Must try harder: British students shamed by poor spelling

LONDON (AFP) - A British university lecturer is to publicly shame his students' lack of orthographical ability after becoming increasingly unimpressed at their poor spelling.

Bernard Lamb, a reader in genetics at Imperial College, London, hopes that by publishing the errors he has noted during years of marking papers, it will pressurize education ministers into raising teaching standards.

"Errors in the English of highly selected undergraduates", to appear in the next issue of the Queen's English Society's journal "Quest", will outline howlers such as students discussing "cows inseminated by seamen".

"Rouge" genetic elements get a mention, as does plants "sewn" together while the frequent misuse of "compliment" for "complement", "effect" instead of "affect" and "sun" for son" will be highlighted.

The students were all in the second and third years of undergraduate degrees.