Only start worrying when she starts her sentences with: "Yeah..but no..but... Yeah..but no..but " etc, but be aware if you say anything about her you may be "dissin" her! (an yous knows that you gotta have "spect" man)
EeeH! ain't modern English great like?
Billy
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Her vernacular is governed by her social peers. If she goes to university her vernacular will moderate to that group of social peers.
Employers will understand and accept vernacular used by the intake from her stream because the previous years stream would have been similar.
To be blunt - keep your nose out, she and her peers are at the dawn of their use of English, you are at the sunset of yours. None of us are the arbiters of the use of English, a language that has changed daily for 1000s of years. Its not a dead language.
Plus you have no chance of telling a 16 year old how to speak - it would be easier to make the world spin the other way. It has always been so.
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For what it's worth I work at Cambridge University, and, like, I can tell you now that all the students speak in exactly that manner. ("So, I'm like, you coming down the bop, and she's like, what about the Separation of Church and State?...").
So no, it won't affect her chances at interview at all.
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So no, it won't affect her chances at interview at all.
I think it might if she was like 'I'm like...' during the actual interview. But then she probably won't be, will she?
What I find strange is the way even well brought up young girls and women pronounce their words. Of course one has got used to an echo of the London 'aow' in words with the ou diphthong in the speech of one's children. But these days they say 'yee' for you, 'cheeeb' for tube and 'scheeepid' for stupid.
Me dosn't honderstand it to raaas.
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My eldest daughter applied to five universities post A-level results and was offered by all five. None of them interviewed her, and I believe it's only applications for/to medicine and Oxbridge that have interviews.
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I think it might if she was like 'I'm like...' during the actual interview. But then she probably won't be will she?
I can't think why she won't! The last occasion I heard her use "like" liberally was at a pre-Christmas family gathering when she was talking to her parents and her two sets of grandparents. There weren't any of her peers present. She clearly does it without thinking.
Edited by L'escargot on 02/12/2008 at 07:43
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I can tell you now that all the students speak in exactly that manner.
I have recently engaged in conversation with a couple of dozen Cambridge undergraduates. None has used the word "like" save for when comparing two items, sensations etc. or when expressing appreciation.
Of course it will affect her chances at interview (if she is applying to Oxbridge or medical school). Pay for her to go to a decent school (preferably boarding so she will no longer mix with her current peers) for sixth form and she will soon stop as a result of peer pressure.
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"Pay for her to go to a decent school (preferably boarding so she will no longer mix with her current peers"
Ironically this may actually reduce her chances of getting into a good university - there is an element of discrimination against applicants from fee-paying schools.
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there is an element of discrimination against applicants from fee-paying schools.
The stats in last week's THES (Times Higher Ed Supplement) do not bear out this statement. In universities idiots with money are always preferable to oiks with brains.
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The stats in last week's THES (Times Higher Ed Supplement) do not bear out this statement. In universities idiots with money are always preferable to oiks with brains.
Rather than take your totally unbiased views as gospel, I prefer the balanced [IMO] views of this statistician, David Steinsaltz, M.A. in mathematics, Ph.D. in mathematics,
Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Queen?s University, Canada
Department of Statistics, University of Oxford. :
www.steinsaltz.me.uk/UK%20website/Oxford_Admission...l
Also, there is the view expressed by Trevor Phillips, a man who should be trusted on equality and fairness:
Though I have no disagreement with greater access, I would have hoped that universities and the Government would have a slightly more sophisticated policy than simply 'blacklisting' independent schools.
"If you apply the policy that they appear to have adopted, then you are making the good the enemy of the better," he said.
Mr Phillips said that Bristol's admissions policy would discriminate against many black and Asian families who send their children to private school to escape racism within the state system. "A large number of parents from ethnic minorities, especially Asian families, go into debt to send their children to independent schools because they believe that it will help their children escape the disadvantage that they might otherwise face in the state system.
"The unintended consequence of a crude admissions policy will be simply to shut out large numbers of those families for their commitment to education," he said."
[It so happens that today I have in front of me the statistics for admissions for the last 5 years, from a top 5 Independent School, which clearly demonstrate a bias by Bristol, Durham, Edinburgh*, LSE and Warwick against pupils from that school. Edinburgh can be excused on the grounds that it seemingly favours Scottish and EU students but is biased against students from all English schools].
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Here is what the Sutton Trust concluded in February this year (the figures for 2008 are worse):
? 100 elite schools ? making up under 3% of 3,700 schools with sixth forms and sixth
form colleges in the UK ? accounted for a third of admissions to Oxbridge during the
last five years.
and:
? The schools with the highest admissions rates are highly socially selective. The 30
schools are composed of 28 independent schools, one grammar, and one
comprehensive. The 100 schools with the highest admissions rates to Oxbridge are
composed of 80 independent schools, 18 grammar schools, and two
comprehensives.
...
