Re: OT: apostrophe's

Rich B <richardTHEOBVIOUSbrookman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Ex-Pat Andy wrote:

Rich B wrote:
On 29 May, 14:35, d...@xxxxxxxx (des) wrote:
Antony Gelberg <ant...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
WTF is going on? Everywhere I look lately I'm seeing signs,
posters etc with an apostrophe to "denote" plurality. Are thickos
becoming more numerous or did they change the rules without telling
me?

Answer 1).

Sadly.

Without wishing to split hairs, the thickos are neither more nor less
numerous than ever before. What has changed is that schools no
longer see this kind of thing as important, so no-one is taught it
any more. Not seriously, anyway. I once had a massive argument with
a chief examiner over this very issue. I wanted to knock marks off
a sample paper for poor spelling and punctuation. I was told in no
uncertain terms not to do so, as "as long as the communication is
clear, there is no justification to downgrade pupils who do not
observe these conventions". A Physics paper I could understand, but
this was *English Language* GSCE, FFS.

As an engineer working in the nucelar safety world, writing reports
is my "bread and butter" - if these reports are grammatically
incorrect and full of wrong spellings then they are insufficiently
precise to make any statements about the adequacy of safety of the
nucelar facilities to which they refer. I bet the examiner would
rapidly change his tune if he had to rely on the ability of his
candidates to communicate precisely and unambiguously about matters
affecting his own wellbeing. On this basis, I cannot even condone
physicists being unable to communicate properly.
Cheers

I quite agree. Skool exams are a little different. In my days, you could
lose marks in Chemistry for spelling mistakes (enzyme/enzime) - you could be
100% in the subject but lose marks for what is essentially a language error,
even if the meaning is perfectly clear. That's probably a bit unfair. I
could even see how that argument could be applied to English *Literature*.
But this guy was seriously suggesting that spelling and punctuation errors
could be ignored in an English *Language* examination, as long as the
meaning was clear. I left the profession when exam papers started to list
"some of the things you might like to say in answer to this question" after
printing the question.

I gave my seniors a translation English --> French and needless to say,
the level of French was fucking apocalyptic. When they saw my
corrections, one of them (the one with the _sublime_ arse whom I
mentioned) was like, 'whinge whinge, you're not my French teacher..'
*** off, bitch.

She's leaving the school this year, and I have her e-mail address and
her mobile number. One on the back burner, should my SO ever decide to
sod off for pastures new.

D.


--
Des
BMW K100-LT
http://coughlan.fr/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/yitzhakgoldstein/
.

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