Is English Taught in our Schools Anymore?

[Rick N Bama]

This is from a Facebook post about the Black Friday at Wal-Mart. On their profile the writer has proudly listed the High School she is attending.

Sad isn't it?


they aint worried about no union cause they love to fire 1's dont wanta work & hired more cause theres people out there aint gotta job b happy to get theres & all jobs have same problem people dont appreciate havin job or their customer...

[bob208]

well trying to read it is way better then hearing it spoken you can look away. i watch the judge shows. the way the english is butcherd. no wonger most don't have a job. would you hire some one that spoke like that?

[jcwit]

The one that gets me is the, Me and my brother. me and my Dad, me and my friend, me and whoever. Of course I do realize this is the generation of me, me, me, and entitlements.

[41 mag fan]

If it's not on a computer anymore, it's not taught. At times I think computers shouldn't be allowed in schools, that the schools need to get back to the good old basics of the 3R's and everythings done with pencil and paper

[smokeywolf]

It seems the schools don't teach grammar any more. What gets me, is hearing people say "where are you at?", or "where was it at?", "where were you at?", or the worst, "where you at?". What purpose does the "at" serve? It is superfluous! I have even heard my son's grade school principal say, "where was it at?". She saw me cringe and asked what was wrong. I said, not very diplomatically, "I hope your teachers are practicing better grammar than you are". She said what do you mean? I said, "one of my junior high school teachers would say, "never use a preposition to end a sentence WITH!"
No one seems to care about proper speech any more. I'm a long way from perfect. At times I "murder the King's english". But, I do make a conscious effort to speak properly. I correct my children regularly and must try to set an example. My wife is Japanese and continues to sharpen her English speaking and writing skills.

[WILCO]

Dumbing down of society at it's finest. The commies control the schools and they have won.

[Love Life]

You have to be fluent in ebonics and spanish to apply for government benefits (entitlements). The school systems are just preparing kids for their future career on welfare.

[Bullet Caster]

I guess I was taught English--I always made an "A". One thing I notice is that some people don't know the difference between "there's" and "theirs". There's is a contraction of there is and theirs is a reflexive pronoun. I see it all the time on the internet forums whether it be here or on other forums. I agree with Love Life's ascertations about eubonics and spanish. The schools are enablers for future dependency on the government. I also notice that users of the forum do not know the difference between to, the preposition and too, the adverb.

Since I'm an English major, I do try to write in the vernacular so everyone knows that I am a southern (that's the old name for us southerners), i.e., "well, why in tarnation do 'em talk so dadburned funny." Or maybe, "them their is some funny talkin' folks." Sometimes it makes me laugh out loud (lol) when reading some of the posts, and I ain't gonna name anybody rightfully. One of my funest things to do is to guess where someone is from by the way they talk. I've always been interested in colloquial and regional differences in language. I can usually tell Bronx from Boston or even Bronx from the other suburbs of NYC. Coonasses from Louisiana come to mind also. BC

[Harter66]

I'll be the 1st to admit grammar and sentence structure aren't my long suit.
Peeves;
To,too,two
There,they're,their
Reed,read,red(don't give that deer light look you know there are 4 words)
Color,colour,cooler
Of course our very own personal favorite (favourite), mould the thing that Boolits are cast inside of vs mold the spores that make penicillin and green bread.

[bearcove]

Dumbing down of society at it's finest. The commies control the schools and they have won.

We home school our kids.

My wife has a quote form Ron Paul

“Expect the rapidly expanding homeschool movement to play a significant role in the revolutionary forms needed to rebuild a free society with constitutional protections,” he said. “We cannot expect a federal government controlled school system to provide the intellectual ammunition to combat the dangerous growth of government that threatens our liberties.”

[montana_charlie]

The one that gets me is the, Me and my brother. me and my Dad, me and my friend, me and whoever. Of course I do realize this is the generation of me, me, me, and entitlements.
People who consider themselves to be educated in grammar frequently misuse I and me.

Which of these sentences seems to be correct?

A) "My wife and I were given tickets to the ball game."

B) "Somebody provided tickets to the ball game for my wife and I."

C) "I and my wife got free tickets to the game."

D) "The tickets for my wife and I came in the mail."

E) "Many thanks to the person who sent the tickets for me and my wife."


CM

[MBTcustom]

Charlie, is that a trick question? I don't think any of them are correct with "E" being the closest to a correct sentence?
Of course this is coming from me, and I am absolutely terrible with grammar and spelling!

