Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Alyallen]

When your students make grammar mistakes, take heart! They are probably on par with President Bush

"Childrens do learn," Bush tells school kids
Wed Sep 26, 2:03 PM ET

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Offering a grammar lesson guaranteed to make any English teacher cringe, President George W. Bush told a group of New York school kids on Wednesday: "Childrens do learn."

Bush made his latest grammatical slip-up at a made-for-TV event where he urged Congress to reauthorize the No Child Left Behind Act, the centrepiece of his education policy, as he touted a new national report card on improved test scores.

The event drew New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Education Secretary Margaret Spellings plus teachers and about 20 fourth and fifth graders from P.S. 76.

During his first presidential campaign, Bush -- who promised to be the "education president" -- once asked: "Is our children learning?"

On Wednesday, Bush seemed to answer his own question with the same kind of grammatical twist.

"As yesterday's positive report card shows, childrens do learn when standards are high and results are measured," he said.

The White House opted to clean up Bush's diction in the official transcript.

Bush is no stranger to verbal gaffes. He often acknowledges he was no more than an average student in school and jokes about his habit of mangling the English language.

Just a day earlier, the White House inadvertently showed how it tries to prevent Bush from making even more slips of the tongue than he already does.

As Bush addressed the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday, a marked-up draft of his speech briefly popped up on the U.N. Web site, complete with a phonetic pronunciation guide to get him past troublesome names of countries and world leaders.

[Atavistic]

He also said:

"You teach a child to read, and he or her will be able to pass a literacy test."

[Dome Vans]

The guy is a grade 'A' dufus.

Although England has the childrens learning the 3 'R's.

Reading
Riting
And Rithmetic.

Yes! We are smart!

[Octavius Hite]

Leader of the Free World (and this is why most of us have trouble sleeping).

[Gopher]

I think this was funny and an interesting point around fall 2000 through winter 2001 -- when Saturday Night Live ridiculed the President and the "Bushisms" book hit the shelves.

Now, seven non-stop years later, it just looks persecutorial and petty -- not to mention utterly bankrupt of originality in material.

Another slow news day. Like someone circulating at a party, telling different groups the same joke again and again and again...

[spliff]

[endo]

[Gopher]

He puts together well-constructed, comprehensible sentences all the time. He also bungles sentences all the time. But why reduce the man to his faults and shortcomings?

[Dome Vans]

Come on most other presidents, prime ministers and ministers learn English as a second language as a way to communicate for the media and with other officials. Most of them do better than Bush and it's his mother tongue.

[spliff]

[mindmetoo]

I don't get it. It's slang but it's not uncommon to use "do" to stress your point. "You DO need to be careful!" "I DO tend to agree with you."

[Alyallen]

[Gopher]

Yes, W. Bush has articulated some whoppers.

"Decider" for "decision-maker." Now "childrens." Many more.

Fine, most of us get the point. The President has probably read less than anyone I know; and his speaking reflects this.

You should have heard Chilean President Eduardo Frei Tagle's Spanish, by the way. Educated Chileans certainly commented on that. But they commented and then let it go; it never received this kind of obsessive attention.

In any case, time to move on to matters of substance.

[Octavius Hite]

Gopher, maybe if he stopped screwing the pooch (9/11, Tora Bora, Iraq, WMD, Mission Accomplished, Katrina, Austria/Australia, etc etc etc etc etc etc) we would stop treating him like a moron.

If it walks like a duck, talks like a duck and acts like a duck, its probably a duck.

[Gopher]