I have been trying to justify to myself my admittedly uncompromising attitude to the speaking and writing of the English language.

I am sometimes made to feel unnecessarily pedantic when I point out what seems to me to be a glaring error or use of a word in entirely the wrong sense in a written document. More recently, particularly in primary education, the tendency has been to overlook inexact spelling and grammatical errors in order to encourage the child to communicate freely without being restrained by fear of potential criticism of the language used (or abused) in the expression of their ideas. But I believe that that attitude has ultimately failed to do even that which it was intended to do ie free children up to be thinking and creative.

My upbringing and education were conducted in an age when grammar, punctuation and vocabulary were highly valued. Indeed, in examinations, marks were deducted for inaccuracies in any of those areas.

Later, five years of legal training reinforced my previous education. In a legal document, a comma wrongly placed or a word whose meaning is imperfectly understood can lead to litigation in the future; and the lawyer who drafted the ambiguous or misleading document can find himself in trouble. Just as in mathematics the ability to know that nine times nine is eighty-one, without resource to fingers and toes and bits of paper, so the easy and instinctive use of words and punctuation is an asset in later life, irrespective of the way that the individual ultimately earns his or her living.

As that excellent programme "That'll Teach em" demonstrated, the 1950's educational ethos (so despised by the educational "theorists" of the last decades) of teaching the building blocks of times tables, spelling, grammar and punctuation early and meticulously was not only more empowering to the child but ultimately preferred by the child too.

The incidence of "should of" in everyday speech (two words that have no business adjacent to each other in any construction of the English language that I can conceive) has multiplied exponentially since content has been allowed to dominate form; as have "me and my friend", "I didn't do nothing" and the omnipresent intrusive "like" that seems to have replaced "sort of" as a redundant conversational intrusion.

It is a 191 years since Jane Austen wrote Pride and Prejudice, which came second to Lord of the Rings in the BBC's search for the best novel. I don't believe that many people would contend that the teaching and understanding of English has benefited from the passing years. Jane Austen and her readers knew the difference between "that " and "which". It is subtle but important. Nobody cares much now.

"And why bother?" I hear some say. "As long as we understand each other" We should bother because just as Turner would never have painted those moody pictures of misty light at sea had he not first thoroughly understood the rudiments of artistic creation, so a good knowledge of the building blocks of language opens up limitless possibilities.

But what hope is there when a chair of school governors in Kent received the following official notification: "The LEA or governing body must provide facilities for pupils not taking school meals to eat meals what they bring to school."

They should of written it, like, more careful.