School Governors: Dear Leader issues slap in the face to waffling worthies

Gove: School governors are ‘local worthies seeking a badge of status

Michael Gove
Waffling? Surely only politicians are allowed to do that? Michael Gove holds forth: read a riposte from Francis Gilbert here.
As a school governor, you can imagined how cheered I am this morning to learn that this headline appears on the front page of the Times website [paywall]: ‘School governors condemned by Gove: School governors are ‘local worthies seeking a badge of status and the chance to waffle about faddy issues”‘.

I fear I’m not willing to pay News International to read the full article, but am not surprised to see that Michael, as a former Times journalist (and married to Sarah Vine, currently on the staff), has ensured a front page story on his own paper once again, as well as copious coverage in the Telegraph and the BBC.

I picked this up from Warwick Mansell, who also reports ‘Emma Knights, of National Governors’ Association, says: “We’ve had a lot of talk from Michael Gove about governance but not very much about how to improve things…”‘ Emma Knights told the BBC her organisation was ‘incredibly disappointed by the language of the secretary of state’.

It seems Michael Gove has also had a pop at teachers (‘NUT “embracing Trotskyism” at national conference’), so he’s trotting out popular targets (trotting out Trots – see what I did there?) to endear him to his fellow-travellers in The Party. Well, as we know, if the Dear Leader doesn’t like governors, he can sack them and appoint his own – does that make the new ones waffling worthies too?

Meanwhile – and I fear to depress you more, but as I’m in waffling mood –

One responsibility of school governors is to ensure the reporting of statutory tests, such as the recent phonics test for 6 year olds. The DfE’s planned Key Stage 2 English grammar, punctuation and spelling test materials for 2013 are now online here (see the bottom of the page). Geoff Barton, a secondary head, was moved to comment: ‘Look at question 12 and imagine how children will be taught. Read, then weep.’

DfE KS2 test, Q 12
Wait at the door? Whatever for? Ah: think about it!

Of course, this is really just another faddy issue we shouldn’t waste our time waffling about.

Stop press: There’s more on Michael Gove’s speech in the Telegraph today, where his claims that boards of governors resemble ‘Victorian parochial church councils’ is accompanied by an attack on the National Association for the Teaching of English as well (in the process getting the name slightly wrong – well, that’s journalists for you). This calls for a separate post, had I but world enough and time….

But Francis Gilbert has written a detailed response, complete with a refutation of his slur on NATE, here.

Pussyfooting, hyphenism and headlining

Time to make your mind up about hyphens

This Friday’s Phrase is pussy-foot. To hyphenate it or not? Here’s an example found in the Oxford English Dictionary from 1916 (The Daily Democrat from Woodland, California):

He pussyfooted all right. He declared in grandiloquent style for undiluted Americanism, but he had nothing to say about hyphenism.

Of course, to hesitate over this is mere pussyfooting – not something Prime Ministers and Archbishops have time for.

Which reminds me that yesterday’s tweet and blog post have become today’s Guardian headline for the turbulent priest. I’d like to say it was because this blog is so influential that it’s read throughout Westminster, but I suspect the mundane truth is that the wording was so apposite that even a journalist on a proper paper couldn’t resist.

Meanwhile, back in the OED, I’m both disappointed and intrigued to discover that hyphenism has nothing to do with lexicography but ‘the state of being a hyphenated American; the attitude or conduct involved or implied by this.’ Wikipedia offers some enlightenment that explains why this would be an issue in Woodland in the middle of the First World War:

Hyphenated American is an epithet commonly used from 1890 to 1920 to disparage Americans who were of foreign birth or origin, and who displayed an allegiance to a foreign country. It was most commonly used to disparage German Americans or Irish Americans (Catholics) who called for U.S. neutrality in World War I. Former President Theodore Roosevelt was an outspoken anti-hyphenate.

This particular issue may have faded into the mists of history (though divided loyalty still seems a hot topic to some American politicians), so how about adopting the term anti-hyphenate for those in favour of email rather than e-mail and other stylistic simplifications? That’s still stirring up debate – see Think hyphens aren’t contro-versial in The Guardian and Substuff‘s tweet yesterday:

‘Keep an eye-out for all our latest reviews.’ What is the reasoning behind that hyphen?

On this, it’s time to stop pussyfooting: I’m definitely an anti-hyphenate. I think.

Caesura: it’s not the end of the line

Is the afterlife just the second half of a line of verse?

I came across an interesting use of this word in a Media Guardian article about the death of Reinhard Mohn, the owner of Europe’s largest media group, Bertelsmann: ‘Mohn’s death has been described by German commentators as a “caesura”‘.

So is the afterlife just the second half of a line of verse? And if so, from which poem? Paradise Lost or Paradise Regained? ‘Futility’ or ‘Easter Wings’? Or is this some deeply existential statement about life imitating art?