Thursday 4 August 2011

A black mark for Lincolnshire County Council

I had the misfortune to be in Lincolnshire over the weekend. For those unfamiliar with this ghastly part of the country, it provides a glimpse of Britain before the Industrial Revolution; peopled as it is in the main by half-witted agricultural workers. My wife’s family live there and so we have to visit the county pretty regularly. Mind you, they live in Grimsby, which is positively cosmopolitan and sophisticated compared with the little hamlets one finds tucked away between the potato fields. Most of the inhabitants of these places look like inbred mutants who might have wandered off the set of The Hills have Eyes. Still, enough about my daughter’s family. While we were there, I looked in on a family I know who teach their own children. I don’t really mind this myth that I never meet real-life home educators, as long as people realise that it is a complete nonsense. I was given a copy of a letter which they recently received. Blogger won’t let me put pictures here at the moment and so I shall have to type it out. It says:

Dear Mrs. XXXX,
We are doing a review of children electively home educated from XXX, to ascertain if sufficient support is being provided to yourselves and child/ren from Lincolnshire County Council. It is also important that we understand that the educational provision your child is receiving is an appropriate and comprehensive one.
In order to undertake this review we have agreed that an Education Welfare Officer will visit you at a time convenient to yourself. It would be helpful if you are in agreement, that this officer talk to your child to hear from her first hand how they are finding the education provided, and whether there is anything else we need to assist them in providing additional support services.
It is also important that we understand whether there are any additional needs in relation to your child and whether we can provide any assistance.
I am sure that you will find these visits helpful to your family.

Seldom have I seen such a horror! If somebody wished to check on the education which I was providing for a child, the very least I might require is that the people doing the checking were themselves educated to a reasonably high standard. This is manifestly not the case here; the letter being written by somebody unable to express herself in ordinary, plain English. This communication is couched in what I call ‘ill-educated formal’. This is a style of writing beloved of the barely literate, who use odd constructions which they fondly imagine deceives readers into believing that the letter has been penned by an educated and intelligent person! Almost unbelievably, the above letter was signed by the Assistant Director of Children's Services! Let us look at this monstrosity in a little detail.

It begins ‘Dear Mrs. XXX’ and then goes on to refer to ‘yourselves’. This is of course an illicit concordance between the singular ‘Mrs. XXX’ and plural ‘yourselves’. The same solecism occurs a few lines down with ‘your child’, singular, and ‘how they are finding’, plural. Awful basic grammatical error, which alone suggests that the writer has not been educated beyond primary school. And why on earth talk of support being provided to ‘yourselves’? The correct word here is ‘you’; not ‘to ascertain if sufficient support is being provided to yourselves’, but rather ‘to ascertain if sufficient support is being provided to you’. The use of ‘yourself’ instead of ‘you’ is of course another turn of phrase popular with the illiterate and inarticulate. This is also to be found a few lines later, ’ at a time convenient to yourself’. Why not simply, ’at a convenient time’?


The second sentence begins, ‘It is also important that we ..’ In order to use the word ‘also’ in this way, it must first have been show that a previous item was important. This was not even hinted at during mention of the review of electively home educated children. On another note, one is tempted to ask to whom all this is important. Important for the child? The parent? Lincolnshire County Council? It is heartening, if a little surprising, that Lincolnshire will be talking to these children to find out, ‘how they are finding the education provided, and whether there is anything else we need to assist them in providing additional support services‘. Are only home educated children to be favoured in this way, or will the local authority be speaking to children at their schools to see how they are finding their education and whether there are any additional services which they could do with?

All in all, I do not think that this letter would encourage me to engage with Lincolnshire County Council. It is semi-literate and incoherent; not at all a good advertisement for an education department!

44 comments:

  1. "‘your child’, singular, and ‘how they are finding’, plural."

    Use of 2nd person plural in place of 3rd person singular because either the gender is unknown or the speaker wishes to avoid overt references to the gender.

    We wouldn't need to do this if there was a gender neutral 3rd person singular in English, so the above is a workaround.

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  2. http://oxforddictionaries.com/page/heshethey/he-or-she-versus-they

    Found a reference, the bottom one on the page.

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  3. There are plenty of problems with this letter, the least of them being the poor English.

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  4. Hampshire County Council write letters like this to home educators.

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  5. 'Sarah in Italy said...
    "‘your child’, singular, and ‘how they are finding’, plural."

    Use of 2nd person plural in place of 3rd person singular because either the gender is unknown or the speaker wishes to avoid overt references to the gender.

    We wouldn't need to do this if there was a gender neutral 3rd person singular in English, so the above is a workaround.'

    A little rewording avoids the need for this barbarism! In the example given for example, we could say instead:

    ' this officer will talk to children to hear first hand how they are finding the education provided'

    The problem with using 'they' when one means one person is that it can create confusion. And it is a mark of illiteracy.

