British Expatriate Network

I was reading an article for one of my classes, by Mina Shaughnessy, regarding the issues with the added 's' and she comments how all around the world "students of formal English throughout the world find this inflection difficult". This got me thinking and I can't ever remember this being an issue. I know I have never taught englsih in the UK but I don't remember any of my English teachers talking about it at all. I do remember them going over the normal problems of 'there, their and they're' and other such words that sound the same but spelt differently.

so, I was wondering how all of you found/find English and what problems you have with the written language.

first of all, all you teachers out there - if you taught in the UK do you remember any common problems your students encountered? What age group did you teach? did you ever change age groups and if so did you notice a change in what was the problem of the age of the child regarding writing in English? did you ever have any students where English wasn't their first language and if so, how did you find their English? Have you taught in the US or any other country outside of the UK where English was involved and if so, how did you find the problems these students encountered compared to the UK? If you are an American and have moved to the UK, I would also be interested in your comments to this. )

Now, everyone else - if you don't mind sharing, how was your English while you were in school? Were you a student who excelled in English and it was never a problem or were you someone who always struggled with English as a class and the problems you had as a child still haunt you today? Has your English improved since you left school? Can you remember any specific problems you had as a student and do you still have problems today with certain words, spellings etc. Were you taught formal grammar and how they were used and if so, do you remember if this helped in any way?

Now back to the 's' - anyone ever had a problem getting this wrong? I have to say I see it all the time here. However, the majority of the students that have a problem using the letter 's' on the end of a word have English as a second language and of course that makes sense and I can understand why they struggle with it. But, I have been astonished at the number of students where English is their first language and they don't get it either. Sometimes it is a case that they just forget to put an 's' on the end of a word but they do it over and over and over again as if the 's' just doesn't exist in their spellings. Sometimes it is a case of them not knowing and struggle just as much with the 's' (by the way, we are talking both verbs and pluralising) as they do with 'there, their and they're'.

If any of you have anything else that I haven't mentioned that you would like to share, please do. I'm going to have to write a paper in this class and I like the idea of doing it on the differences between the cultures so your information could be useful down the line )

This looks as though it should be three threads!

I'm not quite sure what the "troublesome s" is. I see more of a problem with the apostrophe and omited s, following an s. I would swear that wasn't around when I went to school.

I gathered that I was a little unusual (keep your rude remarks to yourselves) in that I could construct a pretty good sentence without understanding why it was good.

That doesn't look very useful, does it. oops

I never had trouble with English unless someone else wrote it.

O-Levels
English Language B
English Literature F

I just read a blog rant on this very topic (the 's malarkey) not 5 minutes ago....

http//bloggasm.com/category/blog-reviews/

I think it's a very common error, so I do try not to let it drive me nuts. But there is one particular poster on here (who I will not name but who isn't JohnA) who always adds an apostrophe with an s -whether it's a verb or noun or possessive..... and -from the content of their posts - they are intelligent, so it must be a hard thing for some to grasp or perhaps it was never taught. Or perhaps they do it deliberately to piss grammar freaks off. lol

We never had any real instruction in grammar when I was at school (late 70s, early 80s) (note 70s and 80s do not have apostrophes, they are plurals ;)) but it seemed to come naturally to me -I noticed grammatical mistakes and my parents told me the specific rules when I asked.


I notice that a shameful number of people do not seem to realise that affect and effect are two different words with different meanings. Far too many people confuse Pacific and specific. shock At least affect and effect have similarities in meaning and use.... there are other examples, I'll add them if I remember them.

People often use "mute point" instead of the correct "moot point" and "one fowl swoop" instead of the correct "one fell swoop" But I guess these are a little more forgiveable. Still wrong, though.

That link is an interesting rant, it appears that I have been wrong when using "it" in the possessive. I have been using "it's" for both the possessive and for "it is".

The rantor did cause a bump for me with "I know that I have my share of typos and grammar errors, but I’m talking about the kind of things that are repeated so much that I’m not quite sure that the blogger even knows the grammatical rule in question."

Surely that should be "grammatical errors" or "errors of grammar"

Somebody has written a book, ripping Strunk to shreds, on the basis that we have a living language.

there was an "off of" in that rant which bothered me and interupted my reading. I found that ironic. D

http://www.learnenglish.org.uk/grammar/a...hes01.html


this is one of those things that I think depends on your age. I was always taught to use an apostrophe even though we are talking about a plural so it is a habit that is difficult to break. However, it is without the apostrophe in the US so I should get used to it.

Were you taught to use an apostrophe to show pluralism with letters - f's or fs?

affect and effect are the ones I have to think about. the more I use them the better I am getting, I think :roll: , but I do have to think about which one is the correct one to use rather than it coming naturally.

