Do teachers teach proper English or just teach common language skills to conform to modern standards?

It depends on what you consider proper English.

I think they are teaching proper English.

“Bike” still looks, sounds, and functions like “bike” to me, but I could be reading it incorrectly.

There is no such thing as Standard Modern English. Every language evolves. Linguistics is actually far more interesting when one takes into account the degree to which language has changed over time – not to mention how often.

I say we bring “thee” back!

“That was thee best dinner I’ve ever had.” (A friend of mine popped me for using just that.)

“Bike” is here to stay.

And I think you are correct: most US English teachers are not as smart as you are. Let’s bust the teachers’ unions up!

I think they are teaching proper English. We shorten words and make new words, but in that process we aren’t changing the meaning of the original word. It’s still there. I don’t have a problem with the way the English language is today.

I’ll just say that my AP English teacher in high school was the only one who got upset about using prepositions at the end of sentences. Some are grammer snobs and other teachers are teaching basic english. Language is an art and can be subjective.

The Quakers whom I knew in Philadelphia used “thee,” “thou,” “thy,” and “thine” within the family. It was used with no self-consciousness, as the French might tutoyer someone. I know that there are similar familiar forms of “you” in Italian, German, Portuguese, and perhaps other languages.

@py_sue – I hate prepositions at the end of sentences but somehow I can rarely avoid using them. Perhaps my English “ain’t” as good as it used to be and the common pattern is taking over my own sensibilities.

@ipso – A friend of mine still uses the word “thee” and she isn’t an older person, either.

@actuallery My teacher never taught us about them. She just told us to stop using them.

Wus dat?

You mean a preposition is not a good thing to end a sentence with?

A preposition is just about the best to end a sentence without!

@JilltheTooth and @Yetanotheruser – WAAAGGHH!!!

Common usage that is improper English often sounds common and poorly educated to those who are neither.

Is you… the babydaddy?

It is the same for EVERY language. I have to also deal with learning ‘dialects’ here in Norway and it’s very difficult. I know teachers and others who will WRITE in their dialect too, though it is not proper at all. It makes it VERY hard to learn the language, but I’m getting there, still. I’m being a bit strict on my son and my husband doesn’t like it that the little one doesn’t speak the local dialect, but I’d rather him speak ‘proper’ norsk…. silly, eh?

This conversation was really over with @marinelife‘s and @muppetish‘s posts.

That whole thing about the prepositions is just another ‘rule’ that comes from prescriptive grammars of English which tried to shoehorn English grammar into Latin categories.

Teachers teach in what they consider to be a prestige form of the language – one that is appropriate to the social context of the classroom, IMO.

@the100thmonkey : Oh, pooh.

One thing that’s common these days is to say “they” when speaking about someone whose gender is unknown, as opposed to automatically going to “he.” I like that, though it’s not proper English. I slip often, though I try to stick with “he or she” when speaking, or “s/he” when writing.

The European Union commissioners have announced that agreement has been reached to adopt English as the preferred language for European communications, rather than German, which was the other possibility. As part of negotiations, Her Majesty’s government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a five-year phased plan for what will be known as EuroEngish (Euro for short).

In the first year, “s” will be used instead of the soft “c”. Sertainly, sivil servants will reseive this news with joy. Also, the hard “c” will be replased with “k”. Not only will this klear up konfusion, but typewriters kan have one less letter.

There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year, when the troublesome “ph” will be replased by “f”. This will make words like “fotograf” 20 per sent shorter.

In the third year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible. Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters, which have always been a deterent to akurate speling. Also, al wil agre that the horible mes of silent “e“s in the languag is disgrasful, and they would go.

By the forth year, people wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing “th” by “z” and “w” by “v”. During ze fifz year ze unesesary “o” kan be dropd from vords kontaining “ou” and similar changes vud of kors be aplid to ozer kombinations of leters.

After zis fifz year, ve vil hav a reli sensibl riten styl. Zer vil be no mor trobls or difikultis and evrivum vil find it ezi tu understand ech ozer. Ze drem vil finali kum tru.

Mark Twain?

excerpt from AS I PLEASE
in Tribune magazine, by George Orwell, Mar 14, 1947:

I HAVE not yet read more than a newspaper paragraph about Nu Speling, in connexion with which somebody is introducing a Bill in Parliament, but if it is like most other schemes for rationalizing our spelling, I am against it in advance, as I imagine most people will be.

Probably the strongest reason for resisting rationalized spelling is laziness. We have all learned to read and write already, and we don’t want to have to do it over again. But there are other more respectable objections. To begin with, unless the scheme were rigidly enforced, the resulting chaos, with some newspapers and publishing houses accepting it, others refusing it, and others adopting it in patches, would be fearful. Then again, anyone who had learned only the new system would find it very difficult to read books printed in the old one, so that the huge labour of respelling the entire literature of the past would have to be undertaken. And again, you can only fully rationalize spelling if you give a fixed value to each letter. But this means standardizing pronunciation, which could not be done in this country without an unholy row. What do you do, for instance, about words like ‘butter’ or ‘glass’, which are pronounced in different ways in London and Newcastle? Other words, such as ‘were’, are pronounced in two different ways according to individual inclination, or according to context.

However, I do not want to prejudge the inventors of Nu Speling. Perhaps they have already thought of a way round these difficulties. And certainly our existing spelling system is preposterous and must be a torment to foreign students. This is a pity, because English is well fitted to be the universal second language, if there ever is such a thing. It has a large start over any natural language and an enormous start over any manufactured one, and apart from the spelling it is very easy to learn. Would it not be possible to rationalize it by little and little, a few words every year? Already some of the more ridiculous spellings do tend to get killed off unofficially. For instance, how many people now spell ‘hiccup’ as ‘hiccough’?

Zen…. that was classic! Loved it.

Yep. Once again, @zen_ wins.

The Perfecto-Squid award?

Oh, is that how you do it?

@Zen – If I knew how to pick “Best Answer”, that EuroEnglish speech would be it! Well dun!

@actuallery : Don’t you mean wel dun?

@Jillthetooth – vel dun!

@actuallery ;-)

There goes the General thread. Drinks anyone?

@zen_ : oops. yessir…