Further evidence on why the 'fronted adverbial' is grammatical nonsense

Thanks to people who follow my criticisms of the GPS (formerly the SPaG) test. It's possible that its time is up, because this government has signalled in its Curriculum Review that it is an unsatisfactory test and is having a harmful effect on children's writing.

Here on this blog I've critiqued the test in several ways, in particular each year I've done an analysis of the test that has been set. I look forward to doing the same this year. 

One small feature of the test that has attracted attention has been the 'fronted adverbial'. It attracted attention because many people familiar with traditional grammar (eg me) had never heard of such a thing, prior to the invention of the SPaG test. Rumours flowed that it was a last-minute addition to the SPaG requirements, thrown out almost frivolously by one of the linguists hired by Michael Gove. 

In previous blogs, I've tried to point out that fronted adverbials are a) not grammar, they're 'stylistics' and b) the category is dubious.

In regards of b), I've tried to argue that some phrases that we say or write, and which come 'in front of' the main clause seem to me 'adjectival'. That's to say, they seem to modify or qualify the subject of the main clause, which is by definition a noun. 

You can try making one up. How about: 'Deep blue from birth, his eyes scanned the room.' Normally, we would think that a word like 'blue' is referring to 'eyes'. In that sense, we would say it's 'adjectival'.

So, I put this to one of the architects of the SPaG grammar and said to him, 'If you're going to have 'fronted adverbials' as a category, shouldn't you also have 'fronted adjectivals'?' He wasn't happy. He described my question as 'challenging' and never came back to me with an answer.

Today, I was in the process of writing a letter in French and had to use the phrase 'ci-joint'. It means 'attached' in the sense of attaching something to an email. So, in English, we might, say, 'You'll find the instructions, attached.' In French, I've noticed that some people put the 'attached' word ('ci-joint') at the front of the sentence. They 'front' it.

As I wrote it, I started to wonder if 'ci-joint' should 'agree with' the word 'instructions'. In French (and other 'Romance' languages), words have to 'agree' with each other as regards their 'gender' (masculine, feminine in French) and also whether they are singular or plural. In this case, I wondered, should 'ci-joint' agree with the word I was going to use 'coordinées'? If it should 'agree' then 'ci-joint' would be adjectival. (Adverbs don't have to 'agree'.)

My first instinct was that I should write 'Ci-jointes, vous trouverez les coordinées'. I am adding there an 'e' (for feminine) and an 's' (for plural). 

BUT, because of the certainty of the great grammarians who designed the SPaG (which has bedevilled primary education for the last 10 years and wrecked children's writing), I hesitated. I thought to myself, if it's adverbial, I'll have to write 'ci-joint', if it's adjectival, I'll have to write 'ci-jointes'. 

So I checked in as many places as I could and sure enough, I found that they said it was 'ci-jointes' in this example on account of the word it was qualifying is feminine and plural.

Now English is not French. And French is not English. We have to be careful about hopping across from one language to another and assuming that what is the 'rule' in one language must apply in another. In this case though, I'm not talking about a 'rule' as such. I'm talking about an underlying process of what kinds of modifying we have at our disposal when we talk and write. In short, what modifies what. 

I think with this example, the French is the same as the English. The modifying is the same process. The 'fronted' phrase ('ci-joint'/'attached') is doing the same work in both languages. 

QED, you can have 'fronted adjectivals' as well as 'fronted adverbials'. 

(One note of caution - and don't laugh - there will be some grammarians who will agree with me on this, but will say that the 'adjectival' I've come up with is an 'adverbial' on account of a secret fiddle they pull out of their grammar bag which goes like this: 'adverbials' are not really all those words, phrases and clauses that modify verbs. An 'adverbial' is an adverbial because of the way in English we have a category of word, phrase or clause that we can move around in a sentence in an almost free way. Consider, for example a word like 'only'. Make up a sentence. Put 'only' in as many different places as you can. It's very movable, isn't it? 

So hang on to your seats, and wait for a grammarian to read this and come back to me and explain that a 'fronted adjectival' is a 'fronted adverbial'. I kid you not.) 

How my father's uncle was arrested on this day in 1944 and deported to Auschwitz

(On this day)
At 2.30 in the morning of January 31, 1944, my father's uncle Martin Rozen was arrested by 4 gendarmes. He was living in a room in the house of a widow, Madame Bobières in the village of Sainte-Hermine (Vendée).

