'good' English.

[Ajarn]

In my experience, very few newish English teachers are even aware of the differences, and some students have received lower marks on tests simply because the student used, for example, an American English usage of a preposition of place, rather than the preposition used in British usage which the teacher was familiar with.

I hope you don't teach your pupils to use prepositions to end their sentences - like you just did.

Churchill once responded to an editor who made such a criticism as yours by writing to the editor, "This is the kind of impertinence up with which I shall not put."

You are living in the past, sir(?), specifically, Latin grammar rules. Do a little research and you'll see that your comments reflect the elitist grammarians of the past, and not the real world of common English usage today, in most cases.

[maerim]

All the above posts are very true.

This still does not address the situation of the BBC world sevice policies of using people who with the greatest respect who think they can speak English but can't.

So I for one don't care where the English teachers come from as long as they can speak English that I can understand, refering to my previous post the Glaswegian who was teaching, lets be kind here "English" in my opinion he would be better doing landscape gardening than his job teaching people English.

As for regional accents it is completely out of control in the U.K. I dispair for the television executives who bow to political correctness by using morons presenting programmes because it's" cool" to do so.

I for one think it's about time we say enough is enough but you might as well try and plait sawdust.

[DogNo1]

Are there announcers on CNN who speak with a New York nasal accent? I can't remember having heard any lately. The inter-vocalic "R" in the throat is disappearing on CNN and is being replaced by the sound "ah." The word "here" is now often being pronounced as "hee-ah." Language changes, and like it or not, we have to adjust to understand it.

BTW, British English seems to be guilty of the creeping tendency to pluralize adjectives. It used to be that a car with four doors was known as a four-door car, since the grammatical rule is that adjectives are never made plural. I notice in British English more and more instances of pluralized adjectives such as "fruits salad." The reasoning seems to be that since more than one fruit is used when making it, the pluralization of fruit is legitimate. I guess it won't be long until everyone in Britain will be drinking "oranges juice!"

[maerim]

I guess it won't be long until everyone in Britain will be drinking "oranges juice!"

Might well be, but it sure as eggs are eggs a lot better than what his wife recieved from old "O.J."

Oh sorry he didn't do it did he?

[Ajarn]

Deleted.

Apologies for the double posting.

[Ajarn]

Are there announcers on CNN who speak with a New York nasal accent?  I can't remember having heard any lately.  The inter-vocalic "R" in the throat is disappearing on CNN and is being replaced by the sound "ah."  The word "here" is now often being pronounced as "hee-ah." 

There are a lot of people on CNN with various accents, some NY, but not so annoying, to me (I know what you mean, though!). Are they in Atlanta, or New York? The only ones I can't understand are the foreigners. I prefer just watching some of the female presenters,- and ###### the news

I still get a momentary shock when I hear someone locally say, "I am hia"

[Ajarn]

I guess it won't be long until everyone in Britain will be drinking "oranges juice!"

Hey, at least it gives you more identification than just the color!

[konangrit]

I have to admit my Bristolian (south west UK) accent wouldn't be particularly well suited to teaching English or TV presenting, but I do think I subconsciously tone it down when speaking to foreigners. Unfortunately all this flies out the window when I've been drinking, as I found out whilst in Las Vegas last month. I was totally unintelligible to any woman that I decided to chat up, or was that just an excuse not to chat to me?

Mind you,it's difficult for a sober person to understand a drunk whatever the accent

[RDN]

In my experience, very few newish English teachers are even aware of the differences, and some students have received lower marks on tests simply because the student used, for example, an American English usage of a preposition of place, rather than the preposition used in British usage which the teacher was familiar with.

I hope you don't teach your pupils to use prepositions to end their sentences - like you just did.

Churchill once responded to an editor who made such a criticism as yours by writing to the editor, "This is the kind of impertinence up with which I shall not put."

You are living in the past, sir(?), specifically, Latin grammar rules. Do a little research and you'll see that your comments reflect the elitist grammarians of the past, and not the real world of common English usage today, in most cases.

