slang in formal writing?

[Martha]

My son turned in a 5 paragraph essay.
The words "dad", and "kid/s" and "mom" and "couch" were all circled as slang and not to be used when the grade came in. (he got a great grade so no complaints about the grade)

hmm.

never thought about it before, but I suppose I can agree with that.

opinions?
would you count off for slang for those terms?

[Kareni]

My son turned in a 5 paragraph essay.
The words "dad", and "kid/s" and "mom" and "couch" were all circled as slang and not to be used when the grade came in. (he got a great grade so no complaints about the grade)



I would certainly agree that the first three are informal. I would quibble about the word 'couch', however. One wonders what the instructor was looking for there -- "davenport"?

Regards,
Kareni

[Martha]

I would certainly agree that the first three are informal. I would quibble about the word 'couch', however. One wonders what the instructor was looking for there -- "davenport"?

Regards,
Kareni

I was informed "sofa" "divan" "loveseat" ect..

Which is funny because we never use the word couch - we say sofa.
But I thought that was slang and told him to change it to the word I thought more people used - couch! LOL

[Ellie]

ITA. It's one reason I purposely use "children" instead of "kids," "parents" instead of "Mom and Dad," "mother" or "father" instead of "mom" or "dad."

I did not know that "couch" was slang or informal, though.:001_huh:

But yes, I'd count off for them *if* I had covered that in class. At the high school level, students should already know that, anyway. Rod and Staff covers that in third or fourth grade, I believe.

[kmacnchs]

I personally wouldn't but I would for contractions (that's a big no-no for me). However it was a BIG DEAL in my education courses in college to NEVER say or write "kids"...it should always be "children".

[Laura Corin]

I would certainly agree that the first three are informal. I would quibble about the word 'couch', however. One wonders what the instructor was looking for there -- "davenport"?



'Couch' comes from 'coucher', to lie down/sleep in French. I don't think of that as slang.

Laura

[fivetails]

I would never call "couch" slang! Yeesh. It's more of a wheredoyoulive thing, like pop/soda.... bathroom/washroom.... that sort of thing. :)

Everywhere that I've lived, it's always 'couch' - I've only heard 'sofa' on television shows...

[EKS]

This is what I got recently for a question on the autobiography of Frederick Douglass:

Let's say you are walking in a forest one day and you see a bear rise out of the bushes. What would you do? Would you run away like a wus [as in wussy], or would you fight back? You would fight back! They tricked theirselves into thinking the slaves were angry bears so whenever the slaves/bears did something wrong the slave holders wiped them!

Oh my.

Anyway--I'd count off for everything but "couch".