Why do the French pay particular regard to grammar and we do not?

Question

It's not 'fink' it's think. It's not 'fort' it's thought. I suppose 'fink' will become part of the dictionary in the not too distant future.....I get annoyed that people who have good speaking voices are considered 'posh'. FOR INSTANCE Susie in BB and Joana Lumley who both speak beautifully.
'I fink vat all skools shud b shut dwn who dont teech or spk proper inglish'.
P.S. Dialect accepted ...... I am not asking for everyone to be Susie or a Joanna but 'give me a break' the whole nation seems to be sliding into a grammatical abys

Answer 1

The French put more importance and value in their ability to communicate effectively, whereas the British put more emphasis upon political correctness and the idea that children are never wrong, so however they speak, or however they write, there is merit in it.

The whole point of language is to enable accurate communication. When correct spelling and grammar are not observed, communication suffers.

Answer 2

The culture and language of a country should be of prime importance to maintain that country's identity. France has enough national pride to recognise this.

Language and its rules of grammar are essential to enable accurate communication between two or more individuals whether the manner of communication is written or spoken.

Britain has been under the smothering blanket of Political Correctness for many years.

PC dictates 'anything goes' and no one should be held responsible for their actions.

Human rights become paramount at the expense of responsibility.

Education, education, education has failed miserably. This is not the fault of the schools. The end result is the present day society.

There is no effective teaching without effective discipline. There is no effective discipline without effective sanctions.

New Labour have had almost ten years to address the real problems afflicting Britain but they have failed because of their obsession with 'spin' and remaining in power.

In a democratic society the 'minority' view should not become paramount. Unfortunately, this has been the case on many occasions.

Reverting to language and grammar the TV news readers have become more blase and slipshod in their speech. There was a time when they were the bastions of received pronunciation which everyone understood.

We do have a wonderfully rich range of dialects and accents and these also are becoming the victim of today's slovenly speech and grammar.

Answer 3

French is a very difficult language to write, the grammar is completely different than the one of English, and besides French people are proud of the purity of their language as much as the Spanish and sure, the British and Germans....
France is not only the European country you see so small. They do have a system that might be in some ways similar to the Commonwealth, quite different and less known for the public as a consequence of the French colonization all over the world.
Under that point of view, trying to keep their language pure is a natural consequence of the huge amount of french-speaker immigrants and tourist that France receives all the year around.
Besides, French people love to spend hours discussing, getting involved in international politics, etc. They have their identity and culture and a good way to protect them is starting being strict with the language and other issues regarding immigrants.

Answer 4

Don't know where you're getting 'fink' and 'fort' from, but must agree that there is a grammatical abyss out there.
Why do the French pay such attention to their grammar? Well, for one thing, their grammar is a little more complex. In English, almost anything goes. But French has firstly to consider gender, in every single noun, and then decide which form of 'you' to use, etc.etc.etc. It is a very precise language, and that is one of the things I enjoy about it.
I have no idea who Susie or Joanna are, but obviously, they are meaningful sources to you.

Answer 5

I' don't know that the French are any more or less proud of their language/heritage than any other country. What we have in the US is a problem with laziness and sometimes dialect due in part to lack of education and simple laziness.

For example, I have a close friend who is Black. Even though she is highly educated and has worked in the business world for many years, her speech is less than great. She has always been aware of it and tried to improve it. She is the first to admit that it is from culture and lack of education on the part of others. I teach in the inner city and the improper speech is almost 100%. The children speak improperly because their parents do and they speak improperly because their parents did. There was a big movement back a few years ago to try and accept the speech patterns as "Eubonics". Even though this would make them feel accepted, it will not make them more welcome in the business world.

Answer 6

Don't confuse pronunciation with grammar. Everyone knows that Eastenders don't have a 't' and consequently no 'th'.
If you had been dragged up proper you'd know that grammar is something learned by foreigners when learning a new language. Try explaining to a three-year old that it's not 'digged' but 'dug'. Believe me, the French make grammatical mistakes too. It's an illusion caused by the way foreign languages are still taught in the UK.

Answer 7

The assumption that personal wealth creates jobs is full of crap. Bush tax cuts in force for more than a decade, where are the jobs? By sheer statistics, the bottom 90% of people in any state produce more demand than the top 10%. Businesses and individuals don't hire people because they have a lot of money and are feeling generous, they hire people because they need to in order to maintain or expand their profits. The way this works is via consumer demand. Without a large number of consumers or if they aren't spending enough, there isn't enough demand for businesses to expand and hire more. If consumers don't have enough money, no one expands. Take a lesson from Henry Ford. He paid people not just what they would take, he could have paid them a lot less, but he paid them enough that they could afford the cars they made, increasing demand.

Answer 8

In many other countries, they still teach grammar. In the U.S., they stopped teaching grammar in the early 80s and decided to do the "whole language approach"-which means they no longer taught grammar rules, grammar was to be learned through self-correction and teacher monitoring (sort of like when a child say "me go bafoom" and the parent says, "you need to go to the bathroom?" As a result, we have poor spellers and users of correct English. We also have too many teachers who let poor grammar and spelling slide in classes (they don't want to put the work in to correct students).

FYI: have you looked at any of the French questions/answers? They too make many mistakes-I've heard French parents complaining that it's a problem with "today's young people."

Answer 9

I agree with what you say about the way English is often used in a sloppy and careless way, but as for French - take a look at French Q&A and you'll see that they are just as bad! In fact, many of the questions on there are from French people complaining about poor spelling and grammar on their site!

Answer 10

Your right! Some of the spelling and grammar on this site makes me want to explode! I guess it's laziness, and not all to do with bad Schooling. What really gets me, is that hardly anyone uses the spell check!? Start a new group campaigning for better grammar! I would join!!