Grammer question.

[podge]

Excellent post...still jogging along!! Now:
If the late Chairman Mao and his followers (or should that be follower's) were going to have a song and dance, would you send out an invitation :
Please come to Chairman Mao's Party's Party!!!

[baxlin]

Originally Posted by podge

Please come to Chairman Mao's Party's Party!!!

Or, China's Chairman Mao's party's deputy's party?

Over to you.................

[podge]

I would rather go to:
China's Chairman Mao's Party's Deputy's party of parties!.....boom!boom!

[Geoffrey]

I've just been reading this discussion with a mixture of curiosity and amused disbelief. One thought has occurred to me: if people in the twenty-first century still genuinely feel the need for information like this (and the original question has a decidedly 'tongue in cheek' ring to it), then they have been let down very badly by their schools.
G.

[Zeb]

Originally Posted by geoffrey

I've just been reading this discussion with a mixture of curiosity and amused disbelief. One thought has occurred to me: if people in the twenty-first century still genuinely feel the need for information like this (and the original question has a decidedly 'tongue in cheek' ring to it), then they have been let down very badly by their schools.
G.

Geoffrey, it would be tempting to agree with you...however...having taught some students English for their entire Secondary and Sixth form careers and having religiously taught, retaught (in a dozen different ways), shown again, admonished, corrected, explained again, marked down, shouted at, had work re-done...sometimes several times, by these students I would have to say that far from being 'badly let down' that some of them have been so drilled with simple concepts such as paragraphing that, as a teacher, I could do no more....and yes, they still get it wrong

Ultimately we are all responsible for our own learning...

[Dave***t]

Originally Posted by stocktake

My wife says this is quite correct but if it were a party for Peters only it would be a Peters' party

Sorry, couldn't help it - no it wouldn't.

It it were a party thrown by mulitple Peters, it would be the Peters' party. If it were a party held exclusively for Peters, however, it could arguably be a Peters party, contingent upon your primarily asserting the attendance of multiple Peters, rather than their collective 'ownership' of the party. This would be an unusual construction, but the stress on the attendance of Peters rather than ownership by them is indicated by the use of 'a' as opposed to 'the' in your sentence. This would change were you to be referring to one in a series of parties thrown by several Peters, but on face value that's not what we are dealing with.

Again - sorry, I just couldn't help it!

[RayC333]

Are you sure this is not Peterses' if we are talking multiple Peters?

I quote ... Jones's bakery (but Joneses' bakery if owned by more than one Jones)

[Dave***t]

Quite right, and if there should be an overall group composed of several distinct groups, each in turn composed entirely of individuals called Peter, it should be known as Peterseses and so on

[Geoffrey]

Zeb, it was nice to have feedback from someone associated with the teaching profession, and to know that some people still take trouble...

I sympathise with anyone who enters the profession these days. Although not wanting to be drawn into debate about the respective merits of private versus state education, I do have a cousin who, after gaining a very brilliant 'first', elected to do a spell of teacher training, and then left her job after three years, utterly cheesed off with the excessive amount of paperwork and the lack of time available for getting on with the real business. Have you recently read any of those depressing inspectors' reports accessible via the internet?

I also went to stay with an old college friend in Essex quite recently. His sons are now in their early twenties and their father chose not to send them to his own old school but rather to the local comprehensive. They had heard flattering reports about the place and the boys had a creditable all-round education there. One thing, however, was not dealt with properly, and to this day they feel quite aggrieved that the school did nothing about teaching them the rudiments of grammar. It is always humiliating for young people to be corrected over what seem like petty mistakes, but both these boys said that they felt very badly let down by the school in that respect. Perhaps grammar wasn't fashionable then, but they feel they are still paying a rather high price for such scandalous neglect.

On this side of the Channel there has been a record and well-chronicled influx of 'Brits' who have settled in the centre and western parts of Brittany. Many of them have taken early (or not so early) retirement and think that because life over here is pleasanter in many ways (driving certainly is!), they have done the right thing. The happy few muck in with the locals and make friends very quickly, but that entails making an effort to speak French! The majority muddle through as best they can. What does shed light on the problem being discussed here is that the French quite often volunteer their services and much spare time in the evening to help the immigrant community learn French. Guess what? With many British residents, they soon run into difficulty because people in their forties, fifties and even sixties (to say nothing of younger generations) have had no serious grounding in Things Grammatical, and so it is very hard to explain the difference between a French adjective and a French adverb, not to mention more complicated stuff. I was fortunate in having been liberally primed (sorry about the pun) with a vast amount of Latin and Greek, not to mention French and German, but I do remember that irrespective of whoever taught us, or whatever the subject, mistakes would always be mercilessly rooted out and corrected. All those who taught us had not only the breadth of general education necessary to do this, but they gave unstintingly of their free time because they were not hampered by the need to waste valuable hours on paperwork. And come to think of it, examiners had a much freer hand in the maintaining of high standards. These days we hear about the need for targets and percentages, and many examiners are no longer permitted to deduct marks for slovenly presentation and slipshod grammar or spelling.

One other thing, perhaps. We hear a lot of criticism about generation differences and stuffy rote-learning of the past. I believe that the generations of sixth-formers who were regularly asked (and expected) to write essays such as: 'Describe your reasons for...', Assess the impact of...', 'Explain why you think that...', 'Write a critical appraisal of...explaining the reasons for your approval or disapproval' were usually well taught. It's hard to fudge the issue or to pull wool over an examiner's eyes when you have to produce work of this kind, regardless of whether you are a budding scientist or more interested in the arts. This, far more than multiple-choice questions, is surely an intelligent way of assessing at least part of candidates' aptitudes, and ascertaing whether they can think for themselves. Of course, we had to memorise principal parts, be familiar with German strong verbs and have algebra, chemical elements and geometrical theorems at our fingertips, but we were also expected to be able to think clearly and express ourselves on paper, knowing full well that a good attempt would be valued for what it was by those who examined our work.

So in conclusion I turn back to you, Zeb, and can only say that whatever the effort put in by teachers, in many places the present climate hardly seems favourable. In my day, many of the pupils you mention would never have been allowed anywhere near a sixth form, not because some teachers might have been less than conscientious, but because the system itself would not have allowed it. I have just been looking at a copy of Sixth Form English Usage (from the 1960s) but many of today's graduates (let alone undergraduates) would find it very hard to deal with the suggested exercises. Whatever happened to English Usage as a sixth-form supplement? We made fun of the humanities and now we are making a mockery of foreign languages, music, art and sport. What will be sacrificed next? This is not the only explanation, but it may well be a contributing factor, setting aside the question of Government interference in the curriculum.
G.

[Simon]

Geoffrey, may I say a short few words on your excellent post above. Not only is it about the longest single post I've read to-date but it's also one of the most in-depth posts of a non-car related subject (of which the thread itself has spawned many great and highly intellectual posts) I think on these forums too. Thank you for your time to post such a detailed view.