English

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In the weeks following the news that city schools CEO Andres Alonso was leaving, I've come across various pieces of commentary about the legacy the schools chief will leave. As with most resignations, much of the commentary has been expressions of gratitude, and encouraging forecasts of what's next. I thought this piece , written by a city school teacher, was particularly reflective. I've personally watched Iris Kirsch, a high school English teacher, challenge Alonso during public comment at city school board meetings.

You can hear, in the dispute about singular they and other issues of grammar and usage, a complaint that a usage objected to is not logical. For example, the objection to the double negative is that two negatives make a positive. In mathematics, yes. But step up, you two-negatives-make-a positive people. I want to hear you say that the first time you heard Jagger sing “I can't get no satisfaction,” you understood him to mean “I'm satisfied.” At the Geoffrey Pullum post on singular they at Lingua Franca that I wrote about yesterday, a copy editor writing as odarp thought he could put Professor Pullum on the spot, asking, “If 'they' can be singular, why does it always take a plural verb?

The Baltimore Teacher's Union has called for the district hold off on attaching penalties to schools' performance on the the new  Common Core assessments, citing insufficient professional development and resources to implement the new high-stakes curriculum. In a news release, BTU's President Marietta English echoed the call of one of the nation's largest teachers union, the American Federation of Teachers, which called for a moratorium on penalties associated with the standardized testing that will measure a radically new curricula being rolled out across the nation, including Maryland, next year.

Deborah Kent, director of the Howard Community College Music Department, explores the eclectic world of vocal music in English with pianist David Wasser and cellist Benjamin Myers in this concert with music by Argento, Barber, Bolcom, Britten, Bernstein and Copland. Program takes place at 4 p.m. today in the Monteabaro Recital Hall, Horowitz Visual and performing Arts Center, 10901 Little Patuxent Parkway. Tickets are $5-$15. Call 410-772-4900.

If English is not your first language, practice speaking and understanding English in a group setting at 9:30 a.m. Mondays and 7:30 p.m. Thursdays at Howard County Library's East Columbia branch, 6600 Cradlerock Way. Those interested must register with the library before attending first meeting. Call 410-313-7700.

St. Mary's ESL program needs volunteers to teach English one night a week from January through May, 7 p.m. to 8:45 p.m. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday evenings at St. Mary's High School, 109 Duke of Gloucester St., Annapolis. Teaching materials are provided. Registration for the classes will be at 7 p.m. Tuesday at the school. Call Eneida Green at 410-800-4717 or e-mail eneida_green@yahoo.com.

At Johnson , C.S.W. examines that odd form of English peculiar to newspapers, journalese . "Newspapers rarely, if ever, report the facts in the way you would in conversation," he comments, and anyone who knows Paula LaRocque's classic "In a surprise move ... " understands just how far apart ordinary English conversation and the stilted, formulaic lingo of newspapers have drifted. C.S.W. writes about the British form of journalese, which you can see from The Economist 's style guide differs in many particulars from the American.

Philip X. "Phil" Kaltenbach, a former high school English teacher who later became an expert in the field of collectible comic books, died Tuesday at Sarasota Memorial Hospital in Sarasota, Fla., while recovering from foot surgery. He was 63. The son of a Loyola University Maryland dean and a Loyola Blakefield High School administrative assistant, Philip Xavier Kaltenbach was born in Baltimore and raised in Towson. Mr. Kaltenbach was a 1967 graduate of Loyola Blakefield and earned a bachelor's degree from what is now Loyola University Maryland.

The Carroll County commissioners who want to make English the official language of the county forget that German was spoken in the county as much as English during its first hundred years or so ("Carroll commissioners might make English official language," Sept. 26). Also, after the Native American languages, Spanish was the first language in the continental U.S. I don't like the racist posturing. MaryAnn H. Gregory, Westminster

Marietta English, longtime leader of the Baltimore Teachers Union, was re-elected to another term, the organization announced in a release Wednesday.  According to the release, English was re-elected president by teachers, paraprofessionals, and school-related personnel. It will be her seventh term--one she served as president of the teacher's chapter--which lasts three years. “I'm proud to have received the support of Baltimore's paraprofessionals, school-related personnel and teachers,” English said in a statement.

