#15

 

ENGLISH 101

GRAMMER

ADVERBS

VERBS

NOUNS

TEST
FRI

PUNCTUATION

SENTENCE
STRUCTURES

PROF GUNN

OFFICE HOURS

RM 343

BLDG 7
W 2-3

TH 1-3

English – primary school level.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that any criticism of another’s spelling will itself contain a spelling mistake. One is not just putting one’s head above the parapet, but doing so whilst wearing an oversized, illuminated ‘Shoot Me Quick’ hat. The phenomenon is indeed so well-known that it has become known as Muphry’s Law. Nevertheless, it must be pointed out that an English teacher, particularly of an introductory course such as this, should be able to spell the word ‘grammar’. There are no excuses, not even one about Kelsey Grammer.

George Bernard Shaw, Mark Twain et al might have had a point about reforming English spelling, but German-style changes are unlikely to happen here and we will all just have to learn to work with our historically idiosyncratic system, including English teachers. In fact, especially English teachers.

Dyslexia is of course a serious issue, but if your spelling is this poor you probably shouldn’t become an English teacher, in the same way that if you are colour-blind you shouldn’t become a train driver, if you can’t swim you shouldn’t become a lifeguard and if you have a peanut allergy you shouldn’t get a job taste-testing Snickers bars.

In fact, there probably hasn’t been a spelling mistake this embarrassing since a spelling game DVD hosted by Eamonn Holmes spelled his name on the front cover as Eamon, leading to the first 10,000 units being scrapped. Thankfully, Eamonn's career was unaffected and he can still be seen regularly on ITV.

Nowadays, the use of spell-checkers is widespread, but even these won’t catch every error and students should learn that a CV containing a spelling mistake will often be consigned straight to the bin. It is worrying that Professor Gunn has made it this far in education and one can only be more concerned about the literacy levels of his superiors. Professor Gunn has no excuse for not brushing up on such basics as he only appears to work for three hours a week. Hopefully the test on Friday will involve actually using punctuation, and sentence structures that are more complex than
PUTTING
EVERY
WORD
IN
CAPITALS
ON
A
NEW
LINE.

3/10 Could do bettar.