We like Peter. We like Jane.
Work’s a nuisance at the best of times, but it has been more irritating than usual recently. This is because it is starting to make me feel old. You see, I have been working with some younger colleagues on a writing project for our organisation. And to put it bluntly, although they can formulate sentences, their grammar and punctuation are woeful. I find myself tutting over their work and wondering how they got through the education system with their impoverished use of commas. Most dangerously, the phrase ‘I would never have got away with not knowing this in my day’ has crept into my mind. I’m not nearly old enough to be thinking this way.
Or perhaps I am.
Because it was with a slight pang that I read in the Guardian obituaries on the weekend that Douglas Keen has passed away. Mr Keen was the Editorial Director of Ladybird books and the man who commissioned educationalist William Murray to put together the Ladybird Key Words Reading Scheme, otherwise known as the Peter and Jane books.
I learnt to read with Peter and Jane in the 70s. Mum and Dad dutifully bought the entire series and went through them with me every evening. I remember enjoying them and innocently allowing the aspirational middle class Englishness that the series has been criticised for wash over me. Having said that, I only discovered recently that I actually grew up with a revised 70s version – in the original 60s series Peter and Jane quaffed sweets and Jane clutched a doll, but in the 70s they enjoyed apples and Jane was the proud owner of a pair of rollerskates.
So here’s to you Douglas Keen for helping me learn to read. Even if the thought of Peter and Jane, like certain young people’s command of the comma, does make me feel unnecessarily old.
Tags: 30-something angst, dirty nostalgia, I promise to kick this nostalgia crap soon
December 1st, 2008 at 4:37 pm
Hurrah for ladybirds books better their slightly snooty view of the world than we all the same blandness you get nowadays. i hope you’ve seen this website which has all the artwork for you to buy it’s ridiculously proustian
http://www.ladybirdprints.com/
December 1st, 2008 at 5:25 pm
Brilliant! As you can see, I’ve completely given in to nostalgia now.
December 1st, 2008 at 10:09 pm
Can’t quite remember what was used to teach me to read. Probably a combination of school text books (Roger Red Hat anyone?) and stuff like the Mr Men, Topsy & Tim etc at home. Graduated to Paddington books, then got sidetracked in comics.
Dunno what young ‘uns read these days.
Do they actually teach grammar and the technicalities of English in schools anymore? It was hellish dull, but most of it sank in.
I think.
December 1st, 2008 at 10:18 pm
Ill Man, I didn’t learn grammar at school, but I know how to punctuate! Actually, I’m really beginning to feel the downside of my lack of technical grammar knowledge. How am I supposed to understand what a sub-junctive clause is in my French class when I don’t know what it is in English?
Mr Men and Paddington though – fabulous!
December 1st, 2008 at 10:23 pm
Looking at the link above, I’m reminded that the Ladybird versions of the Gingerbread Boy and The Three Little Pigs were indelibly ingrained in my psyche from a very early age. The illustrations gave me a shiver of nostalgia. They also reminded me that the back in those days, they didn’t hold back any when it came to exposing bairns to grisly endings and cautionary tales. Good thing too………..
Cheers for the link!
December 1st, 2008 at 10:32 pm
We had the Gingerbread Boy too. I had completely forgotten about it, but as soon as I saw the cover I was instantly reminded how much it gave me the creeps. It still does.
You can thank BLTP for all this!
December 1st, 2008 at 10:42 pm
Hell, I don’t know what a sub-junctive clause either……… =D
By grammar, I mean being taught the basics. Some people seem not have been exposed to even the most rudimentary text book stuff. Most of the stuff I see people getting wrong was taught to me in primary school you know………….(ill man, aged 75)
I’m nowhere near perfect, and advanced grammar is way beyond me but seeing the language get murdered on a daily basis has a very depressing effect on you………
December 1st, 2008 at 10:59 pm
I’m not that fussy about language, I think English is delightfully flexible and ever-evolving, but what disturbs me is the number of people who just don’t understand how to write a clear and easily understood sentence. If you’re going to be smart and throw semi-colons around for example, then at least use them correctly so they don’t distract from what you’re trying to say. Grrr…
When I’m over wallowing once again in my childhood, I will try and write an intelligent post on language.
