Churchill even fails in computer essay marking system?!!

The other day Shuimo chanced upon this charming article which says that even Winston Churchill's Battle of Britain speech was graded as 'below average' by a computer marking system!

What a sexy story this is!

What fu*kingly perverted folks cud think of such retardingly perverted methods!

What do you think?


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1227183/Why-Winston-Churchills-Battle-Britain-speech-marked-average-new-marking-system.html

It's a well known fact that Winston Churchill was never a brilliant academic scholar nor was he endowed with great intellectual skill to any great degree, and it may well have been that his famous speech at the time of the Battle of Britain in 1940 has been graded as "below average" by some kind of 21st century "Computerised Marking System" more concerned with a few repetitive words and phrases, and maybe even a minor grammatical error here and there, but the truth is - who cares?

Certainly nobody listening to Winston in Britain at that time cared a hoot about all that - all they were concerned about was the imminent danger of attack and invasion by the enemy when this country really and truly "stood all alone" and very isolated and extremely vulnerable in the face of the Nazi threat which had by then swallowed up much of nearby Continental Europe......the rest of the "free world" merely stood by to see how events would turn out.....either Britain would fall victim to the jackboot, or would emerge victorious in this desperate struggle, and all those repetive and perhaps disjointed words spoken by Prime Minister Churchill had the desired effect in spite of it all - that speech roused the spirit and resolve of the beleagured British people on this island nation...this was the very last time in history that the 22 mile wide Shakespearean moat was to separate us from "the enemy".

Powerful words such as "we will fight them on the beaches, we will fight them on the hillsides, we weill fight them on the streets...we will never surrender!" went a very long way to inspire the people of this country at that time, and this was a very significant factor in the subsequent defeat of the enemy in their quest to invade and occupy Britain in the late summer and early autumn of 1940, one of the momentous years in British history.

His school report from some stupid 21st century "Computer Master" is totally irrelevant with hindsight. As I said, nobody in Britain cared then and they most certainly don't now, almost 70 years later. Thankfully for us, everything turned out as the listeners to Churchill's speech in the early summer of that year knew damn well they would. The power of words knows no bounds, however and whichever way they are expressed.

The article draws some unreasonable conclusions.

For example:

<Mr Wright said later that the computer marking the speech had ... stated that the word 'might' had been used wrongly. >

Clearly the automated marking system did not recognise the noun "might", and assessed it as a modal auxiliary. This has nothing to do with recognising "emotion" or "tone"; it's a simple question of vocabulary.

Elsewhere, it is said that:

<The opening passage of Anthony Burgess' A Clockwork Orange, which uses distorted speech patterns and idiosyncratic language was described as 'bizarre'.>

There is no reason why this should be presented as an error of judgement. If the passage uses distorted speech patterns and idiosyncratic language, then it was obviously intended to be "bizarre".

The computer got it right, in fact.

(Unlike the Mail's journalist, who inserted a comma after "Orange".)

Dear Shuimo

I think that we all have fallen foul of rigid marking systems in the past. The problem with computer marking is that it is very difficult to question the judgement of the person who set it up. I have experienced problems with Livemocha. To the extent that I have decided not do their courses.

I have noticed some rather strange things happening at Antimoon recently. I think that most people would agree that there is a need from more moderation. However I think that it is important to get the balance right.

Generally what people do with computer marked assessments is to give the answer that the computer wants. One of the things that concerns me a little bit about the way some people learn English is that they are primarily concerned with passing tests and learning rules, and really not interested in sustaining a conversation or dialogue.

I think you should try to write in proper English if at all possible.

"What fu*kingly perverted folks cud think of such retardingly perverted methods!"


The argument in favour of computer is that however crude and ineffective they are now, in the future they will be a lot better.

This proves how much of a failure Churchill was.

***This proves how much of a failure Churchill was**

Please enlighten us with your words of wisdom......apart from his "computer markings! why exactly do you consider Churchill a failure? Because he was defeated by the Labour Party in the 1945 British General Election? Because he enjoyed a tot of whisky or two...or three...or four or more?

Do you not think you are doing the historic British Bulldog a wee bit of a dis-service here? Pray tell!

The man had a great sense of humour. One late night he was walking back along the corridor to his hotel room during some political conference during WW2 when he met this woman who apprehended him and accused him of being drunk.

His reponse to that was: "Madam, you are right...I am rather drunk! And you are very ugly, but in the morning I will be sober".

>>>>Damian in Edinburgh Wed Jan 13, 2010 3:52 pm GMT
It's a well known fact that Winston Churchill was never a brilliant academic scholar nor was he endowed with great intellectual skill to any great degree, and it may well have been that his famous speech at the time of the Battle of Britain in 1940 has been graded as "below average" by some kind of 21st century "Computerised Marking System" more concerned with a few repetitive words and phrases, and maybe even a minor grammatical error here and there, but the truth is - who cares? <<

DE, how came Churchill won the so called Nobel Prize---which many writers said they wudn't care for but they actually are constantly casting covetous eyes at---if he was that literarily cheapo as you described?

>>Powerful words such as "we will fight them on the beaches, we will fight them on the hillsides, we weill fight them on the streets...we will never surrender!" <<

That sounds sooooooooooooooo American anti-terror howling!