    Simon.

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  6. Change 'will' to 'would like to' and you're almost home!

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  7. 'Anonymous said...
    Change 'will' to 'would like to' and you're almost home!'

    Important, I feel, to distinguish grammatical from ideological objections when dealing with local authorities!

    Simon.

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  8. You can reword almost anything to better satisfy your personal preferences if desired, but subbing "they" for s\he in order to achieve gender neutrality is not a mark of illiteracy.

    ----------------


    Here's the blurb from the link I posted

    You can use the plural pronouns ‘they’, ‘them’, ‘their’ etc., despite the fact that, technically, they are referring back to a singular noun:

    If your child is thinking about a gap year, they can get good advice from this website.


    A researcher has to be completely objective in their findings.


    Some people object to the use of plural pronouns in this type of situation on the grounds that it’s ungrammatical.

    In fact, the use of plural pronouns to refer back to a singular subject isn’t new: it represents a revival of a practice dating from the 16th century.

    It’s increasingly common in current English and is now widely accepted both in speech and in writing.

    -------------

    Widely accepted enough that it's normally part of the syllabus for more advanced ESL courses.

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  9. just tell Local authorities to clear off and remind them that they is NO legal requirment for any meetins or visits to your house!

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  10. I was a bit shocked by 'we have agreed', with no consideration of what the recipient of the letter might think about the idea. I wonder how much multiplication elsewhere the council have been invited to do as a result of these letters?

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  11. I think the most bizarre sentence is this one,

    "It would be helpful if you are in agreement, that this officer talk to your child to hear from her first hand how they are finding the education provided, and whether there is anything else we need to assist them in providing additional support services."

    It doesn't make any sense at all. It seems to suggest that the local authority may need something to help the child to provide support services!

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  12. 'It doesn't make any sense at all. It seems to suggest that the local authority may need something to help the child to provide support services! '

    Yes, it is one of those documents which one needs to read very slowly, while mentally inserting appropriate punctuation and rephrasing parts of it. This is rarely the sign of a good letter. As Dave H observes, the bit about 'we have agreed' is particularly enchanting.

    Simon.

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  13. Apropos of the confusion between singular and lural pronouns; here is a perfect example from today's news as to why this is a bad idea. The item concerns a shooting incident in which more than one person was shot:

    'The extent of the officer's injuries were unknown but they have since been discharged from hospital, a spokesman for the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) said.'

    It is unclear whether one person or several were realeased from hospital. There is no advantage at all in saying 'they', rather than 'he'. It just makes it harder to work out what is actaully being said.

    Simon.

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  14. "It would be helpful if you are in agreement, that this officer talk to your child to hear from her first hand how they are finding the education provided, and whether there is anything else we need to assist them in providing additional support services."

    Also, 'It would be helpful if you are in agreement' makes one wonder what would happen if you were not in agreement.

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  15. 'We have agreed'? Who has agreed?

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  16. What support services are they anticipating being able to provide anyway? None are offered in our LA.

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  17. ''We have agreed'? Who has agreed? '

    Yes, I wondered this as well!

    Simon.

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  18. Erm... Grimsby isn't in Lincolnshire...

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  19. "It is unclear whether one person or several were realeased from hospital. There is no advantage at all in saying 'they', rather than 'he'. It just makes it harder to work out what is actaully being said."

    Depends if the newspaper knows the gender of the officer. I suppose they could have used 's/he', or 'the officer' though.

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  20. I see that various people from Lincolnshire County Council are visiting your blog. Wonder if they have some kind of monitor set to alert them to any mentions of Lincolnshire or Lincolnshire County Council? Not sure is we should be alarmed or disgusted that they haven't got better things to do with their time at work!

    15 people at Lincolnshire County Council appear to have spent at least 90 minutes (between them) reading your blog (assuming that people using different computers from the same IP address result in records of repeated individual visits rather than one continuous visit as is normally the case from a single IP address).

    Should we/you have any concerns about copyright? Probably not as they are public servants, after all [hollow laugh].

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  21. 'Erm... said...
    Erm... Grimsby isn't in Lincolnshire...'

    I am curious to know where you think Grimsby is, if it is no longer in north east Lincolnshire...

    Simon.

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  22. 'Wonder if they have some kind of monitor set to alert them to any mentions of Lincolnshire or Lincolnshire County Council? '

    I would guess so; this is easy enough to set up. Education Otherwise have one which alerts them to mention of home education or home schooling.

    Simon.

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  23. Simon - Grimsby is in North East Lincolnshire. Which is not Lincolnshire, it's a neighbouring and entirely separate authority.