I know nothing about Latin or any other grammar rules, but I DO know what, to me, sounds good English and what sounds bad - maybe because I went to a "grammar" school and was taught what they considered was "good" English

It appears to me that every generation allows more and more "bad" English to become acceptable. How many snooker and football commentators say "He hit that perfect"? Now we have a generation who don't know when to use adjectives and when to use adverbs. And maybe one day, their lack of basic English grammar skills will give them a problem when dealing with a person (say, at an Embassy) who expects "good" spoken and written English.

[Davidcharles]

People who are considered "welll spoken" can come from the U.K, the U.S., France or wherever. Accents can be charming and makes speech more interesting to listen to as long as the accent doesn't get in the way.

The danger with generalities is there are so many exceptions. One would like to agree with the many posts regarding the quality of the accents spoken on the BBC, and perhaps they are speaking of the BBC aired in England. They certainly can't be speaking about BBC World News seen on channel 54 on UBC in Thailand.

There is one female news reader, who was on assignment in Bagdad during the war there and shortly thereafter, who is now reading news in the evening and she is barely intelligable.

Perhaps because she is so unattractive, but my guess the accent is Scottish?

I change channels when she comes on because the hard clip to the accent is most annoying and could hardly be touted by any reasonable person to be a standard one would ascribe to.

Can anyone name that "mistake".

Couldn't agree more!.

That Scottish Lady has a far too thick accent. I can't understand her either!

Scottish English can be charming. But her's is awful!

[Davidcharles]

I was born in Oregon,so I have a western accent,Then during the years shortly after WW2 a lot of oakies and arkies moved to Oregon and got into the timber industry,so going to school and chumming around with them I also picked up a southwestern accent,,then worked a few crews in Alabama and the deep south,more accent,and working around the world on pipelines with a bunch of 798ers whose local address is Tulsa Oklahoma,I have an accent that people find it hard to believe I am from the high country of eastern Oregon.

But luckily I am only teaching conversational English and how to speak like a Yank instead of a pommie. pip pip old chap,and all that tommy rot,eh wot.

I think it wise for you Americans, to remember the fact, that English was given to your country by the English!.

And the reason it differs from State to State, is because people from many different Nations came across, and they had to learn English without the benefit of

having good English Teachers....they just picked it up as they went along.

The amusing thing is, that because of our exposure to American TV & Fims, in the UK, we can understand most American accents.

BUT AMERICANS FIND IT HARD TO UNDERSTAND US!

[Davidcharles]

It used to be that a car with four doors was known as a four-door car, since the grammatical rule is that adjectives are never made plural. I notice in British English more and more instances of pluralized adjectives such as "fruits salad." The reasoning seems to be that since more than one fruit is used when making it, the pluralization of fruit is legitimate. I guess it won't be long until everyone in Britain will be drinking "oranges juice!"

Most menus are written by Foreigners, whose grasp of English is poor to say the least!

[Ajarn]

In my experience, very few newish English teachers are even aware of the differences, and some students have received lower marks on tests simply because the student used, for example, an American English usage of a preposition of place, rather than the preposition used in British usage which the teacher was familiar with.

I hope you don't teach your pupils to use prepositions to end their sentences - like you just did.

Churchill once responded to an editor who made such a criticism as yours by writing to the editor, "This is the kind of impertinence up with which I shall not put."

You are living in the past, sir(?), specifically, Latin grammar rules. Do a little research and you'll see that your comments reflect the elitist grammarians of the past, and not the real world of common English usage today, in most cases.

I know nothing about Latin or any other grammar rules, but I DO know what, to me, sounds good English and what sounds bad - maybe because I went to a "grammar" school and was taught what they considered was "good" English

It appears to me that every generation allows more and more "bad" English to become acceptable. How many snooker and football commentators say "He hit that perfect"? Now we have a generation who don't know when to use adjectives and when to use adverbs. And maybe one day, their lack of basic English grammar skills will give them a problem when dealing with a person (say, at an Embassy) who expects "good" spoken and written English.

Well, one would hope that they won't run into this kind of unfair prejudice among our professional Embassy employees, and I disagree that it should be motivation for using outmoded English language. That is class prejudice is in it's finest form, and something I disagree with completely.