[Bullet Caster]

E and A are correct. Subjects or noninatives need to be in the first person. Objects of prepositions are in the objective case. Thus, my wife and I were given tickets. And many thanks to those who provided tickets for my wife and me. Passive and active voices for the sentences given are displayed as well. I've been a writer for quite a long time and a danged good proofreader. I just wish I could find work in those fields. BC

[montana_charlie]

Charlie, is that a trick question? I don't think any of them are correct with "E" being the closest to a correct sentence?
No tricks.

A is correct form, as is C and E.

The 'trick' ... when deciding whether to use I or me is this.

How does the sentence sound if the second person is left out?

If you leave the 'wife' out of B it comes out like, "Somebody provided tickets to the ballgame for I."
And, D would say, "The tickets for I came in the mail."
I don't think the most ignorant English speaker in the nation would say it that way, but many who believe themselves to be good speakers will state B and D as written above.

E is correct in using 'me', but it is considered polite to mention the other person first ... especially if that is a lady.
So, it would finish with "my wife and me" in that instance.

C is correct as far as the use of I is concerned. Politeness might demand mentioning the wife first, but it isn't required in order to be grammatically legal.

CM

[PS Paul]

WILCO'S right on this: the dumbing down of society=more democratic votes from an uneducated public. Naturally, telling kids they are "wrong" will "hurt their precious feelings" and that is not popular in today's curriculum, I'm told....

[Rick N Bama]

I'll be the 1st to admit grammar and sentence structure aren't my long suit.
Peeves;
To,too,two
There,they're,their
Reed,read,red(don't give that deer light look you know there are 4 words)
Color,colour,cooler
Of course our very own personal favorite (favourite), mould the thing that Boolits are cast inside of vs mold the spores that make penicillin and green bread.

Add to that; Weather, Whether.

By no means am I trying to say that my command of the language is perfect as it's far from it. However I think I can make myself understood which is something the young lady I quoted simply doesn't seem to understand.

My Grandchildren are home schooled something I am quite proud of! The three Grandsons that live near me (the others are in KY) are required on Fridays to write a story about the weeks studies & activities. The stories are graded for content & spelling accuracy as well as gramar structure. The stories will never win any awards, but the kids will be able to make themselves understood through their writing.

We may as well face it, the "Dumbing Down of America" is a part of our lives and quite frankly I don't feel liek there's much we can do about it.

Rick

[montana_charlie]

Peeves;
Color,colour
favorite (favourite)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_and_British_English_spelling_differences#-our.2C_-or

[MBTcustom]

Shows how much I know about grammar. Thanks for the refresher.

[oldred]

I honestly think a lot of it is just an attempt to be "cool", as if intentionally appearing dumb could be considered "cool". I first noticed a VERY common tendency to use "there" for "their", sometimes it's the other way around, and it's not just internet forums where this occurs! It is happening with appalling frequency even in news articles, for instance just yesterday I was reading about an auto accident on a news site and the reporter (referring to a family) ended the last sentence with "the parents and there son".:groner: This seems to be a fairly recent trend so when this very subject came up on another site I frequent I became curious and looked up some older posts of some of the worst offenders, not only did they rarely (if ever) make this mistake a year or so ago there were few examples from anyone! There's no doubt to me that some seem to think it's "cutesy" or "cool" but to me it's just plain old fashioned dumb!

[bearcove]

I think Jeff foxwerthy or what ever his name is and that whole bunch, convinced a whole bunch of people that STUPID is funny and its not gone out of style yet.

[Bob Krack]

How about site and sight, your and you're

Bob

[oldred]

convinced a whole bunch of people that STUPID is funny and its not gone out of style yet.



Stupid is obviously not going to go out of style anytime soon, but why someone would INTENTIONALLY want to appear dumb is beyond me!

[MtGun44]

I think A, C and E are correct, subject vs object if I remember correctly. I skipped down without
reading anyone else's posts.

Bill

[GOPHER SLAYER]

Whenever I hear the word unique on TV it is always used with a modifier such as, quite, almost, really. I hear this mistake made by newsmen who are paid millions of dallors a year. Unique means, one of a kind and needs no modifier. Another word I hear used incorrectly is real. How often do you hear someone say, he did a real good job? We have a word that is rarely used anymore and that is very. It comes from the Latin word for truth which is veritos. Why can't they say, he did his job very well? I as never a good student in any English class I ever took, but jeez.

[montana_charlie]

I first noticed a VERY common tendency to use "there" for "their", sometimes it's the other way around, and it's not just internet forums where this occurs! It is happening with appalling frequency even in news articles,
I think that stems from using computer spell checkers instead of proofreading an article.
Those with the job of proofreading are the 'new' people, and they were educated in a system that didn't require them to learn grammar, spelling, or punctuation.

