Rite, so well orl spel like this in the fucha then...

Yet another mad professor has suggested that we should just accept common spelling errors. Ken Smith is not a teacher of English, or a linguist. He's a criminologist. Perhaps he's come up with this loony suggestion because the criminals he studies have a low grasp of our language? But no, his students have trouble spelling, so rather than try and teach them or correct them, he'd rather just let them off the hook.

It's a sad indictment of our education system. Not only do we no longer teach kids in school how to spell properly and write well, but we let them into university with substandard English. And this crazy proposal would mean standards slipping even further.

I've lost count of the number of wannabe journalists posting on forums, asking how to get into the profession, and displaying the most appalling grasp of the language - saying i instead of I, for example, or using textspeak. And this in a job where mastery of good writing counts for, well, pretty much everything.

I'm not singling them out, though, as their English is as bad as everyone else's in their generation. When I left school, pretty much everyone in my year had a good grasp of spelling and grammar regardless of what career they had in mind, apart from a few undiagnosed dyslexics who didn't get the help they needed.

Standards have slipped so far that universities are willing to let in anyone to study a Mickey Mouse degree, regardless of their literacy level, because they need the government funding. And so we have the situation that semi-literate undergraduates who probably ought not to be studying are, because anyone can do a degree now.

I wonder how Ken Smith's criminology students will fare when they graduate. What will happen to them when they apply for jobs, only to fall at the first hurdle because the HR department took one glance at their badly spelt application form and binned it? If they manage to continue studying, how will they handle submitting research papers? I've often edited better-written English in academic papers drafted by students for whom English is a second or even third language.

I suppose I shouldn't complain. It'll keep me in editing work, after all...

You're chaving a larf, ain't ya?

Oh dear. Kerthump!

Sorry, that was me falling off the chair because I've been laughing so hard. The Fabian Society has decreed that the word "chav" must be banned. I'd like to know how they propose to do this. Quite apart from the fact that chavs themselves use the term, the case for banning it is pretty thin.

Even very offensive words, such as nigger, are not banned - they just don't get voiced in polite society. It doesn't stop some people using it, though. How would a word be banned, anyway? Would parliament have to pass a law? Would the police then be obliged to arrest anyone heard using "chav", take them down the station and charge them? Would the courts become clogged with non-chavs and chavs alike being found guilty and told to pay fines?

The hackneyed phrase "PC gone mad" springs to mind here, in terms of what the Fabian Society proposes. You cannot legislate against thoughts or words - that way lies the Unspeak of 1984.

Here in the UK, we have no overall body to determine the acceptability or otherwise of the words we speak and write, unlike in France, for example, where the Academie Francaise decrees what homegrown neologisms must be used in place of imported English words and even how words must be spelled. Thank goodness - I lived in France for a while and never quite got the point of the Academie and its rule of law. Controlling language ultimately attempts to control people's thoughts and is a form of censorship.

Chav is as much a part of the English language in this country as the words tea and cricket. And until the government does actually pass a law against its use, the Fabian Society would be better off picking a battle it can win...

Aunty needs a minder

Yesterday's Observer carried the following story: Mind your language, critics warn BBC.

About flaming time...

As a child, I can actually remember being told that the BBC was the arbiter of the Queen's English (we lack the equivalent of an Academie Francaise, you see). My English has always been extremely good, hence why I ended up in this trade, but even up until recently if I was unsure of something I could rely on the BBC to point me in the right direction on matters of language. Sadly, this is no longer true. And we certainly can't rely on the government to set standards - standards in English are what have been falling in schools for the last 30 years.

Tot take one example, the BBC website is a disgrace, from the language point of view. Most news reports on it carry at least one spelling error, not to mention poor punctuation and distinctly dodgy grammar. For a while I took a perverse pleasure in finding the errors then emailing BBC News Online to complain and see how long it took them to correct the page. But no more, because the errors are so many and widespread I'd never get any work done. It does make for an amusing read, though.

I hope the BBC does appoint a language chief. It certainly needs one. This may also be the only time I will ever agree with Ann Widdecombe on anything.