‘He want aloud’

[ProfessorofDarkArts]

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

That probably didn’t work very well in Scotland 😁

That's shocking.

I so agree. I get this a lot, and I'm a professional writer - ie people pay me to write well, and ensure that other people's words read well! But it never ceases to amaze me how many clients will change what I've written, in a way that now makes it grammatically wrong / ambiguous / illogical in context / repetitive or contradictory of something said elsewhere / tonally wrong...

You get the idea. There's a lot that can go wrong with writing. That's why writers sweat over every word. And you can't defend yourself, because then you look precious, or a grammar nazi, or a PITA holding everything up over trivia, or a privilege-pulling bully.

The irony is, the ones who really care about language are generally the least status-conscious people in the room. We just want to get it right, for all the reasons you mention @Vroomfondleswaistcoat. The last thing we want is to get to the point of 'Because I'm right and you're wrong'. Obviously if it comes to that, the battle's lost.

But we'll always defend our case because for us meaning matters. Humans have this brilliant gift of language and we want it be used as intelligently as possible - to share information, to entertain, comfort, prompt thoughts and feelings, and loads of other stuff. Most of all, language connects us with each other.

To do those complex things it has to be clear to the majority of people. And collective wisdom over the centuries has passed on ways to make that happen - through grammar, syntax, spelling and punctuation etc.

Language is always changing of course, with time, geography - and more recently in human existence, with technology. But if it changes so much that clarity of meaning becomes irrelevant, then I think we are passing on a terrible legacy to our children.

Here endeth the lesson ;)

I find on posts that lots of people are poor at sentence construction and punctuation.

The Prince of Wales does this? That's really shocking after all his mega expensive eduction.

I really hate that use of I when it should be me; it is incredibly irritating and sounds ridiculous.

You can't learn a foreign language properly as an adult by relying 100% on immersion without any other input. We lose that ability at some point in childhood. I think the exact age varies, as does natural aptitude for language.

I wasn't taught English grammar either, but like you, learned foreign languages and through that developed more insight into English too. I found learning German especially useful (I did A-level German back in the day). As a native English speaker, once you know how German nominative, accusative etc cases work, you're never going to make mistakes in English like "It means so much to Catherine and I."

Why don't people who say that consider removing the other person from the sentence and seeing how ridiculous it sounds: "It means so much to I"

I tried explaining to a relative how the "Catherine and I" type of comment was incorrect but I just couldn't get him to understand.

I gave up in the end.

Whenever anyone says I when it should be me, I do secretly think they can't be very intelligent or educated. I have never said anything though; I doubt they'd want to hear it and would probably think I'm wrong and also arrogant. Can't be bothered and in any case it's so widespread.

@SummerCycling , I think you can learn a foreign language by immersion as an adult, but not properly. It might depend on the languages involved. I'd find it hard because I need to know what I am saying. (Vee gates? vs Wie geht es?)

Isn't the cut-off age something like 10. I think the ability to learn completely new sounds has more or less been lost by then.

I was watching something on tv that had an actor I wasn't familiar with and his accent was slightly curious but fitted the part. He had learnt the language as an adult, but probably not by immersion, and only about 3 years previously. I was very impressed.

I think that many people don't think about what they say.

My sonFrencb teacher, who was actually French told them that they had no hope of learning grammar in another language if they didn't even know English grammar.

I was never taught grammar in the 70s to the extent my parents were.

On my Instagram feed today - ‘Why we are home-schooling’ reel ending with the message ‘Your ready to start today’…

🤦‍♀️

I hope you pointed out the error.

Maybe because they've never been taught it well. Perhaps it was mentioned fleetingly and never spoken about again.
I know a retired teacher, She taught a single subject at secondary level and got good results and was a successful teacher. In the main she speaks grammatically but I have heard her say, "Him and her are going to Spain." I didn't correct her because she's a friend, but I did notice.
If you listen there are lots of people who speak almost perfectly but if they trip up on something it will be those pronouns. William and Kate don't always get it wrong but I have heard them when they were wrong.

Like you, I didn't learn English in a rote way. I never had to conjugate the present tense of the verb 'to be'. It was when I had to learn Latin and French that I saw how the English corresponded.

Some people from here speak like that and write it too.

Iv for I've
Ano for I know
Ile for I'll
Been for being and seen for seeing
His for he's
He's for his, weirdly
n for and
Except for accept

There's more ...

That always occurs to me when people write "discusting". Don't they link it to being a thing of disgust?

Where I live we have our own pronunciation and spellings for words. Most of us oldies know the proper versions as they were drilled into us as children.

Sadly with many new teachers not knowing correct pronunciation, spelling and grammar, this won't be happening.

I doubt if they think about it at all.

I think spoken and written language do differ somewhat - we can make silly mistakes when speaking that we wouldn't when writing because we can correct what we write before the final version. So, for example, I doubt the teacher you mention would have written "Him and her are going to Spain" (as weird as that mistake was in spoken language too of course!)

Learning at least one foreign language, to say B2 level, really should be compulsory for everyone (people with relevant disabilities excepted). It is so good for us in so many ways.

Yes, exactly, you and I grew up as native speakers of English so we didn't need to study the grammar in order to acquire it eg how to conjugate the present tense of 'to be'. However, it's still good to cover native language grammar at school (I went to a state grammar which is a weird name seeing as we only ever learned French, Latin and German grammar, never any English grammar 😂). I find grammar beautiful, it's just so incredible how many languages exist and how there are so many similarities and differences in grammar.

Exactly, I agree: that's why I said not properly. Yes, I also think it greatly depends on the languages involved. Some are so closely related that immersion can work pretty well, although for true accuracy the vast majority of adults would still need to do some analysis rather than rely completely on immersion. I think we all need to know what we're saying and certainly need to learn the written language (I mean foreign languages once already post puberty or into adulthood).

Do you mean the actor learnt English as an adult? If so, don't forget English is a global language and the actor (unless from an older generation) was extremely unlikely not to have been exposed to it from a young age - even if he never learned it at school (very unusual these days). I also wonder what his native language(s) was / were. Some people are talented linguists though, for sure.

Do you mean the actor learnt English as an adult? No.
The language is a minority language and not one he would have been likely to have heard in his home country. His grandmother didn't speak it, it's a minority language where she was from.
The actor is 44.

He learnt the language during the pandemic and is now acting in a role where the character speaks in that language. I only know the background because I thought 'who's he?' then looked him up.
I didn't think crap actor and the character would have had a completely different accent because he was from a completely different country (and continent).
The character in the programme had learnt the language.