Numbers or Numerals

[Handley_Page]

Hmmm. I haven't seen anything on this thread saying that those writing in British style (who should, nonetheless steel themselves to misunderstanding comments on this American-style Web site) shouldn't use Oxford (which ain't cheap either) rather than the CMS. The point has been to use something standardizing the technical aspect of the fiction read as much as possible other than misguided imagination or what you thought your tenth-grade English teacher told you twenty years ago.

Or rather, rapped my knuckles until I made no mistakes.
Thought did not enter into it.
How old is tenth grade, anyway?

 

[sr71plt]

Or rather, rapped my knuckles until I made no mistakes.
Thought did not enter into it.
How old is tenth grade, anyway?

Oh, about fifteen. (Not 15. )

 

[oggbashan]

Hmmm. I haven't seen anything on this thread saying that those writing in British style (who should, nonetheless steel themselves to misunderstanding comments on this American-style Web site) shouldn't use Oxford (which ain't cheap either) rather than the CMS. The point has been to use something standardizing the technical aspect of the fiction read as much as possible other than misguided imagination or what you thought your tenth-grade English teacher told you twenty years ago.

What worries me is that UK tenth-grade English teachers were not taught English Grammar when they were at school twenty years earlier.

Grammar was de-emphasised in the mid 1960s and replaced by 'free expression' in writing, so current teachers have a very poor knowledge or understanding of grammar.

Those teachers who try to teach a foreign language to English schoolchildren have to start by teaching the very basics of English grammar - nouns, verbs, sentences etc. Only when they have done that can they start to teach the foreign language.

As for Latin teachers? They grieve over the lack of grammatical understanding they face daily. How can they start to teach declension of nouns when their students don't know what a noun is?

 

[sr71plt]

What worries me is that UK tenth-grade English teachers were not taught English Grammar when they were at school twenty years earlier.

True. That's why threads like this get so many out of whack responses.

Commercial fiction isn't even the same animal being taught in university classes.