On a morning when the big news item is that more and more children are leaving the English school system unable to read, speak or write properly; I was amused to see a bus that felt it necessary to exclaim it's apology at not being in service and a rather tentative ""Missing" Cat" poster. It is a very English thing to be that worried about the cat in question that you are driven to put laminated posters on traffic lights and yet still be cautious in proclaiming the cat to be missing when it may, in fact, not be; surely this would have been a better place for the use of an exclamation mark... or maybe even two?!
And before you think that I am belittling the news story of the morning; it was preceded by a man who had my shouting at the radio as he seemed to think that things could be "took" from him, as opposed to "taken" and the 9 yr old, who has attended very good primary schools, is still of the firm belief that any verb in the Simple Past needs "ed" added to it; "I called Nantie", "I sawed the movie"... never do I feel more like my mother than when I trying to get my daughter to speak properly! Apparently there are young adults in this country with vocabularies of approx 700 words (many of which are not even in the dictionary), what are we doing so very wrong that our children are failing to see the wonder of the English language?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I sometimes wonder if those of us who grew up in the Hong Kong ESF system have better English skills than those who were born, bred, and educated in the "Mother country"? Too often, I am appalled by the level of the English language coming out of England.
ReplyDeleteSometimes, I long to change font to RED, correct updates, emails, and comments and then post them back to the offender! Would that be "rude" I wonder? ;)