Home Office misspelling in English test statement makes mockery of ‘langauge’ policy

Last Updated: January 22, 2016By

Only days after David Cameron introduced this policy, his own Home Office has made a mockery of it.

Perhaps it’s an indictment of the education system. Was the author Oxford-educated, like our maths-challenged prime minister?

Or maybe the author was a migrant worker who hadn’t taken the test yet. According to right-wing business models, they do come cheap.

Red-faced officials at the Home Office have been forced to correct a spelling error in a press release about new English language tests for migrants.

Language was spelled “langauge” in the original release, put out on Thursday.

But it was corrected by officials after Twitter users ridiculed the error.

BBC Radio 4 presenter Anita Anand said it was “beyond parody” that the Home Office could not spell language in a note to migrants who have been told to learn English.

Source: Home Office misspells ‘language’ in English test statement – BBC News

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No Comments

  1. maxwell1957 January 22, 2016 at 1:42 pm - Reply

    inglish like wot it is spoke…perhaps…

  2. Terry Davies January 22, 2016 at 2:10 pm - Reply

    speaks for itself. Are the best people employed in the Home office?

    • Florence January 22, 2016 at 11:41 pm - Reply

      Of course, to get a good job you need a decent education at a public school. And it shows.

  3. Damien Willey January 22, 2016 at 2:16 pm - Reply

    Of all the words for them to get wrong, given the context of the document, it had to be language!

  4. Brian January 22, 2016 at 3:33 pm - Reply

    Is this not evidence of the great British tradition of accepting diversity! The Home Office should surely be proud of employing dyslexic people in it’s ranks, how would history have fared without some of these great, but enigmatic minds. Perhaps it’s wrong, but only by their standards of proof reading.

  5. toocomplex4justice January 22, 2016 at 4:03 pm - Reply

    Perhaps the author was a victim of the experiment carried out by the education system in 1968 onwards when ITA was introduced in infant and junior schools creating a generation of people who could only write phonetically. Then they were thrown into secondary school, labled as stupid and beaten with sticks and shoes. I only escaped because my parents recognised the problems but if I visit friends reunited there are only a few people in my year able to communicate by email. Being English has nothing to do with writing skills it is to do with being here and being part of a community. Punishing children because their parents can’t spell is worse than the sticks and shoes.

    • Mike Sivier January 22, 2016 at 6:33 pm - Reply

      Interesting – but I was in the education system from the early 1970s and never had any of this phonetic spelling nonsense.
      To be honest, your comment may be the first I’ve heard of it.
      It’s interesting, though.

      • James Kemp January 22, 2016 at 8:12 pm - Reply

        I am a 1969 child and was taught to spell Phonetic spelling but i am a dislex after brain dammage and even i can spot misspelling I just don’t always know the correct way of spelling thank god for autocorrect!

        Spent years labeled educational sub normal / lazy / thick until an educational psychologist spotted what was wrong and then I jumped from bottom to the top of many classes especially STEM ones, so it’s stupid to write people off just give them a chance. I thought british values were all about fairness and respect?

        • Mike Sivier January 22, 2016 at 11:58 pm - Reply

          Sure. But British values are also about doing a good job, and while a simple howler like the “langauge” misspell is just a source of mild amusement – and discomfort for the Tories – it is important for the UK government to be able to spell properly.
          Still, this government can’t do its sums either…

  6. Guy Ropes January 22, 2016 at 8:50 pm - Reply

    I have spotted the mistake by toocomplex4justice – ‘labelled’, and claim my prize of a free membership to the Labour Party. Peeple in glasshowses shudn’t thro stones (deliberate was it?)

    • Mike Sivier January 22, 2016 at 11:58 pm - Reply

      Did anybody offer up such a prize? No?
      Sorry.

      • Barry Davies January 23, 2016 at 11:39 am - Reply

        I thought the deliberate mistake was the reference to violence, “Then they were thrown into secondary school, labled as stupid and beaten with sticks and shoes”, because the cane had been banned by then.

  7. Karen Gordon January 24, 2016 at 5:28 am - Reply

    There will be heads rolling, I mean roling, no wait I mean wroling, no wrolling, never mind.

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