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Mother Tongue (English as she is spoke)
Prospect Magazine [UK] ^ | January 2005 | Richard Jenkyns

Posted on 12/18/2004 10:55:44 AM PST by quidnunc

What does the fashion for books about the state of the English language tell us? People care about their language because it forms part of their identity, and part of the resistance to changes in English is a resistance to change itself. But correct usage is not an elite affectation; it is a badge of competence

When you had finished reading your October Prospect, were you purple with rage? One contributor, writing about Gordon Brown, described him as an "heir apparent" who might find that someone else inherited after all. But an heir apparent must necessarily succeed; the term the writer should have used was "heir presumptive." A second contributor discussed why parliament is "like it is"; that should have been "as it is," or so we used to be taught at school. A third contributor wrote about the norms of something being "flaunted," when he meant "flouted."…

-snip-

The idea that language can be manipulated to disguise the truth, and even to control and limit thought, is, of course, one of the themes of George Orwell's 1984. Orwell also explored the topic in his famous essay "Politics and the English language," written in 1946. He took five specimens of recent writing to illustrate "various of the mental vices from which we now suffer." The first is a clumsy and contorted sentence by Harold Laski containing so many double negatives that he seems to have ended up saying the opposite of what he meant to say. The second is from another once celebrated intellectual, Lancelot Hogben, whose vices are dying metaphor, pomposity and facetiousness ("we cannot play ducks and drakes with a native battery of idioms which prescribes egregious collocations of vocables"). …

-snip-

(Excerpt) Read more at prospect-magazine.co.uk ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; Extended News; United Kingdom
KEYWORDS: englishlanguage; language
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To: phxaz; GSlob; sinanju

You use language to communicate with a group.

Different terms render themselves well to different cultures, age groups, and professions.

You would find the writings of lawyers, scientists, publicists, humorists, and novelists to be very different.

You would also find literature from the different ages to differ in both vocabulary and thought construction.

You would find older literature to be formal than modern literature.

You would find the Bible, law and business language to be m structured and formal than newsprint.

You wouldn't find the words thou, thy, art etc in use in mainstream english.

There is nothing wrong with hip.

Finally, thought and vocabulary does represent culture and mindset behind the thought. It separates those who focus on presentation, trivia and bull, and deliver nothing; from those who focus on actionable content to produce results.

It separates those who can't contribute anything themselves, so they focus on finding fault with others; from those who worry more about results than about making an impression on others or pleasing the critics.


21 posted on 12/18/2004 1:41:19 PM PST by james beam
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To: AndyStevenson
And, I've heard it said that combining of words or inventing new words is called a 'neologism' and is a sign of schizophrenia.

Oh well.

22 posted on 12/18/2004 1:58:48 PM PST by doberville (Angels can fly when they take themselves lightly)
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To: quidnunc

save for later


23 posted on 12/18/2004 2:03:38 PM PST by krunkygirl
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To: james beam

Well, Dr. Zweistein, please show us the contributions.


24 posted on 12/18/2004 2:03:53 PM PST by GSlob
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To: msdrby

I are a collage gradiate ping.


25 posted on 12/18/2004 2:07:36 PM PST by Professional Engineer (Preview. Post. Repeat.)
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To: GSlob; doberville; Professional Engineer

Gslob: Well Mr caviler; you seem too busy either finding fault with others, plagiarising others, and pushing forth others views; you wouldn't have had to pull others down to fill the void inside; if you made an effort to contribute something original yourself.

doberville: My sweet little parrot; Some words like Islamize ,Islamization and de-Islamization aren't words you'd find in the lexicon yet; but their meaning would seem very apparent to even a pea sized brain. However in your case; you might have to scratch your head a little for the meaning to sink through the decay.


26 posted on 12/18/2004 2:24:24 PM PST by james beam
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To: Professional Engineer

Hmmm.. I suppose we'd have to make strong exceptions in your case, because your misspellings have correctly spelled other known words such as a collage; and gradiate though not any word in particular could still be mistaken for something relating to walking, since gradi is latin for 'to walk'. It seems you ended up mocking yourself.


27 posted on 12/18/2004 2:54:30 PM PST by james beam
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To: GeekDejure
Well then tere now, ewe kneeds to hap skatch round da dise back afor ewe frak churz yer caloon sout!!!

Oak Hay Dare, Joan Zee... Isle Ike Free Pin, Doan Chew ???

Don't quit your day job, that was pretty bad.

