21JunEnglish, communication and the “death” of the apostrophe.

The other day I attended a seminar where the head honchos of education for Dundee laid out what the Curriculum for Excellence would mean to education in the city over the next couple of decades and how that would affect us, the audience, as employers.  The room was filled with members of the Chamber of Commerce, Federation of Small Businesses and Institute of Directors, all desperate to discover whether future employees would be any better prepared for the world of work than current school leavers; the Heads of all the city’s secondary schools were also there.

The question I was burning to have answered concerned literacy skills.  So much of what one sees written these days is so badly put together it appears to have been translated from ancient Egyptian by a non-native speaker of English (or Egyptian).  Did the honchos think that was likely to improve?

The short – and to me very sad – answer was “No”.  There were references to txt lngage as a means of communication, and to the “death” of the apostrophe, but no hope was held out for the survival of one of the richest and subtlest languages on the planet.  Nor for basic literacy (the ability to string together a sentence that actually means what the writer thinks it does and that can be understood by readers), which is vital to most employees.

I know that English is a constantly developing language.  That’s one of the things that makes it so rich and so rewarding to study.  To limit people to the fringes of the language, which is effectively how it’s “taught” at the moment, seems to me depressing.  If you don’t teach children their own language why should they treasure it?  How can they roll words round their tongues like fine wine, savouring all the nuances?  Why – for heaven’s sake – would they even consider bothering to learn a second language?

Text language is very fine in its place, fitting a message onto a tiny screen and getting it across in the fewest possible characters, but its place does not include academic essays, company reports or any message aimed at a business reader.  It can have a place in advertising to a young audience but, I would argue, not to sell top-end cars or jewellery or even soap-powder.  It’s not persuasive, it’s abrupt tell-’em-and-move-on language.  I use it myself sometimes, but I’d never write web content or a brochure in txt.

And, while I would be the last person to require children to spend hours in the stultifying boredom of parsing, it is useful to know the parts of speech and the uses of punctuation – basic grammar.  Putting a comma in the wrong place can change the whole meaning of a sentence.  A missed apostrophe, or one in the wrong place, sets people’s teeth on edge; leaving it out can cause confusion.  If you’re trying to persuade someone to do or buy something none of these is a good strategy.

Good English is a subject (as you’ve probably guessed) that I feel strongly about.  I realise it makes me sound like that old fuddy-duddy, “Disgruntled of Tunbridge Wells”, but I think it’s really important.  Without proper literacy skills children are less employable.  They are also being deprived of a huge chunk of their heritage.  That is unkind and unforgivable. 

And the claim that a curriculum that allows it is one for “excellence” is a downright, barefaced, brass-necked, lie.  

Excellence requires effort, not the path of least resistance – both from the teachers and from the students.  It’s worth it in the end.  There’s the feeling of satisfaction at something achieved; there’s the knowledge that you’re much more likely to get a good job, and a liveable salary to go with it; not to mention the fact that all the glories of English literature, theatre, poetry and culture will be open to you.

Please – let “excellence” mean exactly that, not the easy way to keep bored kids sweet through their school years.

Thank you -?