Languages are always changed by the uneducated. Ain't that a fact!
Words like route are variously pronounced in the US as root and rout depending upon where you live. Creek is pronounced creek or crick. Roof is pronounce roof or rufh. Etcetera.
However 50 years of TV is having more effect on English than all other causes
in history. You would expect a professional speaker to know how to pronounce
the words he/she uses. Not so, it seems. Heck even advertisers mispronounce the
names of their products in their advertisements.
If one objects to ones language changing willy-nilly I suggest learning Ancient
Greek or Latin.
graywolf
http://www.graywolfphoto.com
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John Forbes wrote:
<old fart mode on> I have always considered it thus:
English is the language of England. The clue is in the name. English
has also for some time been the most popular language in the rest of
the British Isles. The language has been taken to other countries
through the vehicle of the British Empire, and over time has become
altered in many of these countries. These different versions are
dialects, and should be distinguished as such by a suitable
qualification, such as "Australian" English. There is no such thing as
British English; it is simply English.
There are, it is true, regional variations within the British Isles.
The Scots have a distinct vocabulary of their own (you can still hear
"wight" and "aye" in Scotland, and a female clerk is a clerkess).
As Bob, I think, pointed out, the biggest group of English speakers on
the planet is found in India. Indian English speakers use proper
spelling (rather than the American variant), and have imported many
words from local languages, of which one of the most common is "lakhs",
meaning a great many. A "lakh" correctly is 100,000. In turn, English
also has many Indian imports, such as bungalow, jodhpur, chutney, etc..
One interesting development in America is the way the pronunciation of
certain English words has changed quite recently. An educated American
would not I think have rhymed Moscow with cow until a few years ago,
and route was likewise not always rhymed with rout.
What saddens me, and many other old farts too, I expect, is that many
of these linguistic changes are not, as supporters claim, a sign of
richness or diversity, but of simple ignorance, stemming partly from
poor education and partly from incorrect usage by non-native speakers.
"Lense" is a case in point. "Specie" for "species" is another, and
"criteria" for "criterion" is a third. The worst is "media" for
"medium", as in "a media". The proponents of richness and diversity
claim this is just organic change; I say it is degeneration.
</old fart mode off>
John
On Fri, 27 May 2005 21:46:58 +0100, E.R.N. Reed <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Bob W wrote:
Hi,
*no such thing as "British" spelling. There's American English,
and then English used by everybody else in the English speaking
world. "British spelling" implies the non-American version is the
minority version, where in fact the opposite is true.
And that's my pet rant, guys!
ERNR
Well said! Mine too, and thanks for saying it. It DID need saying.
I'm sorry, but there is such a thing as British spelling, and British
English, and British English is a minority variety (I think Indian
English
has the most speakers). There are also such things as Jamaican
English, Australian English, Canadian
English, African American English, Scots English, Estuary English, ... I
could go on. Each of them has its own spelling varieties too.
As I said in my response to Graywolf, I was strictly referring to
SPELLING and to my knowledge are two standards of spelling in English.
Accents, slang, pronunciation and the use of different words for the
same object (e.g. lorry vs. truck) are not included in spelling.
By "spelling" I mean cheque vs. check, tire vs. tyre, and is there a
"u" in colour, honour, armour, etc., and where do you put the R in
centre?
Anyway I can knock at least one example off your list. Standard
English spelling in Jamaica is the one that Americans refer to as
"British" spelling.
(The fact that neither major Jamaican newspaper seems to employ a
copy editor does not imply a different spelling standard.)
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