Ship of Fools: hows you're grammars.

Thread: hows you're grammars. Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.

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Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :

Kind of lightweight little online grammar quiz.

I missed one. Won't say which yet so people can take the test without spoilers.

[ 13. February 2013, 15:46: Message edited by: Ariston ]

Posted by Wesley J (# 6075) on :

Zero faults. It's coz I'm a cunning linguist. [Big Grin]

Posted by Angloid (# 159) on :

There is only one trick question I think.

Posted by The Rogue (# 2275) on :

Two wrong. Ho hum.

Posted by Freelance Monotheist (# 8990) on :

Full marks, with a niggling doubt over the abstract/collective nouns section. I pride myself on being a grammar/spelling/language nerd though.

Posted by Cara (# 16966) on :

Yay! All correct. I too pride myself on grammar etc so you'd have heard nothing from me if I'd made any mistakes!

Posted by Starbug (# 15917) on :

quote:
Originally posted by The Rogue:
Two wrong. Ho hum.

Me too. Not bad, considering I didn't understand some of the questions!

Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :

14/14. The gerund is an endangered species these days.

[ 06. February 2013, 18:18: Message edited by: Ariel ]

Posted by Jack the Lass (# 3415) on :

13/14. I take it as a sign of maturity (or alternatively tiredness) that I'm not more upset at getting one wrong! [Smile]

Posted by agrgurich (# 5724) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Wesley J:
Zero faults. It's coz I'm a cunning linguist.

I, also

Posted by Lucia (# 15201) on :

YES! Full marks. All that studying French grammar has at least made me reasonably literate about grammar terms in a way that school never did! (Oh yes and I guessed one...)

Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Lucia:
(Oh yes and I guessed one...)

Bless your honesty, child.

Posted by St. Gwladys (# 14504) on :

12/14 - not too bad as some were guesses. My English master would have been pleased.

Posted by Smudgie (# 2716) on :

Relieved to get 14/14 - thought I was losing the knack!

Posted by Pigwidgeon (# 10192) on :

"14 out of a possible 14"
[Big Grin]

Posted by Chorister (# 473) on :

12/14. And I went to Grammar School, too. Tut, tut. [Disappointed]

Posted by leo (# 1458) on :

One wrong.

I really cannot see the point of teaching year 6 such stupid rules.

Posted by Lyda*Rose (# 4544) on :

I got two wrong. But I object! I was right about #8 if the word referred to lions.

Posted by Pearl B4 Swine (# 11451) on :

13/14 That was fun.

Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Lyda*Rose:
I got two wrong. But I object! I was right about #8 if the word referred to lions.

And I was right if it didn't!

Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on :

14/14. [Snore]

Posted by Winnow (# 5656) on :

Two wrong. I simply forgot #14, and #8 ... well ... none of the choices fit. So I chose the wrong one [Frown]

But I do pretty well, usually, and if I make a mistake it's often on purpose because I think my way makes more sense than the rules. So there.

Posted by piglet (# 11803) on :

14/14, probably because I was educated in Scotland in the 1970s, when grammar was still given its due place in the curriculum. [Big Grin]

Posted by Ariston (# 10894) on :

All correct, but only because I had to stop and think about what was pretty obviously a trick question—as much vocabulary as grammar, as much logicing your way through things as knowing about language.

Naturally, that was my favorite.

Posted by ken (# 2460) on :

Also one wrong.

Two of the questions were about vocabularly, not grammar, and two about spelling. Which is a lot better than the average grammar peevers can do. Also they actually know the difference between the active and the passive voice - something that I think 19 out of 20 peevologists don't.

Posted by To The Pain (# 12235) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Ariel:
14/14. The gerund is an endangered species these days.

Perhaps. But maybe it is enjoying something of a resurgance?

Also a 14/14. But I couldn't tell you the rules I used to do so. A product of the 80s/90s system of not really teaching grammar. Means that I was terminally confused by complex foreign language grammar when it was introduced later in secondary school.

Posted by la vie en rouge (# 10688) on :

13/14 - I agree that there is a bit of a trick question in there (my pride is mortified)

Posted by kingsfold (# 1726) on :

[Big Grin]

I is happy

Posted by jedijudy (# 333) on :

13/14 Not bad for being an old lady sick at home with the creeping crud.

Posted by Jane R (# 331) on :

Full marks here too (and I should jolly well hope so).

Leo:

quote:
I really cannot see the point of teaching year 6 such stupid rules.

If you don't know the rules, then you can't work out when to ignore them.

At least these rules bear some relation to the actual rules of English grammar, rather than the fantasy rules based on Latin grammar which were dreamed up by previous generations of prescriptive grammarians...

Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on :

11/14. Pleased to get gerund right, got two reversed but got "active voice" right too! Very mixed.

Still, it took me three attempts to get GCE 'O' level English, and that was a bare pass almost forty years ago. As you can probably tell.

Posted by Timothy the Obscure (# 292) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:
Originally posted by Lyda*Rose:
I got two wrong. But I object! I was right about #8 if the word referred to lions.
And I was right if it didn't!

