We're so much more educated than you, you know!
-----Original Message-----
From: wikipedia-l-bounces(a)Wikimedia.org
[mailto:wikipedia-l-bounces@Wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Mark Williamson
Sent: 20 September 2005 08:45
To: wikipedia-l(a)wikimedia.org
Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Anglicised English British English
Oh god... those stupid silent letters.
"Oh gee we like Latin so much!!! Let's insert a letter for no good reason."
Island, receipt, etc
On 20/09/05, Tim Starling <t.starling(a)physics.unimelb.edu.au> wrote:
Jack & Naree wrote:
> Well I don't want to live in an Americanised world; I'd rather take
> arms against a sea of illiterate yanks, than suffer the slings and
> arrows of their nauseating makey-uppy drawl. (and yes I do have
> American friends!) I know it's not going to feed the starving
> children in Africa, but I simply can't feckin' stand seeing the word
> "center" and "color" and hearing people raising the intonation
at the
end of their sentences.
American-English is like a giant linguistic fingernail down the
English blackboard.
The English upper class has been in charge of spelling standardisation
for the best part of 400 years, and they've made an absolute hash of it.
They inserted silent letters all over the place (e.g. island), and
kept historical spellings so far past their use-by date as to be
bizarre (e.g. knight). The English spelling system is a linguistic
laughing stock. Maybe it's about time we let someone else take control.
It's a pity the debate has to be so politically charged, wouldn't it
be nice if we could judge Webster's reforms by their merits?
Note that whatever it is, rising intonation is definitely not a form
of Americanisation, see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_rising_terminal
-- Tim Starling (Australian)
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SI HOC LEGERE SCIS NIMIVM ERVDITIONIS HABES QVANTVM MATERIAE MATERIETVR
MARMOTA MONAX SI MARMOTA MONAX MATERIAM POSSIT MATERIARI ESTNE VOLVMEN IN
TOGA AN SOLVM TIBI LIBET ME VIDERE
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