I don't think it's so much a lack of declensions. In my college Latin
classes when the professor started talking about parts of speech like
direct and indirect objects, you could see eyes glazing over. Lots of
the kids in the class had never even heard of them, let alone know what
they were or how/when to use them. The problem is that grammar isn't
taught in the public schools any longer. Back when dinosaurs still
roamed the planet and I was in grade school <grin> I remember
diagramming sentences over and over. I asked my kids once if they
understood how to do this in their English classes and they looked at me
like I had sprouted another head. Kids today think that grammar is
married to grandpa.
It would be nice if things like grammar, spelling and punctuation were
actually encouraged in school. I remember asking one of my daughter's
teachers at a conference why, with Traci's terrible spelling, her paper
was scored as high as it was. I was told that these days the emphasis is
put on making the student feel good about him/herself rather than
correcting and possibly embarrassing them. I nearly fainted!! Isn't that
what education is for?? Teaching them the correct way to do things?? I'm
convinced that the only reason my children knew any of this stuff when
they graduated from high school was that I forced them to do it at home.
But at least they can read and write an intelligible sentence and do
enough math to ensure they're not getting shortchanged on their paychecks.
Okay, I'm off my soap box now :D I don't mean to offend any teachers on
the list. Just remember that opinions are free and worth what you pay
for them <grin>
Martha Krieg wrote:
Ah, but when you put your text into Word, the spell-checker squiggles
under the "colour" words, and unless you have the grammar-checker
turned on, it ignores the hypercorrection "he was nice to my mother
and I" --- an overreaction to "My mother and me went to the store
together." The teachers drilled so much on "My mother and *I* went
to the store" that people started using it everywhere. The downside to
a language with almost nothing left of its declensions is that a
majority of people have no clue what the different between a subject
and an object (direct, indirect, or of a preposition) is!
--
Ruth
You don't have to wear a red hat to have an attitude.
To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line:
unsubscribe lace-chat [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
