Edith, I was reminded of exactly the same thing! My children did this, as
well. And as many people have remarked here, this kind of
preposition-hmmm-behavior? error? change? seems to occur increasingly in my
students' papers. (I couldn't dissuade my children from using this in their
oral expression as children-either with good-natured teasing or with serious
explanations. However, I don't find them using this in their speech OR their
writing as adults. My point, I guess, is that children's-and even the
younger college students'-language behavior is still evolving. Maybe it
isn't so much a change in language as an indication of stages in language
awareness? I don't know.)
I strongly agree with several here who have remarked that much of our
students' difficulty-with this and other matters-comes from the decrease
over the past several decades in exposure to reading (and writing) in
children's early years. Of course, they are going to write as they
speak-and as they hear the language spoken in the media. You may have seen
a brief letter to the editor (in the NYT) responding to the interesting
article cited recently on this listserv, the one that quoted Martha Kolln on
diagramming, among other things. The writer made the excellent point that
writing is learned from reading; he recalled having been an avid reader in
his childhood and having, therefore, learned to write well without the pain
or tedium that often seems to be assumed as a necessary part of that process
(and that, for our students, often IS a part of it).
While this letter-writer certainly states an obvious-though often
overlooked-truth, he also brings up (obliquely) an essential piece of my
frustration as a writing teacher: the question of what REALLY works to fill
in those gaps left in the development of a student who clearly hasn't had
reading or being read to as a part of the childhood experiences that
determined the components of the "language toolbox" that s/he brought to my
writing classroom. (To complicate the situation, I seriously doubt that the
same--mass-produced or mass-applied--techniques can be absolutely counted
upon to work equally well with any two such students. The gaps, alas, are
not identical. And we lowly writing teachers don't have time for as much
one-on-one work as we might consider ideal. Yes, I do conferences-I swear by
'em-but it's not enough. And, with four entry-level comp classes, they're
breaking my back!)
[By the way, as though this post didn't already cover a large and baggy
territory (how's that for a mixed metaphor?), I, too, would like more info
on the sentence-combining material that Shirl mentioned a few days ago.
I've also used some stuff from William Strong in my comp classes-though not
recently-and I usually use some of Kolln's material on
combining-supplemented with some of my own-as I try to get my soph-level
grammar folks to apply more intensively the theory they've learned, as we
conclude the course.]
(An added aside that some of you might enjoy: There's been recent
discussion here on helping students to "own" their language. Along this
line, the community college/tech-voc school where I've taught for the last
several years once had as its motto: "Education you can use." A colleague
waggishly amended that to "Education so you can be used." I think that's
not a bad description of the kind of education students sometimes receive.
And it disturbs me. Does this strike a chord with anyone else?)
Barbara Muller
-----Original Message-----
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Wollin, Edith
Sent: Monday, November 15, 2004 2:18 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: preposition changes?
Several years ago now, my children, the children of an English teacher with
a grammar and syntax focus, began saying "bored of" rather than "bored
with." Nothing I said changed a thing and now I hear most students bored of.
I remind myself that language change often begins with the young. Is it an
error? It is not the standard that I grew up with, but I suppose that if
"tired of" makes sense, "bored of" should make just as much sense.
Edith Wollin
-----Original Message-----
From: PAUL E. DONIGER [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Sunday, November 14, 2004 7:55 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: preposition changes?
Dear ATEGers,
A few English teachers in my school, including myself, have been noticing
what seems to be a new phenomenon. I'm wondering if it is localized in my
region, state, or district, or if this is more universal. Our students seem
to have trouble using "correct" prepositions. For example, I'm finding
sentences like this:
"We know he had no intentions ON doing what he did and now regrets
everything that happened."
This sort of misuse of a preposition is becoming a regular occurrence in the
papers I'm seeing. The students who write them are NOT ELL students, but
grew up in average middle-class American homes where English is the first
language. Is anyone else out there finding this to be an issue?
Also, does anyone have any good lesson ideas for raising awareness and
correcting the error?
Thanks,
Paul E. Doniger
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