I agree, a healthy portion would be related to class structure. Fucking Normans.
4 Likes
People call me a pedant, but thatâs not exactly the correct word.
22 Likes
The English language is a dynamic that is ever maintained by the old and new school; the proper and improper; the sacred and profane.
EarsâŠ
1 Like
Trudat
2 Likes
I feel you are unjustly accusing your correspondent of obsfucating with obsfucate.
A good vocabulary can provide a concise expressiveness not achievable with so called â10 centâ words, where, if limited to such, one might have to use many words and still fail to capture the essence of oneâs message.
7 Likes
I think the worst thing that could happen to English is for it to become obsessed with linguistic purity as has happened with French and the AcadĂ©mie Française. âLinguistic purityâ and âEnglishâ are mutually exclusive concepts.
4 Likes
Oh yeah, that reminds me of my âotherâ pet peeveâŠ
In Welsh there are a lot of words which are direct phonetic translations of English words - commonly technological words like âInternetâ, âcomputerâ etc. There are Welsh words for them, they just seem posh and a bit convoluted to use in informal speech.
So when my English friends hear words they understand, Iâm mocked for ânot having a word in [my] language for xxxâ, or worse that Welsh people are âstealingâ words from other languages!
Itâs at that point I usually bring out the counter of âhow about words like restaurant or rendezvousâ and all the other thousands of bastardised words from disparate languages - to which Iâm almost always met with a âhmph, thatâs different, innitâ or some sort of hand-wavey argumentâŠ
10 Likes
Because of course Saxon England was a democratic classless utopia.
7 Likes
And in the far future mothers will scold their children for not using the correct pronunciation of âthat shit is mad wack, yo. Faâreal, naâmsayin?â
Personally I wonât be satisfied until we go back to Middle English (or preferably Olde English 800.)
5 Likes
Iâll throw in that itâs not the new words which bother me, but that there is half a dictionaryâs worth of old wordsâobscure, archaic, wonderfully full-of-character wordsâthat are dying away when theyâve still got plenty of vim and vigor left to offer.
9 Likes
Old English, like the other West Germanic languages, had already dropped certain case endings, even certain nominative singular endings. nominative frakking singular.
2 Likes
The OP had me at âa glorious drunkardâs debauch of a language.â
4 Likes
As long as we keep in mind that âevolvingâ and âenrichingâ a language is not the same as âbeing borderline illiterate, not knowing how to use apostrophes or correct spelling of existing words, and using that as an excuse for lazinessâ.
9 Likes
As soon as the meaning of the words being communicated is totally obfuscated, then youâre incomprehensible. Nobody speaks with a desire towards less clarity (with a few exceptions). Your attitude betrays a lack of understanding about how language actually works. People generally take the shortest path to being understood, not the longest path to using language no one understands. I hate to break it to you, but if someone is saying something that you find to be obscure, youâre probably not part of the intended audience or arenât part of the clique. Itâs you who lacks fluency, not the speaker.
5 Likes
I enjoy some dialect but I hate it when people tell me to turn âleffâ.
2 Likes
Sorry Cory, youâre 100% wrong on Gove and teaching poor kids how to communicate effectively. Itâs one of a number of key advantages that kids in the private sector get that set them up to outcompete their state sector counterparts. Gove was being realistic. For the reset of their lives potential employers, universities, officials, perhaps police will all make judgement about people they interact with, based in part on the way they speak. An ability to communicate effectively with a range of people depends on a ability to be understood, which depends to an extent on an ability to communicate using commonly understood vocabulary in a way thatâs appropriate to the audience. Posh kids do it, no-one at Eton will get away with saying innit to a teacher, kids in the state sector should get the same leg up.
2 Likes
SJ scold scolds language scolds.
Nicely put, except ⊠thatâs not what Gove said.
If thatâs what he meant then he was betraying that very education system from which he came, with a poorly communicated message.
He would have done far better to quote you.
1 Like
Think you meant to use double-quote marks there, buddy⊠:trollface:
Bear in mind that early English spelling and punctuation was entirely non-standard. That standardization is invented.
Literafy ifnât meafured by ability to adhere to a ftandard, only by ability to rede, underftand, and convay informayshun. If u underftand wut I rite, wy is it objectivlee rong? Konsider prezerving etimolojical legacees for words lyke âthrough.â Wy bother? Its poyntless and does nothing but surv as a barrier to peepul hoo have better things to du with there time than adhere to a convenshun that canât be lojicly justifyed as being remotelee practicul.
Boy, that was fun.
7 Likes
