On a road trip a while back, RSC and I spotted a sign for this organization. I thought it was read like a nomenclatorial stutter. "Of" after "of." We set about testing manipulations and found that every other option of which we could think lent itself to misinterpretation. The National Council of English Teachers might be teachers from the UK. English Teachers Association - same problem. Society for English Education - again, not clear if it meant English the language vs. literature vs. that particular breed of education found with the Brits. This is all due, of course, to our silly decision to associate political/social grouping with language names. If the Brits spoke Flipity and we spoke Floppity, we wouldn't have this problem. Of course, we'd have the American Floppity Teachers Association, and that might just be worse.
And, in case you were wondering, yes, 'nomenclatorial' is a word.
[HT to McCloskey for the idea]
1 comment:
It's so funny to me that you found humor in the sign. The specific words used in the name has less to do with grammar and more to do with separating themselves as an independent organization. If there is a different org. that calls itself "___ of English Teachers" then they want to differentiate themselves.
I have actually used that website - this organization has created national standards that all english teachers should follow for teaching english to elementary school students. Skills student should have, and methods teachers should use. The US does not have national ed. standards, each state creates their own standards for education. As a result, teachers (like myself) must look to organizations like this for guidance when creating lessons, to ensure they are developmentally and educationally appropriate.
I've used this website dozens of times, and it's just the "NCTE website" - I never paid attention to the actual name.... Some English teacher I'll be!
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