International communication

[tenminjoe]

Dear Americans

Comments

[the0lady]

Dear Mr. Joe,

Thank you for your kind letter. As a non-American I can identify fully with your request.

In fact I was so impressed by the clarity of your argument, that I felt so bold as to request your help in compiling a similar missive to go out to anyone using the following phrases:

- "When I was in the Sixth Form"
- "During 1st year of college"
- "Just after GSCEs"
- "Grammar School"
- "Comprehensive"
- "Eleven Plus"
- "O Levels"
- "Public School" (in the non-public sense)

Again, please allow me to express my support of your notion that the complexity of naming the school years from one through to twelve is too much for British people to take on board, especially when a perfectly transparent system of discoursive and frequently changing denominations is readily available.

Yours respectfully,

M.

[tenminjoe]

Dear Ms M,

Please clarify what you mean by "the school years".

Yours sincerely,

Joe

[the0lady]

There's facetious, and then there's "smartarse".

[pinteresque]

Not to be pedantic, but an American wouldn't actually say "grade 9 kids," not usually. "9th grade kids" or "9th graders" is far more common.

Just improving your Merkinese, is all. :)

[tenminjoe]

Noted and corrected, thank you!

[weizenwind]

Ha ha--I noticed that. Those are the Canadians!

[tenminjoe]

Here in the UK we would say "Year 9" (although our year 9 isn't the same as your grade 9, in accordance with my original point).