Time to act... as People ‘cue’ in ‘there bear feat’

WITH school exams in the news this week, young people are hoping to gain high marks in English. However, some emphasis should also be placed on improving the standard of the language among adults.

Regularly, we hear contributors to programmes on radio and television saying ‘I done’ and ‘I seen’ while shop windows notices continue to cause amusement.

The internet is polluted with poor grammar, with a lot of people who fancy themselves as writers lacking basic skills.

A few months ago there was a reference to long ‘cues’ outside soccer grounds in Cork as spectators waited to get in. Another posting related to a man being six foot tall in his ‘bear’ feet.

Of course, newspapers are not exempt from poor use of English, with some writers and subeditors mixing up ‘there’ and ‘their’, and ‘who’s’ and ‘whose’.

The lack of verbs in sentences and the overuse of hyphens, as well as the lack of commas, can also cause irritation to people who know their English.

Perhaps the setting up of more adult education classes could help more people improve their grasp of the language. SHAY COOGAN, Navan, Co. Meath.

Don’t be bad winners

IT IS noticeable that since their ‘victory’ in repealing the Eighth Amendment, many pro-abortion advocates, on ‘social’ media in particular, but also quite a few print journalists, are still venting their spleen in very angry and nasty comments directed at prolife supporters, and their old adversary, the Catholic Church.

How dare its priests preach about Catholic teaching in church! So it now appears that despite ‘winning’ the referendum, they are still unhappy.

One saw something of this mentality on Claire Byrne’s show recently, where the pro-abortionists, particularly Mary Lou McDonald and Fintan O’Toole, were not happy bunnies.

It would probably take a combined team of psychologists/ psychiatrists to analyse the reasons for this phenomenon. But one wonders – if they’re not happy now, will they ever be?

Is the liberal Nirvana unattainable, an illusion? Euthanasia is probably next on their list of wonderful contributions to humanity. Will that make them happy? Will pigs learn to fly?

ERIC CONWAY, Navan, Co. Meath.

Fall of the Church

FROM the reaction of many Catholics to their Church’s unpopularity, or fall from grace, it’s clear that they do not see a connection to its appalling abuse of the power it held over us. Life was so easy for them living in such a holy cocoon; alas for them, republicanism no longer means Rome Rule.

TONY MORIARTY, Dublin 6w.

July 12 hate crimes

THE burning of the Irish national flag on bonfires throughout the North around the 12th of July is a total disgrace.

Also, effigies of the late deputy first minister Martin McGuinness in a coffin on bonfires – alongside Polish national flags and election posters of Sinn Féin candidates and others – flies in the face of democracy.

Those responsible should be prosecuted for hate crimes.

These appalling acts of sectarianism and racism have no place on this island of Ireland, even by the standards of normal Twelfth Orange Order celebrations.

Nowhere else in Europe would the annual burning of national flags be tolerated, and it should be condemned by the DUP.

What if every Bastille Day the