>>His school report from some stupid 21st century "Computer Master" is totally irrelevant with hindsight. As I said, nobody in Britain cared then and they most certainly don't now, almost 70 years later. Thankfully for us, everything turned out as the listeners to Churchill's speech in the early summer of that year knew damn well they would. The power of words knows no bounds, however and whichever way they are expressed. <<

Neither does Shuimo care!

What Shuimo take issues with is the very fact that there are people who are so stupid an a$$ as to think of such an imbecile idea of marking creative work with lifeless machines!:-( That disgusts me infinietely!
%>_<%

>>>>Robin Michael Thu Jan 14, 2010 1:23 am GMT
Dear Shuimo

I think that we all have fallen foul of rigid marking systems in the past. The problem with computer marking is that it is very difficult to question the judgement of the person who set it up. I have experienced problems with Livemocha. To the extent that I have decided not do their courses. <<<<

RM, you fail to grasp the heart of the matter!
The ONLY prob with computer marking is no other than this: a dead programmed idiot-like machine overrides an imagination-teeming piece of human brain!

>>Generally what people do with computer marked assessments is to give the answer that the computer wants.
The argument in favour of computer is that however crude and ineffective they are now, in the future they will be a lot better. <<


What is the point of taking such tests if you already know what the computer wants to have is just mental rubbage of still waters!

>>> One of the things that concerns me a little bit about the way some people learn English is that they are primarily concerned with passing tests and learning rules, and really not interested in sustaining a conversation or dialogue.<<<

Welll, Shuimo sort of agrees!
The pity with these guys who learn languages by being concerned with tests and rules is that they seldom realize that all rules set by men are in existence solely for the purpose to be broken!


>>>I think you should try to write in proper English if at all possible.

"What fu*kingly perverted folks cud think of such retardingly perverted methods!" <<<<<<<<

But RM, would you tell us first what PROPER english really is?

Don't you think Shuimo is very goood at bending English rules to serve purposes Shuimo intend them to ?^_^

<an imagination-teeming piece of human brain! >

You have clearly never read an essay written by a 16-year-old.

Shuimo posted, fololwing this extract from my previous post:

>>Powerful words such as "we will fight them on the beaches, we will fight them on the hillsides, we weill fight them on the streets...we will never surrender!" <<

***That sounds sooooooooooooooo American anti-terror howling!***

There was absolutely nothing American about it - in June 1940, when Churchil made his "We shall never surrender" speech the United States was still in a state of splendid isolated neutraility far, far away across the ocean, looking on at Britain's struggle for survival.

The only possible American connection was the fact that Churchill's mother was actually an American, by the name of Jennie Jerome, who became Duchess of Marlborough on her marriage to Churchill's father.

She had very little to do with his bringing up as a baby and young child....following common practice in the English aristocracy, as well as the Royal Family in those days, the moment he was born at Blenheim* Palace, Oxfordshire, England, on 30 November 1874 he was handed over to the care of a nursemaid and other domestic staff, and when he was sent to boarding school at about 8 years of age he constantly complained about his mother's almost complete lack of interest in him or his progess at school, and the por lad was saddened by the rarity of occasion when she went to visit him.

Hardly a good mother figure it has to be said, but that's how they did things in those social circles at that time.

Churchill was considered "below average" in his school work - as I said, he was not at all academically endowed to any great shakes, but when he used his social position to enter the political world in Britain, first as a Liberal, which is surprising considering his pedigree and background, but later on, more expectedly, as a Conservative, representing the Parliamentary constituency of Woodford, later renamed Wanstead and Woodford, which is in south west Essex, he became very prominent, not always for the best of reasons...at times he was very controversial.

Basically, Churchill was not rerally meant to be a "peacetime" Prime Minister...he only really came into his own during WW2, when he truly found his niche, as everybody now knows.

In the spring and early summer of 1940, when much of Europe had been over-run by the Nazis, and Britain was left "All Alone" - isolated and cut off from the Continent, with only British Empire and Commonwealth volunteers to come to our aid, and this country faced the real threat of invasion and aerial assault, there was no other British politician who could fill the role of Prime Minister and "Defender of the Realm in Danger's Hour" but Winston Churchill.

When he was given this post, as Prime Minister, on 10 May 1940, Winston Churchill wrote in his diary: "It is as if I have lived my whole life just for this moment!"

Those rousing speeces of his to not only to Great Britain but also to the rest of the "free world" at that time seemed to illustrate that quite clearly.

Some of his words, however well, or not so well, expressed had the desired effect, and some of them were quite funny. On one occasion when he was actually in America, after that country had been forded into the conflict, he commented on the words of Adolf Hitler who had said that "Germany would wring the neck of the enemy like a chicken!" - the enemy of course being Britain and the United States.

Churchill responded with: "Some neck! Some chicken!"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkTw3_PmKtc&feature=related

Facts slightly wrong there.....Churchill spoke those "chicken and neck" words to the Canadian Parliament in Ottawa in 1942, and the chicken to have its neck rung was Britain alone, the Nazi* generals having vowed to "wring rhe neck of the British chicken" once they had invaded this country.

http://www.britishpathe.com/record.php?id=22439

*Nazi - note the way Churchill pronounced this word...."NAH-zee". It sounds so weird.