Ex Care Worker Bonita Crabtree begins her sentence today.
Apparently Bonita Crabtree managed to get through the English school system, get her Social Sciences degree AND land a job in Social Work as a Carer without EVER beginning a sentence with a capital letter.
This is not to be tolerated. How can we call these 'so called' experts in Social Work, dealing with children and families on a daily basis, QUALIFIED?
It is well known that pupils (students - to our American readers) who do not use capital letters at the beginning of sentences, lose marks, affecting their final grades.
We asked the Ministry of Social Services this question and this was the reply we received:
"Well, over the past few years we have not been looking so closely at letters of application and C.V.'s (resumes to our American readers). We do not penalize applicants for poor spelling and/or poor grammar, otherwise we would not have ANYONE to fill the vacant positions.
Indeed, we do not even penalize people for using 'dangling participles.
We just HAVE to make allowances if we want Social Workers, who are, admittedly underpaid and overworked, to continue working in the field - or , for University Graduates to choose Social Work as their career.
Standards just HAD to drop. Beginning a sentence WITH a capital letter meant that we had NO-ONE to interview after reading letters of application etc. So, we had to employ people who do NOT start sentences with the designated 'capital letter'.
As Bonita Crabtree was ALREADY in our employ, we decided to send her on some literacy courses in order to 'upgrade' her punctuation skills.
She graduated with flying colours and NOW begins ALL sentences with a capital letter. Well, I must add here that she ALWAYS writes EVERYTHING in capital letters now, so we are not sure if she actually DOES understand this concept.
We looked at architects and engineers and discovered that THEY all write IN CAPITAL LETTERS ALL OF THE TIME SO WHY SHOULD CARERS AND OTHER SOCIAL WORKERS BE PENALIZED?????
This is, indeed 'raising the bar' for future applicants unless they adopt Bonita Crabtree's method. Which IS now acknowledged in Social Workers Circles as a bona fida STYLE of writing.
We do believe that this is a move in the right direction for Social Workers and Carers in our communities. We are confident that the services provided will now be much improved.
We are still working on the dangling participles. So we'll see how long this lasts for."
More as this story unfolds.
