As I've said before I suspect the standard of my English has slipped since my time at DHS, and I doubt I'd get an "A" grade in English Language if I took the exam now as I was fortunate enough to back then.

I have to admit I get confused about when to use "that" as opposed to "which" for example. I get my tenses mixed up too; "have" as opposed to "had" etc. Maybe other things as well.

Has that of society slipped too though? Hardly anyone now says "I object to his smoking," as opposed to "him smoking;" even the BBC doesn't insist on it now if a recent news broadcast on Radio 4 is any guide, and yet it's grammatically correct.

Also, who uses the impersonal pronoun, except Prince Charles? Henry Burrows would no doubt turn in his grave, but almost everybody now says "you" instead of "one", including me (sorry Henry).

So, are standards in spoken and / or written English slipping, and if so, does it really matter?

Over to you.

*People just as good at English as I was, and maybe even some better, got "C"s as I recall so I do see it as luck to some extent.

I don't think it really matters these days, as long as the standards are not allowed to fall as far as in the '70s-'80s when students were encouraged to spell as the word sounded and punctuation was seemingly non-existent. I suppose my judgement has been influenced somewhat by 39 years 'down under'. I have mentioned before my absolute horror when I arrived in Aus. and was expected to write lengthy reports that, at the outset, were vetted by a gentleman who had been educated at one of the most prominent South Australian Private Schools. His knowledge of punctuation, and the English language in general, was, to say the least, downright disgraceful. So much so that I was tempted to resign due that, once he had 're-written' my work, it tended not to signify my intention. Luckily the proof reading lasted only a short time, especially after the principal of the company (an English educated Australian) started taking an interest in my offerings.
I suppose that, at the expense of being severely critisised for condoning the relaxation of some of the high standards which we were expected to achieve, I can relate to current students having more to contend with than in our time. There is so much more to absorb about life and education. As long as expression is honest and "concise" it matters not a whit if the commas are incorrectly placed, if you get my drift.

I know what you mean John. A lot of fashions come and go.

My younger cousin was taught to read using the Initial Teaching Alphabet; I had a look at one of her books and it looked like a page of diphthongs. You don't hear much about that now.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Initial_Teaching_Alphabet

I still recall Henry Burrows's withering response when I explained to him that I didn't need to learn to punctuate since Mark Twain couldn't;

"Giles, Mark Twain (dramatic pause) was a genius."

I think there are different grades of English. There's the basic, normal English we use every day, which only needs to be good enough to be easily understood, and then there's the literary English of those who want to make their writing enjoyable to read.

It is this latter which has most suffered recently in my view, being buried under a deluge of soulless "corporate speak." John Humphreys gives some particularly dire examples of this in his book "Lost For Words", maybe I'll dig out my copy and post some soon.

Haven't been able to lay my hand on Humphrys's book yet (must do some tidying up / sorting out soon ), so one more thing; does anyone still care about not splitting infinitives?

I still say things like "to not do something," and I have to confess that I don't see it as an error. I once read that the reason you're not allowed to split infinitives in English is because the early grammarians of the language considered themselves bound by the rules of Latin, in which it's impossible to split them (because they're all one word).

Graham Giles wrote:
I once read that the reason you're not allowed to split infinitives in English is because the early grammarians of the language considered themselves bound by the rules of Latin, in which it's impossible to split them (because they're all one word).

So Nick is still stirring it, eh?

More than the accuracy of grammar, it's the misuse of hyphens and the use of incorrect words that gets to me, even in 'quality' papers etc. etc..
Why is it that so many people now make something plural by adding 's, yet don't use the things when they should?? How about 'Car's for sail'?
It can be seen in supermarkets,ie. 'carrot's on offer' - probably delivered by lorry's!

I don't profess to have been anything other than average at English, but some of the things I 'reed' 'make my blood boil'.
This topic 'lead' me to believe that 'its' possible to 'loose' 'way to much'. Perhaps i need to 'practice' more.

Don't put yourself down Tone; if memory serves you took English a year early, and I believe you got a "C". That's not "average," that's pretty good!

I agree with you about "carrot's for sail" though. When I was growing up even people who couldn't spell for toffee still knew how to use apostrophes properly. The rules aren't difficult to learn; I was taught them at primary school. I can only assume they're not taught any more.

The confusion about plurals (particularly of collective nouns, which I've noticed) I put down to the creeping Americanisation of our language.

In American English collective nouns are always singular, in British English they aren't. So many people see (or hear in films etc.) both the American and the British versions and get confused between them. Hyphens are a similar case, Americans tend to omit them;

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyphen

I agree about the standard of English declining in the papers too; even in the quality papers you can't be sure any longer that a writer will know the difference between "fortuitous" and "fortunate," for example.

But what you might call "official" English is also worse than it used to be. One reason for this is probably that people don't read as much as they used to; there are too many other distractions now. I learnt at least as much about how to use English properly from reading books where it had been used properly as I did from formal teaching.

Another one though is that a much higher proportion of the population is required to use written English in their work nowadays. As Keith Waterhouse once pointed out in his book about correct English, people who one time would have been scullery maids are now audio typists and those who would have been factory hands are now local government officers.

Dave Rolls wrote:
Graham Giles wrote:
I once read that the reason you're not allowed to split infinitives in English is because the early grammarians of the language considered themselves bound by the rules of Latin, in which it's impossible to split them (because they're all one word).

So Nick is still stirring it, eh?

Perhaps, still haunting us from beyond the grave From everyone else's accounts of his lessons I am glad he never taught me.

Of course, my earlier post would read more accurately if I had used the word apostrophe instead of hyphen. Must have been having a senior moment.
Don't get me started on the misuse of hyphens.......

Antony Steer wrote:
Of course, my earlier post would read more accurately if I had used the word apostrophe instead of hyphen. Must have been having a senior moment.
Don't get me started on the misuse of hyphens.......

Thats' awful - really's