Stevertigo writes:
I think this is nonsense. Proper English is a product of specialization. English is not the property of English speakers, but a lingua franca that everyone owns.
Pseudo-academic, pseudo-egalitarian nonsense. That's the same kind of talk that has damaged the education of much of the inner-city youth in America. Only in the last decade have educators finally had the nerve to attack this point of view, and to correct the course that our schools were making.
Frankly, it is also racist in effect. This kind of attitude has created two generations of poorly educated Hispanic and Black youth in American cities. I couldn't think of a better plan for the KKK to promote if they want to keep racism alive forever.
Hence, its destined to become simplified phonetic - scratch that - fonetic speling iz tha furst thing laikli tu hapen tu English - or it should. Someday soon.
This isn't about ownership, racism or colonialism. It is about writing article in English, for people who speak English.
And frankly, many of our articles are being damaged by people with good intentions, but who have poor English reading or writing skills (or both.)
In Stevertigo's bizarre universe, it is egalitarian to encourage this illiteracy, which in the end would produce unreadable articles. In our universe, we are trying to ecudate an English speaking audience.
It is your choice what kind of encyclopedia we should try to produce. I know which path I prefer.
Robert (RK)
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Robert
Pseudo-academic, pseudo-egalitarian nonsense. That's the same kind of talk that has damaged the education of much of the inner-city youth in America.
Robert, if noone else will say it - I will. Youre so full of crap. Thank you very much for listening.
Frankly, it is also racist in effect. This kind of attitude has created two generations of poorly educated Hispanic and Black youth in American cities. I couldn't think of a better plan for the KKK to promote if they want to keep racism alive forever.
God, what horrible garbage.
And frankly, many of our articles are being damaged by people with good intentions, but who have poor English reading or writing skills (or both.)
Oh, God, what a crapload.
In Stevertigo's bizarre universe, it is egalitarian to encourage this illiteracy, which in the end would produce unreadable articles. In our universe, we are trying to ecudate an English speaking audience.
Well, cutting through all of Robert's crap - the one VALID point he makes (underneath all the crap, acrimony, etc...) is that a common language should'nt go willy nilly in different directions. But it's fucking elitist as tea-sipping lessons to dictate what is "proper" in most contexts - because you personally dont own it - whether it be a religion or a language.
Americans and Englishmen are a minority of English speakers. Toby(I think) made a valid point that there is already a page calling attention to pages in need of a rewrite - the problem is that people do what they are interested in. (And most pages are in need of a "rewrite" - whether its a complete hack job - or a little comma is missing somewhere.)
If people with little teeny tiny sphincters want to take it upon themselves to focus like a lynch mob on poor, unsuspecting Bengalis, fine. But dont bitch when I pull the hoods off your heads. Wanna correct the bad English? - DO IT. But dont come here talking about instituting ideologies that are fundamentally elitist.
WikiLove be upon you, Kaiser
- Steven MacGrieves
Often, it is difficult for even the educated to speak in perfect English, as in: *Neither the kids nor Michael (likes/like) to go to the park now that they use Wikipedia. *One in six people (uses/use) a peer-to-peer network. (I put my guesses in bold). My mom and I can't definitively tell which one is right. For these, it is a matter of which grammarian you talk to. If you insist on perfect grammar, something like this may cause excessive back-and fourth editing, maybe even an edit war. I'm just thinking worst-case-scenario.
Stevertigo stevertigo@attbi.com wrote: Robert
Pseudo-academic, pseudo-egalitarian nonsense. That's the same kind of talk that has damaged the education of much of the inner-city youth in America.
Robert, if noone else will say it - I will. Youre so full of crap. Thank you very much for listening.
Frankly, it is also racist in effect. This kind of attitude has created two generations of poorly educated Hispanic and Black youth in American cities. I couldn't think of a better plan for the KKK to promote if they want to keep racism alive forever.
God, what horrible garbage.
