I have shown elsewhere in this blog many instances in which the Speak Good English Movement copies blindly from grammar books without understanding even the basic grammar of English. This can be seen in the way they attempt to explain an aspect of grammar. They are ineffectual because they don't even understand the concept behind what they are explaining. A good example of how the Movement ties itself up in knots and comes up with an erroneous grammar rule of their own devising can be seen in this blog post I wrote just last month.
One bemused reader of the Movement's Facebook post asks if someone can explain why 'some time' is an adjective. She can't be faulted because the meme does suggest that.
Another reader rightly points out that 'some' is a determiner. This is what every child in Singapore who has been through the first day of Primary 1 knows. If the Speak Good English Movement had as much knowledge as a Primary 1 child, they would have explained that 'some' is a determiner followed by 'time' which is a noun. This simple explanation is far more helpful for a student than that stupid meme which only God knows where they got from. There are sometimes different ways to classify a word but a good teacher will pick a classification which best illustrates a grammatical point to the student. Labelling 'some time' as an adjective is shoddy. Brevity is of course necessary in a meme but writing 'Determiner + Noun' below 'SOME TIME' will not take up too much space. The Movement is unable to do that because it is clueless of even basic English grammar and I have shown overwhelming evidence of this in my other blog posts (please see the link below).
When will the Ministry of Education disband this disgraceful Movement?
If you would like to read similar articles in this blog about the many errors of the Speak Good English Movement and other educators, please go to my regularly updated one-page post with links to all the articles on the subject.
Oh my, don't get me started on this! My primary 2 daughter was marked wrong when she wrote 'any more' as two words. Her English teacher said it should be 'anymore' (one word), similar to 'somemore' (one word). And her reasoning? It is British English we are learning, and the Brits said it is one word. Really????
ReplyDeleteYour daughter's teacher is wrong. It's always two words in British English. In the US, 'anymore' (one word) is used when the meaning is 'any longer' eg, 'I can't take it anymore'. As always, US English makes inroads into our English and today, 'anymore' is allowed as a variant of 'any more'. But it should be noted that the majority of printers and authors in the UK still use 'any more' (two words). It's lunacy to say that 'any more' is wrong but I don't blame the teacher who's probably read the grammar book of the Speak Good English Movement and that's the only book I've ever come across that drips with error from every page.
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