A minor linguistic storm arose in the UK last week after a Teesside school principal asked parents to ‘correct’ their children’s informal speech – phrases such as it’s nowt (it’s nothing), I seen (I saw, I have seen), and gizit ere (give us it here = give it to me). Dan Clayton alerted me to this story, and provides additional insights and links on the unfolding debate.
As Dan points out, the extent and passion of the responses – in online comments, follow-up articles and discussion elsewhere – ‘[show] what a live issue’ it is. People have very strong feelings about correctness in language, but unfortunately this strength of feeling isn’t always matched by tolerance and understanding.
Posted by Stan Carey 
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