KATE Gordon from Brookfield, one bypass and a caravan park apart from what Osama Saeed once foolishly called "the leafy suburbs of Johnstone", is worried about so many people's grammar (Letters, March 19)? Look, in our neck of the woods it's as much just to get the natives to speak English – most think grammar is the amount of skag, showbiz sherbet or wacky baccy you ask your dealer for.
I am no Jacob Rees-Mogg with his silkily drawled dipthongs and monothongs setting my local MP Mhari Black's little heart aflutter, but last year returning from the doctors I was accosted by an elderly Asian gentleman looking for directions. Thereafter he confided I was the first local he'd been able to understand first time ever since moving into the area.
In Lowland Scotland, too many under 50s speak like drunken, drugged Oor Wullies 24/7. Sentences where the F-word acts as punctuation, every sentence concluding with a drawled "man" – and this is far from confined to scheme goblins before anyone suggests it.
Guttural speech is not the Rab C Nesbitt tribal badge of pride some think. It is a massive deterrent to employers relocating here when being able to communicate fluently to other parts of the business – let alone customers and suppliers alike – is essential. Moreover, many perceive correctly that too lazy to speak properly often correlates with too lazy to work properly.
Mark Boyle,
15 Linn Park Gardens, Johnstone.
I FULLY endorse the comments made and examples quoted by Kate Gordon on bad grammar and pronunciation in the broadcasting media. Gleaned mainly from television my pet aversion is the one continually repeated in answer to virtually any question or query. The word?
Absolutely.
Would my English teacher in secondary school be in despair at all this? Absolutely.
John Macnab,
175 Grahamsdyke Street, Laurieston, Falkirk.
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