A School Report

[Dr. Shoe]

I came across an old school report the other day. My English teacher wrote:

 

You seem to consistently split infinitives and use prepositions to end sentences with. You has no grasps of the fundamental principles of grammar and terrible is your syntax. you're punctuation, leaves, much to be desired! and your spelling is apailing.

 

He also gave me an A+ as I was always top of the class. I ended up with an A in my O Level.

 

Has anyone ever had a teacher with a similar sense of humour?

[Shyheels]

Alas most of the ones I had would not have had anywhere near the wit or light heartedness to come out with anything like that.

[meganiwish]

I'm impressed that he managed humour.  Report writing can be miserable.  As Primary teachers we had to do two sides of A4 per pupil and you know the parents are going to compare them on the playground in minutes.  Hard to say anything about good pupils who don't stand out, but you need to be aware that a well worded report might give some poor little children (and their families) a nice weekend.  They don't all get that regularly.  I didn't take report writing lightly.  Have you seen Molesworth's bogus report? http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=TTQJv74rtnMC&pg=PT87&lpg=PT87&dq=molesworth+bogus+report+geoffrey+Willans&source=bl&ots=E6WuQ3f8L6&sig=I_pHPZp3yocOav4Nmv3rumkQSbw&hl=en&sa=X&ei=mxguVKGDGM7uaOm-gZAH&ved=0CDkQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=molesworth%20bogus%20report%20geoffrey%20Willans&f=false  Just fill in yore name at the topp and destroy the reel one when it  arrivs

[ilikekicks]

I had one teacher whom I can say I actually liked. She would comment on various things and even go as far as to teach us things outside of her course. She would leave remarks on some of our tests/papers that were down to earth. 

 

Her one statement she used when teaching math was ' if you add 4 apples to 5 oranges, what do you have? ". She used such a statement when we were learning to add items that were dissimilar.

 

My younger sister had the same teacher for a ' summer school ' class and my sister told her ' You have mixed fruit! '. It made the teacher laugh as it was clever and quite valid answer.

 

From that day forward, the Teacher used these stickers of fruits for peoples ' test scores '. Apples were an ' A ', a ' B ' was a banana, ' C ' was a carrot ( not really fruit but.. )..

[Bikergoth]

Not quite a school report, but in the army we used to get an annual written report known as a 'confidential'.

 

Our Officer Commanding had quite a sense of humour & wrote on my friend's confidential...

 

'Soldiers will surely only follow this NCO out of pure curiosity...'

 

I laughed so much my sides hurt for two whole days.

[Shyheels]

I like it!

[HappyinHeels]

I had a number of clowns for teachers. I was most impressed with their uncanny ability to fit in instruction around their circus duties. To this day I still have the occasional desire to wear big floppy shoes and orange hair. The things we do for our alma mater. I think next year I may be even bolder and dress up as a hosiery salesman!  HappyinHeels

[AZShoeNut]

I think next year I may be even bolder and dress up as a hosiery salesman! HappyinHeels

Like :-)

[Dr. Shoe]

I had a number of clowns for teachers. I was most impressed with their uncanny ability to fit in instruction around their circus duties. To this day I still have the occasional desire to wear big floppy shoes and orange hair. The things we do for our alma mater. I think next year I may be even bolder and dress up as a hosiery salesman!  HappyinHeels

You should be grateful you were never taught by the knife thrower!

[Puffer]

I came across an old school report the other day. My English teacher wrote:

 

Quote

 

 

He also gave me an A+ as I was always top of the class. I ended up with an A in my O Level.

 

Has anyone ever had a teacher with a similar sense of humour?

 

Are you absolutely sure that your teacher was jesting?   Many teachers (at least these days) cannot write good English and set a poor example.

 

Two school reports (not mine!) come to mind:

 

1.   'This boy should go far - and the sooner the better.'

 

2.   'This boy sets himself a very low standard and consistently fails to achieve it.'   (Which his proud, if ignorant, parents took as a compliment.)

 

In a similar vein, only last week in the library, I saw an informal discussion group in progress under a sign stating 'Join us if you want to practice your English'.   I restrained myself from pointing out to the tutor that, in the UK, the verb is 'practise'; perhaps the class was aimed at Americans? 

[Shyheels]

I expect you would gave had to start off by explaining the difference between a noun and a verb...

[Dr. Shoe]

Are you absolutely sure that your teacher was jesting?   Many teachers (at least these days) cannot write good English and set a poor example.

 

Two school reports (not mine!) come to mind:

 

1.   'This boy should go far - and the sooner the better.'

 

2.   'This boy sets himself a very low standard and consistently fails to achieve it.'   (Which his proud, if ignorant, parents took as a compliment.)

 

In a similar vein, only last week in the library, I saw an informal discussion group in progress under a sign stating 'Join us if you want to practice your English'.   I restrained myself from pointing out to the tutor that, in the UK, the verb is 'practise'; perhaps the class was aimed at Americans? 

