Goodness, you're attacking snobby pedants now Irony overload.

Well I always enjoyed your posts anyway...

(pedant, I'll give you)

At school?

So you really think that speaking English correctly is less important than sticking your thumb in your palm during a 90 second waltz? - and the message that gives the country's "working class youth".

Few of them are going to be able to join boy/girl bands or Premier League football teams and show two fingers at grammar pedants. Many are going to have to compete for London or Manchester jobs with young Poles, Germans or Swedes with a much better command of English than them.

OK, snobby was a bit unkind

Alesha is unquestionably good-looking, and has probably the most desirable legs in showbiz. I always thought it was a wrong career move to sit on the judges bench and hide her best feature. When on Strictly she won by a landslide with both judges and phone voters at home, so there never was any animosity.

She did however, have a donkey laugh most distressing to some viewers, possible to many. Like Darcey did following the yah uproar, Alesha did eventually tone down her laugh, but not as promptly as Darcey made peace with customers.

"You was wicked" is probably the norm in some circles, carrying street cred. Chelsee also had a speech issue with the public. If a newsreader like Fiona with cut-glass accent ventured into soul brother territory, she would not be best received. It is horses for courses. Bruce defended Alesha through hell and high water for 3 years, after which Middle England gradually got used to "You was wicked".

In the end Alesha of her own accord quit for more money, as she was entitled by contract to do. It was not a case of the public rejecting Alesha.

I shall not speculate from her voice or speech whether she is or is not a kind, generous person and a great friend to have. She could well be, and there are no alarming stories about Alesha as there are about Lulu.

I do feel though, if a judge is going to say, "Your arm movement is inelegant, your bum sticks out like a hanging basket, your footwork is messy...." then said judge cannot afford to pass judgement in language and voice equally unattractive. I would have the same expectation from Craig, Darcey, Len, and Bruno, in no way an expectation exclusive to Alesha. You do not want to see the paddles I hold up for some judges after the way they pronounce sentence.

What a horrible post! Speaking as one of the "snobby pedants" I am genuinely saddened by your attitude to the poor quality of spoken English we are frequently subjected too on all TV channels. I guess there probably are "better things in life to focus on than jumping through hoops to please snobby pedants with agendas who live in glass houses", but what a crying shame that many young people may grow up believing "you was great" is grammatically correct simply because a beautiful TV presenter wasn't asked to correct her error or, if asked, didn't feel it was something she could or was willing to do.

What is so wrong in hoping that presenters on our national TV channel can - in the main - promote well spoken English?
Last edited by tinselgirl : 19-11-2012 at 17:19

I'm genuinely saddened by your belief that someone should be denied employment, dismissed as "lowest common denominator", and passively blamed for genuine severe problems with the capacity of several of the nation's young people to express themselves on any level in professional English, all because they occasionally get "you was" and you were" mixed up on a game show. So we're about even.

!!!!!

Absolutely. And with the competition for jobs, any advantage an applicant have is to be taken. So many youngsters, particularly young men, are ruling themselves out of employment before they even get started because they believe that speaking some kind of slang patois is the norm. It may be cool in their grouping, but where mainstream employment is involved, it is a real handicap.

If Alesha likes speaking badly, that is up to her. She has a perfect right to express herself however she chooses, just as many of us viewers, in particular those of us worried about the future of our youngsters, have a perfect right to demand satisfactory standards of English on a mainstream programme from our state broadcaster.

It seems a bit to lively here for me.

You make some excellent points. However, I would disagree with you over Fiona Bruce - and perhaps that is a good example of how far standards have slipped. Fiona speaks well - hardly surprising that this is a requirement for a newsreader - but I would not say it is cut glass style. There isn't a lot of this about now - it was probably how Maggie Thatcher spoke in her early days and the Queen when she was younger. Cut glass is an accent. Speaking properly, IMHO, is not.

Whole forum is now repeating "sentence" aloud over and over again.

