Do you know a subordinating conjunction or a preposition?

[saaby93]

Beware those who throw the first stone
English isn't set in stone but a breathing language changing with current usage
Digress
If we're talking about the Beeb and moving to pronunciation, when did they decide not to pronounce 'the' as 'thee' in front of words beginning with a vowel?
Ten years at the outside?
/Digress

[Bring on the clowns]

Interesting, you've also spotted one of my current bugbears, re 'the' or 'thee'. I discussed this with my brother last month and it is really starting to grate with him too. It makes the reading of some passages even on 'flagship' R4 programmes like Today sound so clipped, brutal and disjointed.

[saaby93]

Bring on the clowns said:

Interesting, you've also spotted one of my current bugbears, re 'the' or 'thee'. I discussed this with my brother last month and it is really starting to grate with him too. It makes the reading of some passages even on 'flagship' R4 programmes like Today sound so clipped, brutal and disjointed.

When I first noticed it I thought it was accidental or due to one broadcaster but now I'm convinced there's been an edict in the pronunciation dept to everyone not to use 'thee'

[Bring on the clowns]

Or, could it be the herd-following that has given us 'so' at the start of every sentence now uttered by any scientist, doctor, mathematician and miscellaneous guru who appears on the radio? Those who know no better following the lead of other ignoramuses.

[Diderot]

saaby93 said:

Diderot said:

The problem is that we've had decades of apologists who have systematically dumbed down GCSEs and A Levels, decades of 'every one is a winner' and decades of 'don't worry about grammar or spelling or syntax, just express yourself' in schools. What this means is that when the little blighters get to University (that's nearly 50% of each cohort remember) so many of them are functionally illiterate and indeed barely numerate. The number of students who seriously cannot string two sentences together is alarming. ....

that maybe so but do you think scaring them with jargon is going to help them come around or do you think it will lead to further separation, those who can be bothered showing an interest in this type of thing, and those for which this is the final straw, who retreat further into the corner of the room to learn about the sticky effects of chewing gum?

Alas chap what you describe is the stupidity nay dogmatic blindness of the comprehensive (ho ho) secondary school system where the lowest common denominator dominates, an ingrained lack of ambition blights, and a race to the bottom mentality in the name of fairness and opportunities for all reigns supreme. It's a wrongheaded and always already doomed system that should be dismantled and replaced ASAP.

[turbobloke]

Diderot said:

saaby93 said:

Diderot said:

The problem is that we've had decades of apologists who have systematically dumbed down GCSEs and A Levels, decades of 'every one is a winner' and decades of 'don't worry about grammar or spelling or syntax, just express yourself' in schools. What this means is that when the little blighters get to University (that's nearly 50% of each cohort remember) so many of them are functionally illiterate and indeed barely numerate. The number of students who seriously cannot string two sentences together is alarming. ....

that maybe so but do you think scaring them with jargon is going to help them come around or do you think it will lead to further separation, those who can be bothered showing an interest in this type of thing, and those for which this is the final straw, who retreat further into the corner of the room to learn about the sticky effects of chewing gum?

Alas chap what you describe is the stupidity nay dogmatic blindness of the comprehensive (ho ho) secondary school system where the lowest common denominator dominates, an ingrained lack of ambition blights, and a race to the bottom mentality in the name of fairness and opportunities for all reigns supreme. It's a wrongheaded and always already doomed system that should be dismantled and replaced ASAP.

I can't disagree with any of that and yet at the same time teachers are as hard-working as ever if not more so and students have the same range of abilities as they ever did...the system is failing both.

As for the sticky effects of chewing gum, I can't say whether it was deliberate or not in terms of my earlier pointed reference to a chewing gum festival, but I'm pleased to see that somebody picked up the baton and found they were running with a gerundive

[gothatway]

Roy Lime said:

Standards of spoken and written English are very poor indeed. I can accept the that the internet in general (and social media in particular) has brought this to the fore somewhat - prior to its advent we weren't as exposed to each other's* written English

^^^^^^
This in spades. It's now so easy for people to output the written word for all to see their errors. For example, my mother would only have written shopping lists or personal letters. My father's job would have required him to write business letters as well, but he had a good enough education for that. In previous generations how much would a manual worker have written other than personal letters ? Nowadays any illiterate drop-out can and does write. Phonetics might well have some blame to bear - how else to explain the preponderance of should of/could of/would of ?

I recall learning more about grammar in my French and Latin lessons than in English - and very useful it has been when learning other languages in adulthood.