Postilion sentence

A postilion sentence, from "My postilion has been struck by lightning", is a phrase, which although grammatically correct, has "little or no chance of ever being useful in real life."

As David Crystal points out, "it conveys a structural meaning, and a lexical content, but that is all."

This is the epitome of classroom language teaching far removed from the needs of students. Such phrases remind us of the need for teaching language that has a direct bearing on the present or future communicative needs of language learners.

Famous postilions

• My tailor is rich.
• My hovercraft is full of eels. - In fact invented by Monty Python, but well known on the internet.

See also

• Authentic language
• Repetition drill

External links

• Wikipedia