South London school bans "slang"

boing
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A friend was a teacher there. There are many unspoken rules and many broad rules. In your own time slang and codes and other such will be permitted so long as no teachers see the use of it as unbecoming or beneath the students (so words like those banned above would almost certainly be unacceptable but using the schools own slang is perhaps even acceptable when addressing staff [some of it even being traditional school vernacular])

Yes, he said as much on Never Mind the Buzzcocks (at least I think it was that), claimed it was completely made up and nothing to do with her.

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Slang jars

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Er, some free schools/academies were caught out teaching creationism (I believe the number was 3) but there was a HM govt document in November which actually mandated the teaching of evolution as evidentially verified fact, which puts us some way ahead of much of the rest of the free world. Free schools/academies (or schools switching to academy status) need government approval to enter the scheme and most schools with weird ideas would be caught out at that point. Some aren’t, but it’s a national scheme and that’s life; if any schools are subsequently found to be broken the government has a statutory duty to fix them.

And I think they’re perfectly correct to try and enforce a policy around spoken English; it’s not a question of the rich looking down on the poor, more a question of everyone else looking down on those who appear thick.

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I’m not sure what you mean by “comfort words”. Surely someone who was brought up with “proper” speech is more comfortable speaking “properly”. So who is it, exactly, being made to feel uncomfortable?

Can I infer from this policy that the admins running this school are “uncomfortable” with the use of vernacular* English?

*“Vernacular” originally distinguished use of natural languages from use of Latin. Why aren’t the “proper speech” crowd advocating the exclusive use of Latin in school? Or at least Elizabethan or Georgian English? Why is it always Victorian everything that is regarded as “proper”? Could it be that people who take it upon themselves to make rules for others are most “comfortable” with Victorian norms?

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If there is no point in teaching students to avoid slang in formal situations, then are we not supposed to teach them rules about grammar or punctuation?

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I was once made to redo an entire school paper because I employed an abrupt shift in tone and vocabulary to demonstrate a point directly to the reader, rather than arguing the point abstractly.

When I spoke with the instructor to try and address their concerns, their complaint ended up not being anything to do with what I was saying in the paper, but merely with how I chose to go about saying it, and they flatly refused to allow me to employ the format and wording I felt was more effective in conveying the nuances of my meaning. I was told to resubmit the work in a few days time, edited to show “proper and immaculate language”.

So I went to a good friend of mine and had him translate the piece into flawless French, appended “À propos, c’est des conneries!” in red ink across the margin of the front page and turned it in.

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I apologise the proper term is ‘filler words’ I believe, words that are used passively in broad speech (like Chap if you are referring to traditional language, but starting with hedging noises like ‘um’, ‘ah’, er’ etc and up to words like ‘like’, ‘yeah’, ‘mate’, etc. and in sentences being words that are overused (as with the example I give in broad terms like ‘very’). All forms of speech have them and overusing generic terms as is encouraged in this type of slang, stifles creativity far more than being forced to vary ones words and use words that have meaning not necessitating context.

You can infer what you like but that doesn’t make it true. The argument makes no such case and there is a great divide between wanting your students to speak the English a) most understandable b) that you can understand and relate to c) that is most likely to get them a job and a successful future d) is actually a real language and not transient words with meaning and context known only to a small localised geographical and financial social set e) is such a broadly applicable phrase as to be devoid of meaning f) is largely used to isolate from those who do not use the slang, producing an identity for the students which separates them from other students, teachers and any likely move outside of their current standing.

Maintaining language has reason and purpose, that doesn’t mean it can’t evolve or change but nor does it mean you should teach students to give up on ever trying to communicate outside of their social group, just as you shouldn’t add every slang word or different meaning of a word to the dictionary the instant anyone uses it that way. As language degrades so does creativity. This doens’t mean using the French system and all but banning the evolution of the word. But the instant a word devolves to have thirty different and perhaps conflicting meanings only determinable by context then the English language has just lost a word of worth. The words Geek and Nerd had differences, differences that can matter. Now they are used interchangeably, the only way to express whether a person is one or the other is now by explaining the context. Does the English language benefit from having two words with such broad meaning that you have to explain them to use them> Surely you could drop the word and explain without. This doesn’t mean you go back to the Latin or neither word would exist, nor would telephone or internet, but it also means taking some pride in the English language and teaching people to be able to use it properly and to care about the differences.

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That’s clear then. It’s Eton btw.

