[Wikipedia-l] Wikipedia English English

[Alphax]

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 Kensington from which variants have sprung worldwide is now outdated;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!!

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