Grammar

Granvee you are so right. I cannot understand the indignation regarding trivia when there is so much more to upset us. For goodness sake we have children going to school hungry and people sleeping on our streets. Language is evolving all the time. Did you have difficulty understanding Angela? Get a grip. She was talking sense if you had listened instead of nit picking.

Cacao - I think your comment was nasty and uncalled for. I've met Angela Rayner and the last thing she is is illiterate. She's intelligent, articulate, self deprecating and funny. For goodness sake she got a word wrong. I suppose if she spoke with an Etonian accent instead of a Northern accent you wouldn't have even noticed. I think there's alot more to concern ourselves with at the moment.

"Sat" for "Sitting" is my pet peeve. When you say "I was sat on the sofa" it actually means someone came into the room and sat you on the sofa. After they had done that, you were then "sitting".

Chez you have taken (or maybe that should be "you have took*!) the words out of my mouth re the word "like". It annoys me when I hear it on TV on a daily basis.

Lilyflower
Pronunciation and grammar was part of my schooling and I appreciate the fact that what part of the UK you originate from can dictate your pronunciation of certain words and I have no argument with that.
Recently on one TV news channel a presenter referred to a ' ceramoaney' that had taken place that day
So should we now give our children pocket moaney?

She's uneducated by her own admission and had a disadvantaged early life.

Here's a link to Becky Milligan's "Lunch with Angela Rayner"
on R4, which is enlightening:

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p05k6qns

I'm trying to keep an open mind about her but I find it difficult. I agree with others on this post who think that grammar matters. It does - and it's not just a case of being snobbish.

During my PGCE training, the "Quality Manager" for the college started his session with "When we was..." and then proceeded to show us a trick involving 2 glasses and a coin.

I can't remember what the session was about; I assume it's because I was taken aback with the lack of congruity. I remember thinking "so this is what education's about - sleight of hand and dishonesty, and people who don't walk the talk". Hmmm.....

Grammar is very important but seems to be overlooked by the younger generation. We have a 24 year old graduate who can’t use the correct preposition and he writes to our customers. For example in a recent communication he wrote “we will give you the benefit on the doubt”. When I corrected him he argued that I was wrong!

I also hate “more better” and “more worse” that I hear a lot these days. And why do people start their sentences with “So”? Where has that come from?

And don’t get me started on the overuse of “like” by kids today.....

No....its so they sound trendy and "in"....and not posh.
Men/women of the people!

She always comes across as illiterate! Her finest moment was when she advocated teenage pregnancies as being good for girls!

It is a shame because I think that she is a very competent minister but there was a time when politicians would take elocution seriously and it does let her down - on the other hand, Thatcher took lessons to improve the way she came across verbally so it is probably not what we should judge people on.
One of the reasons she feels so strongly about education though is that she did not have a good one and doesn't want anyone else to have the problems that that has caused her. Better that than another old Etonian.

Yesterday morning I was listening to Sadiq Khan. Throughout the whole interview he never once added "g" to any word that ended in "ing"...he is not the first to do this...I have heard a number of celebs doing the same thing and even the woman on the child cancer ad says "disintegratin". I think it is just pure laziness of speech, nothing to with accent by the way.

In the big scheme of things when our people are dying due to austerity/ cuts in benefits and health services........ maybe we should all get out more?

Heard myself muttering 'written' whilst listening.

Don't understand neilspurgeoncomment about 'Rayner' being a good old Essex name. Eh?

There was a question on Gransnet last week about whether grammar mattered. it was something of a rhetorical question suggesting that grammar doesn't matter and that people who think it does are silly fussers.

Well, grammar matters.

This is one of my real bugbears.... I have to bite my tongue when I hear someone say wrote inappropriately.
I used to work with an English Higher Level Teaching Assistant who regularly said "I have wrote" and now there is another senior member of staff who says the same..... grrrrrrrr

I heard that also on a radio programme this week and it was a guest, not Joe Public.

It was Morecambe and Wise as far as I know.

"The play what I wrote."
Look what the pair of them have done to our language.

To be fair if you are speaking in an unscripted interview it is far more likely you might get the wrong word or grammar. All it takes is to suddenly change another word in the sentence.
Not excusable in anything written though, that it is a different matter.
Remember Jim Naughtie and the Jeremy Hunt debacle.

Rayner, good old Essex name !

Yikes!,

I thought that was Eric and Ernie.

It's a worry, maybe she thought the Two Ronnies were correct with their skit entitled, The play what I wrote ?

Yes!! I nearly fell out of bed!