Chapter nine’s “reading A” gives ten excerpts drawn from The Times dated 1993-4.
1. The first extract a nnounces BBC intentions to publish a guide on what the network considers acceptable and unacceptable expressions for their journalists and presenters to use. Trying to eliminate their programs from “Americanism, inaccuracies, and bad taste,” the guide ad vises them to avoid adjectives, clichés, jargon.
2. The second article shows an excerpt from a letter from Sir Gilbert Longden who criticizes Prime Minister Major’s speech which lumped unrelated ideas into one single list when he said that he was “..determined to restore proper schooling in grammar and spelling, along with crime-free streets.”˙˙
3. The third article states that one of Britain’s A-level examination boards is alarmed by the increasing use of colloquialism by their most articulat e 18 year olds.
4. The fourth article is written by someone who is obviously irritated by how the word, “brilliant” is increasingly used to congratulate someone who does the most simplest of tasks, how nouns are sometimes used as verbs.˙ ˙
5. A rticle five reports that the Queen’s English Society’s survey claims that people are not getting a good English education. ˙ ˙
6. This article states that Oxford University students are showing a decline in understanding of the same basic grammat ical principals that students mastered a decade ago.
7. A study claims that more than half of the students preparing to teach as a career do not even know the basic principles of grammar.˙˙
8. The eighth article claims that even the London cult ural center, the Barbica because children of today consider misspellings as only minor concerns. Stricter practices in spelling must be enforced when children are young to learn how to spell correctly. Kids have the right to develop good spelling in order to have a better chance at success in life.
10. Writer of article ten claims that soon-to-be-teachers are not being properly educated. Teachers are increasingly semi-illiterate. ˙
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