Tag: BBC

Overuse of the exclamation mark: You’re having a laugh!!!! A little strict?!!

T. J. BlakeLeave a comment

I’m sure you’ve heard today in the news – about the implemented changes to the use of the exclamation mark for primary school children. The newly introduced educational exclamation law means that for pupils across England, only phrases starting with “what” or “how” merit an exclamation mark.

I think that it’s always good to educate children on punctuation – it moulds our language and creates meaning. Without punctuation, people write extremely comical yet disturbing sentences.

“Let’s eat Mum!” & “Let’s eat, Mum!”

“I live for cooking my family and my dog” & “I live for cooking, my family, and my dog”

Unless you want to sound like a disturbing family orientated carnivore, knowing how to use punctuation is key!!! (Sorry!)

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I support punctuation education, but I don’t quite understand the specific focus on the exclamation mark. Of course, there needs to be limited use of exclamation marks and even question marks when it matters most – two examples being in education or professional  writing, such as copywriting. People alter their writing and even their speech in certain situations, and I believe that for children it is the same; they will accommodate their writing when at school compared to when writing on say, social media, text or messenger. But even if they don’t, then it is up to the teacher to educate them.

Anyway, I thought this was interesting and definitely has much more needed to be said on the matter.

My latest article ‘How has technology affected the relation between speech and writing?‘ I believe has a great cohesion with this subject, so have a read of that too!

Also, this news is all over the Internet, have a read about the new exclamation mark rules on the BBC and The Guardian.

BBC – http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03lrtwd

The Guardian – http://www.theguardian.com/education/shortcuts/2016/mar/07/new-exclamation-mark-rules-proof-the-government-wants-to-penalise-enthusiasm

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/mar/07/children-use-exclamation-marks-department-education

Thanks for reading, feel free to comment and share this post!

Does English exist any more?

T. J. BlakeLeave a comment

How frustrating is it that people these days cannot speak? especially on Facebook… Every time I log onto Facebook or Twitter, I see a status, comment or tweet that is poorly written.

TEXTS! Oh yes, lets not forget texts. I expect you all know someone who writes a text that is ‘quicker’ for them to type, but longer for you to translate and transcribe… Yes they use ‘b4’ and spell words carelessly to ‘save them time’ but in truth, they probably don’t know how to spell the actual word.  Admittedly, I used to do all the abbreviations and ridiculous spelling of words… when I was about 10!

Now, back to Facebook. I have noticed that people cannot speak, mostly through my experience of the internet for the last, I don’t know, ten years+ . Recently, it has irritated me more than ever.
I liked an Arsenal fan page, well actually a few of them, and there are two that stand out to me. They are both constantly filled with news, that is written poorly (and lies might I add). I mean, it’s so bad that people comment on the posts, insulting the page about their written English. Admittedly, (no racism intended) I think that the people who run these fan pages, are foreign because the syntax and sentence structure is always pretty wild.

To be honest, I suppose it is expected within football. It’s a worldwide sport, everyone is allowed their opinion  including foreign Arsenal fans. I’m just more irritated by people who don’t write texts ‘properly’ or write statuses that make them sound incapable of speaking or show that they could feature on The Jeremy Kyle Show and fit right in. Just watch the Jeremy Kyle show if you haven’t already. It’s a  perfect piece of evidence to use with this mini rant of mine.

I should really be a descriptivist about all this right now, that’s what we’re encouraged to do in English essays… Luckily this isn’t an essay.

There is much more to speak about here, but, I simply do not have the time to do so. I am a full time university student, and May is the month of essays and exams for us students and I’m writing my book.

Before any smart ass proofreads my post here and points out any errors, just stop, they would be minor errors and this is a informal post about language. And yes, you may be thinking ‘well Facebook is informal too so you’re contradicting yourself.’ No I am not, least I am making some sense with my language and all the words are spelt correctly and there is some form of punctuation.

That’s all for now. Rant over.