Now it may be that they are 'biased' (or looking at it another way, trying to redress the imbalance) but if they are it isn't making any difference. Sending a child to an independent school is still by far the best way of securing an Oxbridge/Russell Group university place if that's what turns you on. If the independent sector thinks the competition is getting stiffer, well good. Let the fittest survive, right?
In my experience the single most important thing young people can do if they are not lucky enough to go to a fee-paying school is to read a broadsheet Sunday newspaper cover to cover every week for six months before the interview.
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If the independent sector thinks the competition is getting stiffer, well good. Let the fittest survive, right?
No, the competition is getting unfair and is biased against the "fittest". As with most socialist policies, rather than fix the cause of under-achievement the easy option is taken to drag everyone down to the lowest common denominator. Politics of Envy, as always. [unless you are in the ruling NuLab class, and therefore as in Animal Farm, your are more equal than others and so like Blair, Harman, Diane Abbot, et al you can send your children to top schools].
Oxford have this year published how they will apply their bias against the "fittest" purely and simply to get their share of money from the NuLab social engineers. If you do your research, you will find that some Universities are actually taking students from China and India with LOWER qualifications than UK state sector pupils, as they help to boost income from "foreign fees".
... if they are not lucky enough to go to a fee-paying school ..
Nothing to do with luck. Most independent schools are highly selective. At the admissions stage, there is no bias against your social class or your wealth. You will not get in unless you can pass the stringent entrance tests. If you are "educationally the fittest", you get offered a place and if you cannot afford the fees, every effort is made to reduce your costs up to and including full bursaries.
Instead of carpin on about independent schools, socialists should ask themselves what has gone wrong with the NuLab promise of "education, education, education" and the £Billions that NuLab has poured in to the state sector education.
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Universities are actually taking students from China and India with LOWER qualifications than UK state sector pupils as they help to boost income from "foreign fees".
It's been going on for years, especially at postgrad level, but as the financial situation gets nastier, this is happening a lot more extensively. Some universities--including some top ones--are close to going bust (I don't think they will be allowed to go bust, but they are in trouble right now). As I said above, idiots with money are preferable ... and Oxford and Cambridge are rumbling again about going private so they can raise fees.
>> ... if they are not lucky enough to go to a fee-paying school .. Nothing to do with luck.
Oh please. Of course you have to be qualified, pass entrance exams etc, but I'd say that having parents who can afford £10K a term qualifies as lucky. It does round here anyway.
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It's been going on for years
Yes, but was exposed last year by covert investigation by the other newspaper:
Admission tutors for different undergraduate courses at Edinburgh, Manchester and Sheffield said they would be prepared to accept an international applicant who had failed to achieve the normal A-level requirements for their course.
The tutors ? who thought they were talking to the guardian of a 17-year-old Chinese student studying A-levels at a top private boarding school in England ? said international students did not always have to meet the academic rules that applied to other applicants. ...
One vice-chancellor, who did not want to be identified, said overseas students were displacing home students at some of the top universities which did not physically have the space to expand. ?The government has created a perverse incentive that means international students bring in more money than UK students,? he said.
....
universities state publicly that foreign students have to be as good as other potential undergraduates. ... While some universities refused any concessions for overseas students, three told the undercover reporter that they might be treated ?more leniently?. "
Oh please. .... having parents who can afford £10K a term qualifies as lucky.
Oh please. So that is how you define "lucky"! No point telling you that your figure of £10k is wrong. Oh, well, end of rational debate.
Edited by jbif on 02/12/2008 at 12:04
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>> It's been going on for years Yes but was exposed last year by covert investigation by the other newspaper:
OK, so it's known outside the sector now. Fair enough. I first encountered this as a young university lecturer around 1992 (whilst working in a university that is now a member of the Russell Group).
>> Oh please. .... having parents who can afford £10K a term qualifies as lucky. Oh please. So that is how you define "lucky"! No point telling you that your figure of £10k is wrong. Oh well end of rational debate.
It's the fee + costs (what they estimate parents pay) of one of the independents near to where I live. The head of music is a mate of mine.
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So to get yourself into one of those top schools for Oxbridge entrance is going to come in at somewhere between £12K and £22K a year in tuition fees alone. For example, Tonbridge charges fees of almost £30K a year for boarders and just shy of £7K per term for day pupils:
www.tonbridge-school.co.uk/admissions/fees.usml
On that basis I think my mate's figure of £10K a term for fee + costs is pretty accurate, assuming you want to take full advantage of what's on offer in terms of extra-curricular activities, trips and so on. He's not at Tonbridge, by the way.
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The figure, of course, depends on how much you have to subsidise your offspring, and the course they are doing.
I have one at UWE Bristol and the other at Birmingham at the moment.