And frankly, many of our articles are being damaged by people with good intentions, but who have poor English reading or writing skills (or both.)
Oh, God, what a crapload.
In Stevertigo's bizarre universe, it is egalitarian to encourage this illiteracy, which in the end would produce unreadable articles. In our universe, we are trying to ecudate an English speaking audience.
Well, cutting through all of Robert's crap - the one VALID point he makes (underneath all the crap, acrimony, etc...) is that a common language should'nt go willy nilly in different directions. But it's fucking elitist as tea-sipping lessons to dictate what is "proper" in most contexts - because you personally dont own it - whether it be a religion or a language.
Americans and Englishmen are a minority of English speakers. Toby(I think) made a valid point that there is already a page calling attention to pages in need of a rewrite - the problem is that people do what they are interested in. (And most pages are in need of a "rewrite" - whether its a complete hack job - or a little comma is missing somewhere.)
If people with little teeny tiny sphincters want to take it upon themselves to focus like a lynch mob on poor, unsuspecting Bengalis, fine. But dont bitch when I pull the hoods off your heads. Wanna correct the bad English? - DO IT. But dont come here talking about instituting ideologies that are fundamentally elitist.
WikiLove be upon you, Kaiser
- Steven MacGrieves
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-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1
Daniel Ehrenberg wrote: | Often, it is difficult for even the educated to speak in perfect | English, as in: | *Neither the kids nor Michael (*likes*/like) to go to the park now that | they use Wikipedia. | *One in six people (*uses*/use) a peer-to-peer network. | (I put my guesses in bold). My mom and I can't definitively tell which | one is right. For these, it is a matter of which grammarian you talk to.
Bah. The /right/ answers are obvious: * Michael and the kids prefer Wikipedia to the park. * Peer-to-peer networks are used by about one-sixth of all people.
(Seriously, your first guess is wrong -- and Michael should be mentioned before the kids -- and your second guess correct. I would be astonished if you found any authority that disagrees.)
- -- ~ Sean Barrett ~ sean@epoptic.com
LittleDan wrote:
*Neither the kids nor Michael (likes/like) to go to the park now that they use Wikipedia.
Plural beats singular, so "like". (I'm not positive that every authority would agree, but this is what I've always known.)
*One in six people (uses/use) a peer-to-peer network.
The noun is "one", with "people" merely part of an adjectival preposition, so "uses". (I'm positive about this one.)
It's not enough to know the right answer; you must know why! ^_^
(I put my guesses in bold). My mom and I can't definitively tell which one is right. For these, it is a matter of which grammarian you talk to. If you insist on perfect grammar, something like this may cause excessive back-and fourth editing, maybe even an edit war. I'm just thinking worst-case-scenario.
Indeed, should such an edit war come up, we'd need to remember not to sweat the small stuff. Even the species capitalisation is important primarily because it affects naming conventions.
-- Toby
--- Stevertigo stevertigo@attbi.com wrote:
Robert
Pseudo-academic, pseudo-egalitarian nonsense.
That's the
same kind of talk that has damaged the education
of much of
the inner-city youth in America.
Robert, if noone else will say it - I will. Youre so full of crap. Thank you very much for listening.
Frankly, it is also racist in effect. This kind of
attitude
has created two generations of poorly educated
Hispanic and
Black youth in American cities. I couldn't think
of a
better plan for the KKK to promote if they want
to keep
racism alive forever.
God, what horrible garbage.
And frankly, many of our articles are being
damaged by
people with good intentions, but who have poor
English
reading or writing skills (or both.)
Oh, God, what a crapload.
In Stevertigo's bizarre universe, it is
egalitarian to
encourage this illiteracy, which in the end would
produce
unreadable articles. In our universe, we are
trying to
ecudate an English speaking audience.
Well, cutting through all of Robert's crap - the one VALID point he makes (underneath all the crap, acrimony, etc...) is that a common language should'nt go willy nilly in different directions. But it's fucking elitist as tea-sipping lessons to dictate what is "proper" in most contexts - because you personally dont own it - whether it be a religion or a language.