Forgot to say thanks for that link )

Now here's a question - if you are taught grammar rules before you have perfect the written language, does this create the confusion with such issues as "it's" and "its" as well as "whose" and "who's"?

:roll:

No I would not use an apostrophe -that would imply belonging to f, which is a possibility: "left-handed students find it hard to create the f's curve without smudging the ink."

As I understand it, the rule of thumb is "are there two versions with the potential for confusion?". The apostrophe is uded to denote missing letters when two words have been combined. With plurals there is no combination, so the only justification for using an apostrophe would be to minimize confusion. In this case fs has no other meaning. I would, however, (probably) capitalise the F for clarity.

With the years, I would see 70's children as meaning the children of 1970 -not the children of the 70s. That would be the 70s' children. ;)

As I recall, the last time I looked for a definitive answer on this, the answer was that there isn't one. Both versions are considered acceptable. But I know I'm right.

Oh and here:

http://www.pcrrn.co.uk/apostrophe/index.htm

Now I'm going to bed, I'm knackered. I'll look at your link in the morning. :)

I always thought of affect as the verb, the action; and effect as the noun, the result of the action, but I'm damned if I can say why.

I know, from the radio, that shrinks use affect as a noun, but I don't know if it is just shrinkspeak, or if my version is not valid any longer or perhaps, never was.

I don't like your link Ben, it says I've been doing things wrong for ever. It would be neat to get a book on grammar from the forties to see if it was the same when I should have learned it.

/nuthin' but love for ya

:roll:

Look smartie pants, I know you weren't taught any real grammar - it was the plural 'you' meaning anyone/everyone :roll:

And I know you are right - you always are. ;) However, I think Londonsquare asking the question regarding what he was taught in the 40s makes a good point. There are certain points of punctuation that have changed over the years and there are some grammar rules that are now considered obsolete/not worth forcing the issue due to language usage having changed. the use of the comma with 'and' for example is one form of punctuation that has been taught to kids differently over the years and you can just about tell the age of a person by the way they use it, especially over here.

Has anyone noticed native English speakers, especially British ones, add an 's' to the end of a verb form when it shouldn't be there or leave it out when it should (you knows I like it, he like that blue coat)?

Good morning! I can't understand why I missed this one last night, but here's my take on the subject.

I was taught very little grammar but English was instinctive to me too (although a combination of being over here and using the internet has led me to mistrust my insticnts, so I am not as sure as I was). I knew if a word or sentence was correct just by looking at it.

I have never had trouble with the 's' with one exception, ie 'the witch's cat' never looks right to me.

It's frustrating to see 'it's' when it should be 'its' and 'the Wilson's' instead of 'the Wilsons' although the latter is very very common in the US so perhaps it's correct here?

An 's' after an f....? I don't think I can think of an example of when that would be correct for a plural (one roof, two rooves; one dwarf, two dwarves; one leaf, two leaves) therefore it's only used for possession.

I taught primary school children in Kent, and children from many parts of the UK while I was in Germany. I don't recall there being problems with children omitting the 's' from verbs in their writing. However I can imagine it occurs often in places where it happens in the regional dialect. For example, I have a friend from Norfolk who used to leave the 's' off in her speech - "she like that" instead of "she likes that", so I can imagine that children from that region might do the same in their writing.

Regarding the article on the lovely green background, it has become very common to write as one speaks. With the advent of the internet and blogging it is common to write ungrammatically. I was taught that written and spoken English were different and that one should try to make good sentences in writing, substituting appropriate words for colloquial or idiomatic phrases wherever possible. I think that this will fade away in time as people prefer speed of communication over the musicality and rhythm of well-written English.

brb

Using colloquialisms in writter English can add an extra layer of depth, but only in first person narratives in literature or journalistic writings.

imo.

/pretentious, moi?

Using "f" as the example fooled me, I though you were getting angry lol
I use "f"s. Or did you mean words that end in "f"? I see that KG posted just before I started this, and she covers words ending in "f". I have seen "thiefs" used as a plural, in a newspaper.

I was taught to use a comma wherever I would have paused, were I to speak the words. If the comma is omitted, the pause can be implied by the context; but sometimes the context is not apparent until reading further; the mind must retroactively rearrange what has been read.

There was a study, years ago, that looked at the grammar of creole languages that developed in various places, where small groups of people were isolated, often they were mixed language groups. The resulting creole languages all had the same grammatical base, a much simplified version of modern language. We have all of our past and present thingies, but we don't need them, the context tells us the sense. Adding or subtracting the "s" doesn't make the meaning less understandable.