I see you move your target from Darcy to Alesha, your pet 'hate' (to use it loosely, I know you don't really hate as if you want her to die or anything, but, like your obsessive fixation of Chelsee's speech and her artificially enhanced boobs, I saw a lot of your posts in the past here in the not so distant past attacking Alesha).

i havent posted very often on this, but i studies linguistics and english language at university, and amid all the interminable syntax and semantics lectures, one of the things that stuck with me the most is the lecturers telling us that there is no such thing as an infallible rule when it comes to grammar, and that these things inevitably change with time, hence why we dont speak what people in the middle ages would have called 'proper english'. all sorts of things change the way people speak. one point that they made vehemently is that any old person who complains about young people 'not speaking proper english' is just plain wrong, because proper english can change within a matter of years. being out of date applies, sadly, in some cases. young people speak differently, not improperly.

A friend's son (a politics student) had an internship with the Obama campaign for the Senate.

He walked into a room with a group of black campaigners who were speaking amongst themselves in Chicago Black Patois. As soon as they saw him they switched to Harvard Law School English.

Kids need to know that they have to switch from Patois to English in public or job interviews.

Exactly! I don't care how my son communicates with his mates - but I would like him to know what is perceived, amongst the older generation to whom he'll be looking for employment, as the correct way of speaking.

Brilliant composition.

Hey there is nothing wrong with young people speaking and even writing their own form of English. But are they capable of switching to "standard" English when speaking to a wider audience?

HR managers would bin a CV and covering letter written in the (I am sure ironical) style of your post. They may be wrong to do that as they would be out of date. But tough.

They would say that, wouldn't they. Ignore them jamboc. The oldest excuse in the book that one! Have heard it so many times. English is always evolving, blah, blah, so therefore anything goes and we need not be ashamed, blah, blah of incomprehensible English and appalling grammar because it's 'creative'.

No, it's not. It's lazy and, as someone who grew up speaking a completely different language (German) I am saddened that this country - which has one of the most sophisticated and expressive languages in the world - cares so little about it they they can't be bothered to learn it or love it.

Careful Terry. The grammar pedants are roaming wild here.

and it is your job to ensure he does and not Alesha's

Well said Sofakat!

Of course! But a bit of help from Alesha wouldn't go amiss - and what about the kids whose parents don't care as much as I do? Should they not have a fighting chance of knowing what is correct and what is not?

Darcy is one of the best things to happen to Strictly. Her common sense approach and the way she advises professionals/celebrities makes her for me the best judge.

Being in an arguementative mood ...... Get rid of Len, his tedious ways have become quite boring, and bring in Karen Hardy as head judge!

I'm not an HR manager but I do sit on recruitment panels on a regular basis, and I would not shortlist an applicant whose CV is ungrammatical and/or badly spelled. I was recruiting over the summer and clearly recall one application with not one capital letter, comma or full stop. That person was not shortlisted, nor are the people who misuse lose/loose, to/too, there/their, yours/your, have/of, advice/advise and the various other common errors seen every day.

I don't believe I am out of date. Spoken English and written English do change, but I believe the sloppiness we see nowadays is just laziness. Innit.

yeah, i maybe should have thought about typing properly before posting on this subject. i cant help it, this is just how i type on the internet (i know, young people today etc. etc.). i don't have a problem with people expecting proper english in job interview situations and such; these are social rules that one has to abide by and would frankly be foolish not to. i take issue with the idea that 'the youth' are unaware of this, and are swanning into job interviews talking like those inner city gang members you see on TV. we're stupid sometimes, but most of us know how to separate television and real life.

in terms of english constantly evolving, as much as i despised those lectures, i saw enough evidence to see that its a fact, and with all due respect i'll take the experts' word for it. i would say the great varieties of english are what makes it such an interesting language (because trust me, the grammatical rules of english are NOT interesting), and having one 'proper' way to speak makes it all rather boring.

but hey, if you don't like people not speaking RP all the time, you're entitled to that opinion, and you can express much better than i have now to be honest, so let's agree to disagree!