But, you make some good points about 'sounding right', and its that feeling, I think, that guides all of our language choices. After all, when you're deciding what 'sounds' right, are you thinking grammar rules, or thinking about making your meaning clear? We're talking about the difference being prescriptive grammar, or descriptive grammar. I feel the descriptive angle is the more effective and natural of the two choices.

As Churchill illustrated, at times, these so called 'good' rules make bad sentences- sentences that aren't always clear, or maybe don't 'sound' right, or even 'look' right, to others. Sometimes, it sounds more natural and less confusing to break these 'good' rules our old grammar teachers forced down our throats, I feel

In my case, it would have also sounded fine by moving 'with' to its 'other' position, so mine is not a good example of a reason to break these 'rules'. A case of personal preference, perhaps.

English is about successful communication. One goal in that process should be clarity and ease of understanding, rather than tripping over words that just don't 'sound' right to us- whatever it is that sounds natural to us.....

I agree that an understanding of grammar is very important in our lives, and that our students don't seem to be mastering the basics, as we did...Using the wrong verb form, for example, can cause big problems in correct understanding. But, regarding the original criticism about ending sentences in prepositions ( or splitting infinitives for that matter) this is relatively minor, and accuracy should be judged, from a teaching perspective, on meaning (descriptive) rather than outdated language rules (prescriptive), in my opinion and teaching experience. But, I feel it's also important to teach all the variant 'rules' you can, maybe better enabling our students to make educated choices when they do choose to break the rules, as human history tells us some will surely do.

[Stocky]

English is about successful communication. One goal in that process should be clarity and ease of understanding, rather than tripping over words that just don't 'sound' right to us- whatever it is that sounds natural to us.....

You've hit the nail on the head. The beauty of English is its adaptability, as much as BBC English might be aspired to, the language is readily accessible and understandable at a very basic level. For all the complexity that can be applied, in reality simple English functions well enough without it.

[Snark]

None can dispute the fact that English in it's myriad of forms is a particularly horrible polyglot.

It is also safe to say there are many forms of English which are perfectly understandable in one locale while being unintelligible in another.

Adding to this mess the comparative assets and attributes feminine of a particular personage (or the New York speech impediment) on a news show only serves to muddy the waters.

And then, according to the definitive textbook English, all who have posted on this topic so far have commited various errors, infractions and or discombobulations. Please note the topic of this thread is improper English.

To the point. The purpose of a language is to communicate without instigating a major world war from misunderstandings. With English there is, generally speaking, a reasonably right way to speak, write, and teach, with a shipload of minor variations. I think that all of you who have a basic grasp of this can agree that while there are several dozen more or less correct versions of English and a whole lot of questionable ones, there are two subdialect speakers that should never find themselves in the position of definitive authority, the teacher. (Nice run on, huh?)

These two are of course, cockney and slang laden, lazy Americaneeze. We encounter the latter rather frequently on these forums.

Sadly, however, many of the short time positions of employment taken here in Thailand are those darling wander-throughs, many of which spout one of those imcomprehensible noises. Imagine what next generation Thai-English will be!

For your (dis)edification, please consider the following. Adding grammatical notation as required, according to some highly esteemed scholars, there are 17 different ways to write or speak the following. So drop in a few comma's, a period or two, and have at it.

-What is this shitte stew?-

(IE: What is this? Shitte stew? Etc.)

[RDN]

... comma's ... 

What a pity - and you were doing so well...

[Richard W]

Might well be, but it sure as eggs are eggs a lot better than what his wife recieved from old "O.J."

Oh sorry he didn't do it did he?

On the balance of probabilities, he did.

[ProThaiExpat]

I commend to you teachers out there the film showing on HBO this week, whose title does not come to mind, but staring Kevin Kline. (The Emperors....)

Having encountered only a very few gifted teachers in my many years of formal education, I have always admired the "type" of teacher protrayed by Kline.

It is modeled after the English "don", I believe, and certainly a model teacher who speaks only correct English.

Perhaps I am a "purist" when it comes to speaking and writing English, that is one who aspires to speaking and wriitng correctly, without a regional accent. I would aspire to an accent one might call international. The BBC days of Edward R. Murrow come to mind.