The Birmingham daughter is in year 3 of a nursing degree, so course fees are paid - but student loan is reduced accordingly (down to somewhere around £2k IIRC) and no other support due to means testing. Her halls are something over £4.3k per annum - that's not including any food. The course consists of continual 6 weeks uni, 6 weeks placement. The course is 5 days a week, often 9 to 5. They get considerably shorter holidays than other courses as they have to complete a minimum amount of hours per year. Placements (unpaid) can be anywhere in the Birmingham Health District (huge). She gets no help with travel costs to placements (even though she could, and has been, allocated to night shifts. So she has to run a car (which costs £300 ish extra a year for parking at halls, before the tax, MOT, maintenance, insurance and petrol). She has virtually no scope to get a job due to demands of the course and placement, and short holidays, so she is pretty much entirely funded by us. It is expensive - maybe not £10k a term, but both we and she regards herself as lucky that we can afford to support her.
Edited by smokie on 02/12/2008 at 12:19
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.. subsidise your offspring... but both we and she regards herself as lucky that we can afford to support her.
Why?
1. Was it "luck" that your children were born? Is it not the duty of parents, who make a conscious decision to have offspring, to make sure that their offspring get as much help as possible, even above and beyond the call of duty? Personally, I would be willing to give up my life, let alone face financial hardship, for them.
2. Did your "wealth" come from the lottery? Was it given to you on a plate through some inheritance? Is your above average wealth not due to your efforts?
I take the view that people by and large make their "luck". for example, Terry Leahy [CEO of Tesco] was one of four brothers, who grew up in a working class family living in a prefab maisonette in the Lee Park council estate in Liverpool. The other three left school to take up apprenticeships. Leahy went to University. He first joined Tesco as a casual worker stacking shelves. Through sheer hard work, he made it to become the CEO at age 40. Call it luck if you want, I call it hard work and determination.
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Excellent Baskerville...
:oD
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Baskerville>> idiots with money are always preferable to oiks with brains.
Like, whatever you want to think, like.
What I guarantee is that employers do not like, like, employing, like oiks. And secondly, with the devaluation of degrees (a first from a Polytechnic is, like, still not worth bothering with, like, for many jobs) employers are far more interested in A level results.
Like.
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Aw, selective quotation is beneath you. I said "In universities ..." Like.
Actually 'like' is just a marker, similar to 'um' or 'er', or if you're well-practised and confident, repeating the question before answering it. It leaves thinking time. What is sad is if kids who speak like this don't see that different registers are needed for different situations. That I suspect is where the independent schools come in, since they generally have more time to teach social niceties.
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>>Aw, selective quotation is beneath you. I said "In universities ..."
I know you did, and that is the point I was making, I was not quoting you selectively. Maybe I need to make it more clearly. Universities select students who are going to do well and leave University into a good job. Universities are ranked according to the quality of jobs their graduates get. Moreover, wealthy, successful alumni make generous donations.
Oiks find it very difficult to get good jobs, so aren't chosen for University in the first place. Simple.
You will also find that most independent schools offer generous bursaries to those from poor families. Indeed some of the very top schools boast that they have never had to turn away a child who has been unable to afford the fees. (That may have changed since 1997 when the darling Labour Government abolished the Government Assisted Places Scheme, but these schools have put great effort into locating private cash to replace Government money.) These schools are ranked on academic ability and Oxbridge places achieved, they are desperate for bright oiks in order to bump up their academic results. For Government policies then to encourage the top Universities to reject those whose education has been the result of charity, rather than state funding is bonkers.
I guess I've wasted my time posting this as you don't want to believe the truth.
Oiks, by the way, is Baskerville's word, not mine.
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What may be disappearing is register switching, though it is impossible to say whether the young woman in question is able to do it. If this is a key difference between state schools and independent schools then as you imply the gap will widen irrespective of ability or results.
>>You will also find that most independent schools offer generous bursaries to those from poor families.
Indeed, the Independent Schools' Council suggests somewhere around 50% off, reducing the fee at Tonbridge to a very reasonable and easily achievable by 'poor families'* £3.5K per term ;-)
Full scholarships on the basis of ability are of course another matter altogether, but persuading kids from genuinely poor families to apply for them is extremely hard. They are also asked to traverse social and psychological barriers as significant as those for someone heading in the other direction. I quite agree, incidentally, that the assisted places scheme should not have been abolished; it should have been extended significantly. Whether that would have prevented the price fixing scandal is another matter.
*not poor by any reasonable definition if they can find £10K+ per year for 7 years even by borrowing, though certainly ambitious and risk taking, which are admirable qualities, and arguably poor relative to their peergroup.
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Actually 'like' is just a marker similar to 'um' or 'er' ...........
Thinking about it, that's exactly how our granddaughter appears to use the word "like". Apart from when she says "And I was like ............." instead of "And I said.........".
Edited by L'escargot on 03/12/2008 at 07:19
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'Er indoors and I think that this poor speech will count against her during interviews both for university and for subsequent job applications.
I most certainly agree with 'Er, it's quite telling. However, what to do about it....
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