This, from the Acting Chairman of the Queen's English Society

Becoming Acting Chairman of The Queen's English Society by default is an interesting position in which to find oneself. There is a feeling of impermanence; one is almost free to do whatever one wishes to further QES knowing that the society can, in a few months, vote someone else in to be Chairman. So. We have many erudite members who write letters to bring poor English to the attention of authors, newspapers, advertisers and the like. We have people working incredibly hard to produce, what I consider, a wonderful facility, that is free to all with access to a computer......The Academy. It is this that I feel we should be using to advance our visibility to the world. 

We, and by we I mean ALL of us, should be trying to publicise QES, now we have something truly visible. We should be telling all our friends about QES any way we can. There are so many ways to communicate now we should be exploiting as many of them as possible. Those who use Twitter could tweet about QES and invite people to view the web site. Those who use social websites could be talking about points of grammar that they have sorted by using the Academy and those who use e-mail could put a signature that automatically goes at the end of each mail. I use ....'Bet you can't guess what's at QES' and the web address appears underneath. 

One could also contact one's local radio or TV station and offer to do an interview to tell them about QES and the wonderful new web site. The more people who hear of us, the better, and the more members we are likely to get. I am always surprised by the number of people who listen to local radio and often participate too. It would be a shame to miss the opportunity to tell those people of the free web site available to them. 

The next thing will be to get in touch with the education ministers, both incumbent and shadow, to try to encourage a change in the education policy. Not only does government need to stop interfering in the school curricula, we need to return to old methods of teaching reading so that all children can master the skill by the age of 11 at the latest. We have to recognise that schools need to help not only the disadvantaged but also the gifted. The latter can cope with all the niceties of English punctuation and grammar, while the former perhaps only need basic English, enough to leave a message for the milkman, or write a clear, unambiguous note to a teacher. Above all, common sense needs to prevail in our teaching of English, so no text speak in schools, no writing like ee cummings, but a return to the use, and not abuse, of punctuation. 

What with Quest and the web site I feel we have an huge resource available for people, and the more people who know of us, the better. We should be telling everybody we know about QES, getting it into conversation with friends and acquaintances alike. If each member encouraged just one of their friends to join, that would mean a huge increase in numbers. 

 

The Queen's English Society

The QUEEN’S ENGLISH SOCIETY

and our new website

When the QES launched a website in March, 2009, we asked for feedback and comments about the content and the overall usability of the site. As a result, we have just launched a completely re-designed website:

http://www.queens-english-society.com

In addition to features about the Society, a news page and information about publications, the QES ENGLISH ACADEMY is a major feature. You will find a vast amount of information about the English language and how to use it correctly. You will be able to research a specific point of grammar, punctuation or spelling, within the Academy, but we have gone further and created a portal to a huge amount of information and resources, currently available for all to use.

Membership of the QES is not necessary in order to make use of the website, but we would welcome your support and applications to join us. You will find ample information about membership, within the website.

UK ELECTIONS

A good time to extract promises from your chosen candidates.

With some ten days until polling day in the United Kingdom, we are all encountering the candidates on our doorsteps, eager to make amends for past behaviour and eager to solicit our support for their chosen policies. Make them earn your backing and promise that they will not rest until we have an education system to be proud of and a system that produces educated people, not merely good exam statistics.

With economic troubles facing us all, volcanic eruptions and a climate which cannot decide whether it is warming, or not, the state of the English language is probably not the most important thing on your mind. Health services and policing crime are essential to us all. More runways at airports and high-speed rail links may be considered by many to be vital to the future development of our nation. The QES feels that a high priority must be given to our beloved English language, being absolutely essential for clear, concise communications throughout the world.

For decades, we have been building schools, setting targets and allowing politicians to run our schools. But if a school ‘fails’ (and it is often not made clear exactly what the nature of the failure is), the first casualty is often a head teacher, a person who may have well been simply unable to cope, because of interference – by politicians.

It has long been established that when a student completes a piece of work in say, history, the facts within the piece are judged to be correct or indeed, incorrect and the matter is left at that. There is no longer any provision to correct grammar, spelling, punctuation, or even to discuss the choice of words the student has made and used in their work. It may even now be the case that the teacher concerned may not be able to make such corrections and suggestions, having been educated under the same sort of regime as the pupils and students of today. The tragedy is that the very same teacher did what was expected and gained sufficient passes at A-level and went to university, thus meeting the “target” set by Parliament and the myriad of other bodies who have taken over the education of our youngsters.

So, when the canvassers and candidates come knocking, tell them exactly what you expect of them, in return for your vote. Teachers must be allowed the time to teach properly and have the time, AND BE ABLE THEMSELVES, to correct and advise their students about the correct use of English. It must be educators, surely, who have the task of setting the curriculum and not someone who, possibly, was administering a rapid transport system, only six months before.

Great Britain Plc has now no option but to go out into the world and sell itself, as we recover from the recession. Anecdotal evidence is that there are jobs to be done and no suitable candidates to fill the posts, being unable to communicate in a correct and clear manner.

The Queen’s English Society is, and shall remain completely non-political and our membership will almost certainly have very diverse political loyalties. We feel justified in criticising governments of all shades here, as we feel that the decline in standards of English usage is the result of poor education policies adopted over the past fifty years.

Please do not give your Parliamentary candidate your support unless he or she can guarantee a proper education for our future generations. It may be simplistic to say, but it need not cost any money to bring about changes to education, indeed, by getting rid of government interference, we may actually save money, because we all know what politicians cost.