December 2nd, 2008 at 4:36 am
We learned to read with something like Peter and Jane here in the States. I can’t remember if it was the same characters or different ones. I feel older all the time. It’s not just in the UK. The education system here in the US is horrible in many instances. Many younger people were never taught some of the things we were. Also the teaching methods used to educate them seem to be quite lackluster.
December 2nd, 2008 at 11:55 am
My squeeze assesses professional competency submissions for his professional body, all of which are submitted by graduates with at least three years’ post-grad experience, and the appalling punctuation and grammar he comes across drive him insane. Commas used instead of full stops and compulsive use of apostrophes are among the most common abominations.
Speaking of which, is over-apostrophising a British phenomenon, or does it go on in Australia as well? As in the one I saw last week – “Christma’s Tree’s sold here”?
December 2nd, 2008 at 2:19 pm
Not just a problem amongst young people, I fear… I used to have a boss who not only punctuated sentences incorrectly, but would actually get uppity when I submitted correct copy to her, insisting that it was all hopelessly wrong. She would hand me back “corrected” documents which looked as if they’d been sprayed with a comma gun. To this day I’ve never been able to make any sense of how she thought commas were supposed to be used – I think she believed them to be something you threw in for emphasis or effect. She was also well-educated enough to have known better.
I ended up having to download a free grammar guide I found online, and I kept it on my desk so I could gently tell her how misguided she was being. This was a handy exercise in itself, because the content also made me realise there were a couple of bad habits I had got into which had started to escape my attention.
December 2nd, 2008 at 8:09 pm
So the verdict is that most people have poor standards of grammar?
Keith, you would hope that teaching methods would have improved, wouldn’t you? Perhaps they have, but the emphasis is different. I mean, you don’t need good grammar to write text messages!
ISBW, I don’t think that Australian’s are exempt from poor use of apostrophe’s. (ha!). One of my first year lecturers was once so incensed by some people’s inablity to use apostrophes correctly that she dedicated half a lecture to explaining them. You really shouldn’t have to do this at university level. Actually, this suggests the teaching of punctuation has been poor since at least 1980…
23Daves, you have my sympathy entirely. I refrained from mentioning my superiors, although they suffer more from ‘why use 10 words to explain something when you can use 50′ syndrome. I love your description of a comma gun by the way – a very ineffective weapon indeed!
In retrospect, I shouldn’t have written this post. It is making me absolutely paranoid about my grammar and punctuation…
December 12th, 2008 at 10:06 pm
Great to find your blog, Cocktails – Douglas Keen was my father AND I am a GrammarAnorak, so a doubly hit there. Though you actually linked them because Ladybirds and getting shirty about ungrammatical writing both make you feel old, in fact my dad was an absolute stickler for correct grammar as well. My sister and I were brought up proof-reading Ladybird texts so we got early training in comma abuse, apostrophe outrage and dangling participle shame. By the way, If you want to give yourself a really authentic shiver of nostalgia, try the site http://www.martinaitchison.co.uk where you can buy originals (not prints) of Peter & Jane and other Ladybird artwork. Martin is a lovely man (now 85) who was at my dad’s funeral – he illustrated a lot of the Reading Scheme. The website http://www.ladybirdflyawayhome.com is also good. My dad would have been very pleased at your happy memories of P&J.
December 13th, 2008 at 5:12 pm
Hello, what a pleasant suprise to receive your comment! Somehow I’m not surprised that your father stressed the importance of correct grammar. The care and concern for these matters really comes across in the Ladybird books (and probably subconsciously lodged itself in my head then). And thanks for the link to Martin Aitchinson’s site – his work is fantastic and its lovely to see that he is still active.
Thank you for visiting and my condolences to your family.