    Imagine if someone was describing the people in the area bordering wherever you live as 'half-witted... inbred mutants...' but publically called you those names instead. Wouldn't you point it out?

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  24. 'Erm... said...
    Simon - Grimsby is in North East Lincolnshire. Which is not Lincolnshire, it's a neighbouring and entirely separate authority.'

    I use the word 'Lincolnshire' to describe the whole of... Lincolnshire. I am aware that there is a separate unitary authority which includes the city of Grimsby, but it is still in Lincolnshire. There is a difference sometimes between the old county boundaries and the lines drawn as a result of various local authority shuffles. Ask anybody from Grimsby what county they are in and they will soon tell you. (And they won't say 'The unitary authority of North East Lincolnshire, either).

    Simon.

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  25. If somebody wished to comment on the grammar of another, the very least I might require is that the person doing the commenting were themselves educated to a reasonably high standard. This is manifestly not the case here, the blogger failing to know his 'show' from his 'shown', or simply not being able to proofread:

    In order to use the word ‘also’ in this way, it must first have been show that

    Seldom have I seen such a horror!

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  26. Here is a map of the counties of England:

    http://gwydir.demon.co.uk/jo/maps/uktowns.htm

    It will be seen that Grimsby is deeper witin the county than Lincoln itself. There was a good deal of unpleasantness a few years ago when the town was supposedly in a new area called 'Humberside'. Those living there made their feelings strongly known; that they were actually in Lincolnshire.

    Simon.

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  27. Simon - So your offensive comments weren't only referring to the 168,000 population of North East Lincs in which Grimsby sits then? You're telling me that your observations are also worthy of the 702,000 inhabitants of Lincolnshire and 160,000 North Lincs residents as well? Based purely on a few people in Grimsby, you're calling the poor folk of Scunthorpe and Stamford such horrible names, too? You do realise they are nearly 100 miles apart?...

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  28. "I would guess so; this is easy enough to set up. Education Otherwise have one which alerts them to mention of home education or home schooling."

    I have several alerts on Google, but I've not noticed blogger posts appearing, it's generally news so presumably this is different. Any idea where/what it is? At least you know your message hit home - maybe they will take something useful from your grammar lesson.

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  29. I notice someone at the BBC has taken a look at this page too! Who knows, maybe you will get a call, Simon?

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  30. 'Erm... said...
    Simon - So your offensive comments weren't only referring to the 168,000 population of North East Lincs in which Grimsby sits then? You're telling me that your observations are also worthy of the 702,000 inhabitants of Lincolnshire and 160,000 North Lincs residents as well? Based purely on a few people in Grimsby, you're calling the poor folk of Scunthorpe and Stamford such horrible names, too? You do realise they are nearly 100 miles apart?... '

    Indeed I am aware of this. However in both Scunthorpe and Stamford, Educational Psychologists presented with a child who might in another part of the country be supposed to have a developmental problem, routinely mark the case files with the letters NFL. This signifies 'Normal for Lincolnshire'.

    Simon.

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  31. Ah right, didn't realise that. Your generalised abuse of all inhabitants must be right then.

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  32. Someone seems to be struggling with your joke about the people of Lincolnshire in much the same way as you did with the pigs head joke, Simon. Quite a common problem here (and one I've not been immune to in the past myself).

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  33. In good Olde English you are a BELLEND Simon.

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  34. That's not Olde English, that's yobbish lout.

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  35. Many home-schooled children have friends in the neighborhood who they hang out with. Some parents enroll their kids in after school sports programs at community centers. It is these after school sports events that can make home schooling more well rounded.

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  36. Maybe it's because, and they're right, Consistently, homeschooled kids score higher than their schooled peers on standardized tests.

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  37. The trouble is if you are in the TOWN of Grimsby (it's not a city) you are not dealing with Lincolnshire County Council but North East Lincs council who are a totally different breed of fish. I have recently had a conversation with them about wanting to home educate my child only to be told " I don't think it's legal Madam!" This was the SEN department.

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  41. Haa this is funny. North rules. You should see kent inbreds. Hehe. Just jesting.. but i agree school education does not benefit all children. Home education is one to one learning. School class sizes are over populated and distracting. Social groups and home ed is best for us :-). I will happily meet the council lady for our area. She is well educated xx peace

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  42. I am unfortunate to live in Lincolnshire,hoping for an escape. I don't know about inbreds but there's corruption in certain organisations here.
    As for the council one can tell them to take a hike if home schooling but they are a law unto themselves. Many people have been threatened,nationally, if they home school. Even people have had their children taken into care if they don't comply with these authorities. One perfectly intelligent mother who decided to home educate due to her child being bullied. Next she was fighting so that her child would not be taken into care. So its not a simply choice. Some people feel they must see the education welfare officer otherwise there will be consequences.

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