>...the verb, pronoun etc, expeically puncuation and comprehnsion is what I struggle with. Teachers seam to not like that and "your going no were in life if you dont know your adverbs" is one of the many things I had a teacher tell me.
But you *do* know verbs, pronouns, adjectives, and adverbs! You use them correctly all the time, in all your posts. I can't remember the last time I needed to use the terms (probably on a high school test). What the teacher was really telling you is that he or she didn't know how to teach you.
There is so much just plain crap in teaching English. For over a thousand years, there was no English grammar -- grammarians started out in the 1700s to make a grammar. They made it up. They tried to cram English into the grammar of Latin, which doesn't work because the languages work differently.
They were deluded into thinking there was a "one proper way" to speak or write English. Not so. Like every other language in the world, there are different dialects. Middle English uses double and even triple negatives, because they were accepted by English speakers and writers (like Chaucer). Standard Educated American English evolved from the English spoken in and around London. Where the powerful lived.
Some people say et instead of ate? Sure. Different dialect, and one that kept the proper Old English pronunciation. "Learning" somebody is really ignorant, right? Nope. Old English did have "tachan," from which we get "to teach," but it also had "laran" which also means to teach. Laran is very close to "leornian" (in form) from which we get "to learn."
Which sounds scarier, "I speak a different dialect" or "I speak bad English?" Completely different ideas, hunh? Which way will a person be better able to learn? Through interest in something new? or through shame?
