour supporter) actually glad to see Cameron back, because if I squint my eyes I can see him, Hunt, Starmer etc and it looks as if the adults are in charge again. But it feels more like a series of cameos at the end of a cancelled show than the return of serious politics.

Luckily (for her) her poorly written singular letter of no confidence has been superseded by Suella Braverman's swivel eyed rant on being asked to resign from the Home Office.

Illiterate: adjective

1. unable to read or write.

Jenkyns is not illiterate.

You can see what she means because you're bringing prior knowledge of her position, the type and purpose of the letter and current and past political events.

To some extent. We always bring a knowledge of context to what we read. (However, even if you don't understand the context, you can trace the sense across her tortuous punctuation.)

Suella Braverman's letter is "well written" but would be hard to understand if you had no knowedge of the UK constiution, her place in it and the history of the Conservative Party. A US junior high schooler could read it but wouldn't understand it.

Illiterate: adjective
unable to read or write.

Jenkyns is not illiterate.

By a simple dictionary standard, no. By the standard that her government uses when talking about the attainment levels of 11 year old children, yes. This was the point that I made.

The Braverman resignation letter was a study in the omission of Oxford commas, the starting of a sentence with And, and how not to do grammar!

You think people are not bothered about SPaG? There's a world of difference between some playing a round and playing around...

Me too. An excellent resume. Apologies for the lack of accent on resume, perhaps I should have said summary.

Does her government refer to those who have not reached the required standard of literacy as "illiterate"? I suspect not.

It's perfectly correct to start a sentence with "And".

@MasterBeth I was always taught that it wasn't- clearly I am very old!!

I’m older than you and I was taught that in school. But my English BA tutors said it was fine. In a writing career of over 30 years I often did it and still do.

It's really heartening to see people admit that what they learned in school might not be correct. Many people seem to believe that something they were taught about English at the age of 8 is an irreversible law that must forever be upheld, when it's more likely to be fashion/custom/personal preference.

Misuse of apostrophes is much less egregious than accidentally describing someone you’re trying to stick up for as “unforgivable”. That’s not just bad grammar, it’s terrible syntax. Furthermore, having your tweets proofread would be a bit silly whereas having an important formal letter which doubles as a public statement when you’re a politician with a job which basically consists of public statements, whether written or not.

They do by stating that only X% of children have achieved literacy at the end of KS2. If you aren't in the X% who were age-related and so achieved literacy, you are, by default, being described as illiterate.

It's one of the things I find most frustrating, each year, when the results are announced exactly because being "age-related" is not the minimum standard for literacy. But if the government wish to describe it as such, they should be held to the same standard.

You are being unreasonable to expect a fully formed grammatically correct argument from the ex Dfe minister whose preferred method of argument is to make obscene gestures to people who disagree with her. She is a terrible person with terrible opinions and she can't string two sentences together.

Is there a comma shortage?

Where do they say that, @Iamnotthe1?

I've found this passage on gov.uk which suggests the opposite:

"It is incorrect to say that pupils who have not met the expected standard in reading cannot read, or that those who have not met the expected standard in writing cannot write, and so on.

There is a spectrum of attainment among pupils who do not meet the expected standard, with some coming close and others further away."

I thought both letters was a load of just about coherent rubbish.

But on the issue of starting a sentence with "And". Read anything by DH Lawrence, one of the UK's greats.

It's not a matter of age. For decades (and probably still) primary school teachers told children; "Never start a sentence with 'and".

That's nothing to do with it being a fixed rule of grammar. It's because otherwise they have to mark 30 pieces of a week that read: "I went to the park. And I met a dog. And it was friendly. And I threw a ball for it. And then I had lunch. And then my friend came to play...."

That would drive anyone to make up 'rules' that might make it stop.

When they release the full set of data, which they last did in 2019 as no data has been released nationally during the pandemic (this year will be the first full set since).

I've attached a picture of government minister comments at the time, though will be able to find more examples later if needed.

You are literally copying and pasting a screen grab from this page which rebuts the claim!

https://fullfact.org/education/literacy-year-6/

It's not a "the standard that [the] government uses when talking about the attainment levels of 11 year old children", it's an incorrect off-the-cuff statement used by one minister in a leadership debate.

It's a comment that they've made annually, both to the press and in the house. The government "line" may not state it, but the ministers repeatedly have across multiple years.

He's my excuse for doing it.

Also, I'm on Mumsnet not writing a letter for posterity under a House of Commons letterhead.