This arrest was carried out because the Prefect and the Sub-Prefect ordered it. They ordered it because the local Sicherheitspolizei in Poitiers ordered all Jews in the area to be arrested. He ordered it because the Nazi High Command in Paris ordered it. He ordered it because Eichmann, by 1944, was demanding that the Vichy government hand over more Jews in order that the 'Final Solution' could be carried out in areas that the Nazis controlled.

By luck and persistence, I was able to find out what happened to my father's uncle. After his arrest, he was handed over to the Nazis in the nearby town. He was then transported to Drancy, the Nazi transit camp near Paris. Then after that he was deported to Auschwitz on a cattle train Convoy 68.

The present Mayor of Sainte-Hermine, Philippe Barré came to know of the story of what happened in the village and over several months and more research, he and the village decided to put Martin Rozen (Rosen)'s name on the village war memorial and to name the local park after Martin too. I was honoured to go to the village for the two naming ceremonies.

When the story of Martin became known, this testimony came in. It's my translation.

'Memories, sad memories
We used to come from school to Sainte-Hermine. Coming into the village, on the right was the police station, (which has become 'Le Macis’ cafe). Opposite the police station - a large house where an old lady rented out furnished rooms (today the Bank Crédit Agricole). One of her rooms was lived in by a very, very old gentleman - old to my eyes - more or less 8 years old. Every morning, he waited for us by the side of the road. We didn't ever miss saying to him, 'Good morning, Mr Martin' and he would reply, 'Good morning, children. Always work hard at school'. And in the evening, he was there for us saying, 'Good evening, children. See you tomorrow maybe.'

How I found him to be so nice with his white hair, his blue eyes and his gay smile when he saw us and so sad when we left! And then I was fascinated by this enormous yellow star sewn on to the black coat that he always wore. I didn't know anything at all about the significance of it.

And then one day, there was no Mr Martin anymore, nor the next day or the days after that. I learned from one of my little friends that he had been arrested by the police. Then I forgot about Mr Martin. When you're 8 years old, someone arrested by the police can only be a thief or some other kind of bad person.

And then one day in March 1952, just when I had got a job at the town hall as a secretary, a letter came containing a judgement announcing the death of someone of the name Rozen Chil Mayer, known as Martin, whose last place of habitation was Sainte-Hermine. And everything came back to me of a face and I got to know this terrible story. The only crime committed by Mr Martin was that he was a Jew. He died because he was deported to Auschwitz. He was 54 years old. His death certificate contained the sentence: 'Died for France'. Later, in May 2001, a document came to the Town Hall, asking to add an official statement on his death 'Died in deportation' [as a consequence of being deported?]. 

It is important that Mr Martin's name is on the war memorial in the village. It's very unusual that I came this way these days, on the way to Luçon, without lifting up my eyes to the window of his room (first on the left on the first floor), and it seems as if I can see him there smiling...so sadly.

Jeanne Baradeau
School child in Sainte-Hermine
Secretary in the Town Hall, 1951-1994.'

Holocaust Memorial Day - thoughts from a BBC studio where I was being interviewed.

Today I spent an hour and a half in a studio at the BBC, talking to 12 local radio stations, one after the other, about Holocaust Memorial Day. I talked about people in my family (Jews) who were arrested, imprisoned, deported and killed in Auschwitz. I talked about how I got to find out the details of how each of them was trapped as the net closed in round Jews in France (where my father's uncles and aunt lived.) I talked about how the Nazi project was to not only eliminate living Jews but to try to remove them from German history and that my project to 'find' them and write about them, was to not let them disappear from memory, or from being known.
Several themes emerged in the interviewers' questions and the answers I gave - and in my thoughts.
1. The Holocaust was a way of eliminating people. It wasn't a war in the usual sense of the word. It wasn't a fight between two or more combatants. You could say that it was a war on people.
2. The Holocaust was carried out by the Nazis and their collaborators. If we say 'Never again' or anything similar, one of the things we have to do is investigate what it was that the Nazis did, before they came to power and during the time they were in power. This involves facing up to the fact that they were the largest political party when they won power, that they brought in two key acts of parliament (the Reichstag Fire Decree and the Enabling Act, which mean that a) they had total dictatorial power and b) that they eliminated most of the political opposition through terror, imprisonment and violence). That their 'project' progressed as their rule progressed and as the war progressed. In short from persecution to genocide.
3. Much as we'd like to say that the Nazis were 'beasts' or 'animals', the really distressing and difficult thing to say is that they were human. And not only that, some of them were clever. We have to try to understand what does it mean to be the kind of clever human who can be someone who can organise, run and enact genocide - several genocides.
4. There was a Nazi project. They wrote about it and explained it. They enacted it. It involved on the one hand producing a new kind of human, one that would require them to eliminate elements that they thought prevented this human from becoming its true form. On the other hand, it involved creating an empire by absorbing lands in the east. In order to achieve this twin aim, the Nazis had to 'get rid' of people. Millions and millions of people.
5. If we say 'never again', it is possible to say, this means 'never again for Jews' or 'Jews must never again be targeted in that way'. It is also possible to see 'Never again' as a hope or wish that there should never again be that kind of genocide for anyone. I'm of this second school of thought, which is all well and good, but since 1945, when that aspiration surfaced there have been acts of genocide. One of the reasons we can and should say it's about all of humanity and not only Jews is that the Nazi project involved killing millions of people who were eg Poles (ie non-Jewish Poles), Roma and Sinti people, Russians, gays, mentally ill and physically disabled people, Afro-Germans, and even people who refused to swear an oath of loyalty such as Jehova's Witnesses, and thousands of civilian oppositionists - socialists, Communists, trade unionists, in camps like Dachau and Sachsenhausen.
6. For those that say, there have been many other terrible acts of genocide down through history, shouldn't we commemorate them? I say yes. I wish there were other Days when we mark the transatlantic slave trade and plantation slavery, or the Bengal Famine or Stalin's starvation of the Ukrainians, or the Famine in Ireland etc. There should not be any kind of league table. Each of these terrible moments of mass suffering should be moments we dwell on, investigate and learn from. How did they happen? Why did they happen? I guess I think, it'll be hard to progress unless we do investigate and understand these things.

