Written English - Evolving or Corrupting?

[santaman2000]

.......We all have to learn that there are different forms of English. For example, that American and English differ and that dialects use different words and grammatical constructions........

It is also useful to bear in mind the difference between errors of faulty writing, such as typos and missing words (and readers can amuse themselves by spotting my own errors in this piece), which the spell checker may pick up and errors which arise through ignorance of grammar, spelling or vocabularly. I am thinking here of things such as lack of agreement between subject and verb.....

It's also different to note that some differences aren't necessarily a difference in grammatical construction as such. I usually see British writers (and here British speakers) write or say something like, "The government are doing whatever..." or "Tesco are having a sale on...." whereas an American would phrase it, "The government is doing whatever...." or "Tesco is having a sale on...."

The difference isn't a difference in the rules as such; both of us use is for singular and are for plural. Rather the difference apparently lies in what we consider to actually be a plural or singular noun. In the American case, we consider words such as government or Tesco to be singular because they represent a single government or a single company (both thought of as a single entity) whereas, apparently, on your side of the Atlantic they're considered plural as they represent a number of people.

 

[santaman2000]

......Another point worth considering is that, generally speaking, written English has stricter "rules" than spoken. Am I alone in being irritated by writers who attempt to convey regional accents in written form? It always seem patronising to me.

The short answer is, it depends on how effective they are. Some people can do it well and it's actually helpful, particularly when such writing is in an informal conversational context; others are as you said, come across as patronizing and annoying.

 

[British Red]

Another point worth considering is that, generally speaking, written English has stricter "rules" than spoken. Am I alone in being irritated by writers who attempt to convey regional accents in written form? It always seem patronising to me.

No, you aren't alone. I think there is a large difference though between the odd regional phrase popping up because the writer didn't realise that it was uncommon and someone who is erudite and capable of conversing perfectly well in "standard" English deliberately obscuring meaning by choosing to use abstruse phrases. Lets face it we have people from Brazil, Holland, Malaysia and many other locations with their own languages and dialects. If they all chose to conduct conversations in their own language to publicly demonstrate their regional identities, the place would be much poorer and more cliquey.

 

[Opal]

OK so lets have a show of hands. Answer truthfully the following questions.

1. How many of you are under 30?

2. How many of you use smilies when posting in the forum?

3. How many of you love bushcraft and would happily teach it to a child or adolescent if they showed interest?

So I bet most of you raised a hand to the first question. If you go back and read what has been put and then think on when you thought your Granddad was a bit stuffy and you knew best! I bet your Grandparents used words which are very much forgotten these days. I bet you now use words that your Grandparents would have frowned upon back then or simply didn't know the meaning of. What your criticising is basically the same thing. The language is constantly evolving and changing, language has trends and fashion like anything else. You will get slang words used in every language and eventually the slang words, if used enough, will succeed the original.

I bet a good few of you use smilies when posting on the forums too. Isn't that a form of slang? Would you write a letter and use them to emphasise a point? I very much doubt it, but yet when online or sending a text you will sometimes use a smilie to make sure the reader is absolutely certain of what you mean. The digital media we use for communication is changing our language, its inevitable as its a huge influence on our society as a whole. There is nothing that you can do to stop it, its "progress". We may not like it, I know I certainly don't, but I'm not going to jump up and down about it either.

I very much doubt any of you would turn away a youngster if they wanted to learn something that you are very passionate about. Whether its making a shelter, building a fire, foraging, making a possibles pouch etc. you would probably be only too pleased to pass on your skills and knowledge. I know I would. Now lets take the same youngster and put him in front of a computer. He may not be able to write properly and his syntax, grammar and spelling is atrocious (not unlike mine) but he is still the same boy you just taught how to light a fire and build a shelter. Would you still have taught him how to do it if you knew he couldn't string a proper sentence together? Of course you would! My point is that it doesn't really matter whether he is fluent in the art of written English but rather that he is involved in something you are passionate about (and is part of this excellent community).

