School teachers have long been criticised for having a long(ish) summer holiday. Parliament is on its summer break. Why do MPs not come in for the same criticism? Just a thought.
The sports presenter/ commentator Alex Scott has been criticised for her accent. On Saturday Lord Digby Jones accused Ms Scott, a former Arsenal footballer, of spoiling the Tokyo coverage due to her “inability to pronounce her ‘g’s”. Not all ‘g’s but the final ‘g’ at the end of the present participle. He said she needs elocution lessons.
He tweeted:
“Enough! I can’t stand it anymore (sic)” Alex Scott spoils a good presentational job on the BBC Olympics Team with her noticeable inability to pronounce her ‘g’s at the end of a word. Competitors are NOT taking part, Alex, in the fencin, rowin, boxin, kayakin, weightliftin & swimmin.”
All of this is pretty rich considering that the upper classes of Britain have long enjoyed huntin’, shootin’ and fishin’.
And, besides, Digby Jones really needs to listen to Priti Patel, who seems to suffer from the same “need for elocution lessons”.
Stephen Fry, who knows a thing or two, replied to Digby Jones as follows:
“You are everything linguists and true lovers of language despise. Also, since we’re being picky, you are not Lord Digby Jones, your are Digby, Lord Jones. There’s a world of difference. But however you’re titled, you disgrace the upper house with your misplaced snobbery.”
I’m not an expert on how lords should be addressed or spoken of. In fact I am not at all interested in lords but I do object to snobbery, even if the dropping of the final ‘g’ offends my ear. The disappearance of the letter ‘t’ upsets me more though.
Perhaps all these quibbles will be cured when Latin is reintroduced into state schools. I have no objection to Latin being taught in our schools. In fact, I think it’s probably a good idea. The suggestion that our secondary school teachers need training to teach Latin disturbs me. Is it going to be a case of teachers keeping a lesson or two ahead of their pupils in their learning of Latin? I’m already worried about teachers with little more than GCSE French delivering French teaching to our primary pupils!
While I’m ranting about language, here’s a little something a friend sent me:
THE English language is complex so it’s easy to make mistakes. But these mangled phrases are never acceptable:
A damp squid
It’s bad enough that no one has shown up to your 30th birthday party, but to make matters worse you’ve described the event as a ‘damp squid’. Cephalopods have nothing to do with the fact that you can’t make any friends, and the word you’re looking for is ‘squib’, a type of firework that doesn’t go bang when wet.
An escaped goat
A swing and a miss for the term ‘scapegoat’, which you’ve just embarrassingly used in a heated meeting at work whilst being blamed for the entire sales team underperforming. Expect to see ‘can’t use basic English’ written on the reference for the next job you’ll be looking for soon.
Carpet Demon
A valiant effort at carpe diem, which you struggle with because it’s in a different language, perhaps French or Dutch. You know it means you should enjoy life and have adventures, but you’re still perplexed as you’ve heard it translates as ‘seizure day’ which doesn’t sound like much fun.
Bite your nose to cut your face
Wrong on every conceivable level, this horribly mangled version of ‘cutting off your nose to spite your face’ requires a lot of mental gymnastics to even attempt to decode. By the time the person you’re talking to has registered what you’ve just said, they’ve also registered you are a halfwit.
In lame man’s terms
The correct phrase is ‘in layman’s terms’, which means to explain in a way that is free of obscure technical words. This means that for your whole life you have been telling people you’re going to explain something to them slowly and clearly because they’re so f**king lame. You’re an idiot.
There we go!
Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!
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