My only response to you is borrowed from Shakespeare's King Lear, Act II Scene II:

Thou art "A knave, a rascal, an eater of broken meats; a base, proud, shallow, beggarly, three-suited, hundred-pound, filthy, worsted-stocking knave; a lily-liver’d, action-taking knave; a whoreson, glass-gazing, superserviceable, finical rogue; one-trunk-inheriting slave; one that wouldst be a bawd, in way of good service, and art nothing but the composition of a knave, beggar, coward, pandar, and the son and heir of a mongrel bitch: one whom I will beat into clamorous whining if thou deniest the least syllable of thy addition."

28 posted on 12/18/2004 3:16:50 PM PST by xJones
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To: xJones

Mine: Well then there now, ewe kneeds ta hap skatch round da side back afor ewe frak churz yer caloon zout !!!

Yorz: Well then tere now, ewe kneeds to hap skatch round da dise back afor ewe frak churz yer caloon sout!!!

Maybe my monkey business will improve at the rate of your copy accuracy. However, I do appreciate your Shakespeare response !!!


29 posted on 12/18/2004 3:44:07 PM PST by GeekDejure ( LOL = Liberals Obey Lucifer !!!)
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To: GeekDejure

The rain in Spain stays mainly on the plain. "Henry Higgins" bump.


30 posted on 12/18/2004 4:01:49 PM PST by Ciexyz (I use the term Blue Cities, not Blue States. PA is red except for Philly, Pgh & Erie)
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To: james beam

< /HUMOR > YEP < HUMOR >


31 posted on 12/18/2004 5:27:34 PM PST by Professional Engineer (Preview. Post. Repeat.)
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To: Professional Engineer

Don't feel alone, I had a jerk-off after me on this thread. It seems that we need to use the smiley-faces and other such dumbed-down devices to indicate attempted jokes.


32 posted on 12/18/2004 8:32:20 PM PST by xJones
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To: james beam
Yo, Jimmy.. get over yourself.
33 posted on 12/18/2004 8:41:40 PM PST by humblegunner (And who knows what else?)
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To: james beam; Professional Engineer
FYI, those misspellings were done on purpose and with the intent of humor. It may well have been my perception alone, but IMO, He was successful in achieving humor.

What is your excuse?
34 posted on 12/18/2004 8:44:03 PM PST by msdrby (Even the smallest person can change the course of the future.)
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To: msdrby

You missed the point. You found the humor in his sentence, that is you laughed at the fact that some people supposedly couldn't correctly formulate a sentence expressing themselves as college graduates;while i was laughing at his choice of sentenc, that is to expect people to fumble with something so simple. It seems he considered this to be a major feat for most.


35 posted on 12/19/2004 5:11:31 AM PST by james beam
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To: james beam

We, he and I, use that particular sentence all the time with each other. Its purpose is clear to me. I know of what you speak. However, my point is that the particular words, collage and gradiate, are intentional. Therein lies the humor.

Typically, one does not expect a college graduate to speak in an uneducated manner. With higher education, one is expected to speak with correct grammar, and a more advanced vocabulary. The irony is that collage and gradiate are more advanced words, and are incorrectly used on purpose to show the degradation of the value of a college degree as well as the misuse of the English language in spite of being educated.


36 posted on 12/19/2004 6:08:16 AM PST by msdrby (Even the smallest person can change the course of the future.)
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To: james beam

aRROGANCE IS UNBECOMING.


37 posted on 12/19/2004 12:19:57 PM PST by Professional Engineer (Preview. Post. Repeat.)
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To: james beam

Still awaiting your excuse.


38 posted on 12/19/2004 1:35:48 PM PST by msdrby (Even the smallest person can change the course of the future.)
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To: quidnunc

(sigh) Why do these threads always get ugly? One of my favorite topics, but everyone is humorless.

[she eats, shoots, and leaves]


39 posted on 12/19/2004 1:44:58 PM PST by T Minus Four
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To: msdrby; Professional Engineer; T Minus Four; xJones; GSlob; GeekDejure

Let me elaborate this for you by breaking it up, so as to make it easy to comprehend.

This guy was a non English speaker; who was ridiculing others for being incapable of writing even a simple sentence, such as " I am a college graduate?; when he was rather inept in the use of English himself by being oblivious to the word ? collage? and the possible wrongful connotations that could arise from the misspelled word ?gradiate?, if it were to be mistaken for having been derived from Latin ? gradi? which means to walk.


Now I don?t think of any of this as a big deal. But I don?t like people ridiculing others, when they are stunted themselves. There are some retards, who can?t tell the difference between the different parts of anatomy and end up
using body parts meant for crapping to talk with; while they end up crapping through their mouths.

These people don?t miss an opportunity to ridicule or pull down others; when in fact they do so, because their knowledge is scarce and what they mistake for their superiority is actually ignorance of their own mediocrity and an incomplete knowledge of the world around them.

I occasionally choose to ridicule such people who always ridicule others.


40 posted on 12/19/2004 2:28:01 PM PST by james beam
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