English Literature

[thirdcrank]

... Append "when it says 'eee'" and it works most of the time.

That sounds a bit weird to me.

[Malky 1422]

Are there any English teachers that can comment on this.
Malky

When I was at school, we were taught to put a question mark at the end of a question.

Yes you are quite right, but that was a mistake on my part which I sometimes do when using the computer keyboard, but not when I am writing long hand. But as for starting sentences with "and" this is purposefully done. It isnt a big deal, I was just interested in other opinions, or weather I had got it wrong somehow. When I was at school I can remember an incident when I was smacked hard on the legs when standing at the teachers desk reading to her, because there was a word I could not read. I was just a kid maybe 7 yrs old or so and I was crying my eyes out, she could have stoved my skull in and I still wouldnt have been able to read it. Now I wonder what she would have done had I written a sentence beginning with "And". Well things are much more relaxed now eh.We can start our sentences how we like and the teachers cant give us a hiding for it anymore either.

[thirdcrank]

... she could have stoved my skull in and I still wouldnt have been able to read it. ...

My mother, who left school just before her fourteenth birthday in December 1933, recalls being thrashed so hard at school with a blackboard pointer (snooker cue type) that the teacher broke it. On another occasion, her grandfather (who brought her up in the absence of her father) took her to see Bradman at Headingley in 1930 when he scored the first of his two triple centuries at the ground. Then aged nine, she spent the following day standing on a table at the front of the class so everybody could see what a child looked like who was so clever they didn't need to go to school.

By the time I went to school, discipline had definitely begun to slide. We used to do "ruler drawing on Thursdays, first thing after lunch (or dinner as we called it, in our ignorance. ) Access to the cloakroom was prevented before we returned to the classroom. Anything but spotless hand resulted in a ruler across the knuckles and an instruction to lick them clean. Dirty hands meant the slipper and then being sent to wash them.

[fausto copy]

Just how did you wash the slippers tc?

Sorry, sorry, sorry.....

[thirdcrank]

Just how did you wash the slippers tc?

Sorry, sorry, sorry.....

This is grammar rather than literature.

hands = plural
slipper - singular
them = plural.

them refers to hands.

[fausto copy]

We had one teacher who whacked us with a pair of 'em.
Can't remember which one hurt most though!

Thinking of which.....
...the one thing that really hurt the most was the big board ruler.
Anyone remember them?
Probably around 4 foot long, by 3 inches deep and half-inch thick.
I recall being hit one strike with that by my biology teacher.
As I walked back to my desk, I thought it was pretty painless.
Then the pain really kicked-ass as they say these days.

However, my mate Bill Stenhouse was next in line.
It broke over him and I'm sure he ended up with splinters.
Happy days

[reohn2]

.

[cycle cat]

There's a lot of bad grammar and spelling going on these
days. I'm not sure what teachers of old would have made of it.
Their canes would have been worn out!
People around here pronounce the letter aitch "haitch".
They ask for one of them bags, instead of one of those bags.
I could go on, but language is regional and fashionable.
It would be boring if we all spoke the same way
Who cares as long as we can communicate?

I come from deepest darkest Dorset, where people ask
" where's it to?" when they don't know where something is.

[fausto copy]

.

You have the splinter!

[cycle cat]

I wondered where I'd put that full stop.

[gaz]

It's not a full stop.

The thread's got too much for him and the poor soul's broken into morse.

He said "E".

[Cyril Haearn]

So, "so" is the new "and"!
+1

I leave out full stops to save energy usually.

[reohn2]

,gain

[pwa]

So, "so" is the new "and"!
+1

I leave out full stops to save energy usually.

Some drivers around here leave out indicating for the same reason.

[djnotts]

I was certainly taught that and should not be placed at the beginning of a sentence. A comma before and was equally poor form. Increasingly I obey the latter more than the former. For emphasis - "And another thing...." - it feels right to me. And that I suppose is how usage comes to prevail....