<p>Just to add a personal aside (after I commend Binx for both the redefinition of “tattling”, with which I agree, and the grammar lesson LOL!):</p>
<p>I had a cousin who was with a group of teenagers who thought it would be really funny to whip around a parking lot on the flatbed of a pick up truck. They had been doing this for most of the evening, before she fell off and died. How I wish some parent had told the kids to do something else that evening, or had called her parents to tell them where my cousin was and what she was doing.</p>
<p>Some teenagers don’t always exercise common sense, and they really need a “village” of eyes to make sure they live to adulthood.</p>
<p>…“laxmom; You are missing the point- I stepped in, I changed the situation, I made the officals aware…”</p>
<p>No, I’m not missing your point - I know exactly what your intentions were…but if you look at it, you lied, and that doesn’t excuse it.<br>
You want those kids to be “honest”, but weren’t so yourself.</p>
<p>I, too hope that other parents would step in…but be honest about it. Tell them that this is not a safe situation and that you are going directly to the office and let the school know. THAT is my point.</p>
<p>btw…my name does not mean I am a lax mom…just my kids play lacrosse ;)</p>
<p>FYI, I do not wish to use the “queens English” I personally wish to commumicate with CORRECT English, not informal slang.</p>
<p>You people need to improve your sentence structure. I hear way to much of the following,“I went to the park, and I went home. I went to the store, but I had to leave.”
Too many compound sentences with an Independent clause conjunction independent clause. BORING. All those AP classes surely did not help you writing-wise.</p>
<p>“Queen’s English” needs both a capital letter and an apostrophe. “Way to much” should be “way too much.” But you’re right, I never had AP anything, and I guess it shows. The stone markings on our slate tablets were so hard to read sometimes, I guess the teachers just missed a few things.</p>
<p>Glad we have you young’uns keeping us on our toes, even if it’s easier to notice others’ mistakes than your own. That’s why we had kids, actually: so someone can point out all our mistakes. </p>
<p>The stone markings on our slate tablets were so hard to read sometimes, I guess the teachers just missed a few things.</p>
<p>That is actually a borderline run-on sentence. </p>
<p>That’s why we had kids, actually: so someone can point out all our mistakes.</p>
<p>Wrong! A colon should not have been used in that instance since you did not include “as follows” preceding the colon. A dash would have been preferred.</p>
<p>I find it humorous that as much as you try to remain proper English, you still falter in the end. Ha! “grammer” must not be your strongpoint!</p>
<p>laxmom; Look, people come in all sizes shapes and manners of expression . I’m real sorry I don’t act the way YOU want me to. Oooh, tell on me! </p>
<p>Furthermore, if a group of kid were riding on the roof of a car on my street I would be the first one to call the cops. WHY WOULD NO PARENT tell the kids to get down?</p>
<p>Actually, once I was walking on a narrow wooded dirt walking path at a local park and there was a private high school having it’s end of year senior picnic. A group of kids in a convertible steered the car onto the path as to drive up it. One of the kids was sitting on the top of the back seat . At this point, and NO ONE walking on the path said anything, I went foreword and shouted, “YOU turn that car around and get off of that path. And YOU get down from there right now.” I was serious . And she did get down, and they knew better. Why WOULD NO OTHER PERSON TELL THEM . It was dangerous and unsafe and it amazes me over and over what parents will put up with and DO or SAY NOTHING. OR for that matter, tell on them, but say nothing to the kids to change their behavior.</p>
<p>There was a rope swing across the street at our park put up by a group of kids and swings over a creek from one high bank to the other. The drop from the rope swing was about 6 feet. Kids would hang in various position from the knots on the swing head down. EVERYONE in the community thought the swing was great. Parents would stand there while their 4 years olds would swing on it, feet in the knot, face down. Now what do you do? It’s unsafe but EVERYONE loved it because it was a challenge and homemade. THAT WAS , until a 8 year old broke his foot and another kid got a concussion. So it came down and the community hasn’t been the same since. No one took it down, it snapped. Now the kids meander around looking for vandalism to engage in.( But ha, ha, I am watching and ready for them! )</p>
<p>…“laxmom; Look, people come in all sizes shapes and manners of expression . I’m real sorry I don’t act the way YOU want me to. Oooh, tell on me!
…”</p>
<p>Grow up and act like the adult you claim to be…“ooh tell on me”…C’mon you can do better than that. </p>
<p>All I said was you “lied”…you wanted the kids to do the right thing…so you need to do the same. Straight up. my opinion.</p>
<p>Bob (can I call you Bob?), You may think you hear, “way to (sic) much of the following,” but you are really hearing “way too much.” Spelling is as important as using correct English. Speaking of correct, the term “You people” is very politically incorrect. I haven’t figured out why, but for some reason that term is very offensive to every racial, ethnic, religious and unaffiliated group. BTW, I am enjoying your posts!</p>
<p>Now, back to the OP. I would be more likely to call the police than notify school admins in that situation. Most likely do nothing but complain about it.</p>
<p>What is wrong with some diction. Many expressions are considered trite, but are perfectly acceptable on a message board. “Busy as a bee” is considered a trite expression; however this term surely is not incorrect. FYI, though, “strongpoint” is perfectly acceptable. Nice try, though.</p>
<p>poinsett, “a lot” is perfectly acceptable as well. Grant you, I perhaps could have used a superior adjective to make the sentence more professional.</p>
<p>the term “You people” is very politically incorrect.</p>
<p>Oh joy…let us make this grammar debate into a liberal, political correctness discussion.</p>
<p>(can I call you Bob?)</p>
<p>I do not know, can you? I learned in first grade that “can” is for ability, “may” is for permission. Example as follows: Mrs. Smith, may I go outside to play?
OR
Mrs. Smith, can you bake cookies for us.
Watch out for that common grammatical impropriety, okay?</p>
<p>Bobby- go back to the pre-college thread and hassle the kiddies. We are comfortable in the way we communicate with each other here on the parents’ sections. </p>
<p>Laxmom- Don’t you ever lie? I sure do in certain situations.</p>
<p>There isn’t any pressing necessity to speak perfectly correct English on an informal message board, as you have indicated as well.</p>
<p>Anyway, most words make it into English or change in some way through colloquial use. It’s called a language, in case you haven’t heard of that term before. Otherwise we would have never even made it out of Old English (or Latin?). For example, ‘Female’ would have been incorrect English when ‘Femella’ was the proper word. Same with ‘man’, which used to be the gender neutral word that included both sexes (‘wer’ and ‘wyfman’ meant ‘man’ and ‘woman’ many years ago… I wonder how they changed if everyone had to stick with using ‘correct’ English?). Words like ‘snuck’, ‘irregardless’, and the use of ‘they’ as a singular pronoun will probably be no different, as well as a variety of other words that are not accepted as supposedly correct English you learn in first grade. Words are what people make of them over time.</p>
<p>As a teacher I “tattle” all the time. I strongly believe that my job is easier the more proactive I am with keeping parents informed. My students aren’t always completely happy with me at the time but I think most of them understand that communicating with their parents is something I do for them, not to them.</p>
<p>There are times when bringing in the police is the right way to go (and may have been in the OP’s situation), but I would think of alternatives seriously first. Once you get the authorities involved, you can’t always predict what the course of events will be and may find that getting disengaged from the system will cost a lot of $$ and have unwanted consequences to the kids and their families.</p>
</p>