Warning in Irish on Cigarette packs

[demoivre]

Re: Irish warning on cigarette packs

"How do you know it's because children attend gaelscoil that they gain an academic advantage in later years? Even if there is ( and I have no proof that there is ) an association between attending a gaelscoil and having an academic advantage in later years, does not mean that attending a gaelscoil will result in an academic advantage in later years . Do they not they teach you in gaelscoil that correlation does not prove causation?"

That's not really the point; In a free market, parents are in fact choosing gaeilscoileanna, and the children of those parents are indeed showing better academic and overall progress.

There are three possibilities: that these children are doing better than average in spite of their parents' choice, that they are doing better because of their parents' choice, or that they are doing better due to other unrelated factors.

The point is that there is no evidence whatever to support the assertion that children do better without Irish and there is some evidence which is at least consistent with the assertion that they do better with Irish.

This is an incorrect deduction and you are missing the crucial point. Because ( according to you ) there is a link between attending gaelscoil and better academic progress does not mean that attending gaelscoil will lead to better academic progress precisely because future academic success is dependent on a number of factors such as ability of student, standard of teaching, motivation of student, motivation of peers, social class etc. etc. Statistics 101 decimates your argument.

 

[MOB]

Re: Irish warning on cigarette packs

This is getting silly. I have not offered or sought to offer 'proof' that attending gaelscoil will lead to better academic progress. I have said that there is evidence which is consistent with the hypothesis. I have said that there is no evidence (at least none that I am aware of) which contradicts the hypothesis. I accept that this does not constitute proof. With respect, so what? The facts are consistent with the hypothesis. Parents, in a free market, are voting with their feet.

Failure to advance a positive proof does not mean that a hypothesis is disproved. Statistics 101 indeed.....

 

[ubiquitous]

Re: Irish warning on cigarette packs

I thought this debate was about warnings as gaeilge on cigarette packs rather than Gaelscoileanna. I questioned (semi-ironically) earlier whether some of the cigarette companies had sponsored this move. Anything which dilutes the effect of a message like "Smokers Die Younger" on a cigarette pack (for example by including translation into a second language) is imho to be regretted.

 

[rabbit]

Re: Irish warning on cigarette packs

Will it make any difference, putting a warning in irish on packets of cigarettes? Its costing a fortune using irish in EU, printing all government forms in irish and now this? What a waste of money

I agree 100%, original poster. What a waste of money, when old people are on hospital trolleys and our rat-infested cold old schools are not up to international standard. Irish is a dead old language, and an ugly one as well. We should be spending less on it, not more. Stop any Irish person in the street and ask them to help give directions to a German or French person -in their own language - and 99% cannot.

 

[daveco23]

Re: Irish warning on cigarette packs

. The Scots and Welsh show pride in their language, can we not do the same?
.

Scots and welsh don`t ram it down their schoolkids throats for 14 years. Any interest in their native tongues is by choice, not force.
New Carlsberg ads are a perfect reflection of most peoples attitude to the Irish language thanks to the States forcefeeding...

 

[z103]

Re: Irish warning on cigarette packs

This is getting silly. I have not offered or sought to offer 'proof' that attending gaelscoil will lead to better academic progress. I have said that there is evidence which is consistent with the hypothesis.

Failure to advance a positive proof does not mean that a hypothesis is disproved. Statistics 101 indeed.....

It's pretty simple really. There are compounding factors that you are not taking into consideration that invalidates the experiment.

In short, students that attend gaeilscoileanna are not a representative sample of students. The sample is biased.

 

[MrMan]

Re: Irish warning on cigarette packs

Simeon, I didn't take offence, I was just intrigued because your view differed so much from mine. I don't agree with success breeds success, and my point was that we are now a successful nation both academically and professionally, but this was brought about by ambition and need. I didn't want my background to sound like a hard luck story because it isn't its the way things were for many people, I was lucky in that my parents were hard working and even though they were not academically inclined I believe that their work ethic was of most use to my own professional life than anything.
My point probably isn't being put across very well - writers block!

If there were enough people wanting to speak Irish there would be no need for government funding.

