English and The Written Word

I would like to give emphasis and three CHEERS to the proper use of English.

There is a big and continuing debate about examination results in English Language in the United Kingdom.   Over the last few years, examination passes in English have been increasing.   Isn’t that a good thing, I hear you say?    No it isn’t.

Since taking over in 2010, our Government has been trying to give priority to improving the standard of English taught in our schools.   

I am afraid to say that the STANDARDS of spoken and written English have fallen quite markedly in recent years.   This may in part be due to the resistance of teachers to mark too harshly so as not to discourage students, or simply the teaching itself that is at fault.  If a child is not told the correct way to write, spell or make their way in the world, how are they going to get the job they want if their applications are full of grammatical errors and spelling mistakes?  We have all heard of employers tearing their hair out when receiving badly written job applications.    Surely we owe it to future generations to make sure that they know how to apply for a job, they know how to write a convincing Curriculum Vitae and how to generate a good well-written and grammatically correct letter to go with it?  Without this knowledge, they will probably fail to even reach the first rung on the job application ladder, let alone reach the top!

The English language relies quite heavily on the correct use of ‘tense’.    There is one rule in particular which is being abused now by all sorts of people, even politicians.    Take the verb ‘to sit’.   More often than not, you now hear people say … ‘I was sat…’  when clearly it should be… ’I was sitting…’.    When bad English is not corrected, everybody starts using it and the correct way is gradually forgotten, which is a dreadful shame.   

Pronounciation  of the letter “H” has also been changing over the last few years.   The spelling of the word “aitch” in any dictionary is clearly written and should be pronounced ‘Aitch’ and not as is often used nowdays, ‘Haitch’.   I wince when I hear this!

Another rule which now seems to be disappearing is the one that says ‘You should never end a sentence with a preposition.’   For instance, take the sentence:   “Good language is the subject I am referring to.”    The word “to” should never be placed at the end of a sentence:  the correct wording should be…’The word to which I am referring…’.

These are just three examples of the way English has been downgraded over the last decade.  Ah well, if as people say we are living in a rapidly changing world, people who were taught to write and speak properly (I’m not including in this, the question of regional accents etc.), will just have to put up with the use of the new ‘bad’ language and forget how GLORIOUS the English written and spoken words used to be.