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| Is good grammar still important? | Is good grammar still important? |
| (5 months later) | |
| Charlie Higson, comedian and author | Charlie Higson, comedian and author |
| Language is a uniquely human attribute, one of the things that makes us what we are. We are all born with the faculty to use it and all languages conform to the same basic patterns and structures. The idea that we might need a huge rulebook telling us how to use it properly is ludicrous. People all round the world, and for thousands upon thousands of years, have been using language to communicate perfectly well without needing to be told how to do it by a bunch of grammar Nazis who think that the way they talk and write is the correct, unchanging way. | Language is a uniquely human attribute, one of the things that makes us what we are. We are all born with the faculty to use it and all languages conform to the same basic patterns and structures. The idea that we might need a huge rulebook telling us how to use it properly is ludicrous. People all round the world, and for thousands upon thousands of years, have been using language to communicate perfectly well without needing to be told how to do it by a bunch of grammar Nazis who think that the way they talk and write is the correct, unchanging way. |
| I once met a very interesting guy from the OED who was fed up with people misunderstanding what a dictionary is. It's not a set of rules about how to use language, it's a set of observations about how it's used, which is why it needs to be constantly updated. Language changes, it is not fixed, and the only function it needs to perform is to be understood. For Toby Young et al to pretend not to understand perfectly clear English in the academics' letter to Gove is pathetic. Over to you, Adolf (I'm playing the Nazi card early on this one). | I once met a very interesting guy from the OED who was fed up with people misunderstanding what a dictionary is. It's not a set of rules about how to use language, it's a set of observations about how it's used, which is why it needs to be constantly updated. Language changes, it is not fixed, and the only function it needs to perform is to be understood. For Toby Young et al to pretend not to understand perfectly clear English in the academics' letter to Gove is pathetic. Over to you, Adolf (I'm playing the Nazi card early on this one). |
| Quentin Letts, columnist and sketchwriter at the Daily Mail | Quentin Letts, columnist and sketchwriter at the Daily Mail |
| Ah yes, the grammar Nazis. Ve haf ways of making you parse! Like you, Charlie, I dislike the ideas of incorrigible pedants – I imagine them with wheedling voices and maybe leatherette patches on their sports jacket elbows – who pick up writers on their grammatical solecisms. Yet I can see the value of grammar, and I am not so sure that Toby Young, who is doing more for poor kids than Anthony Crosland ever did, is wrong to insist on grammar being taught in schools. | Ah yes, the grammar Nazis. Ve haf ways of making you parse! Like you, Charlie, I dislike the ideas of incorrigible pedants – I imagine them with wheedling voices and maybe leatherette patches on their sports jacket elbows – who pick up writers on their grammatical solecisms. Yet I can see the value of grammar, and I am not so sure that Toby Young, who is doing more for poor kids than Anthony Crosland ever did, is wrong to insist on grammar being taught in schools. |
| Grammar is the coat hanger on which language can hang. It provides structure for sentences the way door lintels can prevent a house collapsing. I will not do a Lynne Eats, Shoots and Leaves Truss on you but it is worth remembering the old chestnut, "Charles the First walked and talked half an hour after his head was cut off". Without punctuation/grammar the sentence makes no sense. | Grammar is the coat hanger on which language can hang. It provides structure for sentences the way door lintels can prevent a house collapsing. I will not do a Lynne Eats, Shoots and Leaves Truss on you but it is worth remembering the old chestnut, "Charles the First walked and talked half an hour after his head was cut off". Without punctuation/grammar the sentence makes no sense. |
| Some lefties put it about that grammar is a horrid thing because it is "elitist". They say grammar should not be taught in state schools because it perpetuates privilege. What rot. This approach simply smacks of indolence by teachers who are putting grammar in the "too hard" basket. | Some lefties put it about that grammar is a horrid thing because it is "elitist". They say grammar should not be taught in state schools because it perpetuates privilege. What rot. This approach simply smacks of indolence by teachers who are putting grammar in the "too hard" basket. |
| We should teach grammar to our poorest pupils to make sure that they have the ability to express themselves clearly and compete with children who have been to private school. | We should teach grammar to our poorest pupils to make sure that they have the ability to express themselves clearly and compete with children who have been to private school. |
| CH: For God's sake, Quentin, they do teach grammar in state schools. You can't teach English without teaching grammar, it's inherent. All three of my boys have been through the state system, and they're perfectly able to read and write. And our teachers are not indolent: indeed, I think you'll find that teaching is considerably harder work than tossing off a few lightly opinionated columns once in a while. They are the ones working at the coalface, struggling day to day to educate our kids with limited resources, and I think they know a great deal more about teaching than Michael "let's make things better by fucking them up" Gove. | CH: For God's sake, Quentin, they do teach grammar in state schools. You can't teach English without teaching grammar, it's inherent. All three of my boys have been through the state system, and they're perfectly able to read and write. And our teachers are not indolent: indeed, I think you'll find that teaching is considerably harder work than tossing off a few lightly opinionated columns once in a while. They are the ones working at the coalface, struggling day to day to educate our kids with limited resources, and I think they know a great deal more about teaching than Michael "let's make things better by fucking them up" Gove. |
| Surely the question being asked is whether children should have separate grammar lessons, specially designed to put them off reading and writing for ever? If you really want the poorest kids to compete with those who have been to private school, double the education budget, pay our state school teachers more and invest in their schools. | Surely the question being asked is whether children should have separate grammar lessons, specially designed to put them off reading and writing for ever? If you really want the poorest kids to compete with those who have been to private school, double the education budget, pay our state school teachers more and invest in their schools. |
