By which I assume you mean ‘her dialect was neither mine nor the prestige dialect I was brought up to consider socially desirable’?
But yes, I can see that the experience of meeting some proletarian thicko who thought she knowed summat about readin out of books might have been enlightening.
You might disagree that grammar ought to be important, but as long as it is important and as long as English class is meant to teach it, it’s inexcusable for the teacher not to know it.
If it was an English class and she was speaking English, then anything she was saying counts as demonstration.
Similarly, if the math teacher is writing equations all over the board in front of the class and they contain a lot of mistakes, anyone who notices should point that out, even if it’s not being done for the purposes of teaching the class.
It couldn’t be that, I was raised among the proletariat. Not much prestige dialect signalling there. (There is some, of course, but nothing like the bourgeoisie.)
As far as I can tell, all English people are completely obsessed with class and signalling issues, except possibly the royal family, who I imagine feel fairly secure. I don’t know what it’s like in the rest of the world, though.
Yes, we care about that. Anything written improperly will take longer to read and interpret, and so by a little extra effort now you can save your readers much extra effort later. Failing to take this common courtesy is worthy of a downvote.
are youse objecting to the viciousness of my attack
Making any “attack” is downvote-worthy on its own.
Anything written improperly will take longer to read and interpret
Must add up to hours, added up over a lifetime. But it’s a great way of telling the uneducated to keep their ill-informed opinions to themselves. Which is often a useful thing to be able to say politely.
Bad spelling and grammar are good bayesy evidence that the speaker doesn’t know what they’re talking about. But they’re not a moral issue.
Just imagine what this class was like from the teacher’s point of view, with someone constantly making her feel inferior while she was trying to communicate something. If she was from a poor background and had nevertheless become an English teacher she might well have had something interesting to say.
I think we’re both wasting time on this silly argument I’ve started. I’ll give you the last word and not respond.
I think in my previous post the implication is that I believe the punishment was unwarranted. That is not the case (though I certainly felt that way at the time). I simply felt the reason given for the detention was less important than the experience of realizing that authority figures can be wrong.
It was entirely appropriate for the teacher to give me detention, because I actually was interrupting class when she was trying to teach, and I don’t think I was being particularly helpful to the rest of the students. What she was teaching was correct, as far as I can remember, however there isn’t much a person can do about 40+ years of poor habits when it comes to speaking English.
She was in a bad position, and did a reasonable job under the circumstances. I was just a bratty little smart aleck making her life difficult.
Cheers, bigjeff5. My comment was deliberately inflammatory and I apologize for it. The very idea of “correct English” makes me suspend rational thought.
My own background is complicated, but my mother’s father was a Sheffield Irish steelworker and him (sic) and his wife cared very much about all that sort of thing.
By which I assume you mean ‘her dialect was neither mine nor the prestige dialect I was brought up to consider socially desirable’?
But yes, I can see that the experience of meeting some proletarian thicko who thought she knowed summat about readin out of books might have been enlightening.
You might disagree that grammar ought to be important, but as long as it is important and as long as English class is meant to teach it, it’s inexcusable for the teacher not to know it.
Indeed, but how is constantly interrupting her class by demonstrating your social superiority helping?
It’s not. Interrupting class to let the other students know that what the teacher just demonstrated was incorrect, is helping the other students.
Ah, sorry, was she teaching the bad thing, or just talking in her own voice?
If it was an English class and she was speaking English, then anything she was saying counts as demonstration.
Similarly, if the math teacher is writing equations all over the board in front of the class and they contain a lot of mistakes, anyone who notices should point that out, even if it’s not being done for the purposes of teaching the class.
It couldn’t be that, I was raised among the proletariat. Not much prestige dialect signalling there. (There is some, of course, but nothing like the bourgeoisie.)
As far as I can tell, all English people are completely obsessed with class and signalling issues, except possibly the royal family, who I imagine feel fairly secure. I don’t know what it’s like in the rest of the world, though.
Have you read ‘Watching the English’ by Kate Fox, or Paul Fussell’s ‘Guide to the American Class System’, that yvain linked to here: http://lesswrong.com/lw/did/what_is_signaling_really/
karma slaughter! are youse objecting to the viciousness of my attack or do yall really care about grammer and speling?
Yes, we care about that. Anything written improperly will take longer to read and interpret, and so by a little extra effort now you can save your readers much extra effort later. Failing to take this common courtesy is worthy of a downvote.
Making any “attack” is downvote-worthy on its own.
Must add up to hours, added up over a lifetime. But it’s a great way of telling the uneducated to keep their ill-informed opinions to themselves. Which is often a useful thing to be able to say politely.
Bad spelling and grammar are good bayesy evidence that the speaker doesn’t know what they’re talking about. But they’re not a moral issue.
Just imagine what this class was like from the teacher’s point of view, with someone constantly making her feel inferior while she was trying to communicate something. If she was from a poor background and had nevertheless become an English teacher she might well have had something interesting to say.
I think we’re both wasting time on this silly argument I’ve started. I’ll give you the last word and not respond.
I think in my previous post the implication is that I believe the punishment was unwarranted. That is not the case (though I certainly felt that way at the time). I simply felt the reason given for the detention was less important than the experience of realizing that authority figures can be wrong.
It was entirely appropriate for the teacher to give me detention, because I actually was interrupting class when she was trying to teach, and I don’t think I was being particularly helpful to the rest of the students. What she was teaching was correct, as far as I can remember, however there isn’t much a person can do about 40+ years of poor habits when it comes to speaking English.
She was in a bad position, and did a reasonable job under the circumstances. I was just a bratty little smart aleck making her life difficult.
Cheers, bigjeff5. My comment was deliberately inflammatory and I apologize for it. The very idea of “correct English” makes me suspend rational thought.
My own background is complicated, but my mother’s father was a Sheffield Irish steelworker and him (sic) and his wife cared very much about all that sort of thing.
I wrote a bit of a rant about it here:
http://johnlawrenceaspden.blogspot.co.uk/2010/05/grammer.html
In case anyone likes rants.