‘He want aloud’

[ProfessorofDarkArts]

On a FB thread about schools and rules during the heat. Honestly I give up 🤦🏻‍♀️

You must be very new to MN if you think that is rude.

I guessed what "He want aloud" meant with no trouble.

Language isn’t about ‘guessing’ and ‘deciphering’. It’s about being able to express yourself precisely, so others don’t have to guess what you mean. There’s such a rich vocabulary at our disposal for us to say exactly what we intend, but that can only be achieved if we all follow the same rules.

More than Essex. I would not be surprised to see 'he want' for 'he wasn't' 100 miles further north.

It isn't just the luck of having to learn Latin and French for five years in a state school. It's also the attitude with which you were brought up.

Neither of my parents were great readers. My dad would verh occasionally read a non fiction book but I never ever saw my mother read a book.
However they both used spelling and grammar correctly and could write an excellent letter.

I don't subscribe to the "language evolves" stuff. To me that's just an excuse for sloppiness.

I don’t think RP is the best accent to demonstrate the alignment of sounds with spelling. Rhotic accents are simpler because r is pronounced at every position and the vowel sound doesn’t sometimes shift instead as it does in non-rhotic accents. I think General American is considered easier for beginners for this reason.

We are losing reading at a frightening rate. The screenshots attached are not really about pedantry but if even students at Harvard regard reading a whole novel as too hard even to attempt we're soon going to see a lot more phonetic spelling.

As the parent of a child with significant learning difficulties. I agree 100 percent. At the risk of being one of those "MN was so much better in days of yore" posters, Pedants' corner used to be people talking about different usages and also often asking for advice about how to word sentences, etc., not posters making fun of others' lack of literacy or for posting to show that they have superior linguistic skills. For a great thread in the spirit of the former approach see the thread in Pedants' corner on the Oxford comma.

I sing with someone whose language and written skills are very poor and sometimes his messages to me are poorly spelled. I would not dream of commenting on this in any way.

t’s very old fashioned of me, but to a degree I also blame reading being taught through phonics.

Reading was always taught through phonics in Scotland and we noted a marked difference in the ability of most children who came to us from other areas, compared to ours.

I taught infants in England and Scotland and always found it tricky teaching spelling when children didn't pronounce words as they were written.

Why do you imagine all journalists have a standardised education? Most journalists don’t have a journalism degree. Many don’t have an NCTJ. Especially those who worked their way up from regionals. It’s oft thought that an English degree is preferable and that raw talent makes the better journo.

@Daradillington , the errors are far too widespread to be explained as 'didn’t have the same educational advantages, or struggle with conditions such as dyslexia'.

TV programmes are riddled with presenters who speak badly and this then becomes ingrained with their young viewers. I'm sure I make some errors but the awful grammar is so obvious.

We may get to a point where the only people who can speak and write correctly in English are those who have learned it as a second language. I’m actually not joking. How arrogant we are and how little we care when we spout nonsense like “language evolves” as an excuse for illiteracy.

Except I grew up around there and have that accent running through me like a stick of rock. I don't let it out to play very often though. 😁

Ridiculing people’s use of language on threads like this one isn’t helpful, whatever the cause of the mistakes.

If people are worried about declining spelling or grammar standards then it’s possible to have a thoughtful conversation about that, but publicly scoffing at a mistake someone has made on FB isn’t necessary.

You're in Pedants' corner not Chat or AIBU?.

Yes, I know @PleasantPedant.

I personally don’t think mocking someone who made a mistake on Facebook is the purpose of Pedants’ corner.

It’s mean, it’s not useful, and there are far more interesting discussions about language to be had.

You seem to have misinterpreted the tone of the posts and the nature of the threads in Pedants' corner, @Daradillington

Yes @Daradillingtonmaybe this thread isn’t the place for you.

A lot of British accents aren't rhotic so using a rhotic R would not be usable for teaching phonics. Many British people can't sound the rhotic R; children often struggle with R anyway.
In some parts of the UK with rhotic accents, the children don't learn phonics as easily as those in areas where the accent is nearer to RP.

I don’t think I’ve misinterpreted anything @PleasantPedant.

I love language and I regularly enjoy posts in Pedants’ corner, but I just don’t like ones like this one for reasons I’ve already explained.

I don’t have to hold my tongue if I disagree with something @HoldMyWine. It’s okay to speak up and say what I think.

My grandparents were poor, working class. My amazing grandad was a voracious reader, he always said education was the route out of poverty.

Now, I constantly see people write as they speak. 'As' instead of 'has' and 'his' instead of 'he's' don't even get me started on the interchangeable their, they're and there!

I'd say it's much easier fof children with rhotic accents to learn phonics.

Farm with rhotic accent = f-a-r-m
Farm with non rhotic accent sounds like fahm.

I wasn’t mocking and the person is unlikely to see this thread anyway but I do find it sad that the basics of language, spelling and grammar are disappearing and I genuinely don’t think it’s all down to lack of education or opportunity.