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"No, I amn't"
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broman

Joined: 21 Apr 2007
Posts: 17
Location: USA upper left corner

Posted: Sun May 20, 2007 6:32 pm Post subject:

Glenski wrote:

Quote:

It still doesn't make it right on the test. Besides, I thought American English came from more than just English-speaking countries.

Yikes! I never said it made it right on the test. In my own classroom, I'd need a darn good reason to give it half-credit, such as "I learned it in junior high" or "I read it in a novel" and then with a clear understanding that it's no longer current usage and even then might not do it, depending on the case... I don't get your other point. English is a basically a German grammar made to fit into a Latin grammar and then shoved full of French vocabulary and that was before it ever got to the US...

Quote:

Does that make Shakespearean English acceptable next? (P.S. Yes, Chandler wrote before my time, but I like his works anyway.)

Any student of mine who gives me Shakespeare is all right by me and gets a smile or some wit in return. Double that if not a native speaker. Any student smart enough to do that wouldn't be so foolish as to try to use it on a test of modern English. If so, it would be wrong.

Quote:

I just finished working 4 years for a fairly prestigious private HS that has been using a text copyrighted in the mid-60s, so I can concur. Still doesn't mean we should accept what was taught so long ago, does it?

Congratulations on your teaching success. However, it occurs to me, and corrrect me if I am mistaken, that you are purposefully misunderstanding what I say in order to argue. Do I need to quote myself? I never said we should, only that it's not so simple, like many things in life, as "right or wrong."

Quote:

To someone who has experience in the public education sector, you ought to know that English is full of exceptions, and the use of aren't is one of them here. Please don't try to cloud the issue by describing seeming parallel usage when we have pretty much all agreed that the student chose something far outside the norm.

I'm not sure what experience in public education has to do with knowing that English is full of exceptions. Seems like any somewhat knowledgeable student of English should know that. I use the exceptions as teaching points, myself.

I object to your statement that I'm clouding the issue. In fact, by outlining a possible scenario where an English teacher who is a native Japanese could logically deduce, through using grammatical rules, that "amn't" is better than "aren't," coupled with his or her knowledge that it once was correct usage, and therefore teach it and insist on it, I illuminate the issue, which was, as the OP said, where the heck the amn't came from in the first place. That's the issue, and my speculative scenario goes a lot further in illuminating it than the insistence that an answer should just be marked wrong and that's the end of it.

Speaking of clouding the issue, however, what's "parallel usage"? I wrote "parallel construction."

As far as a love of learning English, in my experience that's more of something for me to strive to put across in my teaching, more of an attitude for me to take that the students can see as an example and maybe pick up on. Who knows when, how, or if it'll ever have any effect, but to me it seems the best way to teach if I can manage it. There's an example of a learning domain that contains the learning domain of knowledge, btw.

Quote:

Students usually do not volunteer in class, and I have found that most will not challenge a teacher. Even in my old HS, tests were returned (and wasted a whole class day) to explain the answers and some common mistakes, and this gave students the opportunity to point out any mistakes in correcting as well as to ask questions about whether student answers could be accepted. Extremely few will do that, so the onus is on the teacher to get the reason out, and I doubt that most teachers would do that here.

I have the same experience in the US. They want the grade, and after the fact, who cares? So I incorporate sneaky little tricks... like letting them know they'll see a random selection of these exact same questions on a final or unit-end test... I've never done the next, but some teachers give "classroom participation points" as part of the grade to encourage volunteering... or you can (charmingly, takes some skill and tact, as I'm sure you know) volunteer a particular student by name... but this is getting into classroom practice.

Quote:

If it were me, I'd pull the student aside and in as friendly a manner as possible try to figure this one out for both our sakes, but I'd probably still mark it wrong. What I would do thereafter would depend on the situation.

Okay, now we're talking the same language. I think this is the appropriate thing to do, and if warranted, talking to the class in general about common errors. I would even go so far as to make up a list of them, give quizzes that specifically isolate them, etc. Again, classroom practice. Glenski, I'm feeling the teachin' itch.

Sweeny Todd wrote:

Quote:

What on earth is so American about apple pie? Europeans had been making apple pies for centuries before the Pilgrim Fathers did us all a favour and set sail from Plymouth.

Or were you being ironic?

If you're from the US, there's an expression, "As American as hotdogs, baseball, and apple pie." It's just a colloquialism to indicate that something's true-blue Yank, that's all. Of course, hotdogs are German... but we do have the honor of inventing baseball. To be literally accurate, I should have said, "As American as pemmican and cedar-bark clothes," but somehow it seems to lack the same punch. Besides, to be really literal, those guys got here on a land bridge around 14,000 years ago, and I'd have to say "As American as vast wilderness without human occupation," but that makes no sense whatsoever in the context of Raymond Chandler. Irony? Lord no. It seems hard enough to be understood here without using that.

