Andrew Gray wrote: <snip>
There are some usages of American English which look glaring to a British-trained eye - "In 1945, Churchill wrote Truman that..."
Argh! My eyes!
I mean there are several issues here: cultural imperialism, ambiguation (because of the many differences in American-English and English usage), and English learners learning to spell incorrectly and talk like Americans - why is it wrong to resist that?
"The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse 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."
Oh yes, French language has looked /very/ attractive down those dark alleyways in years past :)
The concept of English as a monolithic entity living somewhere in Kensington from which variants have sprung worldwide is now outdated; from the point of view of the writers of the first edition of the Britannica in 1770ish, you and I are speaking a degraded and foreign language. (Back then, plural's was still an accepted construction!)
(Most likely a contraction of plurales, hence the use of the apostrophe - which is of course the source of the possesive apostrophe, so if anyone tells you off for using it, smite them!)
Recently, I read Alford's "The Queen's English", dated about 1865.
<snip>
(Though, interestingly, he approves of verbing nouns, noting that a century before "to experience" was hated by scholars. Plus ca change...)
Oh yes, I can't stand it when someone verbs a noun... verb itself being a noun, I've just verbed verb :) Where will it end!?
The language changes; there is no sense in fighting it, because one may as well try to split atoms with a chisel. The era of modern communications will invariably simplify previously divergent spellings, just as it has smoothed over the difference in regional accents in the past, and caused a small number of languages to become massively dominant. It's all the same process...
This just in...
The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the European nation rather than German, which was the other possibility.
As part of the negotiations, Her Majesty's Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5-year phase-in plan that would become known as "Euro-English".
In the first year, "s" will replace the soft "c". Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy. The hard "c" will be dropped in favour of the "k". This should klear up konfusion, and keyboards kan have one less letter.
There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year when the troublesome "ph" will be replaced with the "f". This will make words like fotograf 20% shorter.
In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible. Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling. Also, al wil agre that the horibl mes of the silent "e" in the languag is disgrasful and it should go away.
By the 4th yer peopl wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing "th" with "z" and "w" with "v". During ze fifz yer, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vords kontaining "ou" and after ziz fifz yer, ve vil hav a reil sensibl riten styl.
Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand ech oza. Ze drem of a united urop vil finali kum tru. Und zen ve vil konker ze verld!!