If a word 'sounds like' what an author meant to say, the spell checker will pick something to put in there. The ignorant 'proofreader' doesn't know any better, so it hits the front page with lousy sentence construction ... and a large part of the reading public doesn't know the difference, either.

CM

[ElDorado]

No tricks.

A is correct form, as is C and E.

The 'trick' ... when deciding whether to use I or me is this.

How does the sentence sound if the second person is left out?

If you leave the 'wife' out of B it comes out like, "Somebody provided tickets to the ballgame for I."
And, D would say, "The tickets for I came in the mail."
I don't think the most ignorant English speaker in the nation would say it that way, but many who believe themselves to be good speakers will state B and D as written above.

E is correct in using 'me', but it is considered polite to mention the other person first ... especially if that is a lady.
So, it would finish with "my wife and me" in that instance.

C is correct as far as the use of I is concerned. Politeness might demand mentioning the wife first, but it isn't required in order to be grammatically legal.

CM

I see people substitute the word “myself” for both “me” and “I”. I guess they’re not sure which word is right so they pick one that is completely wrong.

I remember I would write “are” instead of “our” when I was in the second grade, primarily because that’s the way my mother pronounced it. I eventually learned how to spell it correctly by reading it a few times. What amazes me is that my teacher never corrected me. I’m sure that’s a frequent occurrence in schools today.

[montana_charlie]

I see people substitute the word “myself” for both “me” and “I”. I guess they’re not sure which word is right so they pick one that is completely wrong.
That can be made to follow the 'trick' mentioned earlier, too.

Example:
"I would choose tickets for seats behind home plate for myself and my wife. But, as no choice was possible with free tickets, she and I sat behind the visitor's dugout."

Remove 'wife' and 'she' from those two, and they work fine using 'myself' and 'I'.

'Me and my wife' would have been totally acceptable in the first sentence, while the second would have been more succinct if 'she and I' had been replaced with 'we'.
But, both are grammatically correct as written.

CM

[bearcove]

Stupid is obviously not going to go out of style anytime soon, but why someone would INTENTIONALLY want to appear dumb is beyond me!

Not sure what the difference is but I don't imagine its much.

[williamwaco]

This is going to get me in trouble but I can't resist the temptation to vent.

No.
They don't teach English.
They don't teach grammar.
They don't teach composition.
They don't teach spelling.

They can't teach what the teachers don't know.

.

[montana_charlie]

They can't teach what the teachers don't know.
I'm pretty certain that you have the problem identified.

CM

[Mk42gunner]

The sad part is that it isn't only in public schools; colleges are poor also.

I graduated High School in 1982, and didn't go to college until I retired from the Navy in 2004. None of the English courses in college taught me as much about sentence structure as my junior and senoir high English teachers did.

I detested diagraming sentences in shcool; but it sure taught the basics of how to put a sentence together.

I know I don't type as well as I should; it is a combination of half remembered rules and fingers that learned keyboard spacing on a typewriter. I do try to make my posts readable though.

Robert

[smokeywolf]

About 12 years ago there (not their or they're) was an effort to justify and make acceptable, a form of improperly spoken English, referred to as ebonics and practiced mostly by blacks. This effort to label improperly spoken English as not being incorrect, but a proper form of an English variant was led mostly by California liberal types. California, no surprise there. Heaven forbid we allow people with no drive or interest in learning the de facto National Language of the United States feel inferior, incapable, or just plain lazy and stupid.

Punctuation correct?

smokeywolf

[oldred]

Maybe a bit off the subject but a local auto paint shop has a hilarious phone answer recording, when calling in the caller is greeted with,

"Press one for English, press two to disconnect until you learn to speak English".

[fixit]

i drove my kids nuts, correcting their grammar, until now, as adults, they are doing much correcting, so it was worthwhile. their grammar generelly put's them into the 'well spoken' catagory 'now-a-days'! (please, forgive the lack of capitalization, i gave up on home row years ago!)

[ElDorado]

That can be made to follow the 'trick' mentioned earlier, too.

Example:
"I would choose tickets for seats behind home plate for myself and my wife. But, as no choice was possible with free tickets, she and I sat behind the visitor's dugout."

Remove 'wife' and 'she' from those two, and they work fine using 'myself' and 'I'.

'Me and my wife' would have been totally acceptable in the first sentence, while the second would have been more succinct if 'she and I' had been replaced with 'we'.
But, both are grammatically correct as written.

CM

True, but this is the usage I was talking about-

“My wife and myself received failing grades for using poor grammar.”

“The teacher gave failing grades to my wife and myself for poor grammar.”

I hear educated people talk like that all the time. I didn’t mean using the word “myself” is always wrong, but it is not a substitute for “I” or “me”.