TK4Lakers wrote:

Quote:

I have a question that was asked to me the other day:

What is the difference between
isn't
it's not

For example, "No, it isn't." and "No, it's not."

An answer to a student might be that the contraction used depends on what you want to emphasize, the isn't or the not. Not to get too technical, but one's negating a state of being (isn't) and the other an object (it's not). You'd have to talk to a grammarian, which I am not (you might be able to find something on the web) for further explanation.

kinshachi wrote:

Quote:

mayn't?

Certainly if brevity is a form of wit you shine with exceptional brightness, kinshachi. Mayn't is another form of American usage from the 40s and before, contraction of may not. Possibly others may have heard of this who haven't heard of amn't.... It occurs to me that I remember my grandmother using both amn't and mayn't.

The English language is a historical creature, always in flux, never cast in stone. That's an important and lovely aspect of the language and if I have the opportunity to teach my students that, such as an (incorrect) answer reflecting a past style of usage, I'll take it.

And gosh, where did that student's amn't come from anyway? Now I really want to know. Where's Philip Marlowe when we need him?

Glenski

Joined: 15 Jan 2003
Posts: 12844
Location: Hokkaido, JAPAN

Posted: Sun May 20, 2007 9:32 pm Post subject:

broman,
Not clouding the issue here, nor am I arguing for the sake of arguing. Sorry if it seemed that way.

This is the key point that I've tried to point out all along. Again, we agree.

Quote:

And gosh, where did that student's amn't come from anyway?

wabisabi365

Joined: 04 Feb 2007
Posts: 111
Location: japan

Posted: Sun May 20, 2007 10:49 pm Post subject:

Broman, Bravo! Apt, eloquent and without condescension... In a word; refreshing. Cheers, ws365

flyingkiwi

Joined: 29 Jan 2007
Posts: 211
Location: In the Golden Gai in Shinjuku, arguing with Mama-san over my tab

Posted: Mon May 21, 2007 12:19 am Post subject:

Quote:

And gosh, where did that student's amn't come from anyway? Now I really want to know. Where's Philip Marlowe when we need him?

I now think that the student just made up the answer him/herself, using pure logic. Am not, short form = amn't.

And Philip Marlowe? Don't know. Haven't seen him around Miyazaki lately, that's for sure.

flyingkiwi

Joined: 29 Jan 2007
Posts: 211
Location: In the Golden Gai in Shinjuku, arguing with Mama-san over my tab

Posted: Mon May 21, 2007 4:11 am Post subject:

In class today, we were practicing asking and answering questions. One question was, 'Who is the Prime Minister of Japan?'. They didn't understand, so I asked, 'Well, who is the President of America'? One student blurted out 'Lincoln'

canuck

Joined: 11 May 2003
Posts: 1921
Location: Japan

Posted: Mon May 21, 2007 4:39 am Post subject:

flyingkiwi wrote:

In class today, we were practicing asking and answering questions. One question was, 'Who is the Prime Minister of Japan?'. They didn't understand, so I asked, 'Well, who is the President of America'?

One student blurted out 'Lincoln' Shocked

Who wants to bet that this "teacher" didn't pre-teach the word Prime Minister? Rolling Eyes

flyingkiwi

Joined: 29 Jan 2007
Posts: 211
Location: In the Golden Gai in Shinjuku, arguing with Mama-san over my tab

Posted: Mon May 21, 2007 6:47 am Post subject:

Quote:

Who wants to bet that this "teacher" didn't pre-teach the word Prime Minister?

You're really looking to stir it up, aren't you? Or, should I ask, 'are you not'?

This was not a test, it was a language activity FFS, to check their knowledge of 'who, what, where, when, etc.'

I didn't expect them to know the term 'Prime Minister', the purpose of including the question, 'Who is the Prime Minister of Japan' was to teach them the term 'Prime Minister' as a bit of additional common knowledge.

fluffyhamster

Joined: 13 Mar 2005
Posts: 3292
Location: UK > China > Japan > UK again

Posted: Mon May 21, 2007 8:17 am Post subject: Re: Another question

stillnosheep wrote:

TK4Lakers wrote:

I have a question that was asked to me the other day:

What is the difference between
isn't
it's not

For example, "No, it isn't." and "No, it's not."

They are abbreviated differently.