I do agree with you that there are fruitcakes that take this issue too far and I'm not totally in favour in publishing everything in Irish aswell as English, but I think its a mistake to take it a step further and to suggest that we simply let the language die out. I think Irish should remain compulsory but the curriculum should be re-visited so that we are not simply 'learning' it for the sake of it. After 15 years or so of learning it we should all be fluent so there is something wrong there. It cannot be of any harm to us as a nation to be able to speak a native tongue.

 

[rabbit]

Re: Irish warning on cigarette packs

What is harm is the way it was rammed down our throats for 13 years at school, what is harm is the billions spent on it , what is harm is the waste of taxpayers money wasted. Despite the time and money spent on our education system, there is something wrong when you stop any Irish person in the street and ask them to help give directions to a continental tourist eg a lost elderly German or French person -in their own language ( German or French ) - and 99% cannot.
A foreign industrialist told me many years ago Ireland reminded him of a third world country. He was not just thinking of the corruption at the time , or the billions received in aid from Germany and the UK ( through the EC ) etc.

 

[sully]

Re: Irish warning on cigarette packs

If Irish was truly our first language then all students should all be taught through the medium of Irish. The reason why Irish is being let down is by the quality of secondary level teachers. I seem to recall being better at irish in primary school than i was at leaving cert. If all education was done through Irish and all teachers were fluent then that would filter down to the students and then this argument would be null and void.

It seems ironic that there are language support teachers in schools to help people learn english but none there to help them to learn our other native language, perhaps that teacher should also take that situation to court.In that, the language support teachers should be instilled to teach irish as well but that would mean more expense ;-)

As for the usefulness of Irish, this is not a particularly good reason to not teach a subject in schools. if we applied the logic of usefulnesss of a subject to job prospects then an awful lot of subjects would need to be got rid of. For eg If you do Art/Music/PE/Religion etc then the amount of people who use these daily in their job are few and far between so should all these be scrapped as well.

also English and maths are also compulsory, but i cant remember the last time i needed to know/use english poetry, or mathematical formulas/theorems. I probably do use simple addition/substraction/Multiplication etc but that does mean that most of the maths that we learn is of no use to us so why should we have to do it.

The majority of students also do a foreign language to leaving cert as well, and you would be well pushed to find anyone who could give basic directions in the language they learned in secondary scool for 5/6 years to a tourist... So again it seems that the teaching standards in seconary schools seem to let us down here...

 

[MOB]

Re: Irish warning on cigarette packs

"It's pretty simple really. There are compounding factors that you are not taking into consideration that invalidates the experiment.

In short, students that attend gaeilscoileanna are not a representative sample of students. The sample is biased."

It's not an experiment. We don't have the ability (or the wish) to experiment upon children in this way- there is no experiment we can ethically carry out which would allow us to examine the effects of being at a gaeilscoil in an environment where all other 'compunding factors', as you put it, are removed.

We can, however, formulate hypotheses and examine available data to see if the data support or contradict the hypotheses. I have heard nothing to contradict, much less invalidate, the hypothesis that children who go to Gaeilscoileanna do better. There is much data, the most compelling being that parents - given a choice - are voting with their feet, to support the hypothesis.

Bear in mind, please, that my initial post was in response to an assertion that children would do better without Irish. This assertion is simply not supported by the facts - and I have pointed out, several times now, the main fact that tends to contradict this assertion.

The hypothesis that children gain an advantage from going to a gaeilscoil is supported (not proven - just supported) by the facts. If anyone has an alternate hypothesis and if they can point to any facts which support it, or which actually contradict what I have said, I would be delighted to hear from them but, please, no more argument of the 'as your case is not 100% proven you are therefore definitely wrong" variety.

 

[z103]

Re: Irish warning on cigarette packs

I think Irish should remain compulsory but the curriculum should be re-visited so that we are not simply 'learning' it for the sake of it.

Why should Irish remain compulsory? Computer studies should be compulsory, not Irish.

Learning Irish should be the same category as learning Irish music.

 

[MrMan]

Re: Irish warning on cigarette packs

Why should Irish remain compulsory? Computer studies should be compulsory, not Irish.

Its a cultural thing. If we turned our backs on all that is hard we wouldn't be in the 1st world country we're in today. Culture stands the test of time, even computer studies will be surpassed.

 

[z103]

Re: Irish warning on cigarette packs

Its a cultural thing. If we turned our backs on all that is hard we wouldn't be in the 1st world country we're in today. Culture stands the test of time, even computer studies will be surpassed.