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From ofsted:-

  • Fail to stretch the brightest and weakest pupils by placing them in mixed-ability lessons;
  • Enter large numbers of pupils early for GCSEs simply to bank a pass-mark before moving pupils on to other courses;
  • Consistently mislabel poorly-performing pupils as suffering from special educational needs to disguise weak teaching;
  • Fail to properly use the Government’s new “pupil premium” – a ÂŁ1.25bn fund created to improve standards among deprived children – following the publication of Ofsted research that found a third were spending it on school trips and one-in-six invested it in uniforms and equipment.

But I’m not going to doubt the powers of your unsubstantiated or linked ‘evidence-based outcome’

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Just some decent English teachers who could explain the difference, and why there are times to use one or the other would be good. Fat chance, by the looks of it…

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Eeww, I do sincerely apologise, no idea how the a snuck in there.

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I put it there.

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Hahaha. Oddly enough I used to refer to it as Eaten, whenever written, as part of a running joke between me and an old friend who had several Etonians as friends all somewhat rotund.

However defaulting back to a running joke (and not getting wither the normal spelling or the joke) while commenting that people should be taught when to use selectively understood slang…

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Ah, sorry, misunderstood you then. However, as many people have already noted, “filler words” are not nearly exclusive to vernacular forms of English and are often employed even by politicians who otherwise employ “proper” language, current PotUSA included.

I don’t think it’s actually true that slang in particular encourages “overusing generic terms”. What I’ve noticed about a lot of vernacular dialect is a heavy emphasis on wordplay. Everyday use of some forms of slang seem to me to require rather more cleverness and creativity than “proper” language. At any rate, I’m not going to just take your word on this. If you want to convince me that use of slang somehow stifles creativity you’re going to have to actually make a case for it.

I could say the same to you – you seem to be inferring a whole lot yourself.

Can you provide a concrete example of this every happening? I’m not familiar with any such process as “language degradation” and certainly of no correlation between this (I suspect) fictional process and a loss of creativity. As I mentioned before many vernacular dialects actually seem to demand more creativity and cleverness than boring, plodding use of so-called proper English.

Sure, but if you ask two different people about those differences you’ll get different answers. There is no fixed consensus on the distinction between these two words. (From my perspective, “nerds” are a subset of “geeks” – nerds are geeks with scholastic obsessions.) I’m not sure “now they are used interchangeably” is accurate – both are fairly modern usages and I suspect the ambiguities involved in the usage of the words comes more from the meaning of the words never having become fixed in the first place rather than having become fixed and then losing that fixity.

Which English language? What’s so special about Victorian English? Why is this particular incarnation “proper” – was it always proper or did it become proper at some point in the (recent) past? I’ll give you a hint: Shakespeare wrote in “early modern” English. What we deem to be “proper” is a fairly recent development in the history of the English language.

Edit: You could also read “Politics and the English Language”. Orwell noted a loss of creativity in the use of proper English, not in vernacular English. How does that fit in with your argument?

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Maintaining what language? My local dialect has words in it with roots thousands of years old; I live in a city founded by the Romans, in an area then invaded by the Saxons and, following that, the Normans. We have, just up the road, Holy Island, one of the last bastions of learning in the country for a considerable period of our history. And I bet I could put together a sentence you’d have trouble parsing that everyone for fifty miles in any direction from my house would understand perfectly. However, were I a pupil at this here school, I’d get a bollocking for talking like that.

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We haven’t been reading the same journals. Yes, there is some benefit to both bright and slow kids when the bright tutor the slow. But slow kids learn more if in programs tailored to their ability and speed of learning, and bright kids learn more about the subject if they are not paused to help the slow kids to catch up.

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The misunderstanding was my fault. However ‘as many people have noted’ including me in the quote you use directly below.

You can think that but I raise words like ‘like’, ‘cool’, ‘gash’, ‘buzzing’, ‘brah/bro/bruv etc.’, and half the words on the list supplied by the school. All of whose meanings are variable to an extent almost never seen in the more formal side of language.However your citing of your perceived cleverness does so much for the debate of ‘taking your word for it’ that I am just going to assume that even if I bothered to find evidence you wouldn’t care because you have seen otherwise and know better (though I may be being unfair).

