Keith Barrow wrote:

You are a programmer by profession

Err, no I'm not. I am an engineer by trade who writes programs as a hobby in his spare time. If I made fundamental mistakes in my job, I'd be sacked.

Keith Barrow wrote:

Almost all primary school teachers are BA graduates, who tend to have better English

Well then it's high bloody time that upper schools had the same requirements for recruiting staff. When a school/college promotes itself as 'providing a high quality education' I for one EXPECT, nay DEMAND better standards. After all, I, along with everyone else is paying for these teachers through taxes.

Keith Barrow wrote:

Why? As long as the English is good enough to be understood, what does it matter whether a maths teacher makes the odd spelling mistake, very little English is written on the board in a maths lesson. The minimum requirement for entry onto a teacher training course is a C at GCSE which, frankly a well trained molllusc could get

This particular attitude explains why software is riddled with bugs and gaping security holes. ;P If the software works, it's good enough. That seems to be what your saying if you apply the same concept. Any way. Peace

I'm too lazy to Google it for you.

Hey, I never said that MY standard of English was good. I even wrote that in the email to the Headteacher. However, I do expect a teacher's standard to be better though. This was the email sent: Thank you for your reply. I have to agree that there has been some improvement in the standard of English and punctuation in correspondence from Darton College to parents since the change of management. However, I have recently read Emily’s school report and to put it mildly, was dismayed at the number of fundamental mistakes within the report. I do appreciate that your teaching staff have many reports to write and probably do not have the time to proof read each report written. Nevertheless, there appears to be a vast difference, between staff, in the standards applied to report writing. Some of the mistakes could be seen as nit picking. I do not agree. We, as parents and teachers, expect our children and students to be able to achieve certain standards in their work. Is it not too much to ask to expect the same standards or better from those doing the teaching? The mistakes noted were: • A missing word within a sentence so that the sentence does not make sense without it; two occurrences. • Superfluous word in a sentence: “…. incorporating both her is own ideas and those of her peers into group projects.” • Incorrect use of the semicolon used to start a list within a sentence; should be a colon. • The word ‘contributes’ instead of ‘contribute’ when used within the context of the sentence written. “… but doesn’t regularly contributes to class discussions.” • Apostrophe used in expressing a decade! “1960’s”. This is fundamental! • Incorrect spelling; should be ‘from’, not ‘form’. • “Emily can carry out searches on the internet ….” The word ‘Internet’ is a proper noun when referring to the global Internet and as such, should have been capitalised. The word ‘internet’ is shorthand for interconnected network and, therefore, refers to an object. Finally, this is from the History report: “…. by focussing on the Tudors from 1485-1603 and the Stuarts from 1603-1734.” I would question that the end date referring to the Stuarts is correct. Queen Anne, the last Stuart monarch died in 1714, effectively ending the reign of the Stuarts. The House of Hanoverians reigned from 1714. Do not get me wrong, I am not saying that my standard of English is any better and probably does leave something to be desired at times. However, a College that specialises in English should not be making such mistakes in my opin

Sounds like a classic case of 'do as I say, not as I do'!! :laugh:

I'm too lazy to Google it for you.

I have just recently read my Daughter's school report and was dismayed, nay, bloody annoyed at the number of fundamental mistakes in the spelling, grammar and punctuation used within the report written by her various teachers. I have just sent off an email to the Headteacher expressing my dissatisfaction with the quality of English used within the report. Right, now to the question: do other schools/colleges have such a bad command of English? If so, do you write and complain or just 'let it slide'?

I'm too lazy to Google it for you.

For Binary to be a language, it would need to have a clearly defined syntax. Binary doesn't, therefore, it's not a language.

I'm too lazy to Google it for you.

Naerling wrote:

We now have one class that does everything, so implementation is easier and requires less code... Which is his argument for doing it his way.

:doh: He's obviously never studied/understood OOP principles! You DO NOT have a single class that does everything; that's basic OOP.

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Richard MacCutchan wrote:

not forgetting the fact that the British are notoriously bad at learning other languages.

I don't think it's a case of being bad at learning other languages; I think it's more a case of WHICH one do we learn, there's that many!

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kstraw wrote:

we might get around to using gotten again.

Have you for-gotten how to use it? ;P

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DaveAuld wrote:

Oh, your not feeling left out are you?

Cheers Dave. Yes I was! :laugh:

I'm too lazy to Google it for you.

Is there some form of conspiracy going on here at CP or am I just paranoid? I post a message about using a new browser which I hadn't heard of before and NO-ONE responds. http://www.codeproject.com/Lounge.aspx?msg=3759370#xx3759370xx[^] Someone posts a message about IE9 and a whole discussion kicks off. Hmmmm I wonder why? :) I don't suppose I'll get a sensible reply to this either. ;P

I'm too lazy to Google it for you.

