Free Republic

NEWPORT NEWS - A student says, "Janae need a marker." How does a teacher respond? Usually this way: "We don't say, 'Janae need a marker.' We say, 'Janae needs a marker.'" What the teacher needs is a new approach, according to two local educators promoting an alternative way of teaching grammar. "I would say, 'We're in school right now. We're speaking formal English. How would you say that formally?'" said Rachel Swords, a third -grade teacher at Newsome Park Elementary School in Newport News. Swords and Rebecca Wheeler, an associate professor of English at Christopher Newport University, have co-written a...

<p>MILWAUKEE — Javier and Araceli Garcia, illegal immigrants from Mexico, never imagined that the U.S. government would help them buy a home.</p> <p>But last year, the couple secured a $54,600 mortgage to buy the gray, 1,158-square-foot bungalow that they had been renting for eight months. The Wisconsin housing authority financed the loan. The Internal Revenue Service gave them an identification number that let them apply for it at local Mitchell Bank, which was happy to take their business.</p>

<p>BEIJING (AP) -- Fed-up with menus offering delicacies such as "fried pawns" and "bean eurd," Beijing is declaring war against incomprehensible and misspelled English-language signs and notices, the state-run China Daily reported Friday.</p> <p>"There are many 'Chinglish' words on road signs, public notices, menus and signs describing scenic spots, which often puzzle foreigners," Xiong Yumei, vice director of the Beijing Tourism Bureau, was quoted as saying.</p>

Actual Analogies and Metaphors Found in High School Essays: Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two other sides gently compressed by a Thigh Master. His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free. He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a Guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar...