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Blog: Emma Thompson’s, like, talkin’ ’bout grammar, innit.
Tuesday 28th September 2010, 9:36AM BST.
Emma Thompson's not a fan of teenspeak
Blog: Oscar winning Emma Thompson has turned her attention towards English grammar and those who do not speak properly like what me and you does.
In an interview with the Radio Times she says using phrases such as “like” and “innit” makes individuals sound stupid.
She claims it is vital teenagers learn the difference between speaking to their friends and talking to people in authority.
“There is the necessity to have two languages – one that you use with your mates and the other that you need in any official capacity. Or you’re going to sound like a knob.”
Is she right?
Bad grammar. Does it matter as long as the message is clear?
After all, English in an evolving language. It has been changing for hundreds of years.
One thing we do need to dismiss is the idea that bad grammar equals lower intelligence, stupidity.
Students, for example, are given ‘A’ grades in exams despite frequently writing grammatically incorrect sentences.
I’m not as angry as Ms Thompson appears to be but there are a couple of things that do irritate me.
I’m unsettled for some reason by the spread of so-called Estuary English – like what they speak darn souf.
I’m irritated by those wonderful role models for young people who appear on our television screens after Premier League football games and finish every sentence with “you know”. Why, I also wonder, do they always look furtively about them, rarely looking the interviewer straight in the eye.
Careful Dave, you’re rambling.
Back to the issue of grammar, slang, the sloppy use of language.
We should aim for a balance and avoid being self-righteous and moralistic.
I think the late Kingsley Amis – novelist, poet and critic – hit the nail on the head when he classifed in his book, The Kings’s English, two groups of speakers of the language.
One is the Berks who care less about the future of English and the other is the W…ers (I will be in big trouble if I use the word ) who care more.
He describes the Berks as careless, coarse, crass, gross and of what anybody would agree is a lower social class than one’s own. They speak in a slipshod way with dropped Hs, intruded glottal stops and many mistakes in grammar. Left to them the English language would die of impurity, like late Latin.
W…ers on the other hand are prissy, fussy, priggish, prim and what they would probably misrepresent as a higher social class than one’s own. They speak in an over-precise way with much pedantic insistence on letters not generally sounded, especially Hs. Left to them, the language would die of purity, like medieval Latin.
Now that’s neat innit?
PS: Dear reader I hope the above is grammatically correct, otherwise you might think me a W….er, you know.
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Quite agree about students grades Dave, I knew someone who got an A in English, and their grammar was non-existent. Added to this they could not spell to save their lives. Passes issued to keep the statistics up I presume.
Punctuation is another area that is sadly neglected, and the out come is that their writings are rendered almost unreadable. The classic example is the following: “The vicar, said the teacher, is a fool”. Now compare with, “The vicar said, the teacher is a fool”.
Obvious innit like, you know.
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Isn’t outcome one word?
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So sorry Dave. Yes outcome is one word, it appeared as two in my letter due to my lack of experience on a keyboard, a typing error. Well spotted.
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“Bad grammar. Does it matter as long as the message is clear?”
Indeed it does matter.
The remorseless decline in the standard of both written and spoken English is attributable to the comprehensive education (an oxymoron) system. For over forty years in the teaching of English, no attention whatsoever has been paid to grammar, to spelling, or to punctuation. Standards in this sphere, as in so many others, have been viewed by those of a left-wing bias as divisive. Why must everything be reduced to the lowest common denominator?
In English, anything has been deemed acceptable – and this is the result. Indeed, our inability to express ourselves coherently and fluently in our own language(or understand its grammatical construction)also hamstrings those who would seek to master a foreign language. For example ask a child: “What is a noun?” How many will know the answer? Then try and teach that same child French where “… the adjective must agree with the noun”. No wonder our ability, as a nation, to speak foreign languages is so poor.
Given the richness of the English language, the vocabulary of the present generation is mind-numbing in its narrowness of breadth.