Americans and Englishmen are a minority of English speakers. Toby(I think) made a valid point that there is already a page calling attention to pages in need of a rewrite - the problem is that people do what they are interested in. (And most pages are in need of a "rewrite" - whether its a complete hack job - or a little comma is missing somewhere.)
If people with little teeny tiny sphincters want to take it upon themselves to focus like a lynch mob on poor, unsuspecting Bengalis, fine. But dont bitch when I pull the hoods off your heads. Wanna correct the bad English? - DO IT. But dont come here talking about instituting ideologies that are fundamentally elitist.
WikiLove be upon you, Kaiser
- Steven MacGrieves
I would like to add a couple more words to the subject
The word "english-speaking" is misleading. Wikipedia is for english-speaking clearly, but here, english-speaking does mean any person able to understand english, not native english-speaking person. In that sense, english wikipedia is for english people is true, if it encompass any person able to read english. It should not limit itself to native english only. You guys should be proud. So many of us are using your language now. Even when no native-english is around, if that is the best for us to communicate. I agree wikipedia should be properly written. I just don't know along which standards, I always failed to find a grammar book for your language, as French language has. But in any case, the language escaped you. English language is not only the language of native english. It is also ours. Maybe, is it an international english.
I know quite well I am part of this terminology gap.
I am fully aware of my limitations. Which is why I never participate in writing meta pages on en (which I do a lot on fr), as I know people are very keen in having those very properly written. Which is also why I very rarely refactor other people prose; I add, I sometimes remove, I create mostly. This way, I try to avoid people from accusing me of "damaging" their work and letting an article in poorer shape than it was before my input. I basically only create because I think "not very good" is better than "no article" at all.
I also several times asked other people to review my work, and usually people did so very kindly. I must say I don't really appreciate that some mention in the comment box that "obviously this has been written by an non-english and needs much work" and then leave without doing more than correcting a typo. If someone is willing to go through all my major contributions to clean up after me, it is all listed on my page and old contributions page.
I know quite well Robert is including me in these people who should be elsewhere than here, as he suggested a couple of times that I should quit wikipedia if not being able to read and express myself properly in english.
That is one of the reasons why, I quit trying to do anythink on the knowledge article, being aware it would risk again being considered vandalism as he said I was guilty on the gaia articles.
Now, I have some doubts. I see that he is doing the same with the next contributor he is sharing an article with. Similarly, while in disagreement with him,
see http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Talk:Knowledge&diff=1017714&...
He is using the supposed "inability to understand and speak english" to bully people he does not agree with.
This is so embarassing
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Anthère wrote in small part:
http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Talk:Knowledge&diff=1017714&...
That's a very interesting diff that you have there, Anthère.
-- Toby
I have had quite a bit of experience in trying to communicate with Chinese native speakers, including some from the mainland, who are trying to use English. I have always valued that communication regardless of the various difficulties that we have encountered with syntax and grammar. On the whole regardless of whatever difficulties this communication is especially valuable to everyone concerned.
To crab up and fall into a negative posture is simply rude beyond words. In the case of Wikipedia articles I can't imagine a more productive situation than a free-flowing and respectful relationship with the fluent English speaker sometimes editing a bit for syntax and the native Chinese speaker grounding material in Chinese reality. It's always worth the trouble.
Fred
Of course, but a non-native speaker shouldn't repeatedly force his incorrect grammar onto wikipedia after it has already been fixed by a native english speaker.
--- Fred Bauder fredbaud@ctelco.net wrote:
I have had quite a bit of experience in trying to communicate with Chinese native speakers, including some from the mainland, who are trying to use English. I have always valued that communication regardless of the various difficulties that we have encountered with syntax and grammar. On the whole regardless of whatever difficulties this communication is especially valuable to everyone concerned.
