Rotting English...

[Externet]

Rotting English... by laziness.

The words 'laboratory'; 'identification'; 'abdominals' are gone ?
'Madam' is offensive ? An apostrophe has to be tossed in ?
Female dog ?
Three in the afternoon is being called 'night' ? I thought nights started at sunset !
'Dinner' replaced by 'lunch' -- Isn't that what kids take to school ?

Supper. What was that ?
A ginecologist is now an alphabet soup.
There is no more amplifiers or Amperes, now it is 'amps'...
'Googled' this or that... If you 'search' for something you are saying it wrong...
'Software' ? ; 'Booting up' ? Come on !
News redacted in convoluted phrasing to save ink ?

Is a dozen 'you know' per minute the way to talk ?
This can continue for pages and pages... and the crowds eager to follow whatever crooked word.

Sorry; English is not my first language, but find it degenerating fast and nobody cares a bit, nor efforts are put to demonstrate education.

----> Is there no entity policing the correct use of this language ?

[EdEarl]

Languages have always evolved over time, and IMO always should.

 

How do you propose to enforce "proper" use of a language? It makes no sense to pass a law and put people in prison who disobey it. Poets would all be put it prison.

[John Cuthber]

----> Is there no entity policing the correct use of this language ?

No.

[Ophiolite]

The French have an institute that is meant to maintain the purity of the language. Yet the French still have "Le weekend" and "Le Jumbo Jet".

 

One of the key reasons English had become the lingua franca (there is irony for you) of the planet is that it is a vibrant language that has adapted to change rapidly and has welcomed new words from other languages, or created afresh.

 

So, if I search for the information, am I searching in a library, on-line, newspaper micro-fiche? If I google something, however, I am specifiying how I conducted that search. The language is enriched and improved.

 

You say the words 'laboratory'; 'identification'; 'abdominals' are gone ? Perhaps you are hanging out with the wrong sort of people. But what is so wrong, in an informal setting, going to work in the lab. I sometimes drop in on the mat. lab., but I write reports that include information from the materials laboratory.

 

You mention lunch. Surely you mean luncheon? Or is it that you are not opposed to all change? There are several terms for meals that vary with country and class. I was raised working class, so I had breakfast, dinner, tea and supper. The main meal was tea. If I had been middle class I would have had breakfast, lunch, dinner and supper. Or, if slighly higher on the class scale, breakfast, luncheon, high tea and supper. And if I was in India, during the Raj, I suppose you could throw in tiffin. So, what exactly concerns you in this expression of an adaptable, versatile language?

 

A female dog is a bitch and is so called by every dog owner I have ever met. It is also a useful descriptive for a female one dislikes, or a problem one faces. (Sometimes one and the same.) Again, I have no idea what you are objecting to.

 

True, we only have to look at some of the posts on this forum to know that not all people follow sound grammatical rules and usage. But that is less of a problem today than it was when few were literate. And please note, most of those problems arise from native English speakers. Someone like yourself, working in a foreign language, will make a serious efforts to follow the rules as far as possible. I admire and applaud that. It's the textspeak yobos that I have a problem with.

[studiot]

One of the most influential books of the 20th century was '1984', in which 'Newspeak' was introduced.

 

It is interesting that most of the ideas in 1984 have come to pass but by popular will of the people and created by private enterprise, not by authoritarian governments.

[CharonY]

In this context it is interesting to note that newspeak is a very reduced language aimed at the limitation of expression and forcing specific thought patterns. A constantly and freely evolving language would be almost the opposite to that.

Edited June 16, 2013 by CharonY

[studiot]

Ask any mobile dog user about Newspeak.

[D H]

'Dinner' replaced by 'lunch' -- Isn't that what kids take to school ?

Supper. What was that ?

City people eat lunch and dinner (or lunch and supper); the distinction between dinner and supper is either non-existent or is a matter which is more formal. A big midday meal would lead to people falling asleep at their desks. Country people eat dinner and supper. People whose workday starts at 4 or 5 AM need that big boost of energy that comes from a large midday dinner.

 

Except Sunday dinner. That's oftentimes a midday / afternoon meal across the US.

[studiot]

I like Ophiolite's analysis.

 

Dinner is the midday meal eaten at school by English schoolchildren.

 

It is served by English dinner ladies.

 

Strangely if the children take their own they take packed lunches in lunchboxes.

[StringJunky]

If you are going out to dinner, it is in the evening. If you are going out to lunch, it is about mid-day.

Edited June 16, 2013 by StringJunky

[D H]

If you are going out to dinner, it is in the evening. If you are going out to lunch, it is about mid-day.

 

Not necessarily. Which meal is "dinner" depends on where you live, what you do, and how you were raised. It's not "rotting English". It's that English has never been standardized.

 

 

Here's a good one: Doubt. "I have doubts about special relativity" takes on completely different meanings depending on the nationality of the speaker.

[ewmon]

Again, I have no idea what you are objecting to.

...

 

It's the textspeak yobos that I have a problem with.

 

Oh my, you apparently have no idea that you ended these sentences with prepositions! It's incomprehensible. It's reprehensible. Quelle domage! ^{– Read on}

 

Old English grammar allowed one to end sentences with prepositions. When William the Conqueror successfully conquered England, he brought his Norman nobles over from France to help him rule. French grammar did not (and still doesn't) allow one to end sentences with prepositions. Doing so was an abomination ... so lower class, so pedestrian. Blech! So, the English people gradually learned that "proper" English did not include prepositions at the ends of sentences. Only the common folk talked that way.

 

At least one member here apparently didn't get the memo on this. What do you think all those English classes in school were for?