I've not seen that before, It's a very good come back. I have to admit - being an Englishman myself - that a lot of what is in is true. :)

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Dalek Dave wrote:

but have a five anyway.

That's jolly decent of you ol' chap. ;)

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While clearing throught the accumulated debris on the hard disk I came across this: (I'm sure it's from the time of the 2001 presidential election.) To the citizens of the United States of America, In the light of your failure to elect a President of the USA and thus to govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your independence, effective today. Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will resume monarchial duties over all states, commonwealths and other territories. Except Utah, which she does not fancy. Your new prime minister (The rt. hon. Tony Blair, MP for the 97.85% of you who have until now been unaware that there is a world outside your borders) will appoint a minister for America without the need for further elections. Congress and the Senate will be disbanded. A questionnaire will be circulated next year to determine whether any of you noticed. To aid in the transition to a British Crown Dependency, the following rules are introduced with immediate effect: 1. You should look up "revocation" in the Oxford English Dictionary. Then look up "aluminium". Check the pronunciation guide. You will be amazed at just how wrongly you have been pronouncing it. Generally, you should raise your vocabulary to acceptable levels. Look up "vocabulary". Using the same twenty seven words interspersed with filler noises such as "like" and "you know" is an unacceptable and inefficient form of communication. Look up "interspersed". 2. There is no such thing as "US English". We will let Microsoft know on your behalf. 3. You should learn to distinguish the English and Australian accents. It really isn't that hard. 4. Hollywood will be required occasionally to cast English actors as the good guys. 5. You should relearn your original national anthem, "God Save The Queen", but only after fully carrying out task 1. We would not want you to get confused and give up half way through. 6. You should stop playing American "football". There is only one kind of football. What you refer to as American "football" is not a very good game. The 2.15% of you who are aware that there is a world outside your borders may have noticed that no one else plays "American" football. You will no longer be allowed to play it, and should instead play proper football. Initially, it would be best if you played with the girls. It is a difficult game. Those of you brave enough will, in time, be allowed to play rugby

I've just sold an old Commadore Amiga 500 on eBay, and 'upgraded' to a Commodore Amiga A1200; with PCMCIA slot and a whopping 64Mbyte (yes megabyte) hard disk. Back to the heady days of Workbench 3.1. Now if only I could get it to load a CD I could upgrade even further to Workbench 3.9 and really enjoy some pre-emtive multitasking. :cool:

I'm too lazy to Google it for you.

John Simmons / outlaw programmer wrote:

to the retard suing the BBC over the "Mexican sports car" incident on Top Gear.

That retard was the Mexican Ambassador to the UK. This from the BBC website: Reviewing the Mastretta on Sunday's show, Hammond said: "Mexican cars are just going to be lazy, feckless, flatulent, overweight, leaning against a fence asleep looking at a cactus with a blanket with a hole in the middle on as a coat." The presenters, known for their edgy jibes, then described Mexican food as "refried sick". Clarkson said he was confident he would not receive any complaints about their comments because the Mexican ambassador would be asleep. (No he wasn't) :laugh:

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Hot? It's blowing a storm force gale here in England, I've already lost the roof off my shed and the guttering off the conservatory. Oh, and it's raining. Typical British weather really. :laugh:

I'm too lazy to Google it for you.

Just started trying out a new web browser; Lunascape http://www.lunascape.tv/[^] A triple engined browser no less supporting Trident, Gecko and Webkit. So far, all of my Firefox addons have worked flawlessly and switching between rendering engines is as easy as clicking in a drop down box. Everything appears to be customisable much more than the other main browsers. So far, very impressed.

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Fabio Franco wrote:

pleasure the husband remotely.

Remotely? I'd like to meet some of the women that you know! :laugh:

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agolddog wrote:

Now, I believe the UK to be the country. I'm not sure how they refer to the sub-entities. Not states like in the US or Australia, I don't think they're provinces as in Canada.

The UK is not a country per se, it is a collection of countries that share a common monarch. The main land mass contains three SEPERATE countries: England, Scotland and Wales; this is collectively known as Britain or Great Britain. The UK or United Kingdom encompasses Great Britain AND Northern Ireland which is on a seperate land mass. Therefore, for someone to say that they are British they are alluding to the fact that they are from the land mass containing England, Scotland & Wales. Now, you will not find many Welsh or Scots people say that they are British, and to be honest, I don't blame them. Being British doesn't mean what it once used to. Me, I'm not British either, I'm English and bloody proud of it. Being British ISN'T a national identity anymore; it doesn't mean anything.

I'm too lazy to Google it for you.

Vikram A Punathambekar wrote:

Ireland" can mean The Republic of Ireland, or it can be used to refer to the entire island.

The southern half of Ireland, I.e. the part that is a republic and not part of the UK is quite commonly known as Eire; which is the Irish name for Ireland.

I'm too lazy to Google it for you.