Its good that so many of you are passionate about this subject but really, is it worth pigeonholing these individuals and making them feel like lepers because they wrote "their" instead of "there"? I mean, while your at it, why not hang a bell around their necks and shout unclean or burn them as a witch! I think there is more important issues to be discussed that a comma being in the wrong place or an apostrophe out of context. Its threads like this that make people, with less than adequate literacy skills, feel unwelcome on a great forum.

I mean no offence to anyone with this post.

Forgot about "okay/ok", two at the beginning of a sentence, that's a first.

 

[mountainm]

No, you aren't alone. I think there is a large difference though between the odd regional phrase popping up because the writer didn't realise that it was uncommon and someone who is erudite and capable of conversing perfectly well in "standard" English deliberately obscuring meaning by choosing to use abstruse phrases. Lets face it we have people from Brazil, Holland, Malaysia and many other locations with their own languages and dialects. If they all chose to conduct conversations in their own language to publicly demonstrate their regional identities, the place would be much poorer and more cliquey.

I think it depends completely on whether you're trying to write phonetically, or using local words. The former can be annoying, the latter I have no problem with.

 

[santaman2000]

I think it depends completely on whether you're trying to write phonetically, or using local words. The former can be annoying, the latter I have no problem with.

One of the most annoying, to me, is phonetic spelling to convey a local perversion of a normal word. The worst offenders here are Southerners spelling dog as dawg.

 

[RobD]

Currently, there is a move to improve spelling, punctuation and grammar in school. This is because it now forms an important part of the SATs at age 11. The SPAG test was introduced last year and appears to have caught out a lot of schools. This year it is set to be even more challenging.

Perhaps some good will come of this initiative.

 

[boatman]

English is not mostly French, following the Norman Conquest English reasserted itself having sloughed of Anglo-Saxon accretions but picking up some Norman-French as it had Latin. For a very well-known example, Churchill's "We will fight them on the beaches" speech is nearly all composed of pre-Conquest English words.

I am still baffled that anyone who can actually read and speak English to a reasonable standard should find Elizabethan English difficult. What is the problem with it? Then so-called Middle-English is not really any more difficult IF you just treat it as badly spelt English and say it out loud in your normal voice. Unfortunately English Language and Literature professionals make a huge dog's dinner trying to speak such as Chaucer in some weird accent that baffles their students and impresses their peers.

 

[Wayland]

I have no problem with people using dialect words or phrases as I enjoy seeing the wide vocabulary of our language in use.

I do find the ridiculous attempts at phonetic accent annoying though.

As has been said, there are many contributors on this forum from across the world that make a fine effort at communicating in our language.

It is a shame that some of our own countrymen feel that they should reward that courtesy with deliberate obfuscation.

 

[John Fenna]

I love the use of dialect words - all part of the rich tapestry! (note the clipped speech, a form of speed writing/shorthand that assumes the audience knows the rest of and the context of, the common phrase!)
As to Ecoman's quiz - Hand well down for the first question, hand up for the other two
As to Smilies - surely they are a forum tool to ensure that emotions are conveyed - and amusing in their own right at times. Sometimes I do illustrate letters, and all my articles and books have photo illustrations or line drawings for clarification of details. "A picture is worth a thousand words" as is said...
I dislike obscure jargon but on this forum we use our own jargon, thinking that the majority will comprehend the jargon of a shared interest.
I love Shakespeare's works and language but he added new words to the dictionary because there were none that did the job adequately - evolution, not corruption
One thing that really annoys me is polysyllabic sesquipedalianism for the love of it or to put others down!

 

[British Red]

If you use the word sesquipedalian you are guilty of sesquipedalianism

 

[Mesquite]

If you use the word sesquipedalian you are guilty of sesquipedalianism

Come on Hugh... It's John. He's guilty of everything.

 

[John Fenna]

Come on Hugh... It's John. He's guilty of everything.

