Grammar in NUT ad

[Dannie]

I know this is a cheap jibe and the issue an important one, but the National Union of Teachers aren't really helping their case by taking out a full page advert in today's Grauniad that contains the sentence "The Government has removed the entitlement that pupils must be taught by qualified teachers only."
I quite agree that my children should be taught by a properly trained graduate. One who can string together a grammatical sentence would be nice...

LOL, do you mean it was in the Guardian ?

Er yes, sorry, it's known as the Grauniad in Private Eye etc cos of all the misprints

Ahhhhhh, sorry not a reader of P.E. Does strike me a silly mistake.

They don't have the famous misprints any more - since computers took over - their typesetters in the old days were permanently drunk or something...there is a famous clipping from the Guardian itself spelling it Grauniad - it was reproduced in P Eye. (I think they did it on purpose! )

He, he, he. At the moment I'm putting together a series of remedial English workshops for students on B.Ed and PGCE courses.

A local primary school sent round a flier full of spelling mistakes and wandering apostrophes, it didn't fill us with confidence.

I work (a bit) for Primary Times (free mag distributed to primary schools) and had to copy type a headteacher's account of some rebuilding/expansion work his school had had done. Very similar to your flier, marialuisa!

ks - you know you're not alone there!

As a fellow pedant, do you have an English usage guide? I have a funny feeling that you can use "entitlement that", but that the usage is archaic. But perhaps that's my pregnancy hormones firing off bells in my brain where there shouldn't be any.

ks - they don't change my attitude to people (conscious of being pretty sloppy on here) but I do find it difficult telling people about them. A colleague asked my to read a letter she was sending out. She just wanted me to check that she was quoting the correct legislation etc. BUT it was full of grammatical errors and had one or two spelling mistakes. But I just couldn't bring myself to point them out.

But doesn't it change your attitude to organisations, Tinker? Obviously individuals make mistakes/may have had a rubbish education, but in a company things should be checked!

Can you guess that I am never shy about pointing out grammatical errors (well, I might ask if the person minds if I point them out first, and point out that I am obsessed )?

Yes, I would think less of an organisation which makes me realise I should have pointed out the errors since the letter was being sent to a member of the public but since she didn't ask me that, I couldn't. Anyway, I'm digressing a bit really.

It wasn't "entitlement that" that bothered me, but I don't think you can say it's an entitlement that pupils "must" be taught. If it's compulsory, it's not an entitlement. There's a local private school that has misplaced apostrophes in the advert it runs in the local paper. Always cheers me up.
Now I really must do some work...

Well, DH always maintained that DD would have to be moved from the daycare we used in Cardiff once she reached 2 as they had signs with "Babie's room" on display. I'm aware that my grammar and spelling is pretty dire on here but I think there's a difference between that and a company flier.

We definitely avoided a primary school which had a prospectus full of basic grammatical and spelling errors. Think of how many people must have read through and approved something like that!!! We also passed on the school where the displays had misspellings and flying apostrophes....

However, as part of my job involves teaching future teachers, I despair and suspect that DD will end up having additional grammar lessons at home from her dad. DH is a product of the"never correct children's writing" days and freely admits that he didn't learn to use a comma until he started his PhD, he's a real pedant, but you know what they say about converts!

I agree Marialuisa. I am regularly (ie on a monthly basis) appalled by the errors on the newsletters sent out by DS's Nursery. It does bother me a bit because I plan on him attending until he is ready for school. Really basic things like "there" instead of "they're" and major spelling mistakes. Its a word processed document so why? Spell check? Grammar check? The only thing I don't check are my mumsnet postings (as you may have noticed) and it is irritating when I'm sending technical e-mails and every other (valid but not in dictionary) word/abbreviation is being picked up.

Dannie - yes, going funny today.

The whole construction sounds odd anyway!

Bozza - automatic grammar checkers are near-useless and spell checkers miss homophones. Plus has anyone else noticed how many UK companies / organisations have US spell-checkers? It's very petty I know but it does annoy me.

sorry if this sounds incredibly pedantic but Dannie, your own grammar contains an error -you say the NUT aren't helping their case, when in fact the correct way should be 'the NUT isn't helping its case', as 'NUT' is an organisation and therefore singular and not plural.And before everyone slags me off this is a mistake I make frequently myself, as do all newspapers and so on.Every day the papers read 'The government have said blah blah blah' , when they ought to be writing 'The government HAS said', since the government is a single institution and not a multiple. So there you go folks.

Donnie you began a sentence with a small case letter.......now someone find the grammatical error in my posting.......just playing!!

Ewww, surely that should be "lower case"?
It's good this, innit?

'innit'?????? what is the world coming to !!!!!!!!!!!!

You're right Lucy123 (or as nursery would write - your right). I always try and change my spell/grammar checks to the UK version. I take your point about the homophones which I suppose is the example above but its definitely more than just that. It must be bad even DH has commented!

Multiple punctuation marks, Donnie? It's a disgrace!

Actually, I think that they mean that previously, children were entitled to be taught by qualified teachers, but the government has now stopped that (not that that's an elegant sentence, but that's the meaning).

I agree with you ks, I always try to make myself not care about grammar, but I am fighting a losing battle. I have nearly trained myself not to splutter over split infinitives, but that's about it really. I remember reading years ago that "decimated" actually means to lose 10% (of ones men in battle, for example), and thought oh bugger, that's another thing that's always going to annoy me from now on!

Not to mention literally - I literally laughed my head off you know!