As Miss or Mrs.(not please Ms. – she is either married or not)Thompson has said, the repeated sprinkling throughout sentences of words such as “like”,”nice” and “innit” (the last mentioned isn’t even a word)are an indication of the shallow grasp that most people (and not only youngsters)have of the English language.
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I think you will find that, “innit” is a colloquialism for isn’t it, just as the dunna, wanna, coz I canna, of Shropshire.
I am sure Professor Henry Higgins covered all this one hundred years ago.
It’s no different from Wow, cool, groovy, fab, man and chick of the sixties and seventies. It is just a sign of the times and the kids don’t want us part of it.
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Part of the problem is that many people regard regional dialects and accents (Shropshire being a fine example) as incorrect use of grammar or ‘lazy’ speaking. It isn’t, it’s a rich and diverse part of regional culture that is being lost on a grand scale. That said language is fluid, it does change and will do even more so with the ability to speak and correspond with people all around the world, a shame for sure but inevitable all the same.
For instance, how many people in Shropshire know what an ‘unt’ is, or even an ‘untinook’? In the word of my grandad “I dunna reckon many”, not without the use of google anyway.
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I cannot disagree with you Nick but one thing I have found is that mankind has an incredible ability to reach for the future whilst concreting ones feet in the past.
Lets be honest, do you really think that Emma Tomphson would understand or for that matter should understand children young enough to be her grand offspring?
The only people on this thread complaining are the ones that have not the ability to bend with the breeze.
If I were you I would take no notice of miss, mrs, ms, Tomphson, because as far as I am concerned she can keep that plum in her mouth.
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Emma Thompson is absolutely right with her assessment. The standard of spoken English has reached an all time low amongst young people in this country. Don’t use the old excuse that our language is ‘evolving’, because it’s an obvious fact that the correct use of English grammar is not being adequately taught in our schools.
An inadequate grasp of how to express themselves in a level of English that prospective employers can understand, will very much count against them when applying for a job. At this point in time (thinking about world markets),we owe it to our young people to educate them to a level where they can communicate effectively and be understood. Foreign countries teach a better standard of English than we do.
The Shropshire Star should put it’s own house in order. Bad spelling, liberal pointless and unecessary conjunctions to begin sentences, all sentences beginning a new paragraph (an article tends to read like a bullet chart at some business AGM, all that’s missing ia a number for each line).
An accent is acceptable, but inability to form words correctly is not. Correct pronunciation should be taught in our primary schools, then they will have a choice.
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“It’s own house in order” It’s = it is. No apostrophe needed here.
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Sorry Andrew ….too many years reading the Shropshire Star Im afraid … or should that be I’m afraid ?
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Yes, it should.
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I’m not an expert but I would have thought that language is bound to ‘evolve’ given that the world is now much smaller with modern communications. On the internet English has to be the most used language and words are bound to get changed by non-native speakers of English.
Also why is it quaint and historically important to preserve local dialects which are a form of slang, but wrong for ‘teenagers’ to use modern slang? After all the Dawley greeting of “ow bist thee jockey” or the Derbyshire equivalent of “ay up me duck” are hardly Received Pronunciation!
Maybe Emma thinks if we all spoke ‘Oxbridge’ English it would make her acting job easier, but how boring all films would be.
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Well said!
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Realist, do you honestly believe that local dialects are preserved just for “quaint and historically Important” reasons?. They have been in place for ever and will never change.
You are missing the point here. Students are leaving college with straight As in English, and are unable to spell simple words or differentiate between similar sounding words. “There” for “their” and vice versa etc.. If I was an employer, I would be most unimpressed with such primary school errors in correspondence to my customers.
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In my comment about dialects I was trying to be slightly ironic. In that ‘bad’ pronunciation and grammer are acceptable at one level but not another.
I happen to agree that alot of students have a poor grasp of english words. This may be down to many reasons and not just poor teaching. Although if it is poor teaching then maybe it’s not this generation of teachers who are bad but the previous. After all todays teachers are yesterdays students.
