A Fine Line

As a Sunday morning news junkie, I have begun to pick up on some language and behaviors that are definitely human equivalents to lip lifting, growling and target urination we find other animals engaging in when they want to communicate something to others who share their spaces. Territory is marked by people, as well, and can be done verbally or through body language. If you listen, you’ll note trends in speech meant to distance the guest from the pundit, who they hope will come across as an ignoramus thus making their points seem all that much more brilliant and right. There are some things we can learn from these situations that may help at upcoming parent/student/teacher conferences.

If you start out a sentence by saying, “Look,” it lets the questioner know immediately that he is just wrong in the assertion he’s just made. Insert the word stupid after look and it will be a lot closer to what the speaker wanted to say.

Another great zinger is, “With all due respect…” to be followed with all the reasons why the person you are giving due respect to is completely wrong. Respect and friendship are crutches upon which the armpits of impatient politeness rub. We will hear how one respectfully disagrees with his or her “good friend” on the other side of the aisle. While this is entirely possible if you watch their hands carefully, the ball their closed fists form gets smaller and smaller with every delivered counterpoint.

Sometimes we are given permission to think the way we do. People love to end seemingly hopelessly divergent arguments with, “Well, you’re entitled to your opinion.” or “That’s what’s great about America. We don’t always have to agree.” Sometimes, in order to appear reasonable we might say, “I could be wrong” or “Correct me if I’m wrong.” We don’t really think we’re wrong. We know we’re winning so we can afford to pretend our opinions are vulnerable to scrutiny. As if.

So get up early on Sunday and watch the political talk shows, especially if there are a couple people who have a wonderfully, vitriolic relationship. James Carville and his wife Mary Matalin are always fun, but too familiar to pretend to be pleasant. She just comes out and tells him he’s wrong and he holds his shaking head between his hands as though she just said something unbelievably dumb. They’re fun, but not subtle. That’s why, if you can, you should watch John McCain and practically anyone he is put next to with a glass of water and a microphone. He respects and admires everyone, but agrees with only a few. His favorite put down is, ironically, to call interviewers and challengers, “my friend”. He’ll say things like, “We’re all in this together, my friend, and if we get it wrong the world will swirl around in a fireball, explode and life as we know it will end. “ I seldom agree with him, but do keep the fire extinguisher handy.

So as we enter this time of meetings, hearings, conferences and study groups, listen to the sentence prefaces. You can pretty much ignore what comes after them because the real points have been made. Now I know that some people may find this a bit cynical, and insist that what people say is simply what they say and not some kind of social language code. Feel free to think what you want.

After all, it's a free country.

Spelling is a subject that has been the nemesis of parents and teachers since Socrates began asking wigh. I think it’s because we figure proper spelling is accomplishable and correct answers ubiquitous, unlike with trigonometry or dance. There just simply is no reason for misspelled words.

“Once a pona time I was posed to go wit my famle to et pasgetti.”

We note the misspellings right away, but may not credit the writer where it is due. In the example above, a lot is right with it. The word “once” has been learned or copied correctly, the child knows one word from another as evidenced by the spaces between them, long vowels are used, first and most last sounds are being heard and translated to graphic form, the student knows what a sentence is and that it needs punctuation at the end.

That’s quite a list of accomplishments for beginning writers. Students trapped in the notion that writing is spelling would simply pen something like, “I like my mom. I like my dad.“ This is why it’s great when students aren’t afraid to write what they are thinking, instead of only writing what they are spelling. “Better to do something imperfectly, than to do nothing perfectly.” (Great quote from a not so great fortune cookie.)

We often see students who sit paralyzed during writing time, thinking that at six and seven years old the way they compose isn‘t good enough unless an adult finds no errors. This leads to pretty boring pieces of writing, when you consider the list of words little kids can spell. The child who comes in understanding that writing is about getting ideas out of the head and on paper, are the kids who write expressive, funny, insightful, sweet and powerful pieces that may need to be translated by the writer to the reader, but that’s what editors are for.

My grandmother, the English teacher, would be wagging her finger at me right now if I didn’t add the part about how students must be forced to memorize, use word lists, dictionaries, spell checks, and other resources to put the letters in standard order for others to read. This takes time, but a student who writes for a purpose will approach the assignment with a much more open attitude about editing. Writing about your favorite socks may not appeal to every child and on top of that, if writing is synonymous for spelling strings of words perfectly, the results suffer as much as the writer seems to.

There are ways we adults can impact the way their children spell, so right from the first day of snack be aware of the sounds they are hearing. Cut from your spoken vocabulary sloppy pronunciations like, ‘cause for because, go ‘head for go ahead, ‘budder for butter, rilly for really, tuhday for today, ‘g night for good night, etc. Pasketti isn’t so cute when it’s still being said in 2nd grade, so repeat it correctly from the start. When your child is learning to spell, speak carefully as though English is your second language and you‘re trying to get citizenship. People do judge us on our spelling, if all they have is written word. It’s like clothing wrapped around our ideas. We don’t want to send our kids out into the world with ripped up thoughts. So when those spelling words come home, take a look at them and be conscious of how you pronounce them.

And please, spread the word as I continue my nationwide mission to cure one minor spelling ill. Just because words may end in s, you don’t always need apostrophe’s.