‘All meal’s 2 for 1’; ‘Daves Burger Bar’; ‘Frie’s + dips £2.99’; ‘Goats Cheese Salad – Lettuce, Tomatoes, Cucumber, Goats, Cheese’.
‘Small hessian bags – was £2 now 50p’, ‘Sandwhiches’, ‘I’m a language student so its easier for me to get English right.’; ‘Let’s all use less plastic bags’.
Luckily, some pedantic soul after my own heart had taken a marker pen to that last example, neatly crossed out ‘less’ and written ‘fewer’ above it.
I compiled this eyebrow-raising collection from around the University over just a few days. And, though errors like this can be amusing to us pedants, they can also have repercussions.
It’s only weeks until our end of semester exams, and now is the time to ask yourself how many marks you could lose through sloppy English.
A prestigious university recently revealed that one third of applicants fail their ‘easy’ spelling and grammar entrance test.
Do you honestly know, for example, the difference between ‘your’ and ‘you’re’; between ‘their’, ‘there’ and ‘they’re’; or ‘whose’ and ‘who’s’?
Can you use commas correctly? Like many people, you might think it doesn’t matter. But, as illustrated by the goat’s cheese salad example, it isn’t simply a case of doing it a certain way just because it’s ‘right’ to do so.
On the contrary, poor grammar and spelling and incorrect punctuation destroys understanding.
Okay, you probably never thought that the salad had goats in it. But someone unfamiliar with European cuisine could have done, especially if they were from a country where goat-on-toast is considered a delicacy.
In the multicultural setting of a university, our foreign friends may struggle to understand our ‘incorrect’ English; or worse, allow their own accomplished English to be tarnished by it.
So, why are bloopers increasing in frequency all around us? It’s easy to blame texting and internet chat; after all, we barely have to use ‘real’ English these days.
The education system is more to blame. The English curriculum is no longer prescriptive. Not once in my school life did I study the use of English in actual English classes.
Most people can say the same. Even now I witness lecturers not correcting students’ mistakes, or making them themselves.
Microsoft is also guilty. Nowadays we don’t need to pay attention to our spelling; computers spell things for us. They even highlight some grammar mistakes.
Don’t forget, though, that you have to do it yourself in exams. A misplaced apostrophe or colon confusion could lose you marks.
So, why not meet a friend at Dave’s van before heading into town and buying a book on English.
Then, sit yourselves down with a goat’s cheese salad; a sandwich; or some fries and dip.
After that, spend the afternoon learning to use your own language correctly. Perhaps in a bid to use fewer plastic bags you could put it in one of those hessian ones, which were £2.
Don’t feel disheartened if you’re not a language person. I am, and it’s not always easier for language students.