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LONDON - A BRITISH university lecturer plans to publicly shame his students for their lack of spelling ability.
Mr Bernard Lamb, a reader in genetics at Imperial College, London, hopes that by publishing the spelling errors he has noted during years of marking papers, it will put pressure on the education minister to raise teaching standards.
Errors in the English of Highly Selected Undergraduates, to appear in the next issue of the Queen's English Society's journal Quest, will outline howlers such as students discussing 'cows inseminated by seamen'.
'Rouge' genetic elements get a mention, as does plants 'sewn' together.
The frequent misuse of 'compliment' for 'complement', 'effect' instead of 'affect' and 'sun' for 'son' will also be highlighted.
The students were all in the second and third years of undergraduate studies.
Mr Lamb, chairman of Queen's English Society's London branch, said: 'It's important we draw attention to the issue.
'We are aiming to improve education because if school leavers put in job applications full of errors, it's going to have a bad effect on their careers and their firms' progress.
'It's very important that people should be able to express themselves clearly and accurately for their benefit and the country's.'
In 1992, Mr Lamb studied the English of arts and science undergraduates at 17 British universities and found that tutors were 'despairing' of their students' grasp of the language.
The declining state of English usage among native speakers is an old chestnut among traditionalists.
Many blame a lack of formal teaching in schools, which has a knock-on effect in the education system.
Text messaging and an increasing reliance on computer spell-checkers are also blamed.
Some sticklers have set up groups to protect the language, including The Apostrophe Protection Society.
There is even a mostly tongue-in-cheek group on Internet social networking site Facebook called 'If you can't differentiate between 'your' and 'you're' you deserve to die'.
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
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