Half of Britain's workforce can't do high school math

AuroEdge · Post by **AuroEdge** » Mon Jun 19, 2006 4:24 am

butters wrote:
BoneyCork wrote:
Egotistical EvilN wrote:
He added: "We know that millions have been spent on this problem so why does it continue? Why do we still have so few 16-year-olds that pass English and maths?"

In English the word is "Maths", as a shortened version of the word "Mathematics".
While we are discussing English, punctuation is supposed to go inside the quotes. Doing this bugs the crap out of me, but the rules are the rules.

If we wanna get technical, which it seems we do, there is a rule for using punctuation in quotes and for using it right outside of 'em. If you really care what it is, look it up.

mikozero · Post by **mikozero** » Tue Jun 20, 2006 7:55 am

this is probably England and Wales (one hopes). Scotland (with a different educational system) usually ranks much higher.

Ex-Cyber · Post by **Ex-Cyber** » Tue Jun 20, 2006 8:43 am

AuroEdge wrote:If we wanna get technical, which it seems we do, there is a rule for using punctuation in quotes and for using it right outside of 'em. If you really care what it is, look it up.

The rules differ depending on where you look it up (i.e. which style guide/tradition you're following). There is no single universally "correct" set of rules for how punctuation and quotations interact.

Post by **Specially Cork** » Tue Jun 20, 2006 11:05 am

mikozero wrote:this is probably England and Wales (one hopes). Scotland (with a different educational system) usually ranks much higher.

We all know that's not true.

APE · Post by **APE** » Tue Jun 20, 2006 12:22 pm

English is an Anglo-Frisian language brought to Britain in the 5th century AD by Germanic settlers from various parts of northwest Germany (Saxons, Angles) as well as Denmark (Jutes). The original Old English language was subsequently influenced by two successive waves of invasion. The first was by speakers of languages in the Scandinavian branch of the Germanic family, who colonised parts of Britain in the eighth and ninth centuries. The second wave was of the Normans in the eleventh century, who spoke Norman (an o?l language closely related to French).

Sounds like 100% British to me. No viking or German influence there. Nope.

mikozero · Post by **mikozero** » Tue Jun 20, 2006 2:05 pm

BoneyCork wrote:
mikozero wrote:this is probably England and Wales (one hopes). Scotland (with a different educational system) usually ranks much higher.
We all know that's not true.

back it up.

most of scotlands school leavers go on to higher education.
in fact a couple of years ago it hit almost 100% (but then there are no fees here)