I shall say this more than once

i saw 'Dokatmomik' in the thread list as the next reply and new EXACTLY what sort of post you had written.

lighten up my friend! (nobody called you a snob.... '?!huh?')
and give me some credit. I teach English for fuck's* sake. I KNOW everything you've just sanctimoniously stated.
After teaching it for a while you see the osmosis and evolution taking place before your eyes. You let go of the hang ups.
I find conservationists funny. Perhaps they all want to live in jars of vinegar under a dome at 15.39degrees C.

*a versatile word i don't teach.

 

oh, and yes, i agree, no worries, it is usually a good idea if its practitioners understand it in the first instance.

 

On the subject of big literary chaps, Oscar Wilde had a good deal to say about pedantry and how it's essential to keep things in order otherwise eventually people won't have a clue what each other is saying.

Languages have rules, and call me a snob, but people who can't use a language properly are either stupid because they don't know how to, or more likely they're stupid because they think that they don't have to.

It all starts with a few popular misconceptions, then you get people trying to write school essay using SMS abbreviations, spelling and grammar all over the place, Americanisms everywhere.

We're already getting foreigners learning english incorrectly because of the linguistical crimes committed all over the internet and television and american cinema.

Those of us in Britian ought to be wanting to protect our language. As the more international it becomes, the more corrupt it is getting. And the more corrupt it becomes the less chance there's going to be of any great english literature to come in the future. You can wave goodbye to any chance of seeing the next Shakespeare.

Also why do you cite Shakespeare to the reference of English as it was at first? There was English before shakespeare as it happens, there was Chaucer, and there was English before Chaucer too. But Shakespeare's roughly the earliest form of Modern English, or close to it anyway. There isn't much literature written before that that we can easily understand without studying it, and even in Shakespeare you miss bits and pieces without studying it.

In any case, I dont' see what point you are trying to make about Shakespeare. He didn't stick to the rules anyway, he made up a huge number of words that are commonplace in today's language. He used the language of his time (albeit whilst taking a fair few liberties) and we should be using our language as it is today.

England is the home of English, just as Grenwich is the home of time-keeping, and English speakers should be following the language as it evolves in the home counties. Americans can do what they like, but they need to realise that the language that they speak is not the same as standard English, and the chinese/japanese/continentals and all the rest of it need to realise this too.

And whether you're English/American or anything else, you can't just change the spelling of words because you want to. Unfortunately America have already done this with a fair few words, but they haven't touched definitely yet, so let's keep it that way.

 

American British
color colour
favorite favourite
neighbor neighbour

 

I saw 'dharmamillo' in the thread list as the next reply and knew (except I used the correct spelling ) EXACTLY what sort of post you had written.

The implication when you refer to 'word snobbery' is that those of us who believe in good grammar and spelling are... well.. snobs.

First things first. For someone who teaches English, you don't actually appear to understand the meaning of the words you use. A person is only sanctimonious if their adherence to an idea is an affectation, or fake. Given that the correct use of language is something in which I believe passionately, your use of the word sanctimonious is incorrect in this instance. Perhaps you should choose your insults a little more carefully?

Secondly, lighten up my friend

Thirdly, you may very well "know everything that I've just stated", but that wasn't what came across in your post. I can only go on what you write!

I agree entirely with this perspective. Language changes and evolves, or it wouldn't be the English we use today. Trying to artificially freeze it in its current incarnation is ludicrous. However, that wasn't the case you were making in your original post......

 

Wow. I did not know that grammar was such a heated subject.

 

Welcome to England

It's just that we're all scared that we'll end up like Bush.....

 

You're barely scratching the surface. Let me add a few more to that list

American, English

meter, metre
center, centre
realize, realise
mold, mould, (we actually pronounce it mould as well, the difference is very subtle but it's there)
aluminum, aluminium,
check, cheque (as in money - we use check to mean examine)
coliseum, colosseum,

that's not all of it, but covers most of the most common ones.

