Harper Collins - taking standards down with them

[goldenapples]

This email just arrived from authonomy, the Harper Collins new writers' farrago. I think it lets them down a little:

"Learn from the best at authonomy's WRITING FICTION WORKSHOP...Last July, we held our first ever authonomy workshop: Writing Fiction. It was really well recieved by everyone who attended, so we've decided to do it all over again - but with an even better line up of tutors, classes and special speakers."

Even better than what?

 

[JDP]

This email just arrived from authonomy, the Harper Collins new writers' farrago. I think it lets them down a little:

"Learn from the best at authonomy's WRITING FICTION WORKSHOP...Last July, we held our first ever authonomy workshop: Writing Fiction. It was really well recieved by everyone who attended, so we've decided to do it all over again - but with an even better line up of tutors, classes and special speakers."

Even better than what?

Even better than last year's line up of tutors, classes and speakers. Have I missed something?

 

[goldenapples]

Even better than last year's line up of tutors, classes and speakers. Have I missed something?

Yep!

 

[Ursa major]

You think that they should include spell checking in the follow-up to their "well recieved" previous workshop, then...?

(And use of hyphens, obviously.)

 

[goldenapples]

You think that they should include spell checking in the follow-up to their "well recieved" previous workshop, then...?

(And use of hyphens, obviously.)

I'm just in awe of their superiority in every department - "Learn from the best!"

 

[JDP]

Yep!

Ahem...

Maybe they do a grammar workshop I could attend? Maybe not...

 

[goldenapples]

Ahem...

Maybe they do a grammar workshop I could attend? Maybe not...

I'd sign up to that. I've been reading Query Shark and there's a lot of improvements I could be making.

 

[goldenapples]

I'd sign up to that. I've been reading Query Shark and there's a lot of improvements I could be making.

Darn, "there are a lot of improvements I could be making."

 

[HareBrain]

Darn, "there are a lot of improvements I could be making."

Ooh, I dunno. "Lot" is singular, isn't it?

(Runs away, cackling)

 

[Pyan]

Ooh, I dunno. "Lot" is singular, isn't it?

(Runs away, cackling)

Well, actually, I'd have said "is", for precisely that reason...

 

[goldenapples]

Well, actually, I'd have said "is", for precisely that reason...

wobbles visibly...

 

[ML Hamilton]

Ha! I got that email too and completely missed the recieve. Wow, the best, hm, begs the question, what are they best at, don't it...doesn't it...? Ah, forget it . ; )

 

[goldenapples]

Perhaps Authonomy use a leading edge spell-checker that has a 'Fashionable Misspelling Setting' that allows words such as, 'skool', 'cos' and deliberately allows i before e after c. I believe the i before e rule is no longer taught because of the exceptions, 'weird', and er the others. Which seems silly because the rules aren't laws, they just stop you looking stupid if you follow them.

 

[Ursa major]

But weird isn't an exception to the whole rule.

The version I was taught was: "I before E except after C when the sound of the diphthong** is EE."

Weird isn't pronounced Weerd. (To do so would require, I suggest, a rolled R, otherwise that letter would likely be swallowed and the unfortunate speaker might be thought to have said, "I weed.") Some people's pronunciation of weird has two syllables: wee-erd, as in "We 'eard you the first time."



** - When I were a lad, we had to contend with words such as diphthong....

 

[Parson]

But weird isn't an exception to the whole rule.

The version I was taught was: "I before E except after C when the sound of the diphthong** is EE."

When applying this rule I was forced to resort to this non sanctioned ditty:

"I before E except after C, and any time you have a question."

Probably the diphthong takes care of it. I had never thought about that and didn't run across the word diphthong until I started taking Greek.

I must be on your wave length Ursa, I want to make a terrible pun out of diphthong.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

When I was a little poppet, the rhyme was "I before E except after C, or when sounded like A, as in neighbor and sleigh ..." and then there was another line that I can't remember.

Later, we spent a week or so going through all the exceptions. Which I suppose is why they've decided not to teach the rule at all. Is it even worth learning a rule when you then have to learn a long list of exceptions?

It's easier just to say, "Just look it up in a dictionary, my child" and thereby help them to develop that useful habit at an early age.

 

[chrispenycate]

For me, it was "I before E. except after C, when the sound is ee, but you have to seize yourself to remember the weird ones."

And diphthongs were those weird siamese twin letters, a and e or o and e, which I can't even get on this keyboard, that used to live in encylopædias.

But of course this doesn't help with friends, or theirs. So that sort of pattern recognition they are attempting to bypass in http://www.sffchronicles.co.uk/foru...for-six-year-olds-to-include.html#post1470925 comes into play. Not invariably, for me; I can spell "necessary" or "acceleration" incorrectly, and without "grammar/orthography" painting a red squiggle under it will miss the cue. (and words like "address", written "adresse" in French never look right, in either language).
You can't expect a child deep in the throes of creativity to stop, and leaf through a reference volume (or, just as likely, lief through), particularly if the two possible spellings are not adjacent; a certain amount of creative spelling is to be expected. I suspect it is massive, sustained reading that inscribes the recognition patterns on our visual cortex, which by now means that any attempt to rationalise spelling would leave the majority of the true literate population (not just those capable of decrypting an advertisement sent through the post, without looking at the pictures) learning a new language. Which can be done; I can read in French, or even American English, without my red-pen hand jerking every few paragraphs. Just.

 

[Parson]

I have a very difficult time with the whole "creative spelling" concept. My daughter was taught by such a method and it took until third grade to discern that she had a learning disability. My wife and I suspected as much and got tutoring for her before that but the school just kept saying, "Just give her time, she'll come around." I think because they felt that there was nothing wrong with someone who swelled 1 out of 4 or so words incorrectly, many of those massively incorrectly.

I suspect that text messaging or txtmsg is going to be the death for the regular person and spelling.

 

[Ursa major]

...but you have to seize yourself to remember the weird ones."

Seems there's always someone who'll carp, eh?


By the way, the more comprehensive a rule, the fewer exceptions to it that have to be learnt.

 

[Ursa major]

...with someone who swelled 1 out of 4 or so words incorrectly, many of those massively incorrectly.

Some people, not only children, have problems with bigger words....


Even though I could read before I got to school, I did later have problems at Infant and Junior schools, one of which was to write Smelling Test at the top of spelling tests. (And it wan't a pun or comment, honest.)