Guilty as charged!
But, my polyslabic sesquipedalianist divergence was done to make a point and no other words in the dictionary would have been up to the job.
Ergo, I am guilty but with mitigating circumstances!
How many folk actually use a dictionary on a regular basis?
In our house it is probably the most used book we own ... but we do also play a lot of Scrabble where a dictionary is essential for challenges to obscure words

 

[Wayland]

I use a Thesaurus a lot more John.

 

[Kerne]

Finished a degree in modern languages and linguistics a couple of years ago: interesting point made by a senior lecturer in linguistics who rarely punctuated or capitalised his emails, was that this was relevant to the context. He argued that a "new" form of communication brought with it new rules (just like text-speak). He felt that internet forums, (we had an interesting argument over whether that should be "fora" !) chat rooms, texting, and, to some extent, email, were more akin to speech than writing and that our grammar when speaking can be dreadful (for instance: we often don't finish sentences, we change the sense of what we are saying as we go along, we use slang, "shorthand" etc. etc.) The real problem, he acknowledged, was when the "rules" from one register/context were applied to a different register/context.

Personally, I like to apply the rules of grammar to whatever I write but I also accept that language is constantly changing - this is what makes it so interesting.

 

[bearbait]

Some of the accidental misuse of the language can actually be quite amusing. For example, my father overheard two cleaners in his office one evening. One said to the other "Don't never say I don't never give you nothing".

It's certainly the best double (?) negative I've ever come across.

 

[santaman2000]

Finished a degree in modern languages and linguistics a couple of years ago: interesting point made by a senior lecturer in linguistics who rarely punctuated or capitalised his emails, was that this was relevant to the context. He argued that a "new" form of communication brought with it new rules (just like text-speak). He felt that internet forums, (we had an interesting argument over whether that should be "fora" !) chat rooms, texting, and, to some extent, email, were more akin to speech than writing and that our grammar when speaking can be dreadful (for instance: we often don't finish sentences, we change the sense of what we are saying as we go along, we use slang, "shorthand" etc. etc.) The real problem, he acknowledged, was when the "rules" from one register/context were applied to a different register/context.

Personally, I like to apply the rules of grammar to whatever I write but I also accept that language is constantly changing - this is what makes it so interesting.

at there's a difference between formal writing and conversational writing. However, even in conversational writing you need some rules to guide the reader to understand what you're trying to say. After all, in actual conversation, you have tone of voice, facial expression, etc. that aren't available to a reader.

There's some truth to what he said in th

 

[santaman2000]

Some of the accidental misuse of the language can actually be quite amusing. For example, my father overheard two cleaners in his office one evening. One said to the other "Don't never say I don't never give you nothing"........

I know you think you know what you think I knew I said. But you don't know what I think you knew wdat I thought I said.

 

[cave_dweller]

Strictly speaking, one should not start a sentence with but. However, if But is used with a comma then I believe it is acceptable.

It's perfectly allright to start a sentence with a subordinating conjunction (such as 'but' or 'because). This 'rule' about not doing so is probably due to English teachers attempting to stop their students from writing incomplete sentences, such as 'Because I said so' or 'But he always does'.

 

[British Red]

Guilty as charged!
But, my polyslabic sesquipedalianist divergence was done to make a point and no other words in the dictionary would have been up to the job.
Ergo, I am guilty but with mitigating circumstances!
How many folk actually use a dictionary on a regular basis?
In our house it is probably the most used book we own ... but we do also play a lot of Scrabble where a dictionary is essential for challenges to obscure words

Mmm its a tricky one - words are nuanced and sometimes a relatively obscure word is the correct one. I was "pulled up" (nicely) on using the words "chamfer" when discussing some woodwork on the forum a while ago. I honestly wasn't trying to be self aggrandising (my woodwork is rudimentary at best), its just a word that I knew that described what I was doing. If we enjoy language, isn't using a "precise" term that describes an object or activity a good thing?

I guess that isn't really the meaning of sesquipedalian though - its more about the intent. I think the word needs to be un-necessarily obscure to qualify - and at that point I agree - its verbal bullying.