The Mission Statement from Goldsmiths Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Team (the one they don't abide by when it comes to planning Holocaust Memorial Day)

 "Equality and Diversity at Goldsmiths

We are passionate about advancing equality and celebrating diversity at Goldsmiths.

Primary page content

At Goldsmiths, University of London, we are deeply committed to equality, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) in both principle and practice. We work to ensure that EDI is embedded across all areas of university life from our policies and teaching to the experiences of our students and staff.

This year, Goldsmiths introduced an Staff Engagement and Wellbeing Plan (PDF) that sets out our EDI commitments for the next three years.

Creating an inclusive and respectful environment where everyone feels they belong is central to our values. We recognise that people thrive when they are seen, heard, and valued for who they are. That’s why we’re committed to removing barriers, addressing inequalities, and supporting the success and wellbeing of our whole community regardless of background, identity, or circumstance.

We know that building an inclusive institution takes sustained effort, collaboration, and openness to change. At Goldsmiths, we are approaching this work with purpose, transparency, and care because EDI is not a single initiative, but a shared responsibility.

The EDI team at Goldsmiths

We are rightly proud of this history. But there is more to do – which is why we have a team of specialists leading our work in this area on an ongoing basis.

Team roles

Waqar Ali – Assistant Director of EDI, Culture and Belonging

Stella Mavropoulou – EDI Specialist

Dinah Amuah – EDI Projects Lead

Yaz Campbell – Race Equality Projects Lead

Our aim is to embed equality, diversity, and inclusion across Goldsmiths and make it a part of everything that we do. Fundamentally, we want to provide opportunities for all staff to develop and thrive in their careers here.

Waqar Ali, Assistant Director of EDI, Culture and Belonging"

I note:

"We recognise that people thrive when they are seen, heard, and valued for who they are."

Lols

My letter to Goldsmiths Equality, Diversity and Inclusion team about the exclusion of Jewish members of staff from involvement with planning Holocaust Memorial Day.

 Dear Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Team

Since writing to you I have 'discovered' that, following the Antisemitism Report, the university made a commitment in relation to Holocaust Memorial Day.

Here it is:

'12. Holocaust Memorial Day and associated events
The inquiry recommends Goldsmiths should:
Include consultation with or consideration of Jewish students and staff at the university.”
In response Goldsmiths will:
Annual Holocaust Memorial Day - Fund and support annual Holocaust Memorial Day event led by Jewish students and staff. '

Can I draw your attention to two phrases: 

'...with or consideration of Jewish students and staff at the university.' (from the Inquiry Report)

'...Holocaust Memorial Day event led by Jewish students and staff.' (from Goldsmiths' response to the Inquiry)?

The Antisemitism Inquiry's Report was published in May 2025. It follows that you have had six months to fulfil your commitment to support HMD 2026,  'led by Jewish students and staff'. This did not happen. Why not? 

