Tuesday 28 September 2010

You Tell 'Em, Emma!

As you may have gathered from my post on September 15, I have great respect for proper grammar and Standard English, so you will not be surprised at my delight when I came across this interesting article posted on the Daily Mail's (dont judge!) website regarding young poeple's poor grammar.

Emma Thompson (aka Nanny McPhee and Karen from Love Actually) has taken a well-deserved swipe at teenager's use of words like "innit" (isn't it) and "ain't", and of course, it's caused an uproar in the comments which follow the article.   I say it's about time someone put aside their fear of being labled pretentious simply for pointing out consistently poor use of the language.   From one lover of English to another - thank you Emma!

Even if you do think Emma and I are pretentious snobs, you may still be interested in a piece of research cited in the article which says some teenagers are becoming unemployable because they limit themselves to a working vocabulary of only 800 words(over-dramatic plea begins)  I beg you, if you are a parent or responsible in any way for the upbringing of a child, please remember this the next time you think its not necessary to correct or even just suggest improvements to said child's grammar and/or vocabulary.  Don't be responsible for the death of the respectable English language and your child's future.  (over-dramatic plea concludes)

1 comment:

  1. Well said. As you know, I am not "great" at grammar myself, but I do try and still insist my 12 year old daughter text me in full sentences with proper punctuation and I do send a correction needed text if it does not happen! :)

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