To crab up and fall into a negative posture is simply rude beyond words. In the case of Wikipedia articles I can't imagine a more productive situation than a free-flowing and respectful relationship with the fluent English speaker sometimes editing a bit for syntax and the native Chinese speaker grounding material in Chinese reality. It's always worth the trouble.
Fred
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
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Not to minimize what you're saying, but this problem extends beyond non-native English speakers. Before I joined Wikipedia as anonymous56789, I had a different username (which I now can't remember. After that, I quit wikipedia for a year and then rejoined). Anyway, I didn't know as much about grammar and spelling back then, and I was rudely told I didn't know English well enough (or something like that) to contribute to an encyclopedia like this. This may have happened to more kids than me, too.
If you find the subtlties of English daunting (not that you are unintelligent in any way), you could help with the simple english wikipedia. It attempts to use only the 1000 most common words in English to create an encyclopedia. It still uses the UseMod software, though.
By the way, why haven't all of the wikis been upgraded yet?
--- Anthere anthere6@yahoo.com wrote:
--- Stevertigo stevertigo@attbi.com wrote:
Robert
Pseudo-academic, pseudo-egalitarian nonsense.
That's the
same kind of talk that has damaged the education
of much of
the inner-city youth in America.
Robert, if noone else will say it - I will. Youre
so
full of crap. Thank you very much for listening.
Frankly, it is also racist in effect. This kind
of
attitude
has created two generations of poorly educated
Hispanic and
Black youth in American cities. I couldn't think
of a
better plan for the KKK to promote if they want
to keep
racism alive forever.
God, what horrible garbage.
And frankly, many of our articles are being
damaged by
people with good intentions, but who have poor
English
reading or writing skills (or both.)
Oh, God, what a crapload.
In Stevertigo's bizarre universe, it is
egalitarian to
encourage this illiteracy, which in the end
would
produce
unreadable articles. In our universe, we are
trying to
ecudate an English speaking audience.
Well, cutting through all of Robert's crap - the
one
VALID point he makes (underneath all the crap, acrimony, etc...) is
that
a common language should'nt go willy nilly in different directions. But it's fucking elitist as tea-sipping lessons to dictate what is "proper" in most contexts - because you personally dont own it - whether it be
a
religion or a language.
Americans and Englishmen are a minority of English speakers. Toby(I think) made a valid point that there is already a page calling attention to pages in need of a rewrite - the problem is that people
do
what they are interested in. (And most pages are in need of a "rewrite" -
whether
its a complete hack job - or a little comma is missing somewhere.)
If people with little teeny tiny sphincters want
to
take it upon themselves to focus like a lynch mob on poor, unsuspecting Bengalis, fine. But dont bitch when I pull the hoods off your heads. Wanna correct the bad English? - DO IT. But dont come here talking about
instituting
ideologies that are fundamentally elitist.
WikiLove be upon you, Kaiser
- Steven MacGrieves
I would like to add a couple more words to the subject
The word "english-speaking" is misleading. Wikipedia is for english-speaking clearly, but here, english-speaking does mean any person able to understand english, not native english-speaking person. In that sense, english wikipedia is for english people is true, if it encompass any person able to read english. It should not limit itself to native english only. You guys should be proud. So many of us are using your language now. Even when no native-english is around, if that is the best for us to communicate. I agree wikipedia should be properly written. I just don't know along which standards, I always failed to find a grammar book for your language, as French language has. But in any case, the language escaped you. English language is not only the language of native english. It is also ours. Maybe, is it an international english.
I know quite well I am part of this terminology gap.
I am fully aware of my limitations. Which is why I never participate in writing meta pages on en (which I do a lot on fr), as I know people are very keen in having those very properly written. Which is also why I very rarely refactor other people prose; I add, I sometimes remove, I create mostly. This way, I try to avoid people from accusing me of "damaging" their work and letting an article in poorer shape than it was before my input. I basically only create because I think "not very good" is better than "no article" at all.