There's frequency info in the back of e.g. Carter & McCarthy's Cambridge Grammar of English, or Biber et al's Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English. (Obviously, I can't remember what they say!). I suppose for the sake of consistency that you could try to get into the habit of always saying I'm not, You're not (statements, as well as negative questions-in-statement-form etc. An exception would be "exclamations" like 'Aren't I/you a boring old fart!').

furiousmilksheikali

Joined: 31 Jul 2006
Posts: 1660
Location: In a coffee shop, splitting a 30,000 yen tab with Sekiguchi.

Posted: Mon May 21, 2007 8:49 am Post subject:

broman wrote:

Certainly if brevity is a form of wit you shine with exceptional brightness, kinshachi.

Brevity is the soul of wit, not a form of it.

markle

Joined: 17 Jan 2003
Posts: 1316
Location: Out of Japan

Posted: Mon May 21, 2007 10:30 am Post subject:

broman wrote:

In fact, by outlining a possible scenario where an English teacher who is a native Japanese could logically deduce, through using grammatical rules, that "amn't" is better than "aren't," coupled with his or her knowledge that it once was correct usage, and therefore teach it and insist on it, I illuminate the issue, which was, as the OP said, where the heck the amn't came from in the first place..

If we look at the original situation we see that the student wrote "No, I amn't" which so far as I can acertain has never been used (recognizing that a few fringe accents in times past used the contraction 'amn't' as a question tag "I am right, amn't I?". So even in your parallel universe the student or teacher was mistaken.
No native speaker in their right mind would choose to say 'I amn't' over 'I'm not' simply because the combination of 'mnt' is so difficult to say (say it five times quickly without sounding like a retard) amn't has been historically used in the question tag 'am not I?' because the common form 'aren't I' is counter-intuitive, and there is no 'I' to contract the 'am' with.

JimDunlop2

Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Posts: 2286
Location: Japan

Posted: Mon May 21, 2007 10:44 am Post subject:

This thread has gone on much longer than it ever should have. I amn't amused.

door3344

Joined: 26 Apr 2007
Posts: 18

Posted: Mon May 21, 2007 8:07 pm Post subject:

furiousmilksheikali wrote:

canuck wrote:

I have a coworker from England. The students have real [sic] hard time understanding him because of his accent and dirty [sic] pronunciation.

In Canada, on the CBC, I remember seeing a documentary about Oasis. They were giving an interview. Subtitles, in English, were provided for the viewers. Wink

Students in Japan often have more exposure to North American accents than British ones so it is unsurprising that they have trouble understanding an accent they are less familiar with. I am also from England and although my students usually understand what I say they get a little confused by my pronunciation of "can't".

As for needing subtitles to understand Oasis, this is just another case in which some of the viewers aren't familiar with accents outside of Butt-*beep* Ontario.

I would much rather live in Ontario than England. No offense but in my opinion/experience England is a dump in comparison: bad weather, terrible food, grossly overpriced substandard housing in dirty run down neighbourhoods. There are nice areas but you have to be rich to afford to live in them and you'd be better off moving to a country where your money is going to go further.

Most of the schools in England are absolute disaster zones (especially at the secondary level, the discipline problems they have there are unbelievable) which is why they can't get anyone to teach in them and why there are so many English teachers working in places like Ontario (or Australia, New Zealand). I taught in a school in New Zealand where half the staff were English and all of them had no intention whatsoever of ever going back (largely for the reasons cited above).

I can remember when I was at teachers college seeing people laughing at DfES reps and headhunters desperately trying to recruit for jobs in England. It was pathetic.

broman

Joined: 21 Apr 2007
Posts: 17
Location: USA upper left corner

Posted: Mon May 21, 2007 9:43 pm Post subject:

furiousmilksheikali wrote:

Quote:

Brevity is the soul of wit, not a form of it.

Nailed!

From Shakespeare's Hamlet, 1603:

LORD POLONIUS
This business is well ended.
My liege, and madam, to expostulate
What majesty should be, what duty is,
Why day is day, night night, and time is time,
Were nothing but to waste night, day and time.
Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit,
And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes,
I will be brief: your noble son is mad:
Mad call I it; for, to define true madness,
What is't but to be nothing else but mad?
But let that go.

flyingkiwi wrote:

Quote:

I now think that the student just made up the answer him/herself, using pure logic. Am not, short form = amn't.

Has anyone asked the student directly?

Quote:

I asked, 'Well, who is the President of America'?

One student blurted out 'Lincoln'

We wish.

JimDunlop2

Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Posts: 2286
Location: Japan

Posted: Tue May 22, 2007 1:44 am Post subject:

canuck

Joined: 11 May 2003
Posts: 1921
Location: Japan

Posted: Tue May 22, 2007 3:28 am Post subject:

JimDunlop2 wrote:

Pretty funny! LOL +1 Jim

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