The Parenting Thread

[GoktimusPrime]

We recently purchased a reading comprehension book for our daughter. The book is published in Singapore, so I'm presuming that the authors aren't native English speakers. If so, it would explain why every passage of text that I've read so far has contained errors in spelling and/or grammar. She's completed the first two exercises and I've read ahead to the third exercise's passage, and here are the errors I've picked up so far...

• "...none of the family members was upstairs."
  The book has obviously incorrectly used the singular instead of the plural. The text explicitly states members - plural.

• "...the merchant and the guide were left in the desert without any shade and ride."
  The author doesn't seem to understand how to use inclusive and exclusive disjunctive conjunctions in English. It should be "shade or ride" as an inclusive disjunction.

• "...the ambulance took him to hospital."
  Here the text is missing an article - either the definite article "the" or the indefinite article "a". Either one works in this context, but either way an article is needed to identify the noun.

This is further enforces my suspicion that these Singaporean authors aren't native English speakers, as many Asian languages lack articles altogether and many native Asian language speakers do find the use of articles difficult as a result.

The book also misspelt "realise" as 'realize,' and "centre" as 'center' despite the fact that it uses Standard English spelling most of the time; e.g. it correctly uses "programme" not 'program', "colour," not 'color', "behaviour" not 'behavior' etc. - so it seems to be haphazardly switching between Standard and American English spelling rather than consistently sticking to one. And considering that this book was purchased in Australia, I would expect it use Standard English spelling.

What I find odd is that my wife purchased this book from a local educational book store. So it seems that this text book, loaded with errors, is being sold to local Aussie families. And there would be parents who aren't native English speakers (such as my wife) who may not be picking up on this mistakes, and implicitly placing their trust in this book (and possibly others in the series) as learning aids for their children, all the while the book may be teaching/reinforcing incorrect English for their kids. I'm not sure who I should lodge a complaint with, and quite frankly I have half a mind to get a refund. (-_-) Anyway... let this be a head's up to other parents, be sure to browse through potential books for your kids and ensure that there aren't any glaring mistakes in it.

[janda the red]

Why? What would happen if you just changed channels or switched the TV off?

I'd said to my eldest he could choose a movie to watch....

I'd be setting terrible example if I said he could do that, then took it away because I didn't like his choice. It's not like it was inappropriate.... just painfully terrible.

[GoktimusPrime]

Oh well. In that case you gotta take it.

I went back to the bookstore where my wife bought that comprehension book and spoke to the manager. Both she and another customer (a mother) argued with me that "none of the family members was upstairs" is grammatically correct because 'none' always takes a singular verb. I pointed out the other mistakes which the manager did concede were wrong and advised me to contact the publisher, and she would also advise their store purchaser about it.

After getting home I did some Googling, and ... okay, this is confusing - we were both right? "None" can be used with a singular or plural verb depending on whether it's taken to be a contraction of "not one" (singular) or "not any" (plural). Thus you can actually say:
* "none of the family members was upstairs" as in "not one of the family members was upstairs."
* "none of the family members were upstairs" as in "not any of the family members were upstairs."

I've always used "none" in this context as meaning "not any," and clearly the people at the bookstore think of it as meaning "not one," but we're both right. But anyway, the manager did agree on the other errors, so yeah... might need to write an email to the publisher.

[prjkt]

I always thought the word "none" was derived from no one/not one along the lines of contractions like "can't" and the likes.

Ah the joys of English, so many external influences over the years of its development.

[GoktimusPrime]

I always thought the word "none" was derived from no one/not one along the lines of contractions like "can't" and the likes.

Ah the joys of English, so many external influences over the years of its development.

Replied here

[GoktimusPrime]

Interesting articles:
Is Your Child Spoiled?: Who’s ruling the roost? Set age-appropriate guidelines, and take back control
Signs You're Spoiling Your Toddler

Although I'm not fully convinced about avoiding the word "spoiled."

Instead of "spoiled child," Gorski prefers to use the term "overindulged" or "overprotected."

Or in other words, they're spoiled. A rose by any other name...

The "What you can do" stuff in the second article seems to be steps for parents who have already begun spoiling their child and seem to be good strategies to re-educate the child into becoming more disciplined. Although it's not terribly relevant advice if your child isn't spoiled. But then again, parents of unspoiled children don't need much advice when it comes to behaviour management; although there are other challenges in parenting that they still need to face, but at least the behaviour thing becomes one less concern. And dealing with a lot of other issues becomes significantly easier when the child is well disciplined.

#statingtheobvious

[BigTransformerTrev]

Last night Orion was asking 'who made people?' It's not easy explaining evolution to a 4 year old - I can see why parents used to say 'god did it'. He has lots of follow up questions today I'm doing my best to answer in a manner he can comprehend

[GoktimusPrime]

Yuki asked me this question when she was that age. So I gave her a very basic explanation of evolution.

[Trent]

What's a good age to buy my son his first Nerf gun?

#realparentingissues

[Raider]

What's a good age to buy my son his first Nerf gun?

#realparentingissues

When he is old enough to understand that you must not fire it at a person's face