I also several times asked other people to review my work, and usually people did so very kindly. I must say I don't really appreciate that some mention in the comment box that "obviously this has been written by an non-english and needs much work" and then leave without doing more than correcting a typo. If someone is willing to go through all my major contributions to clean up after me, it is all listed on my page and old contributions page.
I know quite well Robert is including me in these people who should be elsewhere than here, as he suggested a couple of times that I should quit wikipedia if not being able to read and express myself properly in english.
That is one of the reasons why, I quit trying to do anythink on the knowledge article, being aware it would risk again being considered vandalism as he said I was guilty on the gaia articles.
Now, I have some doubts. I see that he is doing the same with the next contributor he is sharing an article with. Similarly, while in disagreement with him,
see
http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Talk:Knowledge&diff=1017714&...
He is using the supposed "inability to understand and speak english" to bully people he does not agree with.
This is so embarassing
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On Tue, 10 Jun 2003, Daniel Ehrenberg wrote:
By the way, why haven't all of the wikis been upgraded yet?
I believe this message to wikipedia-l sums it up: http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2003-June/010482.html
(OT: I notice that earlier in this thread you expressed some interest in English spelling reform. If you haven't already, you might check out the Shaw alphabet -- http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shavian_alphabet . A dead end, perhaps, but an interesting story in its right.)
-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
Robert wrote:
Stevertigo writes:
I think this is nonsense. Proper English is a product of specialization. English is not the property of English speakers, but a lingua franca that everyone owns.
Pseudo-academic, pseudo-egalitarian nonsense. That's the same kind of talk that has damaged the education of much of the inner-city youth in America.
Frankly, it is also racist in effect. This kind of attitude has created two generations of poorly educated Hispanic and Black youth in American cities. I couldn't think of a better plan for the KKK to promote if they want to keep racism alive forever.
Hence, its destined to become simplified phonetic - scratch that - fonetic speling iz tha furst thing laikli tu hapen tu English - or it should. Someday soon.
This isn't about ownership, racism or colonialism. It is about writing article in English, for people who speak English.
And frankly, many of our articles are being damaged by people with good intentions, but who have poor English reading or writing skills (or both.)
Even though I may often differ with some other Wikipedians about just what is correct English (notably lately over over-capitalization), I am strongly in support of using good English. If people want to persist in pseudo-phonetic renderings of the language let them do so on the yet-to-be-created ebonics Wikipedia. Language is also about a cultural continuity that includes Mark Twain just as much as Shakespeare. A generation that grows up on these fanciful spellings is well on the way to breaking its link with a cultural continuity. That's the cost of such dumbing down.
Ec
Not only that, but our "proper" English isn't phonetic either. Our spelling is probably the most irregular of any language. I've actually been comming up with a completely phonetic rendering of English that uses only lower-cased roman letters, unlike other schemes like IPA and SAMPA. It also takes fewer letters for most words than the usual spelling. Perhaps it would work better than a pseudo-phonetic scheme to indicate accent. Below is this passage written in that scheme in my accent.
Nat onli yat, bqt auqr "prapqr" Xnglxc xznxt fqnetxk iyqr. Auqr spelxing xz prabxbli yq most xregiulqr qv eni laenguxdj.
Wow. That's really time consuming. Maybe not.
--LittleDan
Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote: Robert wrote:
Stevertigo writes:
I think this is nonsense. Proper English is a product of specialization. English is not the property of English speakers, but a lingua franca that everyone owns.
Pseudo-academic, pseudo-egalitarian nonsense. That's the same kind of talk that has damaged the education of much of the inner-city youth in America.
Frankly, it is also racist in effect. This kind of attitude has created two generations of poorly educated Hispanic and Black youth in American cities. I couldn't think of a better plan for the KKK to promote if they want to keep racism alive forever.
Hence, its destined to become simplified phonetic - scratch that - fonetic speling iz tha furst thing laikli tu hapen tu English - or it should. Someday soon.
This isn't about ownership, racism or colonialism. It is about writing article in English, for people who speak English.
