Standard English vs normal speech

[Gromit]

Hiya,

I would be grateful if you would read this link about a school in Sheffield that has banned what it calls 'slang'.

http://www.telegraph....-slang-in-school.html

I think it is idiotic and is bound to be a failure, what do you think?

Cheers,

Gromit.

[Ankou]

"The trust said using standard English would give its 1,100 students, who study in a working class area of Sheffield, a better chance of impressing employers at interviews."

i would agree with that. some lads i know from a young age still wouldn't know how to answer a phone in an office, let alone project an air of sophisitication (even if acting the part) in professional circles. their eloquence lends itself most favourably to working on building sites, waggling their tonkers and shouting awwwwwiiight darlin from scaffolding.

i love em to bits and they are me mates though. sometimes even i thinkn they talk in a different 'slang' language.

perhaps rather than banning it though, investment in elocution would be more advantageous for communicating in different social and networking circles. innit.

[vetuste_ennemi]

The article has been prematurely released ahead of its intended publication date of Apr 1st.

[ludwig]

// if someone were to use slang in an interview, that (to me) is as bad as a CV with spelling or grammatical errors, or turning up for an interview wearing a grubby shirt/stained tie. //

Same goes for me. It's all part of presenting yourself appropriately for the occasion. If you haven't got the ability or common sense to 'speak grand' (as QM puts it) and dress 'grand' in the right situations, then you're putting yourself at a big disadvantage in life.

I think all the school's trying to do is make them use school time as compulsory practice time to develop that ability, so they mean well, but it's doomed to failure, and does seem a bit silly.

My wife works in higher education. On more than one occasion she's had assignments handed in composed entirely of text speak - C U L8r etc.
Not as you might think some kind of ironic student prank, but as SERIOUS submissions. The students concerned were genuinely surprised when told it wasn't acceptable to do that, and they'd be marked accordingly.

[andy-hughes]

"It's not a case of policing or enforcing this policy at Springs Academy, we are simply encouraging it among the students," -is the quote from the school Gromit.

The term 'ban' was used by the newspaper, and does not reflect the school's ethos, or its implementation of it.

I entirely agree with the school's approach, which is not to 'ban' slang, but to ensure that pupils not only know the appropriate venues for the use of proper English, but what proper English actually is.

Part of living in the adult world is assimilating the need to use langaue appropriate to your surroundings and the people you encounter. I work with telephone engineers and perfectly happily use short sharp words to descibe malfunctioning equipment that i would not dream of using to my wife or children.

The essential thrust of the point is knowing about time and place for the use of langauge, which is not connected in any way with trying to prevent students from expressing themselves in their own idiom among their peers.

Any school that educates its studnets in the differences in language application, and encourages them to know correct English for the times it is necessary to use it, is to be encouraged.

The addition of words like 'cad' is simply added on to spin the piece towards making the school staff look like Dickensian martinets, which is to patently miss the entire point.

[anotheoldgit]

Gromit

You keep saying "it is idiotic", "bound to be a failure", and "it will not work".

How do you know this?

Many things are taught at school, apart from the usual academic subjects.

How about teaching them 'not to bully' 'not to be racist etc', 'sex education' 'protecting the environment' i.e. litter dropping etc. even the 'correct food to eat'.

Are you saying these are also 'idiotic', 'bound to be a failure' 'will not work', who knows unless one tries?

[jno]

my guess is it won't work because kids spend so much of their time at school, and invest so much social energy in it. If it was only for an hour a day, say, it might well be worth a try. Speaking slang isn't a problem as such; it's a problem if children can't speak in any other register, and school seems like a good place to teach other registers.

When jno jnr was picking up glottal stops from his friends I always made sure he didn't do it at home. My feeling was that he needed to be bilingual: abe to talk to his mates, but also aware that in the wider world the ability to pronounce T was important. In the long run, this worked.

[vivandorron]

Seriously, I do not object to the use of slang words; providing they do not have obscene connotations. However, I do find it difficult to keep pace with Internet Abbreviations; of which there are so many. :-

http://en.wiktionary....pendix:Internet_slang

Ron.

[anotheoldgit]

vivandorron

Looked all the way through your excellent link, but cannot come up with the Internet meaning for 'RON'. :0)

[Gromit]

I thought RON was Ready or Not.

[MarkRae]

The "bilingual" comment is pertinent.

I can still remember vividly realising at about the age of six that "I don't know" was what I said to my teachers, "Ah dinna ken" was what I said to my father and "Ah divvent kna" was what I said to my mother, but that they all meant the same thing... :-)

[DTCwordfan]

we cant have this, not at all.

It will start to make the North of England more competitive to take jobs and investment away from the South. Mind you, we could do with some inward investment down here, so I guess we'll have to take the rolling "r" out of our Cornish and Devonian schools.

[Ankou]

i use it for 'right old nutter'.

[vivandorron]

Spot on Ankou. Lol.

Ron.( Or should that now become Ronald.!!)

[anotheoldgit]

/// It will start to make the North of England more competitive to take jobs and investment away from the South. ///

Yes thanks to such programmes as 'Eastenders' and 'The Only Way Is Essex', we all know how they talk down South.

[FredPuli43]

The Only Way is Essex, AOG ? Don't be misled.Down here in the South, most of us speak like sloanes, as heard in Made in Chelsea. (This is an accent called 'Totally Yah')
Children have to learn what language and vocabulary is appropriate for different occasions. Slang expressions are appropriate on some occasions only. But it is a shame that some accents still carry an 'image' with them, good or bad, here.

[joko]

as with most things, they need to find the middle ground here

there is definitely some merit in the idea - the way many people speak and spell nowadays is often terrible... and there are hundreds of posts on here from people complaining about it

so the problem lies in its execution...

it is important that people know the rights and wrongs of grammar and spelling and language etc, because so many today use text speak, and have terrible spelling etc, and if asked, would not actually know why it was incorrect.

there is nothing wrong with text speak - in texts - but so many now seem to think its cool and i even heard someone say it was 'the future' and that anyone with a brain knows how to read text speak - which is not the point really.

i too have received emails from people asking for work experience etc, written in dreadful ways, some capitalize every word, some no capitals at all, one handwritten on had a circle above each letter I ... the list of errors goes on and on... so it seems that many are unaware of the notion that there is a time and a place and how to choose appropriately...

[Gromit]

^ ^ ^ ^ ^
You need to get your Shift / Caps key fixed.

[joko]

it works fine gromit.

obviously you didn't understand the point i was making about a time and a place and appropriateness...