Quick capitalization question

E

EricaH

Cathlete
My daughter (2nd grade) was marked wrong for this:

My mom and I ate at Burger King.


The teacher wanted it to be written:

My Mom and I ate at Burger King. She wanted the m to be capitalized in mom and I don't think that's correct, but wanted to make sure.

By the way, we didn't eat at Burger King - the class had to copy this sentence and use correct punctuation/grammar.

Also, this teacher consistently makes mistakes using apostrophes which drives me nuts.

Thanks!

Erica
 
The teacher is wrong!! Only if your daughter had written. "Mom and I went to Burger King." or "Then Mom and I went to Burger King.", would you capitalize "mom".

You might want to give that teacher some grammar lessons. ;)
 
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I'm no expert....but I think the teacher is wrong on this one! I hope another teacher posts.....It would be interesting to see what other teacher think.
 
Thank you! This was actually on a test. This teacher is terrible and it makes me so mad! :mad: I have had to tell my daughter several times this year not to believe what the teacher says and to listen to me.

Erica
 
I would bring it up to the teacher or to the principal. Bad teachers shouldn't be allowed to teach! :eek:

Grammar is a "hot button" issue with me. In my workplace the people I supervise are in their 20's and have the WORST grammar (written and verbal) skills I have ever been witness to. It's shocking! :confused:
 
I showed the paper to my three teenage boys and they laughed at what the teacher did. I can't believe this woman is teaching the wrong thing to second graders! :mad:

I thought about sending it to the principal, but don't want to get the teacher mad and have her take it out on my daughter. It already bugs me that the teacher sends things home with incorrect punctuation, but now I'm really upset that she's marking things wrong that are correct.

We belong to a good school system, but EVERYTHING our principal sends out has errors in it and the high school parent handbook is full of errors, too. :confused: Scary.

Erica
 
I found this :

You capitalize mom and dad when you use it as their name. For example - "Hey Mom/Dad, can I have a ride? It's not when you say, "My mom is cool."

The rule is basically this.... If you can insert their given name, Joan or David, for example into the sentence, you capitalize it, because you would capitalize their given name if it were used. If you cannot use (properly) their given name in the sentence, you do not capitalize mom or dad. For example: "My mom and my dad grounded me for a week because I was bad." In this instance you would not capitalize mom and dad because inserting their given names, say Joan and David, would not be correct. For example: "My Joan and my David grounded me for a week because I was bad," is not a correct sentence and thus when using mom and dad in that instance you would not capitalize them. You would capitalize mom and dad in the following sentence because you can use their given names properly and would capitalize them so you would capitalize mom and dad. "One time, at band camp, Mom and Dad came by to hear us play." You can use Joan and David properly in this sentence, so you would capitalize Mom and Dad. Hope that helps!
 
Poor grammar and spelling is a hot button for me too! It's even worse that this teacher is passing on incorrect information to her students.

I would try to figure out a way to let the principal know. I agree that you don't want to make the teacher mad. Is there some way to let the principal know anonymously?
 
Maybe I can wait until the end of the school year to inform the principal so it doesn't affect my daughter. I can save up a bunch of papers to show it's not an isolated error.

Thanks again!

Erica
 
After reading my book, APA Publications Manual, it would depend on sentence structure and if Mom is being used as a proper noun or a noun. Proper noun Mom should be in caps, used as a noun would be small.
But, further research might be helpful.
 
Aside from the teacher's incorrect knowledge of the rules of English, what's with her filling all those little, spongelike minds with the desire to eat at Burger King?:confused:
 
We had a teacher trying to tell the kids the plural of "monkey" is "monkies" Um, no it is "monkeys"

They were working on change the Y to I and add ES. We also happened to have parent teacher conferences that week and she insisted that she was right.

In that case - I can't find my car keies, perhaps they were eaten by some wild donkies that were being ridden by rabid monkies.

Sheesh!

Nan
 
kathryn said:
Aside from the teacher's incorrect knowledge of the rules of English, what's with her filling all those little, spongelike minds with the desire to eat at Burger King?:confused:
Click to expand...

Kathryn - We've had 8 school days in the past two weeks. In that time, dd's class celebrated the 100th day of school with a giant snack mix filled with junk food, had two birthday celebrations (cupcakes), had a valentine's day party, did a project using conversation hearts which they ate and every kid is doing a chocolate project and brings in some kind of chocolate treat - several children are doing this per day. The amount of junk the kids eat in school drives me crazy. Plus, the stomach flu is going around and the kids aren't washing their hands before eating all of this junk. I used to homeschool and am sorry that I didn't do so this year.