| QL: My goodness, you make our teachers sound like a veritable convocation of saints. Both my parents were teachers (private sector) and I have come across plenty of thumb-twiddlers and work-dodgers in the school common room. | QL: My goodness, you make our teachers sound like a veritable convocation of saints. Both my parents were teachers (private sector) and I have come across plenty of thumb-twiddlers and work-dodgers in the school common room. |
| Separate lessons for grammar may not be required – 40 minutes on sentence construction would drive anyone mad – but I would welcome a strong emphasis on grammar. Sometimes I receive letters and emails which are so badly written they read like drunken Esperanto. I simply do not believe this image you create of a kingdom in which smiling children are currently being taught everything they need to know if they are to write clear English. As for today's spelling standards, aieeee! | Separate lessons for grammar may not be required – 40 minutes on sentence construction would drive anyone mad – but I would welcome a strong emphasis on grammar. Sometimes I receive letters and emails which are so badly written they read like drunken Esperanto. I simply do not believe this image you create of a kingdom in which smiling children are currently being taught everything they need to know if they are to write clear English. As for today's spelling standards, aieeee! |
| The goal of enabling all children to write a clean, clear sentence is not just some airy-fairy desire to recreate the prose of Kipling. Michael Gove is not, as his critics lazily claim, a throwback. He is a real meritocrat in that he is trying to make the educational system see that excellence is the greatest liberator of talent, not a suppressor of the poor. Teaching children the "boring" rules of grammar will help them with job applications. It will also, by the by, train their minds. Grammar is not just about grammar: it is also about logic and intellectual rigour. We need those skills if our country is to compete with the likes of China, India, Russia and Brazil. | The goal of enabling all children to write a clean, clear sentence is not just some airy-fairy desire to recreate the prose of Kipling. Michael Gove is not, as his critics lazily claim, a throwback. He is a real meritocrat in that he is trying to make the educational system see that excellence is the greatest liberator of talent, not a suppressor of the poor. Teaching children the "boring" rules of grammar will help them with job applications. It will also, by the by, train their minds. Grammar is not just about grammar: it is also about logic and intellectual rigour. We need those skills if our country is to compete with the likes of China, India, Russia and Brazil. |
| CH: Yes, we British once ruled the world with our firm grasp of grammar, applying its rules to oppress and exploit the ungrammared dusky hordes. And now we are in danger of being swamped by the dastardly Chinese, Brazilians and Russians who will hammer us into the floor with their superior grasp of split infinitives. | CH: Yes, we British once ruled the world with our firm grasp of grammar, applying its rules to oppress and exploit the ungrammared dusky hordes. And now we are in danger of being swamped by the dastardly Chinese, Brazilians and Russians who will hammer us into the floor with their superior grasp of split infinitives. |
| I'm not claiming our schools are perfect, though I do suggest that investment is more important than constantly fiddling with the curriculum. Halve the classroom sizes and you're halfway there. Of course there are many state school teachers who are "thumb-twiddlers" and "work-dodgers", and I'm sure there are many in the private sector (just as there are failures and successes among the pupils). English teachers do work hard to instil the basic rules of spelling and grammar, but we can all make mistakes, and (sorry to be a spelling pedant, here) your initial email to me contained at least two. But not everyone has a newspaper subediting department on hand to clean up their prose. | I'm not claiming our schools are perfect, though I do suggest that investment is more important than constantly fiddling with the curriculum. Halve the classroom sizes and you're halfway there. Of course there are many state school teachers who are "thumb-twiddlers" and "work-dodgers", and I'm sure there are many in the private sector (just as there are failures and successes among the pupils). English teachers do work hard to instil the basic rules of spelling and grammar, but we can all make mistakes, and (sorry to be a spelling pedant, here) your initial email to me contained at least two. But not everyone has a newspaper subediting department on hand to clean up their prose. |
| QL: It would not worry me if Russians split infinitives. We need to be more wary of them splitting atoms. | QL: It would not worry me if Russians split infinitives. We need to be more wary of them splitting atoms. |
| I repeat my belief that grammar is good for the grey matter, not to mention the beauty of English prose. The theory here is the same as in, say, painting or music: I feel that the best abstract artists are likely to be those who have mastered traditional drawing techniques. Great jazz musicians tend to know quite a lot about musical theory. Similarly, the best free-roaming verse is likely to have been written by people who have learned the concise, precise art of good grammar. | I repeat my belief that grammar is good for the grey matter, not to mention the beauty of English prose. The theory here is the same as in, say, painting or music: I feel that the best abstract artists are likely to be those who have mastered traditional drawing techniques. Great jazz musicians tend to know quite a lot about musical theory. Similarly, the best free-roaming verse is likely to have been written by people who have learned the concise, precise art of good grammar. |
| On your point about the British empire, was there not a comment from Dame Jacqueline Wilson the other day – no rightwinger, she – that her overseas fans now write to her in better English than do her British correspondents? Our education system cannot be insular: it must be alive to the international competition our country will face in coming decades, and rigorous schooling, not least in "fusty" grammar, will help us to train world-class minds. Grammar is not everything, but it is surely more important than citizenship classes or sex ed. Anyway, Charlie, if they lose all sight of grammar, they will never want to buy your books, and that would be a pity. | On your point about the British empire, was there not a comment from Dame Jacqueline Wilson the other day – no rightwinger, she – that her overseas fans now write to her in better English than do her British correspondents? Our education system cannot be insular: it must be alive to the international competition our country will face in coming decades, and rigorous schooling, not least in "fusty" grammar, will help us to train world-class minds. Grammar is not everything, but it is surely more important than citizenship classes or sex ed. Anyway, Charlie, if they lose all sight of grammar, they will never want to buy your books, and that would be a pity. |
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