I almost got it wrong, then caught the double meaning. 14 out of 14--but then, I was an editor in a past life and would have been too ashamed to post my score if it had been otherwise.

Posted by Theophania (# 16647) on :

I am MORTIFIED to admit that I got one wrong. Can I claim it was a temporary blip caused by misreading when tired?

Posted by leo (# 1458) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Jane R:
Full marks here too (and I should jolly well hope so).

Leo:
quote:
I really cannot see the point of teaching year 6 such stupid rules.
If you don't know the rules, then you can't work out when to ignore them.

At least these rules bear some relation to the actual rules of English grammar, rather than the fantasy rules based on Latin grammar which were dreamed up by previous generations of prescriptive grammarians...

Most of us DO ignore them. I generally know what ''sounds right'.

I was never taught these rules - I would have been in Year 6 in 1960 - before 'progressive' education. I taught some English over 35 years and never taught these rules, nor were they in the PGCE training.

I thought a 'gerund' was an American thing.

[ 09. February 2013, 09:13: Message edited by: leo ]

Posted by FooloftheShip (# 15579) on :

quote:
Originally posted by leo:
I really cannot see the point of teaching year 6 such stupid rules.

Most of us DO ignore them. I generally know what ''sounds right'.

I was never taught these rules - I would have been in Year 6 in 1960 - before 'progressive' education. I taught some English over 35 years and never taught these rules, nor were they in the PGCE training.

I thought a 'gerund' was an American thing.

These are not stupid rules. These are the version for English of rules every other indo-european language has and functions by, and teaches its young native speakers how to use. Why the purple-headed fuck should English be so saintedly different? We need competent speakers who know how their language works, and can therefore express themselves with some precision. We need teachers who can teach these rules with assurance and real understanding. That rules out about 95% of those who went to school in the 80s (my generation) because they left school with nary a clue. I got several clues, being a linguist, but this had nothing to do with the teaching I received about my own native language.

ETA: This is not a very Circus-esque comment, but the honour of language as a system required a defence.

[ 09. February 2013, 09:37: Message edited by: FooloftheShip ]

Posted by Jengie Jon (# 273) on :

As someone who did not get taught the rules and has had to make quite a lot of effort to learn them in adult life can I say that I appreciate them and why it is a good idea to learn them. Yes some kids can pick them up from example but other kids can't.

Natural style is only good if you have the ability to communicate in your style. If your style becomes impentratable to a reader under certain circumstances due to bad grammar then it is fails as a method of communication.

Jengie

Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :

quote:
Originally posted by leo:
Most of us DO ignore them. I generally know what ''sounds right'.

Which is quite dangerous ground. You could well end up condoning usages such as "he was sat there" or "me and him went to" simply because they "sound right", i.e. they're the widespread colloquial forms in use in your area that you hear every day.

Anyone in a position of authority where they actually teach a language does need to know the rules by which that language operates, even if the course you teach doesn't require you to impart that to your students. I was quite surprised to find when I started secondary school in England that grammar wasn't taught in English lessons. We had to get it through French and German classes instead.

Incidentally, in the quiz, which one did people think was the trick question?

Posted by Pia (# 17277) on :

quote:
Originally posted by agrgurich:

quote:
Originally posted by Wesley J:
Zero faults. It's coz I'm a cunning linguist.
I, also

Me too!

Posted by birdie (# 2173) on :

14/14

I was never taught the rules in school. Some I've picked up along the way, some I think you can work out.

Posted by Hart (# 4991) on :

The trick question (don't click if you don't want a spoiler).

Some of the questions were more: did you learn terminology the way we taught it? Fair enough in a class, but not for a general quiz. I've never seen the phrase "conditional sentence" used that way. For me, a conditional sentence is an if-then sentence.

Posted by Jane R (# 331) on :

Leo:

quote:
I thought a 'gerund' was an American thing.

They may not be used very much in modern colloquial English, but I can assure you that gerunds exist in British English too.

Plus what FooloftheShip said. I was at school in the mid-70s to early 80s and most of my grammar knowledge was transferred from learning foreign languages - where they DID explain what conditionals, active/passive voice (etc) were. I know someone who got as far as university before learning what a pronoun was.

[ 09. February 2013, 13:38: Message edited by: Jane R ]

Posted by leo (# 1458) on :

quote:
Originally posted by FooloftheShip:

quote:
Originally posted by leo:
I really cannot see the point of teaching year 6 such stupid rules.

Most of us DO ignore them. I generally know what ''sounds right'.

I was never taught these rules - I would have been in Year 6 in 1960 - before 'progressive' education. I taught some English over 35 years and never taught these rules, nor were they in the PGCE training.