Sorry, that was snide of me and unbecoming. Hmm, my point was that your inference comes from nothing, there is no suggestion whatsoever that tends towards the conclusion you infer. However you are right, I do infer a lot. I see evidence and I join dots to come to conclusions, as we are arguing based on proposed results that is how it works, I’m sorry that you don’t seem to understand the process.

You want a concrete example of an abstract concept? You are either hilarious an idiot or a troll, but I shall give the benefit of the doubt and assume that you are talking in the broader sense and aren’t referring to an example. Simply put, no, it is physically impossible to prove that an abstract concept such as the quality of art can be correlated to a grey area like the form of language. I would suggest the form and content of lyrics in popular music versus the eloquence of popular artist but I’m sure that such an abstract unit will be of no worth.

As to language degradation, the French have an institute to govern the Language to prevent it’s degradation, the English dictionaries employ staff to maintin the formal standards of definitions and the list of words to be included, English schools teach strict grammar and the use of words to conform to their definitions. But you are right, yo don’t care about it so I am sure it is fictional.

Seem to demand it based upon what? the inventiveness of the origin of the word has no bearing on uses thereafter. You have created some concept of use of slang requiring skill without any suggestion of what that means, could you perhaps present even a single example of skillful use of a slang term that there might be the slightest idea of what you are talking about?

That is exactly to what I refer. Two words that developed from independent meanings have fused from progressive broadening use outside of their context to the point that neither word now has a meaning. If I use the word when talking to another person they don’t know what it means without context, that is exactly to what I was referring. Actually they developed from precisely defined functions, so the argument that they didn’t have precise meaning in the origin is just flat out wrong. as to discrediting their interchangeability “an unfashionable or socially inept person” “an unfashionable or socially inept person” the two separate definitions now from the OED.

The current English language. The defined and listed one. The one taught. The one in dictionaries and grammar books. We have an infrastructure for our language with common acceptance. One used by most social/economic/geographic groups and understood by all (to a reasonable extent). Children in Glasgow are taught the same language as children in Cornwall, the wonderful result of which is that they can understand each other. I know you like to try and make this ridiculous to make your argument sound worthwhile but it isn’t Victorian English and few schools (none to my knowledge) maintain that.

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Which in no wise lessens the importance of local dialects and vernacular. You’ll notice one of the jobs of said august bodies is to include new words into the language.
Plus, you’ve cherry-picked your definitions:
nerd
Pronunciation: /nəːd/
(also nurd)
noun
informal

a foolish or contemptible person who lacks social skills or is boringly studious:I was a serious nerd until I discovered girls and cars
a single-minded expert in a particular technical field:a computer nerd

geek1
Pronunciation: /giːk/
informal
noun

an unfashionable or socially inept person.
[usually with modifier] a knowledgeable and obsessive enthusiast:a computer geek

verb
[no object] (geek out)

engage in or discuss computer-related tasks obsessively or with great attention to technical detail:we all geeked out for a bit and exchanged ICQ/MSN/AOL/website information keep it simple or geek out and create multiple playlists on the move
be or become extremely excited or enthusiastic about a subject, typically one of specialist or minority interest:I am totally geeking out over this upcoming film
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Just as if you said that sentence to someone from London or from Edinburgh they wouldn’t have a clue what it meant. That is why we teach the use of English grammar rules and English words as maintained by boards responsible for maintaining such things, so there is a common language. Majoritively it comes down to what is contained within the dictionaries with a pinch of discretion to the teachers and boards. But it maintains a functionally nationwide language that doesn’t require a verbose explanation of the meaning of every word because it may have different meaning to another person.

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No it doesn’t and I believe the students should have both. They learn the local dialect from the local exposure and from each other, the school can teach the other side. Further study to the local dialect is available in most places through extra-curricular means. However the Schools role is to prepare them to be part of society and to give them the best chance of success (by conventional and mass consensus of the interpretation of that goal) that they can. That is served by teaching them the formal and broad English used nationwide and in most business with a salary over £10/hour along with most customer service roles.

Did you bother to read the context? I didn’t say that they had no further meaning I said they have interchangeable meaning. The definition I gave proved that, the expanded definition on noun proves it yet further. That is not cherry picking. I supplied evidence but did not supply further evidence which also supported my claim. Cherry picking would be to supply the verb alone and claim that they cannot be used interchangeably. (also note that ‘geeking out’ can refer to what a nerd did all day when being a nerd, I can be a nerd and do nerd things and by definition that is geeking out, that is exactly the point I made, but thank you for adding superfluous evidence)