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Civil servants can't write and read and write properly, says government adviser
Civil servants have failed to learn to "write and think properly" and should be made to repeatedly rewrite memos until they learn good grammar, a government adviser has said.
Michael Gove, the Education Secretary, has recommended a book on grammar by Nevile Gwynne, an Old Etonian banker, to all of his civil servants alongside books by George Orwell, Jane Austen and George Eliot.
He hopes that the reading list will reduce their reliance on jargon and help them to learn to write with clarity and style.
Nevile Gwynne, an Old Etonian banker and author of Gwynne's Grammar, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that he is a self-confessed "pedant" and believes good grammar is the "most fundamental human activity of all".
He said: "I'm a fan of pedantry, I don't believe you can split too many hairs when you are learning the most fundamental human activity of all.
"They should do draft after draft after draft until they get it exactly right. They are not going to find it easy because if you haven't actually learned at school how to write and think properly you form bad habits.
"It's the ordinary person as a whole who recognises and sees the fundamental importance of grammar, which is the most important subject there is. We think with words. How we think affects our decisions. Every human activity depends on how you speak and how you think. Every human activity depends primarily on how you think."
He said he was a "fan" of Mr Gove and was delighted with his endorsement. He said: "He is the first person who has actually set about reversing the trend of the last 50 years dating back from when I left school, at which time everybody knew their grammar by the age of nine.
"Grammar was abolished as a subject, and the result has been a collapse."
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