And frankly, many of our articles are being damaged by people with good intentions, but who have poor English reading or writing skills (or both.)
Even though I may often differ with some other Wikipedians about just what is correct English (notably lately over over-capitalization), I am strongly in support of using good English. If people want to persist in pseudo-phonetic renderings of the language let them do so on the yet-to-be-created ebonics Wikipedia. Language is also about a cultural continuity that includes Mark Twain just as much as Shakespeare. A generation that grows up on these fanciful spellings is well on the way to breaking its link with a cultural continuity. That's the cost of such dumbing down.
Ec
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RK wrote:
Stevertigo wrote:
I think this is nonsense. Proper English is a product of specialization. English is not the property of English speakers, but a lingua franca that everyone owns.
I didn't respond to this in my other post, so that I could respond to RK as well. I'm at a loss to interpret your claim "English is not the property of English speakers". You might well argue that not all English speakers live in the US and the British Commonwealth (you refer later to Bangladeshis, for example), but surely nobody but English speakers uses English? Where is the claim to it by those that don't use it? And where is their claim to the English Wikipedia?
Pseudo-academic, pseudo-egalitarian nonsense. That's the same kind of talk that has damaged the education of much of the inner-city youth in America. Only in the last decade have educators finally had the nerve to attack this point of view, and to correct the course that our schools were making.
I don't know how to interpret this either, however. One might try reading [[Ebonics]] for some facts first, but I'm not even sure if this is what RK's talking about.
Frankly, it is also racist in effect. This kind of attitude has created two generations of poorly educated Hispanic and Black youth in American cities. I couldn't think of a better plan for the KKK to promote if they want to keep racism alive forever.
The Booker T. Washington plan for avoiding "racism" in a society (for our purposes, belief in the relative worth of different races) by embracing "culturism" (mutatis mutandis) within a society. Cultural diversity is a wonderful thing, and it'd be a shame to lose any of it (from hip hop to the habitual tense) out of a desire to (as they say) "act white".
I actually agree with what seems to be an implicit premise of yours: Adopting the trappings of mainstream society helps oppressed people become better off. And oppressed people will always do this as they see the need; I'm hardly in a position to criticise them for it. But the world will be worse off for losing its subcultures, and the onus is on the oppressors to make such loss unnecessary.
Of course I disagree with what seems to be another implict premise, that failing to adopt, or even know, the trappings of mainstream society is necessarily a sign of "poor education".
And frankly, many of our articles are being damaged by people with good intentions, but who have poor English reading or writing skills (or both.)
Except for the user that refuses to accept correction in certain articles on Chinese matters (which sounds more about cooperation than English usage), how is anybody making our articles *worse*? Good content in bad prose is better than bad content in good prose. And if JTDirl comes along and improves the prose too -- then we're much better off than if they never wrote anything!
The solution is JTDirl's page to report bad writing -- which can begin as soon as [[Wikipedia:Votes for rewrite]] is cleaned up, or even earlier if he wants to create a new utilities page -- not to avoid the creation of the bad writing to begin with.
In Stevertigo's bizarre universe, it is egalitarian to encourage this illiteracy, which in the end would produce unreadable articles. In our universe, we are trying to ecudate an English speaking audience.
As I read it, SV implied that he'd standardise the English on Wikipedia. And despite what I've said above, I couldn't support any other plan, because we are in fact writing in standard English -- more precisely, that English that is widely understood around the world. Using AAVE or Bangladeshi dialect would limit our audience, and *that's* why we should rewrite such into standard English -- even though standard English is no more correct or educated.
It is your choice what kind of encyclopedia we should try to produce. I know which path I prefer.
Despite the arguments over theoretical matters and value judgements, it's not clear to me that *any* of us would produce different encyclopædias.