You wrote to me explaining that, "Given the breadth of scholarship and creative work produced across the institution, it is not practicable for centrally coordinated HMD activity to identify or include all relevant staff-authored publications outside of the Trust’s nationally promoted resources for the year.'

The sole reason why it was not 'practicable...to identify or include all relevant staff-authored publications...etc' was because you failed to keep to the commitment that the university gave to host an HMD even 'led by Jewish students and staff'. If you had honoured that commitment, you would have found out immediately what expertise and experience lies within 'Jewish staff'. I can't and shouldn't speak for the student body.  

Quite clearly, you are in breach of the university's commitment to host HMD 'led by Jewish students and staff', and indeed in breach of your own 'Equality, Diversity and Inclusion' terms of reference. Can I ask what you are doing in the name of equality, diversity and inclusion, if you are not observing equality, diversity and inclusion? As before, I make the remark that you are pursuing a policy defined by Miranda Fricker as 'Testimonial Injustice'. In other words, you are guilty of the very thing that your team is there to mitigate against. An analogy would be for an 'Anti-racism team' to treat people in a racist way. 

Could I also suggest that if or when you write to me, you don't issue me with recommendations as to what I should do in relation to Holocaust Memorial Day? I am thinking here of you suggesting that I should make contact with the HMD Trust in relation to my books. I found this suggestion patronising and just a little bit offensive. 

I will consult with my colleagues as to how best to take this matter forwards. In the meantime, I will continue to make this matter public. 

Regards

Michael Rosen

Goldsmiths University of London, antisemitism, 14 Jewish members of staff, and Holocaust Memorial Day

 People may know very well by now that a) I work at Goldsmiths, University of London b) there was an inquiry into antisemitism at the college, costing around 450,000 pounds c) the report concluded that management had failed in its treatment of allegations of antisemitism, d) as a result the college decided to put in place an 'Action Plan', e) they did this without approaching or consulting Jewish members of staff, f) they have lied that Jewish members of staff were consulted. g.) they say that they are going to set up mandatory antisemitism awareness training for all students and members of staff.

The Action Plan they have put in place involves (so far) setting up a committee : an Advisory Board made up of people outside the university.

You can read the plan in full here:

https://www.gold.ac.uk/.../Antisemitism-action-plan-.pdf

Let me pick out number 12 as it's relevant to events leading up to Holocaust Memorial Day:

12. Holocaust Memorial Day and associated events

The inquiry recommends Goldsmiths should:

“Include consultation with or consideration of Jewish students and staff at the university.”

In response Goldsmiths will:

Annual Holocaust Memorial Day - Fund and support annual Holocaust Memorial Day

event led by Jewish students and staff. TBC will be responsible for delivering this by the

end of academic year 2025/26.

Governance of the action plan

• Senior Responsible Officer: University Lead for Culture and Inclusion

• Steering Group: Religion and Belief Group

• External Oversight: Advisory panel including Jewish community representation

• Reporting: Six-monthly public progress reports and annual comprehensive review.

---------

From this let me pick out:

The inquiry recommends Goldsmiths should:

“Include consultation with or consideration of Jewish students and staff at the university.”

In response Goldsmiths will...'

----------

I am a member of an ad hoc group of 14 Jewish members of staff. As far as we know there are no more than 2 or 3 other members of staff who self-identify as Jewish. If we're wrong about this, then it can only be because none of those Jewish members of staff have approached us, either positively or negatively.

Holocaust Memorial Day (HMD) is proceeding this year (ie on Jan 27) without anyone from management consulting us. This is clearly in breach of the college's own commitment.

On one specific detail, the college produced a recommended reading list for HMD. On staff at the college, they have a someone (me) who has written 4 books on the Holocaust as it has affected his family and produced a 40 minute video including photos, maps, documents etc. In addition to this I've had something like 10 years experience of working with some 20,000 school students and teachers working with these books, as well as giving talks at the Wiener Holocaust Library, and for the AJR - The Association of Jewish Refugees.

If we put this together, there is a clear attitude coming from the college's management, that we are not the kind of Jews that they want to work with. Their problem is that we are ( we allege) most of the Jews in the staff.

There are of course various critical words that we could use to describe what's going on here. The author Miranda Fricker did some theoretical work in this field building on anti-racist studies and in this case she called it

Epistemic Injustice:

this concept highlights how prejudice causes a hearer to give a deflated level of credibility to a speaker's word based on their identity (race, culture, gender).

She added:

Testimonial Injustice: When an individual or group's contribution is ignored or undervalued (e.g., a minority employee's idea is ignored in a meeting).