It depends on whether they mean the act of reading, writing or speaking it or whether they want you to conduct English "surgeries". If the latter then it's not grammatical.

 

BTW, without wishing to nit-pick it should be ..."cannot write English well..." rather than "...cannot write good English..."

[Shyheels]

But they talk good...

[Puffer]

It depends on whether they mean the act of reading, writing or speaking it or whether they want you to conduct English "surgeries". If the latter then it's not grammatical.

 

BTW, without wishing to nit-pick it should be ..."cannot write English well..." rather than "...cannot write good English..."

 

Sorry, I don't understand your first point; please clarify.   And who are 'they'?

 

On your second point, you are not nit-picking, just mistaken!   The concept I was referring to is that of 'good English' (i.e. the English language used 'correctly', or at least to a good, accepted standard).  It might have been clearer if I had said 'write in good English'.    But 'cannot write English well', if it means anything, suggests the physical act of writing the word 'English' rather than using the language correctly; and the alternative of 'cannot write well in English' implies that there is a fundamental unfamiliarity with the language, as a foreigner might have, rather than a lack of technique or finesse.   Perhaps we can agree that 'cannot express themselves in English of a good standard' would be a more precise, if cumbersome, way of putting it.    

[meganiwish]

Cumbersome indeed!  'write English well' and 'write good English' are both perfectly grammatical.  In the former the adverb 'well' modifies the verb 'write', in the latter the adjective 'good' modifies the noun 'English' .  I don't think I'd take 'cannot write English well' to mean inability to write the word, just from context.  It's rare that people find one word more difficult to write than another.  In Russian the word for 'relation'  is 'familiya'.  I can't be bothered to find out how to do it in Cyrillic on the computer, but in Cyrillic cursive it's almost impossible.  But I digress.

 

You're quite right.  Practice/noun, practise/verb.  I note that 'practise' always earns me the red zigzag finger wag.  Thinking of which, no-one ever did try to give me a finger wag emoticon.  But I digress again.

 

Rule 1 in the Pedants' Handbook (published by Lakov and Vita, 1991) states, 'Be right.'  Rule 2 states, 'Don't correct what is also right on the grounds of personal preference.'  Rule 3 states, 'Remember that Elton John was good while Bernie Taupin wrote for him'.

[SleekHeels]

no-one ever did try to give me a finger wag emoticon.  But I digress again.

 

Now now Megan, I'm sure that's not true!

 

[meganiwish]

Ooh, thank you!  Could it be added to the list?

[Puffer]

Thank you, Megan - a note of realism, as usual (grovel; fawn; smarm     ).   I intentionally exaggerated my rebuttal of the good Doctor's suggestion as I consider that, in attempting to denounce one alleged solecism, he was in danger of introducing one of somewhat greater magnitude.

 

But that's enough pedantry and pomposity - and use of big words    ... at least for the moment.

[meganiwish]

Oh I know.  I just didn't want you to be wrongly accused of being wrong.

 

I'll admit to pedantry, but not pomposity, I hope.  Don't use big words, just the right words.  Do you know Orwell's  essay, 'Politics and the English Language'?  Keep it simple. https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/orwell46.htm  My point comes at the end, so you can skip to it, but the whole thing's worth a read.

 

While Hastings is Sussex, and Sussex won't be druv, we're nearly Kent too.  In fact I'm closer to Kent than I am to Brighton.  Are you a Man of Kent or a Kentish Man?

[Puffer]

Oh I know.  I just didn't want you to be wrongly accused of being wrong.

 

I'll admit to pedantry, but not pomposity, I hope.  Don't use big words, just the right words.  Do you know Orwell's  essay, 'Politics and the English Language'?  Keep it simple. https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/orwell46.htm  My point comes at the end, so you can skip to it, but the whole thing's worth a read.

 

While Hastings is Sussex, and Sussex won't be druv, we're nearly Kent too.  In fact I'm closer to Kent than I am to Brighton.  Are you a Man of Kent or a Kentish Man?

 

Yes, the key is using the 'right words' (which may necessarily be big ones) - but alas others can sometimes regard such precision as being not merely pedantic but pompous.  It is years since I read Orwell's essay (but thanks for the reminder - I am re-reading it).   I will not challenge his fundamental views, and his 'cop out' that rule-breaking beats barbarity is a sound suggestion.   However, as one used to writing 'instructions' and the like, I find the passive voice less objectionable than he and others seem to.   ('The reader can decide for himself on this' seems to me more positive, if less intimate, than 'you can decide ...', or whatever.)

 

Hastings has to my mind more affinity with Kent than East Sussex (the 'East' is important - Chichester, where's that?), but my part of West Kent is more akin to East Sussex in many respects.   I'm neither a MoK or a KM by birth but have been in KM territory for 14 years, being originally from Middlesex and then in Brighton for 27 years.   I'm sending you a PM shortly to expand.