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I completely agree with Ms. Thompson. She is not speaking against local dialects and syaings, she is protesting about the shortening of words and the dropping of letters within words altogether which a number of younger persons do these days purely because saying or typing the full word is just too time consuming (they’re too lazy more like)
If anyone came to me in a formal situation talking about ‘innit’ and ‘ya know’ I would ignore them. I most certainly would not employ them.
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Realist, call me a cynic if you will, but I truly believe that the problem stems from the need to keep the pass rates high. Some of the grammar I have witnessed from A level students was on a par with the 2nd year secondary school standard.
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Is it just me or does anybody else find it hilarious that Emma Thompson says “There is the necessity to have two languages – one that you use with your mates and the other that you need in any official capacity. Or you’re going to sound like a knob.” Isn’t the last sentence a little ironic given that she is speaking in an official capacity and not to her friends.
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No tc, it’s just you. This site is a forum for debate, serious at times and casual at others. The last sentence of the letter was a casual remark, and as she is a regular contributor, the rest of us have formed an affinity with her that is similar to friendship. perfectly acceptable.
Two languages??, yes. I have a facebook page where I regularly converse with people in a manner that would be ridiculed if used on this site but it is quite acceptable there.
I may send a letter in “facebook speak” one day it would be amusing to think of Andrew sitting amidst a pile of dictionaries tearing his hair out.
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The way young people speak today has nothing to do with regional accents or modern language changes, it is all to do with gang culture and everyone trying to fit in. In a society where we are supposed to appreciate and accept differences, young people are all trying to be the same, see a gang of young people going down the street and apart from the obvious skin colour differences, they will all be wearing the same clothes and speaking the same way, if a person were blind they would be forgiven for assuming they all came from the same background.
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Colin D., I was not commenting on the blogger, I was commenting on the words that Emma Thompson chose to use highlighting her advice to have two languages – one official and the other for friends – being a little ironic – given that she was making an official statement in an interview with the radio times and she said “otherwise you sound like a knob” which I think is an ironic way to make your point about speaking one way with friends and a more professional way in an official capacity.
It was my way to engage in a slightly serious, but also light hearted casual debate – to call out the obvious incongruity in her statement which would clearly denote her, by her own statement, to ‘sound like a knob’
I too speak in a different, more colloquial way, with friends and family members – very different than if I am in a job interview or work environment or speaking in any kind of official or authoritative capacity. I’m a communications coach and I’m sure that I wouldn’t go far if I were to ask somebody to use more professional tone and terms because otherwise they ‘sound like a knob’, which is essentially what Emma Thompson is advocating.
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TC,
It’s long been the case that young people have conversed in a different way amongst their friends than amongst other more formal groups.
I think the problem is that the line between street slang, and especially formal workplace communication is becoming blurred.
I’m sorry to say that I’ve seen written communications from graduates in the workplace stating ‘I would of (sic) done this’, or ‘I could of (sic) done that’, and even examples of so-called ‘text speak’ in what should have been formal business communication.
Emma Thompson is right to point out this problem – we need to do more to teach the structure of formal English grammar – there’s room for slang and informal communication, but it mustn’t be allowed to swamp formal English.
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I agree wholeheartedly with her point, but question her making the point by saying if you don’t speak more professionally at appropriate times then ‘you sound like a knob’ actually helping, her choice of words really wasn’t suitable to make the point, in fact those comments were unprofessional in the context of the debate and therefore undermine her point.
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Emma Thompson is wrong. English is constantly evolving and basically she is being left behind. Simple as that innit!
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Emma Thompson is right. She is a very accomplished and respected actress, who has an outstanding knowlege of the English language. A small number of young people grunting and mumbling their way through their formative years, making no attempt to improve their grammar, will not ‘evolve’ our language. My advice to Mauricio, is – grow up.
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