Why can't you write/speak proper?

It seems even the ‘bastion’ of good english in this country can’t quite get it right.

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (the ‘aunty’) employs many professional writers (including scores of journalists), and to ensure they all uphold the best traditions of the english language, the ‘aunty’ also has an internal Standing Committee on Spoken English’, affectionately and collectively called SCOSE. Now generally, this body is a very valuable resource within the national broadcaster, and I will probably include a number of excerpts from their reports in this blog in the future. But, alas, even SCOSE gets it wrong.

In one of their recent bulletins to staff, SCOSE made the following comment:

‘A group of agricultural experts believes there may be other options for farmers who might be considering leaving the land.’

This is another example of the same mistake. The head noun is experts (plural). So the verb should be plural believe, not singular believes.

Sorry aunty, that’s wrong. The word ‘group’ modifies the noun ‘experts’ so that the subject becomes a singular – in this case, a group. The test for this sort of sentence is to remove the noun that is being modified. If the sentence were to read just ‘A group believes…’ then we wouldn’t complain. But saying ‘A group believe …’ as SCOSE suggests is wrong. Without the word ‘group’ in there, SCOSE may be correct – in that case it would be ‘Experts believe…’ which would be right. But now we’re talking about a singular ‘group’, not the plural ‘experts’.

The original sentence is correct, and SCOSE is wrong. Unfortunately, this is an error SCOSE has repeated in a couple of their monthly bulletins.

Another example of SCOSE’s occassional misjudgement comes from a much earlier bulletin, and deals with the possessive form of proper nouns that end in the letter ‘s’. In one report, a journalist was berated for referring (as I recall) to “Ben Cousins’ lawyer”. The journalist was told that they should have said (or written) “Ben Cousins’s lawyer”. Bzzzzt. Wrong. It has always been the case in English, that where a person’s name ends in an ‘s’ (such as ‘Cousins’), then it is INCORRECT to add another ‘s’ after the name when turning it into the possessive form. We might say “Ben’s lawyer” (because ‘Ben’ does not end in an ‘s’, so we can add a possessive ‘s’ to it), but it is WRONG to say “Cousins’s lawyer”. Just listen to the buzzing sound it creates – CUZZ-enz-ez!!

We never heard about “Jesus’s disciples”, it was always “Jesus’ disciples”. 

When the name has an ‘s’ on the end and we need to turn it into the possessive form, we DO NOT add an extra ‘s’, just an apostrophe – as the journalist originally and correctly did when he/she used “Ben Cousins’ lawyer”.

Admittedly, there is still something of a grey area when the name ends in an ‘s’ sound, but not necessarily in the letter – such as Louise, Prudence, or Maurice. Purists will argue that here, too, an extra ‘s’ is incorrect (that it should be “Louise’ book”, “Prudence’ teacher” and “Maurice’ lawyer”) , though support here seems to have been waning in recent years.

In one of the worst cases of public misspellings I’ve seen in a hell of a long time, the Australian Labour Party – the political party currently in power in Australia, both federally and in every state – has suddenly become unable to spell its own name!

Now I normally vote for Labour, but after seeing the huge banners behind Kevin Rudd when he was making his acceptance speech last year, I’m seriously considering my loyalties. After all, why would I vote for someone who can’t even spell their own name!! Not only have they embarassed themselves with their banners, but now even their website repeats this misspelling at every opportunity.

For the benefit of those at the ALP responsible for these things, the spelling is L-A-B-O-U-R. Yes, Virginia, there is a ‘u’ in that word.

The Australian Council of Trade Unions – the peak body representing workers and their rights – seems quite able to manage it. Even though they’re the gatekeepers of the labour movement in Australia, the word ‘labour’ doesn’t appear too often on their website. But when it does, at least they’ve spelled it right. Are the ALP trying to distance themselves from the ACTU?

The ALP has extended this embarassment all the way to the Australian Electoral Commission. According to the AEC’s website, even the ALP’s registration data is misspelled. If only the law was clearer about ensuring that political parties can only have real words in their name.

Let’s make this clear people: there is NO SUCH WORD as “labor” in Australia – it doesn’t exist. The word is LABOUR.

Why the hell am I writing this blog?

Frankly, I’m finally getting so sick and tired of the poor use of the english language here in Australia, that I’ve opened this blog as a means of venting my frustration. Even the title has been deliberately mangled to highlight the growing lack of respect and adherence that I see and hear around me every day.

Now I freely admit that I’m far from perfect, and I know I have my own failings with the language. But I’m becoming increasingly annoyed at things like:

– the bastardisation / americanisation of english – if you want to write/speak like an American, then go to America!
– poor grammer, even from quarters that are supposed to know better
– a growing disregard for correct spelling (and a growing americanisation of spelling, which is sometimes even worse!)

I’ll only update the blog occassionally as I see fit, or when something particularly annoys me!