Erica
 
Teacher should admit to mistakes/junk food in schools

EricaH:
1. The teacher should own up and admit her obvious grading mistake, to you and your DD. If not, I highly recommend taking the issue up with your principal and teacher. Teachers need to be held accountable for their mistakes -- or, in this case, not willing to own up to her mistake.

By coincidence: I marked 60 homework papers yesterday (Saturday) -- and on the multiple choice part I had one m-c wrong in the answer key, and marked all 60 scripts wrong on that question. So this coming Tuesday I will be starting class mentioning that the question was marked wrong, explaining why it was wrong, and I will be awarding 5 extra marks to all 60 papers. This is not a big thing to me, and it shouldn't be to your DD's teacher.

2. There ought to be a number of strings on this forum devoted to how to improve nutrition in schools! I encourage you to complain about bad food in schools, especially in elementary schools. In this day and age, there is no excuse for this.
--Davidj
 
RunninTeach said:
Erica, is this the first time you will be calling her on one of her mistakes?
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Yes, this will be the first time mentioning a mistake because it's the first time I've seen a mistake on my daughter's paper. The other errors are on papers she sends home to the parents about what will be happening in the classroom. I have spoken to her once about something she did to my daughter (she called me after I spoke with another teacher about it) and I'm 99% sure she was dishonest with what happened because she did something cruel to my daughter and couldn't admit it.

Any suggestions? I was going to send the paper back with a note asking why the point was taken off and why the teacher capitalized the m.

Thanks,

Erica
 
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ImFiddY said:
I found this :

You capitalize mom and dad when you use it as their name. For example - "Hey Mom/Dad, can I have a ride? It's not when you say, "My mom is cool."

The rule is basically this.... If you can insert their given name, Joan or David, for example into the sentence, you capitalize it, because you would capitalize their given name if it were used. If you cannot use (properly) their given name in the sentence, you do not capitalize mom or dad. For example: "My mom and my dad grounded me for a week because I was bad." In this instance you would not capitalize mom and dad because inserting their given names, say Joan and David, would not be correct. For example: "My Joan and my David grounded me for a week because I was bad," is not a correct sentence and thus when using mom and dad in that instance you would not capitalize them. You would capitalize mom and dad in the following sentence because you can use their given names properly and would capitalize them so you would capitalize mom and dad. "One time, at band camp, Mom and Dad came by to hear us play." You can use Joan and David properly in this sentence, so you would capitalize Mom and Dad. Hope that helps!
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I love this explanation! I wonder how many kids wanted Burger King that night...
 
In college, my sister wrote "this is a moot point" and the professor crossed it out and put "mute." :confused::confused::confused:

Correct the teacher now, before she gets a master's degree and heads off to teach college!
 
Davidj said:
EricaH:
1. The teacher should own up and admit her obvious grading mistake, to you and your DD. If not, I highly recommend taking the issue up with your principal and teacher. Teachers need to be held accountable for their mistakes -- or, in this case, not willing to own up to her mistake.

By coincidence: I marked 60 homework papers yesterday (Saturday) -- and on the multiple choice part I had one m-c wrong in the answer key, and marked all 60 scripts wrong on that question. So this coming Tuesday I will be starting class mentioning that the question was marked wrong, explaining why it was wrong, and I will be awarding 5 extra marks to all 60 papers. This is not a big thing to me, and it shouldn't be to your DD's teacher.

2. There ought to be a number of strings on this forum devoted to how to improve nutrition in schools! I encourage you to complain about bad food in schools, especially in elementary schools. In this day and age, there is no excuse for this.
--Davidj
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My high school sons have a Spanish teacher who is really great about correcting any mistakes she has made, but that is pretty rare. She's a wonderful teacher, too. My boys don't like Spanish and it's a hard class, but she is their favorite teacher so I think that says a lot about her.

I have given up on the junk food. My oldest son is in college now and I have complained about the junk food since he was in elementary school and only one teacher has ever listened to me. Many teachers in our schools regularly use candy as a reward/motivator - even at the middle/high school level. I find that they have a lot of "parties" in school that involve a full meal after the students have already eaten lunch. :confused: Why do the kids need so much food and why is so much junk food encouraged? I worry about their teeth, too.

Erica
 
Govtgirl said:
In college, my sister wrote "this is a moot point" and the professor crossed it out and put "mute." :confused::confused::confused:

Correct the teacher now, before she gets a master's degree and heads off to teach college!
Click to expand...

NO kidding! This kind of stuff just blows my mind!

I remember once in elementary school I had written a little paper sort of like, "What I did on my summer vacation". I had skated a lot that summer at the local skating rink. My teacher sent the paper back with "rink" crossed out and "ring" printed next to it. :rolleyes:

Even at that age I knew it was a skating *rink*!
 
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