[imatfaal]

Oh my, you apparently have no idea that you ended these sentences with prepositions! It's incomprehensible. It's reprehensible. Quelle domage! ^{Read on}

 

Old English grammar allowed one to end sentences with prepositions. When William the Conqueror successfully conquered England, he brought his Norman nobles over from France to help him rule. French grammar did not (and still doesn't) allow one to end sentences with prepositions. Doing so was an abomination ... so lower class, so pedestrian. Blech! So, the English people gradually learned that "proper" English did not include prepositions at the ends of sentences. Only the common folk talked that way.

 

At least one member here apparently didn't get the memo on this. What do you think all those English classes in school were for?

No-one, it is to be hoped, at this time of day, believes the old elementary-school doctrine, so assiduously instilled into pupils by several generations of teachers, that 'you should never end a sentence with a preposition'. In the face of so much evidence to the contrary it is amazing that it should ever have grown up and still more amazing that it should have persisted for so long.

The Place of the Preposition with Interrogative Pronouns and Adjectives - Frederick T Wood

ELT J (1958) XII (3): 86-94.

 

 

And the lovely quote from the man who spoke in aphorisms

This is the kind of English up with which I will not put.

[swansont]

Some quotes about the English language:

English was a language invented by Norman invaders to pick up Anglo-Saxon barmaids. It retains much of this character.

--- Either from H. Beam Piper or Paul Drye's English professor Peter Newman

English doesn't "pick up" loan words, it consciously stalks them.

--- Andrew Moffatt-Vallance

The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that the English language is as pure as a crib-house whore.

We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.

--- James D. Nicoll

[CaptainPanic]

One of the key reasons English had become the lingua franca (there is irony for you) of the planet is that it is a vibrant language that has adapted to change rapidly and has welcomed new words from other languages, or created afresh.

I can give you a whole bunch of reasons why English is the lingua franca of the day, none of which have much to do with its adaptability or evolution.

 

1. German, French and English competed for a while in Western Europe for the dominant business language.

2. The Americans, Canadians, British pretty much won WWII in the west. Their soldiers were based in the houses of ordinary folks in countries like the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark. This introduced English to everyone. Also, German wasn't too popular in those days.

3. Along came the big Hollywood productions and marketing of these movies. Add in the popular Beatles, Rolling Stones, Elvis, etc.

4. People got used to English more than German and French. This slowly tipped the scales.

5. Once English got ahead of the other languages, the rest went pretty fast.

6. Also, in the Western world, English was the dominant language since WWII in economic terms. The USA is the 1st economy (still is).

(Disclaimer: I am no historian, and anyone is free to disagree. I cannot back this up other than hearsay from older people in my direct surroundings).

 

I just wish that the English were as keen on changing their insane spelling rules as they are adopting new words and abbreviations.

[swansont]

 

6. Also, in the Western world, English was the dominant language since WWII in economic terms. The USA is the 1st economy (still is).

 

 

I think this may be #1. If you wanted to do business with the largest economy, you had to speak English.

[CaptainPanic]

I think this may be #1. If you wanted to do business with the largest economy, you had to speak English.

 

Yeah, I agree. The ranking I put in there was by no means a ranking of importance. If anything, it may have been somewhat historical ranking. Transatlantic business probably only got going in earnest in the 70's/80's.

 

Also:

 

7. The West won the Cold War, making a lot of East European countries switch in a very short time. Schools in countries like Romania or the Baltic states started teaching English pretty much over night after the Soviet union collapsed. People who had fled to the USA / UK just returned and started teaching English.

 

The bottom line is: all kinds of developments slowly increased the number of people that spoke English.

 

Note: we shouldn't forget that we're going off topic. This is about the evolution of English, not the reason it is the dominant language. If anyone feels the need to continue, maybe we should open a new thread (and link to or copy some posts from here).

[imatfaal]

I think this may be #1. If you wanted to do business with the largest economy, you had to speak English.

 

There is also the broking/facilitation aspect of London and New York; ie the use of English Law/London Courts in completely third party transactions, the use of New York banks as trusted intermediaries, the mercantile and shipping exchanges of both cities. The power of these cities as hubs of brokers led to many of the new asian business centres being those with a higher than average level of English (Singapore, Hong Kong, Shanghai etc...)

[krash661]

if you remove anthropocentric,

then what is real ?

[studiot]

Do they only teach post WWII these days in history?

 

Latin was the dominant language under Pax Roman and for some time afterwards.

 

English became the dominant language under Pax Britannica

 

And yes has continued so under Pax Americana

 

Interestingly English was adopted as the official language of China in the 1950s, making it the official language of more than half the world's population, even if they don't all speak it.

[CharonY]

Interestingly English was adopted as the official language of China in the 1950s, making it the official language of more than half the world's population, even if they don't all speak it.

 

This is news to me. to you have a reference? Hong Kong and some other territories have picked it up, but mainland China would be a big surprise to me. The single largest country with English as official language is, to my knowledge, India.

Edited June 17, 2013 by CharonY

[Externet]

...Note: we shouldn't forget that we're going off topic. This is about the evolution of English, ...

The aim was not the evolution, but the degeneration.

Suggesting that the English evolves by disrespecting it saddens me

[StringJunky]

The aim was not the evolution, but the degeneration.

Suggesting that the English evolves by disrespecting it saddens me

Evolution is the whole enchilada...progression and regression.

 

I am touched by your attachment to my mongrel-bitch native tongue...in reality it is verbal plasticine which moulds and morphs to fit the times. It's that very plasticity that's making it globally viral.

[Delta1212]

It's not rotting. It's fermenting into something more fun.

[Moontanman]

It's our fault, the Americans did it, we messed up the English language, if you don't believe me visit the Appalachian mountains or the southern US, it's all our fault...

Edited June 18, 2013 by Moontanman