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The spell is broken

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  • The spell is broken

    I hope Tony B. Liar is very proud of himself and what he and his underachieving government have accomplished. Even a university lecturer has given up.

    It may surprise you that I correct my children when they are wrong and they learn from that. They have very good grammar skills and they are very good at spelling. They wouldn't have been if I didn't correct them.

    Where does all this end? Dumbing down does not help.

    The spell is broken: Lecturer calls for spelling amnesty on students' top 20 errors


    By Laura Clark
    Last updated at 9:36 AM on 07th August 2008

    Faced with a flood of basic spelling mistakes, you might expect a university lecturer to demand his students pay more attention to the dictionary. But one don is so fed up with having to correct his undergraduates' errors that he is calling for something rather more unorthodox - a spelling amnesty.

    Dr Ken Smith is urging colleagues to turn a blind eye to the 20 most common slips - such as 'Febuary', 'ignor' and 'speach' - and view them instead as variants of standard spellings.

    Writing in the Times Higher Education magazine, the senior lecturer in criminology at Buckinghamshire New University said: 'Teaching a large first-year course at a British university, I am fed up with correcting my students' atrocious spelling. Aren't we all? 'But why must we suffer? Instead of complaining about the state of the education system as we correct the same mistakes year after year, I've got a better idea.

    'University teachers should simply accept as variant spellings those words our students most commonly misspell.' He added: 'Either we go on beating ourselves and our students up over this problem or we simply give everyone a break and accept these variant spellings as such. 'All I am suggesting is that we might well put 20 or so of the most commonly misspelt words in the English language on the same footing as those other words that have a widely accepted variant spelling.'

    He said the word 'judgement' was already accepted as a variant of 'judgment', adding: 'So why can't "truely" be accepted as a variant spelling of "truly"?' Dr Smith said there was no reason many commonly misspelt words were configured the way they were. The word 'twelfth', for example, would make more sense as 'twelth', he said. 'How on earth did that "f " get in there? You would not dream of spelling the words "stealth" or "wealth" with a "f" (as in 'stealfth' or "wealfth") so why insist on putting the "f" in twelfth?'.



    Dr Smith is not calling for the words to be changed permanently. But his remarks will heighten concern over the literacy levels of undergraduates.
    They come after a lecturer at the prestigious Imperial College released the worst spelling and grammatical howlers by his students.
    Dr Bernard Lamb claimed Britain's brightest undergraduates were worse at English than foreign students.

    He said home-grown students were more likely to write essays littered with mistakes such as 'there' instead of 'their' and 'been' instead of 'bean'.
    Dr Lamb had become so concerned at poor English among undergraduates in genetics, he began to keep a diary of mistakes. In little over a term, he had covered 24 sides of A4.

    He blamed failings in the school system, declaring: 'There was little evidence of students having been taught the relevant rules at school, or of the students having been corrected for obvious and frequent errors.'

    Jack Bovill, chairman of the Spelling Society, said its national survey had shown up to 54 per cent of people couldn't spell words such as ' embarrassed', 'separate', 'accommodation', 'millennium' and 'friend'.

    But he said the society did not advocate changing the spellings.

  • #2
    Re: The spell is broken

    This is horrifying. If they cannot spell they should fail.

    Comment


    • #3
      Re: The spell is broken

      On Wensday the twelth of Febuary I has a wierd arguement wiv a nieghbour about mispelt forign words, this hapened while in a que for the liesure center. I culd sence sommat was wron cos his vioce was slured and his speech was brokan.

      Hey this is fun.

      i cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno't mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a pboerlm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Azanmig huh? yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt!

      Mobile phone texting and internet chat are responsible for the dumbing down of the English language.
      Borrow money from a pessimist -- they don't expect it back.

      Comment


      • #4
        Re: The spell is broken

        We all make spelling mistakes on occasions - I blame mine on my keyboard.:tinysmile_hmm_t2:

        However I am not taking a degree and I also am very careful with work documents.

        I think education should be stretched not dumbed down. The earlier standards are enforced he easier it becomes.

        I think our children are not reaching full potential at all. Especially as I know of a girl who lives in Keiv and could read War and Peace by the time she was 7!
        "What makes the desert beautiful is that somewhere it hides a well." - Antione de Saint Exupery

        "Always reach for the moon, if you miss you'll end up among the stars"


        Comment


        • #5
          Re: The spell is broken

          Simon Heffer wrote a piece in the Telegraph which purports the theory that this dumbing-down was a deliberate policy decision by Labour. He called it "A Marxist-driven philosophy of anti-elitism [that has] forced down standards: but if the level of attainment required to pass a public examination is forced down too, then, voilą! we all look much cleverer than we used to be.

          The results of this only become apparent when the halfwits produced go out and try to run something, such as getting our railways repaired on time, or even Terminal 5."

          Comment


          • #6
            Re: The spell is broken

            Scooby, If your keyboard can't spell, try what this woman did:

            I had a call from a customer who was complaining that when she typed, the wrong letters came up on the screen. After some investigation, I learned she had pried off all the letter key caps off her keyboard and rearranged them in alphabetical order.

