Jacob Rees-Mogg lays the law down on Grammar.

Good for Jacob.

He has introduced specific rules for staff in his new office with a style guide banning them from using certain words and ensuring their grammar is correct.

Now maybe some are thinking he should be concentrating on more important things, but I say - good luck to him. I don’t pretend to get things correct every time I post on here myself. It is after all, 55 years since I walked out of the school gates for the last time, and that included failing my 11 plus. But, there are some important things I remember from English lessons in school and doing my best to get grammar correct was one of them. (was not successful on everything, of course. Still too generous with the commas where they shouldn't be.)

Jacob has let it be known that he expects organisations must be singular, there should be a double space after fullstops and staff should use imperial measurements.
Mr Rees-Mogg even used bold writing to tell his staff that they must ‘check’ their work, according to a copy of the guidelines obtained by ITV News.

The banned words from the new Cabinet member include the words - very, hopefully, ongoing, ascertain and unacceptable. He also said that the phrases ‘I am pleased to learn’ as well as ‘I understand your concerns’ should not be used anymore.

So, here are the banned words:-

Organisations are SINGULAR
All non-titled males - Esq.
There is no fullstop after Miss or Ms
M.P.’s - no need to write M.P. after their name in body of text
Double space after fullstops
No comma after the word 'and'
CHECK your work
Use imperial measurements.

The only one I don’t see on there and which I frequently see on OFF (guilty too as I get older and lazier) is commencing a sentence with the word AND. My old English teacher, Miss Dorricott, would be turning in her grave!

Anyway, what are your thoughts on this? I personally think Jacob Rees-Mogg is a beautifully spoken, eloquent person, so should be respected for having his correspondence done correctly without having to correct it himself.

Twitter users have been arguing over this today, just wondered what you think. I do appreciate that times change and what was not acceptable in grammar in my schooldays are no longer relevant in today’s world, but do you, like me, think that correct grammar has been allowed to lapse too much over the years? Or do you simply not care?

My own personal sin? I use the edit button every single time because I’m too lazy to check my work before I press submit. It’s only when checking it later I notice the howlers I’ve made.

Re: Jacob Rees-Mogg lays the law down on Grammar.

The grammatical points are ok with me and I'm glad it has started a debate and has hit the news. I too used to be a stickler for it, although these days I am very lax. The internet and texting just makes you lazy. I still find it difficult to accept that it's now ok to have only one space after a full stop. I was taught two and I'm sticking to it.

The use of Esq is now outdated but I remember using this in business correspondence in the 90s.

The main point of contention is his reference to Imperial measures. Now Britain has long been part of the movement to standardise measures to metric. It's nothing to do with the EU. The history goes back to the 19th C. We introduced a weights and measures act to this effect in 1963. At school (pre EEC membership) we were taught metric. I don't like metric because Imperial is far more intuitive, but I picked up Imperial outside school and found it all pretty confusing. But having one measure avoids the need to convert in business. Sales folk sometimes try to use this as a way to confuse customers.

Re: Jacob Rees-Mogg lays the law down on Grammar.

Hi

The man is an idiot.

All FTAs are in metric.

That is how the World Works.

He has called in all Ex Employees with the Qualifications needed for No Deal.

We where sacked with huge Pension Losses.

He can swan off.

He and his mates are threatening Public Employees with
with loss of Pensions, yet offering the Private Sector £118 an hour for the same thing,

No points for guessing who we will work for.

The man is a Lunatic.

It is not going to be him or Boris.

Re: Jacob Rees-Mogg lays the law down on Grammar.

I agree with you Annie. I still put a double space after fullstops.
I have to admit I loathe metric, but it's only because I was taught imperial. How I long to be able to go into a supermarket and once again see pounds and ounces and when buying material converse in yards and feet. The looks I get from the young staff when I ask for something in yards is priceless! I must really be an old relic!.
Even when I try to work it out on the calculator on my mobile, I get confused with the endless numbers that come up in metric. Oh well.

What I fail to understand though is we still use miles per gallon, pints of beer, pints of milk and even body measurements. Why is that, I wonder?

Re: Jacob Rees-Mogg lays the law down on Grammar.

What a ghastly man he is!

Re: Jacob Rees-Mogg lays the law down on Grammar.

This is way off topic but I have to answer and say - Sorry Swimmy, you won't get much sympathy from me when it comes to public sector workers and the private sector. You're lot were still sucking in the high wages for years after the start of austerity whilst the private sector workers were being laid off in their thousands with the loss of their homes.

The unions too were only interested in the welfare of the public sector workers (just as they still do today) and it was every man for himself in the private sector. Oh yes, I haven't forgotten also that those lucky to still be in a job also had to pay for the public sector protected at the time jobs, by paying towards their ruddy pensions whilst not being able to afford one of their own.

So, insult JRM all you want, I think it's about time some had a kick up the backside and told to do things properly.
Grammar is just a start. Discipline with Civil Servants doing what they are told to do would be the next best step. They have had it too much their own way over the last two decades. It's time they started to show respect for their employers, and if that includes teaching them correct grammar, and doing it JRM's way, so be it!

Sorry I had my serious hat on there for a moment. Back to Grammar.

Re: Jacob Rees-Mogg lays the law down on Grammar.

I agree with you about the use of correct grammar.
I ran a power electronics company for about 50 years. It's a quite technical field dealing mostly with the control of fairly large electric motors, usually for industrial processes.

Each project required a technical manual to be supplied. I was the Nazi grammar on those. We sought to project a professional image so the manuals had to be professionally presented.

A little example. Power, at least on this side of the pond, is expressed in kilowatts. The correct abbreviation is kW but I have seen it expressed at Kw by both our suppliers and even by some of my own guys. I just had to correct that before we sent anything out.

Moving on. You mention Imperial units and metric. The standard units for most things in UK is SI abbreviated from Système Internationale. It isn't actually metric. You can't buy a metre of milk for example. Also, for some things, there is no Imperial unit. The supply to your home in UK is (nominally) 230 Volts. There is no Imperial version of the Volt.

Are Imperial units more intuitive? I disagree on that point. SI is certainly simpler. Think, for example, about units of length. SI has the metre. Imperial has inches, feet, yards, chains, furlongs, miles, leagues, fathoms, nautical miles........and probably a few more. How intuitive is it to have 5,280 feet in a mile? Or 4,840 square yards in a mile?

At least we can discus this in a civil manner.

Re: Jacob Rees-Mogg lays the law down on Grammar.

I think 4,840 square yards make 1 acre Besoeker.

Re: Jacob Rees-Mogg lays the law down on Grammar.

I never would have been bothered when I was at school.
However, since I've grown older and learnt the ways of the world, I have become really quite picky when it comes to correctness, especially in writing.

For example, although many - perhaps most - people wouldn't even be aware of the convention, I have always left two spaces after a full stop. Having said that I suspect that some places, such as this forum, would automatically reduce the double space to a single one.

It shows two things: education and precision.

EDIT: There! My double space was reduced to a single space.

I wonder how JRM's staff manage when working on a computer!

Re: Jacob Rees-Mogg lays the law down on Grammar.

I found them more intuitive as i was growing up and learning them informally. But when i speak to people from other countries they find them confounding. Imo it's less detail to process and too many wasted characters. But metric is far more precise for technical work. I always thought Kilograms and litres were a metric measure. Is that not the case?