Of course we have other terms, 'prejudice', 'discrimination', 'racism', and, yes, irony of ironies, 'antisemitism'. I mean what do you call it when management decides to ignore what their half a million quid report told them to do, and work with Jewish members of staff in their college?

If I felt like racialising the matter, I'd call it 'Jewsplaining'. As far as we know, no one in management is Jewish. In other words, they are telling us how HMD will be memorialised. (Another irony for you: what will I be doing on HMD? I'm booked to sit in a studio in London, and talk to one local radio station after another all over the country about HMD. This will take me something like 2 hours. In short, the national broadcaster thinks it's OK for me to talk about HMD but my own college (where I'm a prof, does not. Is that worth a 'lols'? I think it is.

The latest developments are:

we have written to management in several different ways about this. (Of course we have!)

So far , we haven't had a reply and HMD is now less than a week away.

One last point: we're not sitting on our bums doing nothing but complain about what they throw at us. We're organising a teach-in for February 26, to talk about 'Antisemitism and anti-racism: alternative voices and traditions'.

I think we may need a quick speech on the theme of 'Management? They must be having a laugh. Jewsplaining on show.'

Statement from the Ad Hoc Group of Jewish Staff at Goldsmiths

25 November 2025

 

We are a group of Jewish staff at Goldsmiths who are increasingly anxious about the university’s plans to challenge antisemitism and racism more generally.

 

In June 2025, following the Mohinder Sethi KC’s report on antisemitism on campus, the College drafted an action plan in association with a private consultancy, Six Ravens, but not with Jewish staff or students. The action plan included a two-year timetable to address antisemitism based on a series of broad commitments. It decided on a governance structure, again without any consultation with Jewish staff or students. Implementation of the plan is to be coordinated by a project board led by pro vice-chancellor Professor Adam Dinham and scrutinised by an external oversight and advisory group chaired by Goldsmiths academic Dr Emma Davies.

 

There is currently no list of any actions to be delivered and no publicly available evidence that either the project board or oversight and advisory group have yet met. This is hardly an example of the transparency that the College claims to embrace. We have recently received an invitation from Dr Davies to attend a knowledge-sharing ‘workshop’ but it is very unclear about who will be in attendance and how this relates to the existing governance structure.

 

Requests by our ad hoc group to meet with Professor Dinham to discuss the shape of the action plan governance structure have been repeatedly rebuffed and we have been told that the plan is ‘owned’ by Goldsmiths Council and therefore not up for debate. Instead, we have been offered informal meetings which we do not consider to be part of any meaningful consultation. Our reluctance to engage in future meetings and workshops is therefore based on what we believe to be fundamental flaws in the action plan and its implementation.

 

To date, no one has explained why the university is making a special case for antisemitism as a single example of racism. This argument wasn't made at the time of setting up the Inquiry nor the action plan and now, as the plan moves forwards into 'conversations' and enactment, the argument has still not been made. The college has now spent well over £500,000 at a time of severe financial hardship on an inquiry and action plan without a clear and detailed timetable or buy-in from affected staff and students.

 

We have argued that the College should fold antisemitism into a university-wide programme of anti-racism training but this has been repeatedly rejected. If the argument had been put as to why antisemitism is a special case, then we would at least have something on the table to discuss (and to have a 'conversation' about), but there is nothing.

 

In conclusion, we believe that to progress in this way is wrong-headed, offensive to many different groups in the university and potentially a trigger for antisemitic accusations about 'privilege'. In other words, this process could well result in precisely the opposite situation from the one intended. Imagine a situation in which antisemitism awareness training is being delivered, and someone being trained asks the trainer, 'Why has antisemitism training been prioritised over other forms of anti-racism training?' We do not want to be part of such a scenario in which we would have been incorporated into a position in which de facto we would be in part responsible for this position of prioritising one form of racism above any other.

 

In conclusion, we have been offered informal meetings which we do not consider to be part of any meaningful consultation. We are of course prepared to meet with any individual or group to discuss these issues as we are committed to mounting the most effective challenge both to antisemitism and all forms of racism. However we are reluctant to take part in meetings or workshops that reinforce what we believe to be fundamental flaws in the action plan and its implementation.

 

Signed:

 

Laura Belinky - MCCS

Clare Delijani - TaP

Des Freedman - MCCS

Ruth Garland - MCCS

Yael Gerson - Education

Michael Guggenheim - Sociology

Ben Levitas – TaP

Betty Liebovich - Education

Miranda Matthews - Education

MIchael Rosen - Education

Catherine Rottenberg – MCCS

Beny Wagner - Art