-- Toby
I don't know what you're reffering to as 'standard english'. There are many forms of English. First, there's American English, British English, Australian English, and Irish English. Then each country has its legalese, which might be regarded as official english. Then, within American English, there are several similar gramatical dialects that states create for the purpose of standardised testing (oops, I can't spell like that on the test, that's the British spelling) and each state has its own dialect of the national legalese. --LittleDan
Toby Bartels toby+wikipedia@math.ucr.edu wrote: As I read it, SV implied that he'd standardise the English on Wikipedia. And despite what I've said above, I couldn't support any other plan, because we are in fact writing in standard English -- more precisely, that English that is widely understood around the world. Using AAVE or Bangladeshi dialect would limit our audience, and *that's* why we should rewrite such into standard English -- even though standard English is no more correct or educated.
-- Toby
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LittleDan wrote:
I don't know what you're referring to as 'standard english'.
It's an imprecise term. But I explained it in the text that you quoted:
more precisely, that English that is widely understood around the world.
To be sure, *that* is still imprecise! But it's a reasonable goal for us, and any further arguments should be directed towards that goal, IMO.
There are many forms of English. First, there's American English, British English, Australian English, and Irish English. Then each country has its legalese, which might be regarded as official english.
Legalese is quite irrelevant. I said "standard", not "official"!
Then, within American English, there are several similar gramatical dialects that states create for the purpose of standardised testing (oops, I can't spell like that on the test, that's the British spelling)
Yes, those are awful!
and each state has its own dialect of the national legalese.
-- Toby
Toby wrote: "English is not the property of English speakers". You might well argue that not all English speakers live in the US and the British Commonwealth
Yea I meant "property of "native" English speakers. Its a mandatory 2nd language around the world, and yadda....
RK:Pseudo-academic, pseudo-egalitarian nonsense. That's the same kind of talk that has damaged the education of much of the inner-city youth in America. Only in the last decade have educators finally had the nerve to attack this point of view, and to correct the course that our schools were making.
Toby:Of course I disagree with what seems to be another implict premise, that failing to adopt, or even know, the trappings of mainstream society is necessarily a sign of "poor education".
Brilliant. Toby is cutting through the crap like a snowplow today.
Toby: Despite the arguments over theoretical matters and value judgements, it's not clear to me that *any* of us would produce different
encyclopædias.
Yeah, I did go off a bit - and in retrospect, I regret my haste - Jay's announcement framed essentially "Im in an Edit war with a Chinese guy who cant write English." As "lets make a point of singling out foreigners who cant write English like the Queen does." A very hasty and unthought response - that was perhaps better expressed as a question of intent. Apo.... to James, and even Robert.
We all do have to clean up our points - thank you Dan, Toby, others for being bearers of the torch...
SM
Awlthoh that wuznt reelee fuhnehtik, I agree with Steverigo in priciple. The only problem is that we are trying to create an encyclopedia (not insyklohpeedeeuh) that is, in most ways, similar to others. That's really what it comes down to. If you want to convince Fred that Internet-encyclopedia should use pseudo-phonetic spelling, then fine. Stevertigo isn't trying to promote illiteracy, he's trying to do a very noble thing to start a movement to make English more regular and accessable. Actually, I'm trying to do the same thing. It would be nice to collaborate with Steveritigo on first making English easier and then making a wikipedia in that language. --LittleDan
Robert rkscience100@yahoo.com wrote: Stevertigo writes:
I think this is nonsense. Proper English is a product of specialization. English is not the property of English speakers, but a lingua franca that everyone owns.
Pseudo-academic, pseudo-egalitarian nonsense. That's the same kind of talk that has damaged the education of much of the inner-city youth in America. Only in the last decade have educators finally had the nerve to attack this point of view, and to correct the course that our schools were making.
Frankly, it is also racist in effect. This kind of attitude has created two generations of poorly educated Hispanic and Black youth in American cities. I couldn't think of a better plan for the KKK to promote if they want to keep racism alive forever.
Hence, its destined to become simplified phonetic - scratch that - fonetic speling iz tha furst thing laikli tu hapen tu English - or it should. Someday soon.
