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English grammar rules overlooked by council poster advertising schools in Barnet

11:45am Wednesday 17th November 2010 in News Photograph of the Author By Natalie O'Neill

The offending poster The offending poster

BARNET council is overlooking the rules of English grammar for the sake of not wasting taxpayers’ money after a series of erroneous posters appeared throughout the borough.

All 189 posters, which are displayed in bus stops and other obvious locations around Barnet, carry an unneccessary apostrophe and the grammatically incorrect slogan: "Our school’s are amongst the top performing in the country."

But Barnet Council ruled out replacing the posters, adding it would cost more than £1,000 of taxpayers' money to correct the mistake.

The council, which was unaware of the error until told by the Times Series, said the posters were approved by both its communications and children’s services departments.

Councillor Andrew Harper, deputy leader and cabinet member for education, children and families, said: "This is obviously embarrassing. I thoroughly dislike misplaced apostrophes myself, but I'm not going to sanction spending £1,700 of taxpayers' money on replacing the posters in this current financial climate.”

The council will take the posters down on Tuesday, November 23 as originally planned.

Eagle-eyed reader Carrie Dunn, who spotted the error on a poster in Cricklewood Lane, said: "That is certainly not the way to promote schools – it’s shocking.

"Parents are sure to be thinking: "Is that the kind of English my children are going to be taught?"

Comments(11)

Don't Call Me Dave says...
11:53pm Wed 17 Nov 10

When hiring staff, councils are not permitted to discriminate on grounds of race, religion or sexual orientation. In Barnet, they are not allowed to discriminate on grounds of ability either.

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Grumblepop says...
12:21am Thu 18 Nov 10

It phigures.* What year did they stop teaching grammar in British Secondary Modern Schools prior to becoming the Comprehensive ? What was the Barnet legal dispute involving the sale of land to a football club that cost a few squid because the comma was misplaced?

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mrsangry999 says...
9:25am Thu 18 Nov 10

Good to see the Times taking a firm line on incorrect punctuation!
There is another poster at bus stops etc which appears to have a glaring mistake as well: the one which tells us we face cuts in spending of 20% when the real figure is 26.7 % Oops, however did that happen?

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jsmith66 says...
1:37pm Thu 18 Nov 10

Hi Natalie O'Neill, haven't you got nothing important to put on the headlines or was this just to fill the empty space. Boring!

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jsmith66 says...
1:40pm Thu 18 Nov 10

Nothing but negative headlines on areas where we suppose to give our full support. Just shows that this paper doesn't care much about the borough at a time where confidence is low.

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mrsangry999 says...
4:24pm Thu 18 Nov 10

well, you know jsmith66, I think the role of the paper is to report the news, rather than act as a sort of Ministry of Truth and bolster morale in a time of crisis!

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GBee says...
5:03pm Thu 18 Nov 10

God forbid spending £1700 of tax payers' money on correcting this! That would severely dent Mr Toad's dinner and taxi allowance and we can't have that. By all means look to increase your own salary though.

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jsmith66 says...
5:15pm Thu 18 Nov 10

All i'm saying is that i wasted 5 minutes of my life reading that so called news.

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jsmith66 says...
5:29pm Thu 18 Nov 10

Dear Carrie Dunn,

How is that shocking?

The credit crunch was a shock, the motor racing last Sunday was a shock. Sometimes Halloween can be shocking.

I gathered you havent had much shocking experiences in your life and to say parents should think twice about sending their children to schools around Barnet.
Look! No apostrophe on the havent.
Oh no!

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Don't Call Me Dave says...
7:52pm Thu 18 Nov 10

If you don’t think grammar is important, then remember these few words which you will need in later life: “would you like fries with that?”

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Grumblepop says...
9:56pm Thu 18 Nov 10

" i'm saying is that i wasted 5 minutes of my life reading that so called news.!

All he, JSmith66 is saying, well, it ain't just apostlefee he's missed.

I'm also guilty of not knowing Subject, Predicate, Object, or is it, Verb and Object und verse, never knowing my Present Participles from my Past Participle werb, as -ing and -ed, active from passive 5 minutes.

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