Notwithstanding the foregoing, I am reminded of the story of the black ghetto fellow who was attending a very "pissy" cocktail party and in making the rounds, addressed a rather elegant lady as follows:

"Where are you from?

The lady replied: "Where I come from, we don't end our sentences in prepositions"

Wherein, the man replied: "OK, where do you come from, mother######er?"

[Snark]

...

[mbkudu]

In my experience, very few newish English teachers are even aware of the differences, and some students have received lower marks on tests simply because the student used, for example, an American English usage of a preposition of place, rather than the preposition used in British usage which the teacher was familiar with.

I hope you don't teach your pupils to use prepositions to end their sentences - like you just did.

Churchill once responded to an editor who made such a criticism as yours by writing to the editor, "This is the kind of impertinence up with which I shall not put."

You are living in the past, sir(?), specifically, Latin grammar rules. Do a little research and you'll see that your comments reflect the elitist grammarians of the past, and not the real world of common English usage today, in most cases.

I know nothing about Latin or any other grammar rules, but I DO know what, to me, sounds good English and what sounds bad - maybe because I went to a "grammar" school and was taught what they considered was "good" English

It appears to me that every generation allows more and more "bad" English to become acceptable. How many snooker and football commentators say "He hit that perfect"? Now we have a generation who don't know when to use adjectives and when to use adverbs. And maybe one day, their lack of basic English grammar skills will give them a problem when dealing with a person (say, at an Embassy) who expects "good" spoken and written English.

Of course English changes! What the #### was Shakespeare always going on about? That was some of the worst punishment I was ever subjected to as a youngster in high school. Analysing William Shakespeare? For God's sakes, I'd rather have a tooth pulled!

[RDN]

... comma's ... 

What a pity - and you were doing so well...

Comma. One of several characters in a series of incredibly boring stories my parents used to read to each other:

He went to the store comma bought some eggs comma then went back home period para. Cap t Trevor thought that was enough period frag.

And so on.

Thus I will belligerently claim I made no error but simply inserted a possessive for an unstated implied. I will be over in left field ranting about the phrase good English which is bad English and the proper terminology is properly proper English, should you knead further misguidance. (What about the other eight or ten foibles and liberties I tooked? Dersn't they count?) I needed to knead but, tired, kneed. They need not know now, no?

Newn: A noun hitherto unknown in English. Commonly created when one needs a thing and there is only a verb. IE: Twas brillig and the slithy toves...

An established newn is of course a knewn.

When one fails to convey their emplificated they have given a misconceptualization.

Gapbridging. When English fails to provide a decent connection between phrases. Also known as conjunctification.

Maybe we should have a thread on misdiomizations, libertations and persiflgizating. Chaucerians neede notte applie.

Blimey, I was only commenting on one little erroneous apostrophe... hate to think what we'd've got if I'd gone into more detail!

[The Gentleman Scamp]

PUPILS

I hope I don't offend any Americans by saying this, and I don't wish to, but 'Americanisms' have made teaching a pain in the arse for English speaking English teachers who speak and wish to teach original English.

It may also be worth adding that a Thai girl, no matter how beautiful - with an American accent, would turn me off and repel me the moment she opened her mouth.

To be fair, a Thai girl with a perfect English accent would be almost as bad but there's something like so, like irritating, false and acutely dumb about the American accent.

I have American friends who speak perfect American and it suits them because they are over confident and slightly irritating albeit nice people to hang out with once in a blue moon.

TEACHERS

I don't really think it's a great idea for Thai kids to learn English from those with strong regional U.K. accents but having said that, some of the teachers with those strong accents could be far better teachers than those who don't.

All the while there's a massive shortage of teachers though, the schools can't really be too fussy.

Mr T. has made things difficult for everyone involved in the teaching proffession.

If everyone who teaches in Thailand was fully qualified then they would either be at the university's or lingo schools - or Japan... Not earning 25-30K a month at some kindergarten with classes the size of small armies and no AC.

[Ajarn]

I hope I don't offend any Americans by saying this, and I don't wish to

Bullshit.

[DogNo1]

Scamp:

The plural of university is universities.

