grammar_whores: I teach at an elementary school in Fairb

Nilo (

nilo) wrote in

grammar_whores,
@ 2005-02-01 12:59:00

Current mood:

confused

I teach at an elementary school in Fairbanks, Alaska. I just was scolded by my building principal for correcting a a new sign on a school door. The sign said, "Parents Lounge". As in a command? All parents coming into the school were compelled to go into that room and lounge?

So, I whipped out my handy marker and was inserting an apostrophe when my principal came along. She told me we must not be grammar snobs. Right, at an educational institution, it's never good form to actually try to educate.

(Post a new comment)

	volandum 2005-02-03 01:41 am UTC (link)
	Hmph. (Reply to this)

	buggeration 2005-02-03 01:51 am UTC (link)
	Yes, it's handy, when one is in charge of educating impressionable minds to display one's ignorance and stupidity in an attempt to make the 'common man' feel at home. (Reply to this) (Thread)

	no27 2005-02-03 02:09 am UTC (link)
	"...educating impressionable minds to display one's ignorance and stupidity..." educating impressionable minds, to display one's ignorance and stupidity (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	buggeration 2005-02-03 03:14 am UTC (link)
	PEDANT ARRRGGHHHhhw Yes, alright, alright. (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	volandum 2005-02-03 05:11 am UTC (link)
	Pedant who beat me to it! Oh well, I shall have my chances. (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	buggeration 2005-02-03 05:35 am UTC (link)
	Aye. Patience, my sweet. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	no27 2005-02-03 06:45 am UTC (link)
	Not a pedant... a grammar whore. (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	no27 2005-02-03 06:48 am UTC (link)
	I see it like this: If you're criticizing people for showing their ignorance, I can criticize you for showing yourignorance. (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	_zak_ 2005-02-03 07:18 am UTC (link)
	You're missing a space... (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	no27 2005-02-03 07:26 am UTC (link)
	That's because HTML hates me. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	buggeration 2005-02-03 07:39 am UTC (link)
	I'm no hypocrite, by damn! I was criticizing the mindset behind the sort of people who could possibly imagine that being concerned with proper punctuation in a school was a bad thing. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	buggeration 2005-02-03 07:37 am UTC (link)
	I love the irony of this statement. (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	volandum 2005-02-03 02:27 pm UTC (link)
	As do I. (Reply to this) (Parent)

kittyface
2005-02-03 03:05 am UTC (link)

I am studying to be a Primary (what is called an Elementary teacher in the US) teacher in Australia. When I went for my last teaching round (I'm not sure what you call them over there, but it's when you go and work in a school being supervised by an "experienced teacher" for a certain period and are assessed), I visited the classroom I would be in and the teacher I would be supervised by. She had labels on various items in this classroom, and when I saw the label "CALLANDER" on the calendar, I asked to be changed. And I was. I wouldn't have been able to control myself.

(Reply to this) (Thread)

	ladydiana 2005-02-03 03:18 am UTC (link)
	"Student teacher" (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	kittyface 2005-02-03 03:19 am UTC (link)
	Yes, we are called "student teachers", but the actual experience of going to the school and being a student teacher is called teaching rounds. (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

kittyface
2005-02-03 03:27 am UTC (link)

I wanted to add that the way the term "teaching rounds" is used is actually quite odd. We don't have "a round", or "go on a round", even if it is just one period of being a student teacher. It is always expressed as "going on rounds" or "being on rounds". I'm not sure why (this is why my sentence above seems as if it reads incorrectly, although it is actually correct, because it contains a vernacular term used at Universities in Victoria).

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	dda 2005-02-03 08:12 am UTC (link)
	This sounds very similar to how doctors talk about going to see the hospitalised patients; they "go on rounds." Perhaps the term crossed over from the medical profession? (Reply to this) (Parent)

	missus_emm 2005-02-03 03:58 am UTC (link)
	Wow. See, I can't control myself with matters like that. I would have felt compelled to make a scene. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	glowing_dragon 2005-02-03 12:07 pm UTC (link)
	I would have asked if it had anything to do with these things, made a big scene, and then asked to be transferred. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	urbankat 2005-02-03 04:48 am UTC (link)
	My last school had a sign that read 'teachers room'. (Reply to this)

