It’s meant a lot of work and determination but worth every ounce. I refer of course to a grandparent’s input to a grandchild’s GCSE results, published yesterday!
My most senior of ten did all the requisite academic subjects and (Jazz note) the really useful Textiles Technology, well suited to the distaff side methinks. 😷
So I can relax again until next year when another young lady shows her paces.
Call me queer but I’m sure society has lost its marbles.
The Nat Union of Students, always slightly bent, is demanding college accommodation should segregate LBTGwo’evah from er….others, presumably referring to what I call normal folk. (Go on, sue me.)
Why not segregate by colour, religion, football affiliation, hair colour, height, weight, dietary choice – oh and of course country of origin? Not to mention any other passing fad.
And bugger the education.
Looking back to my schooldays, I reckon many of my most valuable lessons were learnt by rote. Times tables, spelling, geographical facts and later, sorry, Latin declensions and conjugations. And how did my school teachers check that I knew them? By asking me politely to swear I’d made the effort? No. There was a test!
These days it is no longer pc, human or psychologically acceptable to demand proof of knowledge imparted. The pressure of being examined is too great for the modern child; and if you must check progress, offer multiple choice questions, to give ’em a chance.
Have you seeen the SATS papers for 6 – 11 year olds? Hardly surprising that by 16 so many children are illiterate and unable to do simple arithmetic. Ask employers how hard it is to recruit young people.
Some will blame Alex Salmond, but I think the Bliar Brigade should carry the can, believing you can make a silk purse out of a genetically modified sow’s ear and then cook the books to prove it.
The Donald struggles to express his passionate imaginings.
He did his heroic bit for 7-eleven and promises to win bigly in November.
Can nobody rid Murica of this bumbling oaf?
Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.
Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it’s written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.
The Oz authorities have intercepted loads of drugs hidden in imported bras. (Sorry, I can’t resist a good pun.)
So while I’m at it: was Tolkien adventurous or just a creator of Hobbit? 😳
The DT today gives rein to a Scotch cook called Callaghan (is that genuine Scotch?) who blasphemes to the effect that haggis originates from the Vikings and was made with venison – hence his ‘staggis’. And a Norse etymologist finds a link between haggis and ‘haggwa’ or chopped food.
The modern Danes call haggis ‘hachis’ which is French, from a root meaning ‘chopped food’ so the haggwa isn’t so far away, innit?
But dare we refuse the Scots their glorious invention? Er, yes. Because homo sapiens has been stuffing animal meat into conveniently shaped animal organs since Adam was a lad. Think sausage.
Verdict? Callaghan is good at PR but a poor linguist. 😳
Proof readers were never fool-proof but editors now rely on blind electronics to check their texts.
So just yesterday I was treated to a corpse ‘lying prostate’. Well, it is in the dictionary. While the DT today advises that ‘the border force will compromise of…..’ thereby conflating two errors of syntax – one of which is getting ever more frequent, ‘comprise OF’ for ‘comprise’.
Do you get hot under the collar too?
I am well aware that our troop of Charioteers have many languages between them, some with great fluency. I am, in comparison, a mere amateur in this game, but I love to dabble and, on occasion, play the pedant.
As an aside, before I get really stuck in, how’s your Indonesian? Mine is very limited, but I was recently reminded that if an English-speaking person says “I am sorry”, it sounds almost exactly the same as an Indonesian-speaker saying “Ayam sore”. Which can lead to all sorts of amusing outcomes, because – as I’m sure most of you know – it means “Chicken afternoon”. Almost, but not quite, Chicken Tonight – remember that? Continue reading “Le mot juste? Possibly not!”
Janus Minimus and I were practising our words.
Me: Bus
JM: Bus
Me: Tractor
JM: Chacktor
Me: Jeep
JM: Baaaaa
Boadicea's Chariot 
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