What would be wrong with treating it the same as Irish music? - Just let those who have in interest in learning it, learn it? This is not turning our back on it.

When computer studies is surpassed, then drop that too, and move onto the next thing. It's all about keeping ahead, or learning what is relevant.

(As for Ireland being a first world country - well that's debatable, and probably a topic for another thread. We certainly have a lot of rich property developers.)

 

[csirl]

Re: Irish warning on cigarette packs

Back to the cigarette package.

I think this is a bad thing as it will mean that the english language warnings will either be reduced in size (to accommodate Irish alongside) or half of them will be replaced by Irish language warnings.

This will significantly reduced the effectiveness of the warnings as most of the population do not speak Irish. Again, I wonder if the ciggy companies are sponsoring this lawsuit. This teacher has probably cost some lives in this country.

To contribute to the side debate on Irish in schools going on simultaneously on this thread, IMHO if (1) the bonus percentage in exams, (2) the quota places in some courses/jobs and (3) the absence of children of foreign extraction in Irish speaking schools

were all eliminated, we would have very very few parents wanting to send their kids to gaelscoil.

 

[MrMan]

Re: Irish warning on cigarette packs

What would be wrong with treating it the same as Irish music? - Just let those who have in interest in learning it, learn it? This is not turning our back on it.

Because I think alot of parents would have a similar attitude to you and discourage their children from taking up the language, I think it has to be helped along.

(As for Ireland being a first world country - well that's debatable, and probably a topic for another thread. We certainly have a lot of rich property developers.)

I think anyone who regards Ireland as anything but a 1st world country doesn't appreciate exactly what this country has to offer. It is not neccessary to be rich to live here either.

This teacher has probably cost some lives in this country.

When was the last time somebody has actually not bought a 20 pack because of the health warning. The health warning means nothing and this teacher hasn't cost lives, it's a ridiculous statement to make.

 

[z103]

Re: Irish warning on cigarette packs

Because I think alot of parents would have a similar attitude to you and discourage their children from taking up the language, I think it has to be helped along.

I certainly wouldn't discourage anyone from learning something new, whether it is Irish language, juggling, Irish Music or Latin. On the other hand, I wouldn't bother forcing people to learn stuff they don't want to learn either.

You can bring a horse to water, but can't make it drink.

 

[boaber]

Re: Irish warning on cigarette packs

I thought this debate was about warnings as gaeilge on cigarette packs rather than Gaelscoileanna. I questioned (semi-ironically) earlier whether some of the cigarette companies had sponsored this move. Anything which dilutes the effect of a message like "Smokers Die Younger" on a cigarette pack (for example by including translation into a second language) is imho to be regretted.

I'm in the middle of reading Paul McKenna's book Quit Smoking Today. In it he states the following:

You don't need to hear about cancer, gangrene or heart disease - you don't even need to read the 'smoking kills' labels on the side of a cigarette packet.

Cigarette companies love these warning because they know that when most people who smoke stop to think about how dangerous it is, they have to have another cigarette to calm themselves down.

So if Mr McKenna's theory is correct, then I'd say the cigarette companies don't want an Irish language version.

 

[gebbel]

Re: Irish warning on cigarette packs

Back to the cigarette package.

I think this is a bad thing as it will mean that the english language warnings will either be reduced in size (to accommodate Irish alongside) or half of them will be replaced by Irish language warnings.

This will significantly reduced the effectiveness of the warnings as most of the population do not speak Irish.

.

Understand Irish or not, everybody knows that the message is a warning, not a message stating that cigarettes will give you longer life. I don't understand the message on a pack of Polish cigarettes my workmate smokes, but I sure know it's a warning. It will not diminish the "effect", or whatever that means. The will to stop smoking should not depend on what language the warning is in.
Smoking is a dirty filthy habit, but I'm all in favour of the Irish warning here.

 

[rabbit]

As long as the warning in English does not diminish in size. Otherwise, if it does, that Irish language fanatic will cause countless extra deaths in years to come due to lung cancer. The warning in the language people can read / understand needs to stay at least the same.

 

[ajapale]

Perahaps warnings should be in the form of icons or photographs which would be independant of language?