When You Can’t Play the Ball

Play the man.

A teacher in Somerset has left her mark on the 2015 general election after pointing out more than a dozen errors in a Ukip campaign leaflet.

Armed with the traditional red pen, the disappointed English teacher circled a grammatical mistake in almost every sentence of the flyer.

The flier about free parking was distributed on behalf of UKIP councillors Sharon Snook and Derek Tanswell and has since gone viral on social media.

In so doing, she says more about herself than she does about the target of her ire. I tend to notice spelling errors and missing punctuation – and don’t get me started on the grocer’s apostrophe – but if I want to take issue with someone’s argument, I don’t go all grammar pedant on them. I deal with the subject of their argument.

So, maybe the people who put the leaflet together are less than literate. It’s not that unusual, disappointingly. The teacher who was so puffed up with self-importance that she took out her red editing pen is being puerile, petty and self-righteous. I know which I prefer…

13 Comments

  1. Teachers use green ink for such things now, because red is apparently traumatising to kids.

    Teachers are useless commie fucktards. QED.

    • Don’t forget that we are also instructed not to correct more than three spellings in any piece of work (to avoid demoralising the little darlings – even when they are hulking 16-year-olds).

      Like the green ink, this is almost always an instruction from On High; useless commie fucktards don’t hang around in the classroom when there’s a greasy pole to be climbed and the chance to order the rest of us about.

      • Hello Miss Chips! (That’s, like, the total opposite of that film title. You know. Goodbye something. Had that guy in it).

        I was guilty of a generalisation in my comment above, and of trying to say too much in too few words. Zero-time commenting. (Though ‘useless commie fucktards’ has a certain zing). I apologise.

        Teachers are, of course, the same as any other cross-section of people. Some are great, some not so much, some enjoy flower arranging. It’s the system that is the problem. Get the state out of education; denationalise and depoliticise it; allow individuality and innovation to flourish. Result: daily life and overall outcomes improved for teachers and kids alike.

        Until we arrive at that happy point, however, teachers could help. I’m sure it’s different on the inside but, looked at from outside, the rank and file seem completely unable or unwilling to challenge the crazy shit coming from those above. The direction of travel is always progressive and teachers simply acquiesce to it all. You have the numbers, so use them.

        And the ones who climb the greasy pole are reptiles. Any system that encourages such people to join must have something wrong with it.

        • No apology necessary – your euphonious description is pretty much spot on, at least as far as the more vocal union types are concerned. You’ve also hit the nail on the head over state involvement in education.

          The training colleges have long had a stranglehold on the profession and systematically weeded out any aspiring teachers who are prepared to stand up and ask why the Emperor has no clothes on. Those who make it through training and qualify have either attained the sunlit uplands of unquestioning progressive thought or learned to keep their heads down and spout the appropriate orthodoxy despite their private opinions – a docility which professional survival requires them to maintain throughout careers where constant appraisal is conducted by the successful greasy-pole-climbers in positions of authority.

          If you are wondering what happens to those rejected by the teacher training colleges because they don’t fit the mould (such as an Oxbridge graduate told on her first day “We don’t want your sort here, thinking you know everything”), take a look at the results achieved by independent schools, where state qualifications are not required.

  2. “…maybe the people who put the leaflet together are less than literate…”

    You can’t blame that on UKIP though, can you? They were most likely educated under a Conservative or Labour regime.

  3. I agree with you but at the same time it pisses me off when stuff isn’t proof read properly. I’m guilty of typos myself I admit, but I’m not being paid as a proofreader or author. I had one from the Tories through my letterbox this morning that made no sense because a full stop was missing. It’s just irritating…

    • I don’t get irritated by it because I never read electioneering material. It goes directly from the letterbox to the bin – along with all the other unsolicited junk shoved through my door.

      But, yes, proofreading or the lack thereof annoys me, too.

  4. Dear Mr Longrider

    Wow – free publicity!

    You just can’t buy publicity like that, and it doesn’t count towards election expences …

    DP

  5. We had a poof reader at the pint company I worked for. He was always calling upon management to suck a particular camp. Spill chucker just doesn’t hack it. The erstwhile poof reader is now a parking nazi. Ho hum, and ennui go.

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