[Wikipedia-l] Re: Anglicised English British English

[Caroline Ford]

We're so much more educated than you, you know! 

-----Original Message-----
From: wikipedia-l-bounces at Wikimedia.org
[mailto:wikipedia-l-bounces at Wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Mark Williamson
Sent: 20 September 2005 08:45
To: wikipedia-l at 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 at 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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