            Comment


            • #7
              Re: The spell is broken

              mine is a case of "the computer says no" normally the keyboard ignores vowels so I usually have to retype each pst or thump th keyboard hard. thats why my replies are slow. also every time i move the laptop switches off as i have dodgy connector. when i get a new laptop you will get fed up with me as my posts will be twice as long.
              "What makes the desert beautiful is that somewhere it hides a well." - Antione de Saint Exupery

              "Always reach for the moon, if you miss you'll end up among the stars"


              Comment


              • #8
                Re: The spell is broken

                While I agree that standards have slipped in schools and the way people are teached (lol) I do think that a lot more can be done at home with children than already is. My Mum (who is dyslexic but retook her O level English exam and got a B+) and Dad sat down EVERY night with me and read with me, both me to them and vice versa. I cannot remember a time when I didn't read, it was just something I did every night, and I am still a (dare I say the words together) bookworm to this day. A lot of parents that I know don't bother to make this kind of effort with their children anymore, never mind the teachers at schools.

                The spelling mistakes those 'highly' educated people make are words that I would have done in spelling tests through primary school. It is disturbing to think that if I was up against one of those people in an interview, they would probably get the job over me because they have a degree and I don’t, and when it comes to the crunch, my skills are probably a 100 times higher than theirs.

                I just don’t understand what is going on in this country at the moment, really I don’t.

                L xxx
                Neither a borrower nor a lender be;
                For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
                And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.

                Comment


                • #9
                  Re: The spell is broken

                  Originally posted by Cetelco View Post
                  Simon Heffer wrote a piece in the Telegraph which purports the theory that this dumbing-down was a deliberate policy decision by Labour. He called it "A Marxist-driven philosophy of anti-elitism [that has] forced down standards: but if the level of attainment required to pass a public examination is forced down too, then, voilą! we all look much cleverer than we used to be.

                  The results of this only become apparent when the halfwits produced go out and try to run something, such as getting our railways repaired on time, or even Terminal 5."
                  That'll be the reason Nu Labour wanted to do away with grammar schools - they are elitist and too unfair to the children that do not possess the skills and natural ability to gain a place at a grammar school (rather like doing away with sports days; competition is bad apparently) all comprehensives, we were told, are as good as a grammar school.

                  The grammar schools were not closed and lo and behold, people like Harriet Harman and Tony B. Liar do not send their children to a comprehensive like the rest of us are supposed to do. They put their children in private education or send them to grammar schools.

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Re: The spell is broken

                    Originally posted by Happyolddog View Post
                    On Wensday the twelth of Febuary I has a wierd arguement wiv a nieghbour about mispelt forign words, this hapened while in a que for the liesure center. I culd sence sommat was wron cos his vioce was slured and his speech was brokan.

                    Hey this is fun.

                    i cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno't mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a pboerlm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Azanmig huh? yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt!

                    Mobile phone texting and internet chat are responsible for the dumbing down of the English language.

                    Hiya all !

                    I couldn't stop laughing when I read this LOL..the strange thing is.. I managed to read this first time and understood what HOD wrote ! lmao
                    I think over a period of time (well,ever since there has been texting and internet / MSN ) we have become so lazy, but not intentionally. This is what we have all been used to since 'short texting'' has come into play

                    I know when im typing a post..there will be typos ! lol but thats because I do make the odd mistake now and then. its only natural.. However.. I find it a whole lot easier to shorten certain words just because it is so much quicker. its easy on the typing and easy on the reading,( I know thats not good !) especially if you want to just have a quick chat. But in normal everyday life, I do try to make sure that I check my spelling when I need to fill in a form and its for something really important.

                    Just for fun..here are some shortened words..or misspelled lol

                    because = coz or cos
                    although = tho
                    night = nite
                    what = wat
                    when = wen
                    laughing = larfing or larf
                    stupid = stoopid
                    cool = Kl

                    the list is endless...


                    riguards

                    Bluuminflour xx ( hehe )



                    Member of the Beagles £2 coin and small change savers clubs, both based in the Debt Forum

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Re: The spell is broken

                      I think its disgusting what they're proposing!....I've always been an avid reader, which had a knock on affect with spelling, and i've tried to pass that onto my kids - my oldest has been reading alone since he was about 3 [obviously not War and Peace, but it was surprising the words he could read at that age!], although my youngest didn't pick it up quite the same [he's now 8 and more or less only just got where he will sit and read to me - he's more the creative type, but I am really proud of him that he's finally getting there].

                      You expect your children to get a proper education when you send them to school/college/uni, and if there are any slight failings i.e. their spelling/grammar, you expect it to be corrected - fine, not everyone picks it up at school, and we all make mistakes occasionally [I wouldn't be surprised if this was one of mine actually lol], but if they're not corrected they'll never learn.

                      I do agree with Happy that a lot of of the dumbing down of the english language has a lot to do with texting and msn - and I am guilty sometimes of speaking in 'txt mode' on emails at work, purely out of habit at work, but I always realise before I send anything and make sure its corrected into 'proper english'.

                      [Amy, feel free to correct any of my grammar hunni lol] x

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Re: The spell is broken

                        My ex's children told me their teachers never correct their speech, which I believe is part of teachers remit. I was constantly correcting them.
                        Lend instead of borrow
                        Seen instead of seeing
                        Tell instead of ask
                        What instead of that (that what I've got)

                        I guess the English language is *******ised and through bad grammer and spelling is how the language has changed - but it annoys the hell out of me!
                        My spelling has grown worse since school and knowing where apostrophes go has been long forgotten - I think the rules changed!
                        Sally xx
                        P1ss on me if you like, but don't try and tell me it's rain!
                        life is all the more precious when we remember it is a terminal state.

                        If you need any help with addiction please feel free to PM or email me. I will help all I can
                        Please don't drink and drive

                        25th Aug SAR request ~11th Sep 1/2 back ~ 23rd Oct all back ~ 29th Oct prelim request ~ 11th Nov LBA ~ 20th Nov "Don't Be Silly" letter ~ 25th Nov I won!

                        Comment

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