By the way - another thing that bothers me is people using apostrophes far too often, when they shouldn't. 'Its' is one example, but most simple plurals seem to get apostrophes thrown in as well. I think this one though is mainly due to muscle memory in typing - people are in the habit of an s following automatically more ofthen than not when they type apostrophes, so they find themselves putting in the apostrophe out of habit before each s they type. It's a mistake that is far less often seen in handwriting - with the word its being the exception for that.

 

Let's not forget:

Terrorist - freedom fighter.

 

politican = ?

 

realize is supposed to be spelt REALIZE in proper English! It stems from Ancient Greek and thus keeps the Zeta (z) whereas words that stem from Latin keep the S. The above mistake is a prime example of people obsessed with "English spelling" not looking "American" just because Americans converted some words to have a z, all words that originally have a z are now being labeled wrong. In fact it has gotten to the point where "realise" is accepted as proper spelling of the world as well as "realize" - the correct one.


Anyway, I don't particularly care either way, but I do hate it when people mis-use the subjunctive.

 

you've just opened up a whole pandora's box by including incorrect meanings.

here are some others - these are all words that we use in English but with completely different meanings.


American meanings:

smart - clever
mad - cross
regular - ordinary
momentarily - soon
billion - a thousand million
pavement - road

English meanings:

smart - well-dressed/tidy
mad - insane
regular - recurring after constant intervals or at otherwise predictable times
momentarily - for a short time
billion - a million million
pavement - the paved area on which one walks either side of a road

 

Actually I put 'realise' in my american spellchecker that I use all the time and it said that 'realize' was the appropriate spelling. Whatever it says is the correct spelling is what I use because I am a horrible speller.


Peace

 

Might I point out, in that case, that should we be going down that route, well gotten is an out-moded perfect participle of get that is no longer used in standard english, words like honour and favour derive from the latin words honor and favor, and words such as centre and metre, whilst ultimately coming from latin, have reached us via French. English is quite a melting pot. Similarly, there are plenty of greek words that have come into English, not straight from greek, but via latin, and you don't see a lot of Zs in latin. I'm pretty sure that latin adopted the greek word and that realise reached us that way. There are plenty of other greek derivative words in English that aren't direct transliterations from the greek. Plenty from latin too for that matter, it doesn't mean that they're not spelt correctly.

 

For those of you who are big on spell checkers, here's a poem I once found.

Eye halve a spelling chequer, it came with my pea sea;

It plainly marques four my revue miss steaks eye kin knot sea.

Eye strike a key and type a word and weight four it two say

Weather eye am wrong or write, it shows me strait a weigh.

As soon as a mist ache is made it nose bee fore two long.

And eye can put the error rite, it's rare lea ever wrong.

Eye have run this poem threw it and I'm shore your pleased two no

It's letter perfect awl the weigh,

My chequer tolled me sew.

 

For those of you who are big on spell checkers, here's a poem I once found.

I’ll have a spell checker, it came with my PC;

It plainly marks my mistakes that I can not see.

I strike a key and type a word and wait for it to say

Whether I am wrong or right, it will show me right a way.

As soon as a mistake is made it knows before too long.

And I can put the error right, it's rarely ever wrong.

I have run this poem through it and I'm sure your pleased to know

It's letter perfect all the way,

My checker told me so.

 

There is no such word as favor in Latin. There's faveo is that what you mean? All I'm saying is that what I said are actually recognised spelling laws that people don't bother paying attention to anymore. And gotten is not outdated.


To be honest the above post was a load of bullshit. I'm not making a personal attack or anything like that, I do realize that you are trying to be logical in what you are saying, but your argument has no Linguistic evidence what so ever. If you look in an etymological Dictionary you will see that 'realize' is derrived srtaight from Greek and that is how it is supposed to be spelt.

 

favor in latin is a noun. faveo is the verb I favour (or I give favour to).

 

sorry my bad.

 

no worries. On the subject of preserving language - I hear these are sad times up in your neck of the woods, what with the Scots dialect all but dying out, to the point of being used even less than Gallic.