[simesnuts65]

Being Scottish and quite a patriot as far at least as my accent is concerned, I felt I had to point out that the grunter in question Lyce Doucet, is not in fact as one previous poster so cleverly suggested was a "SCOTT".

That woman does on occasion, sound slightly like an 'eckied'* Scot but is in fact,

a Canadian.

It has to be said that she is also a minger.

check the link below for your own verification.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/biographi...se_doucet.shtml

She does appear to have a long list of credentials but she is also in possession of a face like a bag of spanners.

This in my humble opinion, should be foremost in the minds of the producers of any BBC T.V. broadcasts.

I do agree that regional accents should be taken on their own individual merit however.

My kids have no trouble understanding my accent though the same might not be said if I had had, a few 'swallies'**

* under the influence of ecstasy possibly/probably in a night-club in Dundee.

** an aperitif/a good bevvie/ numerous 'units' of alcoholic beverage

[Johpa]

After all, when you're deciding what 'sounds' right, are you thinking grammar rules, or thinking about making your meaning clear? We're talking about the difference being prescriptive grammar, or descriptive grammar. I feel the descriptive angle is the more effective and natural of the two choices.

I agree that an understanding of grammar is very important in our lives, and that our students don't seem to be mastering the basics, as we did..

How many people know anything about modern grammtical thought? Pretty darn few, even amongst ESL/EFL teachers. Modern grammar is neither descriptive nor prescriptive but in the words of the Lord Noam, attempts to be explanatory. Trust me, unless you need a cure for insomnia you needn't bother trying to learn about what constitutes modern grammatical theory.

That being said, the gist of modern linguistic theory is that there is no "bad grammar" because the brain is hard wired for language and does not allow "bad grammar." That is not to say that some people use dialects that differ from others and sound "off" to them, but it is still not bad grammar.

A dialect may be one of the things that mark a person as being in one social class vs another. And some dialects are so far from the "standard" that they become unintelligible. It took me days to understand the first person I met from Edinborough and I can have trouble understanding some dialects of black English in the US. Teachers should be tolerant of any minor dialect variation that does not impede comprehension. Ending a sentence with a preposition is quite tolerable and quite grammatical unless you were speaking Latin perhaps.

If you think that is bad you shoud see the crappy textbooks my kid's school district is about to introduce. The chapter on pronouns forces them to learn about things like the nominative case. That should be real helpful as I always think about case structure in English when composing, .....NOT!

[ProThaiExpat]

Simesnuts65: My apologies for my suggesting that Ducet (phonetically pronounced "douchet" hehe) is a Scott.

One of my fondest memories is of the best castle in greater Europe,(in my opinion) Edinborough Castle and the German Oompah Band playing on the green below during August "Octorberfest".

I had absolutely no difficulty understanding the inhabitants of that fine city, and in fact, I have no recollection of a significant accent at all.

[stroll]

The accent of this region sounds similar to German, listened to from a distance, more gutherall (I am sure I mispelled this one, or is it misspelled-I am serious!).

But reading what you guys have to say, my goodness, does it really matter when or if a comma is omitted or in the right place (uhpps, have I got the tense right in the if sentence?), in this part of the world I am happy to be able to communicate in English at all.

I must say, I do feel inhibited using words I am not sure how to spell, in arguments it is an easy target for ridicule!

[ProThaiExpat]

Stroll: I have a very favorable impression of you through your posts, so I guess you are communicating well in this forum, if in fact that is the impression you want to leave.

It is a fact of life that we are judged by our appearance, our speech and our written communications.

It might make an interesting thread, but I am sure most of us in the forum make judgements or form opionions of other posters based on how they communicate and what they communicate.

As a English language purist, I like a well turned phrase, word pictures and something more than a one-line sarcastic or bitter blurb.

Everyone's posts eventually lead to a "forum reputation", primarily by the way we write, so in this forum there is no "accent" unless we choose to put one in our writing.

Quite liberating, when you think about it, the opportunity to be judged by using pure language and self expression not hindered by accent, nationality or appearance.

[DogNo1]

I hadn't realized that my students' grammar was hard-wired into their brains. I guess I'll have to get busy with the wire cutters and soldering iron!