Word: grammars
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Like all anti-Shakespeareans, Author Hoffman begins by arguing that William Shakespeare was too much of a booby to have written as well as he did. There was a flourishing grammar school at Stratford in Shakespeare's youth, but there is no record of Shakespeare's having attended it. Nor is there positive evidence that he went to Oxford or Cambridge (England's only two universities at that time). But could Shakespeare not have educated himself? Author Hoffman scoffs at the idea. "There were no public libraries ... no dictionaries ... no grammars...
...present, emphasis in the elementary language courses is almost entirely on grammar and reading, with little or no concern for speaking. Since eighty per cent or more of the students taking these courses take no more than necessary to pass their language requirement, the imbalance between grammar and reading on the one hand, and oral proficiency on the other, seems unwarranted. The student who has taken only enough language courses to satisfy the requirement or pass the examination exempting one from having to take more language courses is far less likely to read a book in German or French than...
...inconsistency is inherent in the Yardling, and the paper itself realized this in an editorial of October 11, 1954: "The Yardling rises and falls with each successive Freshman class; it has no standards to live up to and none to pass on." Without style books or tradition, its grammar, spelling, headline styles, makeup, and writing approach vary in comprehensible fashion, e.g., two of this year's headlines...
...until grammar becomes a matter of opinion, and vocabulary an artistic style, "amo, amas, amat" must rule the language classroom. Sermons will not change instructors' attitudes toward verb declensions. To enliven and modernize the language teaching, the Faculty must recognize the inherent difference between instruction in language, and teaching in the social sciences, natural sciences, and humanities...
...Farmers fear increasing collectivization. Young men are alarmed at reports that the People's Police would soon be doubled in size, to counter West German rearmament. Teachers have their backs up because they were asked to plug "youth dedications"-a Communist substitute for church confirmations. Said one grammar-school teacher who fled his native Greifswald: "After all, to do harm to the church is to harm the only body in East Germany that effectively opposes the Communists...