I thought a 'gerund' was an American thing.
These are not stupid rules. These are the version for English of rules every other indo-european language has and functions by, and teaches its young native speakers how to use. Why the purple-headed fuck should English be so saintedly different? We need competent speakers who know how their language works, and can therefore express themselves with some precision. We need teachers who can teach these rules with assurance and real understanding. That rules out about 95% of those who went to school in the 80s (my generation) because they left school with nary a clue. I got several clues, being a linguist, but this had nothing to do with the teaching I received about my own native language.

ETA: This is not a very Circus-esque comment, but the honour of language as a system required a defence.

During my PGCE we were told NEVER to teach the rules. One learns best by reading and listening.

That is how I learned.

The reason I thought a gerund was American is that the only time I have heard the term is in American films which involve a classroom.

I gather than US schools are very ken on the rules, though Year/Grade 6 seems very young.

Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :

I didn't learn the rules and it took me years of reading to pick them up by osmosis. And some people, such as with Asperger's, lack a functioning pick-it-up-by-osmosis gland. It's a shitty way to teach. You might as well say that instead of teaching math rules we should just have people read a lot of math problems until they pick it up by osmosis. And we can see the results of this way of teaching every time we look at letters to the editor, or the postings on Facebook.

Posted by Jengie Jon (# 273) on :

That may be how you learnt, I was not able to learn that way and my ability to write clearly suffered because of it.

Nobody would think a mathematics teacher who gave pupils lots of examples and then marked their answers right or wrong was doing an adequate job. You need someone to explain the rules, probably in several different ways and then lots and lots of examples which start from the easy and get harder.

There is not one learning style and therefore only teaching it for one learning style penalises other pupils who would learn better with other styles.

Jengie

Posted by ken (# 2460) on :

The trouble with formal grammar teaching in schools is that they often teach rules that are not in fact rules. They get it wrong.

Everybody who can speak a language competently already knows the rules of that language. Obviously they do, because they can produce speech that follows those rules. Which is amazing when you think about it. Most of us learn most of the rules by the age of three or four, before we ever go to school, and pretty much all of them by the age of nine or ten. Just by listening and talking! Our brains are wonderful.

What we don't have, what school can teach us, is language for talking about language. Which is wonderful too. If its done right. But for all sorts of reasons its done badly. The so-called rules of English grammar taught in British and American schools are often worthless Latinisms that don't adequately describe English at all.

Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :

quote:
Originally posted by ken:
Everybody who can speak a language competently already knows the rules of that language. Obviously they do, because they can produce speech that follows those rules.

Well, no. They can produce speech that follows the rules (patterns) used by their family. Whether they are following the rules used by the larger language community, or indeed whether than can make themselves understood by the larger language community, is another question entirely. And that's why grammar is taught in schools.

Posted by Ariston (# 10894) on :

All very interesting, of course, but discussion of grammar teaching should probably be taken elsewhere—like Purg. If you're discussing the quiz or your wounded pride when you missed that one trick question, keep it here; otherwise, feel free to start a new thread somewhere that ain't here.
—Ariston, Circus Host

Posted by bib (# 13074) on :

I think I did ok, but the answer button didn't work when I pressed it.

Posted by Sir Kevin (# 3492) on :

12 of 14; I fancy myself a writer; God willing, I shall be by the end of November!

Posted by tomcoop (# 17670) on :

I only scored 12 out of a possible 14. ha!

Posted by Welease Woderwick (# 10424) on :

My grammar died in 1982, she was 91!

I got a measly 11 but then I never really thought of myself as being particularly literate.

Posted by Bob Two-Owls (# 9680) on :

All correct but I have to admit that I sat trying to remember which was the gerund and which was the gerundive in Latin so I could translate back into English...

Posted by North East Quine (# 13049) on :

quote:
Originally posted by piglet:
14/14, probably because I was educated in Scotland in the 1970s, when grammar was still given its due place in the curriculum.

So was I, but I only got 12. [Hot and Hormonal]

Posted by North East Quine (# 13049) on :

I may have got the gerund question wrong, but a quick check confirms that my memory of what a gerund looks like, according to Molesworth in Down with Skool, was spot-on.

Posted by L'organist (# 17338) on :

14 - showing my age
- or maybe a tribute to Miss Hall who used a ruler around the back of the legs if we made mistakes.

Posted by Smudgie (# 2716) on :

I was delighted to score 14/14, especially as I thought I was losing my grasp of grammar and punctuation with age and too much time spent reading the writing of young children.

I was less delighted when I discovered I've already done the test and posted my results........ something which I still can't remember doing. So my success is suddenly not having the reassuring impact on my self-esteem it originally had. [Hot and Hormonal]

Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on :

14/14, although I'd claim that all of the options in question 9 are horrible, and "polar bear mother-to-be" is superior. It took me a while to work out what on earth a "prepositional phrase" was, though, having never been taught anything resembling formal grammar.

[ 08. May 2013, 21:19: Message edited by: Leorning Cniht ]

Posted by The5thMary (# 12953) on :

I got ten out of fourteen correct. I thought I would do worse since I'd forgotten most of that stuff since high school. All in all, I'm rather pleased with that little quiz.

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