Wednesday, August 22, 2012

Oops!

Apparently 'O' level English is no longer a requirement to work for the Ministry of Justice:

today's email included this headline:-


Tougher rules for claims management companys

26 comments:

  1. I often find it irritating when changing sentences from singular to plural, or vice versa — having to alter the noun, the verb, and maybe some other words in the sentence. Then I think about how hard people have to work, when writing in almost any other European language, to do the same thing, and I rejoice in the comparative simplicity of English.

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  2. [/smug] I would hope that new entrants to the Civil Service are not required to have O Level anything, since O Levels disappeared from the curriculum in 1988. And people say that the magistracy are out of touch? ;) [/endsmug/]

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    1. Not very clear on HTML, or any other kind of, markup, are we.

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    2. I believe the correct internet response to anyone who fails to get such a hoary old HTML gag is " ".

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    3. (Which should have read "[whoosh!]" but with these - < and > - brackets. Curse the lack on an edit facility...)

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    4. So 40+ years olds should be excluded from joining the civil service ?

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    5. Oh dear. I was commenting on you "opening" the "element"... with a /.

      For reference: <enlightenment>It's done like this.</enlightenment>

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    6. O-levels still exist, but they are mainly sat abroad. I think some UK schools are considering reverting to them.

      (Apropos riens du tout - has anyone else noticed in the media coverage of the recently released GCSE marks that according to teachers when grades go up it is because students are improving but when they go down it is because the exams are getting harder?)

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  3. Replies
    1. Live by the pedantry, die by the pedantry.

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  4. And shouldn't 'today' be capitalised?

    I love it when people on the Internet get all smug about how uneducated people are, then go and make a mistake themselves :)

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    1. Capital T only if you also believe that the preceding colon should have been a full-stop. I think I'll go with BS on this one.

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    2. Patrick Brompton23 August 2012 at 12:41

      "then go and make a mistake themselves":

      Muphry's Law

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    3. Also known as Hartman's Law of Prescriptivist Retaliation, the Iron Law of Nitpicking, Skitt's Law, and McKean's Law.

      In any case, when a colon is followed by a complete sentence, it's a matter of judgment whether that sentence begins with a capital letter or not. "I told him: get lost" would not be improved by rewriting as "I told him: Get lost."

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  5. A recent blog post by none other than Bystander himself was entitled "Maybe its because I'm a Londoner."

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  6. Not as good as the cake shop in Wolverhampton that sells "Gateau's".

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    1. Perhaps not, agreed. But they probably do better puff pastry, whereas BS likes to present himself as the master of puff.

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  7. And he can't even do French GCSE either... Retournons À nos Moutons, please!

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    1. When I studied French you never put an accent on a capital letter.

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    2. http://french.about.com/library/writing/bl-capitalization3.htm

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    3. Thanks, Matthew. Language teaching in the UK has always been pretty poor, now it's even worse (even our much-beloved Bystander struggles - often in vain - with apostrophes). It's good to see someone look for a proper evidence base. Precisely the sort of qualities they're looking for in the magistracy, as I understand. You haven't thought about applying, by any chance?

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  8. Neither does it appear to be a requirement to be able to pronounce words when being interviewed on the Today programme as an expert in English where GCSE marks have apparently risen "inexORably" until this year.

    I know - I should get out more.

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  9. Itz probly cos at skool we were tort that spelling and grammer dusent matter as long as it can be undastood. Yoo peeple need to get with the new libral trendy ways. Next thing you will want to hang and flog peeple.

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  10. I presume that the team need to get a French expert on board, who may or may not be a JP.

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  11. But if he was a JP, he couldn't possibly say so.

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  12. I am delighted to see that Bystander (and his team) appear set to continue educating, informing and enlightening us about the realities of life in and around the magistrates' courts. It would have been an enormous loss to the magistracy an an "institution" to lose one of its finest chroniclers, but more importantly he has done as much as any other individual, along with some of the outstanding MA chairmen of recent years, to inform public debate on the big and little issues of the day in the area of "summary justice". Great news!

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Posts are pre-moderated. Please bear with us if this takes a little time, but the number of bores and obsessives was getting out of hand, as were the fake comments advertising rubbish.