Good point - but I still cringe each time he speaks for 3 minutes and says “uh” 7 times. Rationally it may be completely ok, but how I feel about it isn’t necessarily wrong because it isn’t rational. It’s just a feeling, that’s all. Not a fan of the “uh”.
The problems people who typically speak in slang aren’t rational - but they are real. You can blow an interview, be seen as inferior, etc. Wrong, right, rational, whatever - that’s real. Don’t we typically expect educational institutions to prepare the young for the real world? Banning words is stupid - because it’s the syntax in which those words are used that is to blame. At least the school has created something they can use to begin a dialogue with the students - hey student, you need to be aware - right or wrong, people are going to judge you for how you speak even when it isn’t rational.
To the first point did you bother to read either the definitions or my response? The full definitions you give clearly list the two words as covering the same meanings. There is no scenario in which someone can be called a nerd by those definitions where geek would not apply by those same definitions, the only scenario this changes is for geek as a verb as there is no verb for nerd, however as the verb can be applied to people performing actions under the definition of a nerd it pretty much cements my point. If you really can’t see that then there is no point us talking further as clearly written words don’t mean the same thing to you as me. However I would challenge you to find any scenario in which using the definitions you gave a person would be one but not the other. I have made a clear argument for why I was not cherry picking and how the words still mean the same thing. You have repeated your claim that I am and that they do not. I cannot prove a negative but I take your inability to back your claim up with evidence as a likely indication that you are repeating yourself and accusing me of fraud because you have no real merit to your point and are appealing to emotion to make it sound valid.
As to the latter; yes, and your point? there are many specific forms of documented English that serve niche roles and when you study those niche roles you study them. There is no Academic English, but there are many forms of English specific to certain Academic fields and in a similar way there is legal English, as you say. All of these are unnecessary to children in a school and are taught if you specialise in a field in which they become relevant. However we are not talking about people going into niche fields. Quite the opposite and for a school to teach legal English to its students would be as ludicrous as for it to teach its students to embrace their local slang without establishing a proper grounding in the centralised tongue.
I honestly still don’t have a clue what point you are actually trying to make. You seem to have bizarre ideas about the meaning of cherry-picked which I think you use simply to make your argument seem more creditable, but you never really establish what that is.
I am arguing that a school has a responsibility to give students a good grounding in a common form of English as is understood by a majority of the population and as would maximise their chance for employment and (by common idea of the meaning) success in later life. Such a language would best be taught using the current standards for deciding what that language is; major dictionaries and grammar books and the board approved language (which evolves to incorporate popular and well known non-dictionary words based on mass use over the whole UK and not just a local area). This by no means that they shouldn’t learn the local dialect and speak it, but that isn’t, in my opinion, the schools responsibility. Just as if they wish to study law they are welcome to learn the English common to the field, but that doesn’t mean the school should teach it to every other student too.
My understanding of your argument is that a student should be able to talk however they wish using whatever local slang and dialect they wish. To which I argue that it lowers their chance of employment and likely salary if they are and reduces ease of communication with other Brits. It encourages division of the language and loss of meaning as grammar and definitions broaden to the point of ambiguity. And it limits the likelihood of those in poorer areas of the country to either be able to leave the area or the financial bracket they are in. Your defence is that people can communicate if they speak English regardless of what dialect they have. This is based on your personal experience (which is all the detail you give aside from saying that you are a Geordie and that you wouldn’t talk like a Geordie to a Londoner because they wouldn’t understand you [which supports my point that you need a non-local dialect]) while my personal experience says you are wrong, as this is anecdotal it is meaningless for both of our claims. Your next claim seems to be that any attempt to teach a common form of English in schools is wrong because there are other forms of English common to niche subjects.