	linnelleth 2005-02-03 05:32 am UTC (link)
	Maybe it was just an incomplete statement. The full statement being: "Here is where the parents lounge when they visit our school." Of course, such a statement would be too long for a sign on your average school door and it had to be shortened. At least you could think of it that way in order to quell the desire to hit your principal with a large trout. ;) (Hi, Nilo!) (Reply to this) (Thread)

	nilo 2005-02-03 07:34 am UTC (link)
	Well hi! Nice to see you! My back goes up instinctively whenever told "we" must or must not be something anyway. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	psychophrenic 2005-02-03 05:41 am UTC (link)
	She told me we must not be grammar snobs. School is the best place to be a grammar snob! (Reply to this)

	nostalgicme 2005-02-03 07:46 am UTC (link)
	Am I the only one bothered by the "I just was scolded by my.."? (Reply to this) (Thread)

	nilo 2005-02-03 07:55 am UTC (link)
	Sorry. You're right. I'm embarrassed. I should have said, "I was just scolded by..." I think either are correct, but the way I wrote it was needlessly awkward. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	We Must Not Be Grammar Snobs??!!??! dpaul007 2005-02-03 08:11 am UTC (link)
	And this, my lords and ladies, is a shining example of the difference between a "teacher" (nilo) and an "educator" (principal in need of a massive cluebat application). I would have exploded, then drawn multiple apostrophes on his/her exposed dermal area(s) with indelible ink. (Reply to this) (Thread)

	Re: We Must Not Be Grammar Snobs??!!??! gypsymila 2005-02-03 01:19 pm UTC (link)
	I like this idea. May I use it the next time I am scolded for being a grammar snob? I'll even attribute the idea to you, on said dermal area. (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	Re: We Must Not Be Grammar Snobs??!!??! dpaul007 2005-02-03 02:51 pm UTC (link)
	Slapping my LJ username on someone with indelible ink, as punishment? I like you. VERY much. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	annarama 2005-02-03 09:11 am UTC (link)
	Hmm, I wonder if she would have reacted more positively if you made it seem like you were just being rebellious and marking up the sign. ;) (Reply to this)

	thefragile7393 2005-02-03 04:00 pm UTC (link)
	I've found that the more education a person possesses, the more likely they are very very stupid. (Reply to this) (Thread)

ms_daisy_cutter
2005-02-04 06:21 am UTC (link)

Well, to use John Taylor Gatto's distinction, such people are schooled, but not necessarily educated, in the etymological sense of the word: that one has been led out of ignorance. (I'm not a blind worshipper of Gatto, but he makes some very good points, and this is one of them.)

I've seen the word highbrow, which hasn't been used much in recent years, defined as "a person educated beyond his intelligence." However, I think that definition might better apply to what you're talking about here.

Of course, we should draw a distinction between ivory-tower cluelessness and plain ol' lack of common sense...and people who get degrees in education, psychotherapy, business, etc. without knowing how to construct a basic sentence, or do simple sums without a calculator.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	thefragile7393 2005-02-04 09:13 am UTC (link)
	Yes, I completely agree with you. The valedictorian of the high school class that graduated before mine had a 4.1 or 4.2 GPA, and his spelling was horrible. A great example is "pepperonie," which was part of his comment to me in my yearbook. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	quasievil82 2005-02-03 04:41 pm UTC (link)
	You split an infinitive, whore. (Reply to this) (Thread)

	volandum 2005-02-03 05:23 pm UTC (link)
	So? (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	quasievil82 2005-02-03 05:30 pm UTC (link)
	I find it amusing when people rant about grammar and then make prescriptivist blunders. (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	volandum 2005-02-03 05:32 pm UTC (link)
	Very well, though I'd perhaps argue that your correction was more prescriptive than the rant you corrected. (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	quasievil82 2005-02-03 05:37 pm UTC (link)
	It's called sarcasm. If I actually ascribed to prescriptivism, I would have corrected more than the split infinitive. (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	volandum 2005-02-03 05:38 pm UTC (link)
	Point conceded. See you around, then. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	ms_daisy_cutter 2005-02-04 06:23 am UTC (link)
	While I'm not up on all the fine points of prescriptivism (though I do know what it is), I thought that getting medieval on the split-infinitive's ass had fallen by the wayside. We speak a language with a Germanic wordstock; we're not bound to follow the grammar rules of Latin. (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

quasievil82
2005-02-04 06:52 am UTC (link)

If we're discussing orthography, then putting an apostrophe is just as prescriptively a grammatical requirement as not splitting infinitives. If we were not bound to follow the grammar rules of Latin and follow other Germanic languages, we wouldn't use any apostrophe. Most prescriptive rules we have are counter-Germanic, such as not ending a sentence with a preposition.

