English Language
Welcome to Monday at The Punch.
Here’s a historical tidbit for the word-nerds out there. A proposal to simplify English spelling passed a second reading in the British parliament today in 1953; with the aim of making spelling easier for young children.
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Jung Chang’s Wild Swans and James Joyce’s Dubliners don’t make my list of “books that changed my life” but as required reading for my grade twelve English class and therefore the sole focus of my attention for an entire year, let’s just say they’ve stuck in my mind.
If I ever want to remember what it felt like to devote an entire year to reading a couple of books, I only have to grab them down from the bookshelf and flick through the curled up pages and read the number of Post-it-notes still stuck to the spine or the lead pencil scrawled in the margins; a testimony to the days, weeks and months spent poring over the content, the characters, the plot line, the history and in the case of Wild Swans, the extensive family tree printed on the inside cover.
Yes, both books eventually did my head in. Yes, I often questioned their impact on my future life, the one that was sooo hard to see from my bedroom desk. But I’m glad I read them.
Continue reading "Don’t ditch literature in your final year" »
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Kitty says:
As a post-graduate student currently writing a PhD thesis in political science, I thank my lucky stars that I was immersed in literature for an entire year at high school. Although I did not go on to do an ‘arts’ degree (which some of you have implied is the only… Read more »
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Marnie says:
I resented having to learn maths up to year 10 but I’m not whinging. It works the other way too you know. Read more »
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