The Lemon Fool

UncleEbenezer wrote:

kempiejon wrote:I did comment that an A level got you the knowledge to correctly place the apostrophe.

But, um, evidently not the adverb.

(never formally learned grammar, just kind-of picked it up).

dealtn wrote:I'd be more worried, particularly in this place, about the error(s) in the question that is the thread title.

MuddyBoots wrote:

UncleEbenezer wrote:But, um, evidently not the adverb.

(never formally learned grammar, just kind-of picked it up).

I picked it up from Star Trek's split infinitive, "To boldly go". But is it still frowned on these days? Like starting your sentence with a conjunction.

mc2fool wrote:I've heard that the teaching of English in schools in England over the decades has alternated between believing that it is necessary to explicitly teach grammar -- including teaching the terms for and use of every type of word, part of speech, clauses, tenses, cases, punctuation, etc, etc, etc -- and believing it wasn't necessary to teach grammar as pupils would pick up the structure of the language organically, without needing to know what a gerund, a phrasal verb or the subjunctive, etc, is.

I was in one of the latter groups (and indeed only learned what those three are as a result of trying to learn Italian as an adult), and so have only just learned, from a little googling, that the possessive, as signified by 's and s', is only one use of the genitive case and most of the other uses of the genitive also employ 's and s'.

stevensfo wrote:

mc2fool wrote:I've heard that the teaching of English in schools in England over the decades has alternated between believing that it is necessary to explicitly teach grammar -- including teaching the terms for and use of every type of word, part of speech, clauses, tenses, cases, punctuation, etc, etc, etc -- and believing it wasn't necessary to teach grammar as pupils would pick up the structure of the language organically, without needing to know what a gerund, a phrasal verb or the subjunctive, etc, is.

I was in one of the latter groups (and indeed only learned what those three are as a result of trying to learn Italian as an adult), and so have only just learned, from a little googling, that the possessive, as signified by 's and s', is only one use of the genitive case and most of the other uses of the genitive also employ 's and s'.

Were I really interested in grammar I think I would ban the ‘helpful’ corrections made on my iPad as I type out a passage. I suspect for instance that that is relevant to the misunderstanding of the possessive it’s.

Dod

If I were to be made PM, I would give all teachers a large pay rise, but make them pass a grammar test. As far as I know, they only have to pass a Comprehension test.

I belong to our village's Facebook page and it's very rare to read a post without finding at least one mistake.

My particular hates are:

there vs their vs they're

it's vs its

were vs where vs we're

we should of gone (AGGH!) vs we should have gone

Steve

PS Re. subjunctive, it's very difficult for mother-tongue English speakers to grasp, since it's more or less disappeared, apart from a few examples. I did Latin at school, but never really grasped it until decades later. The French have it easy in that for everyday language, they use it almost exclusively in the present tense. Anyone thinking that Italian may be easier will soon learn that they use the bloody subjunctive in other tenses as well! I believe that German is similar.

dionaeamuscipula wrote:I had this beaten into me at school, almost literally as use of the tawse was frequent.

The school had been founded by two brothers and was named after them. It therefore had an s' after the first word and an s' after the second word (Boys') before calming down for the last two words.

Woe betide any pupil who missed or misplaced either.

DM

stevensfo wrote:

dionaeamuscipula wrote:I had this beaten into me at school, almost literally as use of the tawse was frequent.

I learned this rule very well, thanks to a very strict but kind English teacher. She was amazing!

Certainly no need of any sado-sexually inclined perverted teachers who inflicted injuries on children.

That was mid-1970s when certain fetishists were allowed to do things like this and were protected by the in-loci parentis law.

I think that I did well due to our Headmaster keeping such sick molesters well away from our school.

Lootman wrote:

stevensfo wrote:I learned this rule very well, thanks to a very strict but kind English teacher. She was amazing!

Certainly no need of any sado-sexually inclined perverted teachers who inflicted injuries on children.

That was mid-1970s when certain fetishists were allowed to do things like this and were protected by the in-loci parentis law.

I think that I did well due to our Headmaster keeping such sick molesters well away from our school.

I always assumed back then that every school had one pervert amongst its teaching staff.

So at my school although use of corporal punishment was fairly routine and some of the sports training was barbaric, it did not really feature in the actual teaching, except for the physics master who would throw the blackboard rubber at you (hard) if you were not paying attention. His nickname was Fungus Face.

The one pervert was the head of the Classics department. He volunteered to run the school swimming pool just so he could see the boys naked in the changing rooms, and spank our backsides. That was about as bad as it got, as far as I knew anyway. His nickname was "Hooker".

UncleEbenezer wrote:But, um, evidently not the adverb. (never formally learned grammar, just kind-of picked it up).