Additionally, if we're specifically talking about punctuation, then without commas, the interpretation of the phrase could not be a command.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

superneo
2005-02-04 07:09 pm UTC (link)

Many grammatical issues have a highly contested status. Some of them are argued without purpose, as with the serial comma. It is necessary, according to all grammatical texts, but you will find some arguing that it is optional (it is not, but in the past ten years, the MLA and APA have gone back and forth with it). Ending sentences with prepositions also has heavily entrenched battle lines. You'll find that there are those who insist upon leaving infinitives un-split. An interesting way to determine whether they are being driven by the rule or by the functional, grammatical foundations of the rule is to see whether they divide other verb phrases. For example, "if we're specifically talking" is grammatically incorrect--"we are talking" is the complete verb and should not be split. So prescriptively, it must be, "if we're talking specifically." As you can see, each person draws the line at a different point. Some people care about split infinitives and others do not, and many that care do so only because of the rule and not because of the underlying principles that warranted the rule.

Since we're in this thread about prescriptivist blunders, allow me to point out another from the reply below. Here is the sentence:

"If we were not bound to follow the grammar rules of Latin and follow other Germanic languages, we wouldn't use any apostrophe."

I have a great deal of difficulty parsing this sentence. I can understand the meaning, but technically, the sentence is a mess. Either this sentence is not parallel, meaning that both instances of "follow" should be preceded by "to" (but that would create a relationship between Latin and the Germanic family which I think the author did not intend), or the second "follow" really should be "followed" (but I would suggest 'instead followed' for clarity), though the argument still doesn't pan out very well. It's not that most prescriptive rules are counter-Germanic, it's that many of our grammatical rules don't fit within the structure of modern German, which is not entirely reflective of the Germanic family of languages.

Germanic languages that do not use apostrophes have other structural replacements for them. English does not, because English is not a pure Germanic language, and because it has evolved independently of the family. We have apostrophes, which neither Romance languages nor other Indo-European languages tend to have, and because apostrophes help to classify nouns, appropriate use of possessive apostrophes is essential to comprehension and is beyond the prescriptivist vs. naturalist argument. Many usage rules ARE derived from Romance languages (and, in turn, Latin). So you could say that we are bound to the rules of Latin in some cases. Neither position here really grapples with English as a hybrid language, so continuing to simplify to Latin and a perceived notion of "Germanic" languages won't yield very productive results.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

ms_daisy_cutter
2005-02-05 09:33 am UTC (link)

Thanks for the explanations. While I'm a word and etymology buff, and I can certainly write without a problem, some of the finer points of grammar are lost on me, especially the jargon — and double-especially the names of cases in languages that are markedly more grammatically complex than English (e.g., Latin, German, Greek, and the Slavic tongues).

I did know that English is not purely Germanic, and that German does not use apostrophes. What I didn't fully grasp until you laid it out, however, was that because English is more than the sum of its parts (Germanic and Latin, with Old French counted as "Latin" for the purpose of this statement), there's really no use looking to just one other language for rules.

Personally, I admire Winston Churchill's response to the nitpicker hung up on not splitting the infinitive, but I assume everyone in this community is familiar with that quip... ;-) I also think that had Gene Roddenberry not dared to split the infinitive for the opening credits of Star Trek, somehow English would be a bit poorer.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

superneo
2005-02-05 01:52 pm UTC (link)

It's an easy mistake, because English has the customary classification of "Germanic," which tends to ignore the impact of the Norman invasion and English's Great Vowel Shift, among other contributing factors. The finer points of grammar, as you suggest, don't necessarily affect one's ability to write/communicate, and so are best only debated or criticized in forums such as this.

Touché on the Roddenberry, I might add. Though I believe "to go boldly" would have worked, it has more punch in the split form. I can't take issue with that, especially since the whole narration is non-prosaic.

I'm glad I could help! (Note that I am not this picky in real life.)

(Reply to this) (Parent)

	laurajpetri 2005-02-03 09:50 pm UTC (link)
	What a dick! You should have drawn one right between her eyes. (Reply to this)

	claidheamhmor 2005-02-04 12:17 am UTC (link)
	Thank goodness there are actually teachers like you around, Nilo! (Reply to this)

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