Re: Definitely Defiant

["Susan W. Gallagher" <sgallagher -at- STARBASECORP -dot- COM>]

Hal Snyder wrote...

> The "Defini/ately and Egnlish teachers" thread has worked its way around
> our list for the past few days. Yesterday, a former lurker "delurked" and
> suggested that engineers had been damaged by 12+ years of poorly taught
> English.

> Although I have a tendancy to agree with those who think that we learned
> all the grammar we could by 8th grade, it has been my experience that two
> students, sitting in the same class, receiving the same instruction, often
> receive different grades (which is a polite way of saying that some students
> learn better than other students, and some of these students become doctors
> and other engineers). Yet both were taught the same grammar and English
> mechanics. If engineers (and some tech writers) use poor grammar, let's
> their shortcomings where they belong--on them and not their teachers.

[snip some summary information]

(and she issues a warning as she mounts the soapbox ;-)  )

As a parent, I've had my problems with the teachers my
daughter had in school (and I'm so thankful that stage of
my - and her - life is over!). Not just English teachers...
But that's another topic. And while I'm ready to place
at least part of the blame on teachers who are burned out
and don't care and systems that require more paper work
that teaching from their employees, I've gotta point out
some aspects of our society that really bother the h***
out of me.

Aspect one... Peer pressure. My daughter spoke grammatically
correct English (including the proper use of adverbs like
'well') as a toddler. But when she started school, her
grammatical skills folded like a house of cards because it
wasn't cool... She sounded like a nerd. And the older she
got, the worse this phenom. became.

Aspect two... The media. I'm sorry -- but I find the current
Pepsi Cola commercial (where the kid sucks his way into the
bottle and his sister yells out "mom! He done it again!")
***really*** annoying! Not only is it a ridiculous grammatical
error, and one that is highly unlikely to be made by a child
of that age, but it reinforces the "uncoolness" of proper
speach patterns (see "Peer Pressure" above).

So, what do we, as professional communicators, do? Boycot
Pepsi? Teach our children what we can and try to forget the
problems of the rest of the world? Or turn around and blame
the whole bleedin' mess on the school system where it
rightfully belongs?  ;-)

Just a thought...

Sue Gallagher
StarBase Corp, Irvine CA
sgallagher -at- starbasecorp -dot- com