Being a teacher's pet as a child endeared me to no one but teachers. My third-grade teacher, Marian Gulley, once let me take a fourth-graders' history test. (At Elizaville Elementary School, the third and fourth grades were in a single classroom; the teacher instructed one class while the other studied, then reversed.) I scored a 96, from having listened to the fourth-grade class and read their history textbook for amusement. It was the highest grade on the test. I was proud, but my mother observed sagely, "I bet that didn't make you many friends in the fourth grade.

As a journalist, I gravitate toward the lurid. That's just how we roll. If some post-adolescent crank tries to set up a "white student union" at Towson University, he is guaranteed ink. If some crackpot explains that George W. Bush was behind the September 11 attacks, he will get air time somewhere. If Orly Taitz does to court to claim that Barack Obama was not born in the United States, she will get attention from the press as well as from irritated judges. The loonier they are, the more easily we reassure ourselves that we are sane.

Frances H. Mueller, a retired educator who had chaired the Bryn Mawr School's English department and also taught at Towson University, died March 24 of complications from dementia at Roland Park Place. She was 94. Born and raised on her parents' farm in Painesville, Ohio, Frances Heckathorne was a graduate of local public schools. After earning a bachelor's degree in 1939 from Lake Erie College, Mrs. Mueller taught English from 1943 to 1946 at Pennsylvania State University in State College, Pa. While at Penn State, she earned a master's degree in English from Columbia University in 1945, and the next year married William Randolph Mueller, a philosopher, clergyman, literary historian and author.

Philip X. "Phil" Kaltenbach, a former high school English teacher who later became an expert in the field of collectible comic books, died Tuesday at Sarasota Memorial Hospital in Sarasota, Fla., while recovering from foot surgery. He was 63. The son of a Loyola University Maryland dean and a Loyola Blakefield High School administrative assistant, Philip Xavier Kaltenbach was born in Baltimore and raised in Towson. Mr. Kaltenbach was a 1967 graduate of Loyola Blakefield and earned a bachelor's degree from what is now Loyola University Maryland.

James Harbeck, who writes the excellent Sesquiotica blog, has an article at The Week , "The strange Scandinavian pronunciation of common English words. " The title is a joke, because the common English words mentioned are all of Scandinavian origin. We say sauna v ery differently than the Finns do. A reader named Julia posted an irate comment: What a strange, Anglo-centric article! You're talking about words that English BORROWED from those other languages you mention and then call the ORIGINAL pronounciation 'weird'.

On August 4, 2005, MARION ENGLISH. Beloved wife of the late Dwight Alvin English; loving mother of Jane Patricia English-Kligys, Charles R. English, Dwight A. English and June A. English. Also survived by four grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren. Funeral from the Bruzdzinski Funeral Home, P.A., 1407 Old Eastern Avenue, Essex at route 702 (beltway exit 36), on Monday at 8:30 A.M. Mass of Christian Burial at 9 A.M. in Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Church. Interment Gardens of Faith. Visitation Sunday, 3 to 5 and 7 to 9 P.M.

Pat and Henry Bradley say their landlord decided to suddenly kick them out of his waterfront Dundalk house, changing the locks while they were still frantically trying to remove their belongings. The couple, who didn't have a lease, are to testify about their experience in Annapolis this week when House and Senate members convene hearings to decide whether to stop landlords and property owners from locking out residents without court orders and sheriff's deputies on standby to evict them.

On Thursday, Carroll County Commissioner Haven Shoemaker, who has quite possibly the most ironic first name since Roscoe P. Coltrane named his Basset Hound "Flash" (Dukes of Carroll?), said, "Throughout our history, we have had waves of immigrants coming to this country and they have all assimilated to use a common language, and I think that's why we've become the world's leading superpower. " ("Carroll names English its official language," Jan. 25.) Let's be honest. "Official language" is really a euphemism for keeping Carroll County as homogeneous as possible.