Lodahl's blog: Give the children a choice ...

04 September 2006

Give the children a choice ...

Last year my oldest son came home from school one day: His homework that week was to write an essay. It should be delivered as a Word document. IT is an important part of school. I asked him if I could see the assignment and I was surprised to see that it was true.

The teacher used "Word document" as it was a synonym with "text document". I called the teacher. She didn't understand my point: Computerized text documents are called "Word documents". Then I asked if a spreadsheet is called an Excel sheet. Yes she said.

I think that it is very dangerous if we allow specific product names become common used words. My children must learn to make their own choices. I think that the school teachers should be guarding the language against this kind of development. What comes next ? Will the police ask to see your Toyota license next time ?

I know that the language are developing over generations. I speak another language than my parents as my parents speak another language than their parents.

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