This isn't about ownership, racism or colonialism. It is about writing article in English, for people who speak English.
And frankly, many of our articles are being damaged by people with good intentions, but who have poor English reading or writing skills (or both.)
In Stevertigo's bizarre universe, it is egalitarian to encourage this illiteracy, which in the end would produce unreadable articles. In our universe, we are trying to ecudate an English speaking audience.
It is your choice what kind of encyclopedia we should try to produce. I know which path I prefer.
Robert (RK)
--------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Free online calendar with sync to Outlook(TM).
At 06:10 PM 6/9/03 -0700, Daniel Ehrenberg wrote:
Awlthoh that wuznt reelee fuhnehtik, I agree with Steverigo in priciple. The only problem is that we are trying to create an encyclopedia (not insyklohpeedeeuh) that is, in most ways, similar to others. That's really what it comes down to. If you want to convince Fred that Internet-encyclopedia should use pseudo-phonetic spelling, then fine. Stevertigo isn't trying to promote illiteracy, he's trying to do a very noble thing to start a movement to make English more regular and accessable. Actually, I'm trying to do the same thing. It would be nice to collaborate with Steveritigo on first making English easier and then making a wikipedia in that language.
The problem with phonetic spelling is, always, whose dialect? The Texan one that Molly Ivins renders by spelling business "bidness"? New York, with our wondrous mix of four centuries of languages and accents? Glaswegian? A friend of mine was greatly confused when someone told her that "The mile is on strike"--she wondered what that meant, and whether they could use kilometers instead, before realizing that while she'd heard "mile", her Australian friend had meant "mail."
As for making English easier, the language has the momentum of a billion speakers. Efforts at standardizing on any simplified English have fallen down because people want the flexibility they get from wide vocabulary (which is not unique to English--the same problem would emerge in trying to standardize and simplify any living language).
Making individual articles, paragraphs, and sentences clearer and easier to read is a worthwhile task. It's one of the ways I make my living. And it can't be reduced to a formula.
Vicki's Right - and well thought out...
The Chinese have a different but similar problem.. Their pictographs originally were sposed to be ideographic - compound ideas to represent more difficult concepts, etc..
The problem was that Han Chinese was only one of hundreds of varied dialects that developed over the millenia (Chinas a huge place). To make a long story short, Chinese today is a combination of ideographic, phonetic (horse+female means mother as horse indicates a "ma" sound.) deflective ( ideographs one step removed etc.) and lastly there are pictures that represent things that noone can figure out how and why the hell they got that way. :)
As [[ethnoconvergence]] continues at its speedy rate - the notions of holding onto traditional ways of doing things should simply be left to happen, But this wont happen - it will cause people to get pissy and wars will happen and thats what sucks about humanity. Funny I just read a little piece about this in a well known graphic novel - (email for the torrent file - clear a cd worth of disk.)
But Vicki hits it. I think the answer (in part) is a pure ideographic system - based on the thousands of years development of Han gi (Kanji). This could cross boundaries and be language independent. And yes, Daniel, I would be more than glad to correspond with you on developing this idea further. Get a trial copy of FlashMX - and email me.
WikiLovin to all :) -SM
The problem with phonetic spelling is, always, whose dialect? The Texan
one
that Molly Ivins renders by spelling business "bidness"? New York, with our wondrous mix of four centuries of languages and accents? Glaswegian? A friend of mine was greatly confused when someone told her that "The mile is on strike"--she wondered what that meant, and whether they could use kilometers instead, before realizing that while she'd heard "mile", her Australian friend had meant "mail."
As for making English easier, the language has the momentum of a billion speakers. Efforts at standardizing on any simplified English have fallen down
because
people want the flexibility they get from wide vocabulary (which is not unique to English--the same problem would emerge in trying to standardize and simplify any living language).
Making individual articles, paragraphs, and sentences clearer and easier
to
read is a worthwhile task. It's one of the ways I make my living. And it can't be reduced to a formula.