by LAURA CLARK

Last updated at 16:03 13 August 2007

British undergraduates have a poorer grasp of English than some foreign students, a distinguished don claims today.

Dr Bernard Lamb, a reader in genetics at Imperial College London, says those from Singapore and Brunei make fewer mistakes in their work, despite English being their second language.

UK-born students are more likely to produce essays littered with errors, such as "there" instead of "their", and "bean" instead of "been".

Many appear to have gone through school without mastering the basic rules of grammar and punctuation, or having their errors corrected.

Even undergraduates with top Alevel grades who go on to get first-class degrees made frequent elementary slips, he adds.

Dr Lamb is now publishing a diary of student howlers in an attempt to shame "complacent" education ministers into raising the standard of written English.

A summary of the list - which originally ran to 24 sheets of A4-sized paper - will be published in the next issue of the Queen's English Society journal, Quest.

Dr Lamb said: "All these students have good or excellent A-levels or their equivalents.

"The overseas students were generally less bad and the worst were UK raised and usually of British ancestry.

"There was little evidence of students being taught the relevant rules at school, or of the students having been corrected for obvious and frequent errors. Many did not even regard these errors as important.

"The Government and the educational establishment need to be shaken out of their current complacency about standards of English by constant exposure to evidence such as that presented here from intelligent and highly-qualified undergraduates."

The list, called Errors In The English Of Highly-selected Undergraduates, is due to be published today.

As well as typical slips, including spelling errors such as "effect" instead of "affect" and "sun" instead of "son", there were nonsense sentences and howlers which completely changed the intended meaning.

Undergraduates wrote of 'rouge' genetic elements and plants being "sewn" together.

In one case, a UK-born and educated first-class degree student wrote: "It initats a undisired nonspecific response in mamammals."

None of the 75 third and final-year students was dyslexic and many had used computer packages designed to spot spelling and grammatical errors.

The checkers, however, cannot pick up wrong word choices.

Dr Lamb, who is chairman of the London branch of the Queen's English Society, said: "There is not enough emphasis on teaching children how to speak and write properly. Public schools are the only ones still pretty good at this.

"Standards have been going downhill since the 1960s. Pupils are not marked down because of bad grammar, but they should be.

"The rot thus extends from top to bottom in education, from bureaucrats to schools."

Common mistakes selection (correct spelling in bold)

accure - occurred,

acheived / achived - achieved,

affectional - affectionate,

analasys/ analisis, analyzation - analysis,

anormal - abnormal,

to apose - oppose

baliure - failure,

behavior / behavoir - behaviour,

belifs - beliefs,

beleive - believe,

benefitial - beneficial,

it must be bloked - blocked,

burgandy - Burgundy

caffin - caffeine,

caliculated - calculated,

calonised - colonised,

chromasomes - chromosomes,

critisms - criticisms

delation /deleation - deletion,

dendancy - tendency,

desinged - designed,

devestating - devastating,

dieat - diet,

doner - donor

entirly - entirely,

enoculation - inoculation,

environement/ enviroment - environment,

envolves - involves,

exept - except

fangal - fungal,

farely - fairly,

fibers - fibres,

fertalise - fertilise,

flouresce - (fluoresce

garunteed - guaranteed,

genatalia / genetalia / gentalia, genitle - genital,

geneotype - genotype

haemoglobulin - haemoglobin,

haemophelia - haemophilia,

haermophrodite/ hermaphrodyte - hermaphrodite,

heigh - high,

hereditability - heritability

identicle - identical ,

inaffective - ineffective,

independant / indepentant - independent,

intelegence - intelligence,

intellegent - intelligent,

intresting - interesting

kernal - kernel,

Kliefener/ Keiffer/ Kleinfelter's - Klinefelter's syndrome

laballed - labelled,

leathal - lethal,

lossed - lost

mannar - manner,

mantained - maintained,

mays - maize,

minature / minituare / minture / miniture - miniature,

mytated - mutated

necesserally - necessarily,

negitive - negative,

nessecary - necessary,

neverthaless - nevertheless,

non - none,

noticable / noticible - noticeable

occaisons - occasions,

occoured - occurred,

occure - occur,

opaic - opaque,

outway - outweigh

parantal - parental,

pathy - pathway,

perental - parental,

pocesses - possesses,

porpouse - purpose,

purpel - purple

randomn - random

recessif / ressecive / ressessive - recessive,

reciprical - reciprocal,

relitively - relatively,

rist - wrist

safter - safety,

Samonella - Salmonella,

seringe - syringe,

spontenous - spontaneous,

summerise - summarise

temparature - temperature,

theorically - theoretically,

threated - treated,

transfere /transphere - transfer,

transmiss - transmit

unables - enables,

undergoe - undergo,

uretus - uterus

variaty - variety,

vegatative - vegetative,

veiw - view,

venteral - ventral ,

visable - visible

wales - Wales,

Weenberg / Weimberg / Weinburg - Weinberg,

wheather / wether/ weather - whether,

wheras - whereas,

wilde - wild

yeild - yield