No child goes to school to learn to speak. The child speaks how and what he hears at home. I see it in my village in the hills. The housekeepers kids who grew up with mine and spent most time at our house speak good English; her others do not. In the period after the first trimester in the womb up to age three when he goes to a school, the infant learns many things by sensory stimuli. What he adopts or resists in future starts here. After 3.5 years of negative signals he leaves a home of sorts for a basic school and is confused. Home says, "Shut up!" School says, "Speak up!" He screeches what he learnt at home, barely smiles, struggles to regain trust and a spontaneity which was drilled out of him. His experience of speech or music is not soothing or calm. The speech he imbibed is aberrant, tones poorly modulated, stentorian, combative. He might be better off, had his minders been dumb and left him to be brought up and tutored by a good radio or TV station.

Fast forward; the bad speech embedded early makes it difficult to absorb good models later on. The poor English spoken by graduates of school and university is no surprise. The good one is. The 12-plus years being taught English barely erodes the conditioning. I note that good speech on radio and TV is rare. We pay them to talk, but they do it badly. I listen to talk shows, experts in finance, agriculture, English, stock markets on radio - well-paid but hopeless and depressing. They do not know the argot of their own field. Their vocabulary is trite; they say "doing a business" not a transaction; "the people who buy it" not clients and "people just up and down, up and down" not indecisive or confused people. Older people in media speak the best English and I think Mutty Perkins can speak good patois too. If you can't speak English I bet you can't speak good patois either. You think we have problems with English? Wait until we start to teach patois. Those illiterate in English are also illiterate in French and patois. What then? If after 12 years of English in school you can't speak it, why do I think you can speak patois properly? If you can't write English can you write patois? We now know from Patois Bible experts that Miss Lou did not write good patios - their type anyway. Like my peers I write patois using the phonetics I learnt for English (I also learnt the phonetics for Spanish but this does not work for patois).

Fast forward; the bad speech embedded early makes it difficult to absorb good models later on. The poor English spoken by graduates of school and university is no surprise. The good one is. The 12-plus years being taught English barely erodes the conditioning. I note that good speech on radio and TV is rare. We pay them to talk, but they do it badly. I listen to talk shows, experts in finance, agriculture, English, stock markets on radio - well-paid but hopeless and depressing. They do not know the argot of their own field. Their vocabulary is trite; they say "doing a business" not a transaction; "the people who buy it" not clients and "people just up and down, up and down" not indecisive or confused people. Older people in media speak the best English and I think Mutty Perkins can speak good patois too. If you can't speak English I bet you can't speak good patois either. You think we have problems with English? Wait until we start to teach patois. Those illiterate in English are also illiterate in French and patois. What then? If after 12 years of English in school you can't speak it, why do I think you can speak patois properly? If you can't write English can you write patois? We now know from Patois Bible experts that Miss Lou did not write good patios - their type anyway. Like my peers I write patois using the phonetics I learnt for English (I also learnt the phonetics for Spanish but this does not work for patois).

Bad driving

We breed bad drivers. Our unsafe roads surfaces and poor management is a cocktail for disaster. In the drive downtown there are many man-made hazards. My driver sat "sidesaddle" with one arm on the window, profiling. He told me "Everybody drive diffrent". The Road Code says sit back, adjust your seat and mirror, then move off. He thought the 10 to 2 position was about sex. The jousts of taxis with JUTC are urban legend and Mats Corner taxi aggression is palpable. They swarm like piranhas and block JUTC from getting passengers; the bus driver inches forward in the lay-bye to block people from crossing to get taxis; a deadly game played under US Embassy CCTV! A man deep in a phone conversation in the middle of the road; a truck horn blasts and he scampers for the sidewalk. Drivers cut across lanes at Tom Redcam, yet they can't drive round a bend with another car beside them. This roundabout should be made into a gyratory to manage the six to eight entry and exit points, distribute uptown and downtown flows. Uptown, the Waterfalls turn sees many shootouts as cars join from Mona Road. The island as you turn right from Trafalgar into Hope Road at Devon House and Tom Redcam as you turn right from Camp Road are hazards. The car on the right protrudes into the adjacent lane at the apex of the turn so drivers use a lead-lag tactic to compensate for poor road design. Many drivers do not know traffic lights rely on prompt acceleration to clear out many cars. When the green shows our drivers look for their chewing gum, thus not clearing the 20 cars programmed to go on green and catch a series of in sync green lights down the road. A few straight residential roads could be made safer by installing rumble strips - nothing like a gearbox rattle to calm a driver-big expense. Charlemont's sleeping cops is now used to test SUV's - how fast can you traverse them; but two chicanes with reverse priority arrows would calm this lot; as would converting four-way stops to mini roundabout to maintain traffic flow in Seaview and Liguanea Avenues.

We breed bad drivers. Our unsafe roads surfaces and poor management is a cocktail for disaster. In the drive downtown there are many man-made hazards. My driver sat "sidesaddle" with one arm on the window, profiling. He told me "Everybody drive diffrent". The Road Code says sit back, adjust your seat and mirror, then move off. He thought the 10 to 2 position was about sex. The jousts of taxis with JUTC are urban legend and Mats Corner taxi aggression is palpable. They swarm like piranhas and block JUTC from getting passengers; the bus driver inches forward in the lay-bye to block people from crossing to get taxis; a deadly game played under US Embassy CCTV! A man deep in a phone conversation in the middle of the road; a truck horn blasts and he scampers for the sidewalk. Drivers cut across lanes at Tom Redcam, yet they can't drive round a bend with another car beside them. This roundabout should be made into a gyratory to manage the six to eight entry and exit points, distribute uptown and downtown flows. Uptown, the Waterfalls turn sees many shootouts as cars join from Mona Road. The island as you turn right from Trafalgar into Hope Road at Devon House and Tom Redcam as you turn right from Camp Road are hazards. The car on the right protrudes into the adjacent lane at the apex of the turn so drivers use a lead-lag tactic to compensate for poor road design. Many drivers do not know traffic lights rely on prompt acceleration to clear out many cars. When the green shows our drivers look for their chewing gum, thus not clearing the 20 cars programmed to go on green and catch a series of in sync green lights down the road. A few straight residential roads could be made safer by installing rumble strips - nothing like a gearbox rattle to calm a driver-big expense. Charlemont's sleeping cops is now used to test SUV's - how fast can you traverse them; but two chicanes with reverse priority arrows would calm this lot; as would converting four-way stops to mini roundabout to maintain traffic flow in Seaview and Liguanea Avenues.

Moving walkway

Pedestrians get a raw deal. Between Cross Roads and Heroes Circle there are about a dozen crossings struggling for recognition and pedestrians play Russian roulette with cars. I noticed a smear of white paint, stopped to allow someone to cross and was rewarded by loud horns. We are all fragile before morning coffee. The high volume of pedestrian traffic between Cross Roads and Heroes Circle justifies a covered, moving pavement down Marescaux Road. We give back so little to people; they would get to school and work less sweaty and tired. This is a high-volume corridor. The pedestrian density on this short stretch of road is massive - students, civil servants, workers in business, residents. This would free the road so no cars have to stop between Cross Roads and North Street in peak hours. As a first step, the Eastern sidewalk from Cross Roads down could be well paved and cleared of obstructions to ease the walk for pedestrians.

LIME woes

Recent attempts seemingly to destabilise LIME - to give shareholders the jitters, depress its share prices so corporate raiders can pick them up at bargain prices were thwarted. A small stock market is so easily manipulated. Stay conscious, my friend!

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