Queen's English Society Closes

[coachmann]

For something to evolve it has to advance. Bad use of one's language isn't progress. We might even end up speaking Afro-Carabbean......"Hey man"..."right on"....."mother f*****".... Shucks I already use the word gotten but Kenton is safe......No hornery biscuit chewing side winding wipper snapper will find me using the term 'mate'.

[DavidLong]

My pet hate has to be the use, in conversation, of the word "like" as a form of punctuation.

 

Moan over, now to walk the dog.

 

As used in combination with 'went' and 'goes' in place of 'said'. For example:

"So I went like" or "And she goes like"

 

Oh dear.

 

David

[Southernman46]

It can be funny - A Master shows everybody how...................

 

 

[asmay2002]

.. Shucks I already use the word gotten but Kenton is safe.

 

You're safe with that one Larry. It's obsolete English - one of quite a number of obsolete words that surive in US usage. Bill Bryson explained the use of many old English words in the US in his book "The Mother Tongue".

[2mmMark]

For something to evolve it has to advance. Bad use of one's language isn't progress. We might even end up speaking Afro-Carabbean......"Hey man"..."right on"....."mother f*****".... Shucks I already use the word gotten but Kenton is safe......No hornery biscuit chewing side winding wipper snapper will find me using the term 'mate'.

 

Sadly, inner city kids already find it fashionable to ditch their own voice and speak in an assumed Afro-Carribean patois.

 

My own pet hate is the double negative. I think we need a campaign to stamp it out. Perhaps we should start by treating the phase "I didn't do nuffink officer" as a de-facto confession.

[BlackRat]

if I have one dislike, it is the use of the term "mate" in conversation.

 

Good job your not me then!

 

I've been a Soulmate, Shipmate, Crewmate, Room mate, Class mate, Mess mate, Gunners mate, Plumbers mate and was almost a Matelot!

[MJI]

Sadly, inner city kids already find it fashionable to ditch their own voice and speak in an assumed Afro-Carribean patois.

 

My own pet hate is the double negative. I think we need a campaign to stamp it out. Perhaps we should start by treating the phase "I didn't do nuffink officer" as a de-facto confession.

 

I always treat double negatives as what they are - positives

[Ozexpatriate]

if I have one dislike, it is the use of the term "mate" in conversation.

 

Perhaps it is a local term that has been abused - something like "duck", "hen", "luv"? Anyway, please keep it to those you you know well enough that they are not offended.

My father was a sticker for correct pronunciation but used the term "mate" sometimes, but then he spent his life at sea.

 

My Mother came from Penryn(nr Falmouth) and when visiting I was always called "mate", again there was generally an association with either the docks or the sea.

Arrgh! Avast there matey!

 

I would agree that except for its customary usage in an antipodean continent or a nautical context, it is a bit overly familiar. I certainly wouldn't use it in a business context. But then I would never use "chap" in conversation either.

 

Living on the US west coast I do occasionally use "guy" as a gender neutral pronoun, as in "would you guys like to join us for lunch" when addressing a group that could include both men and women. This is abhorrent to some purists from other parts, but I can assure you that professional women will object to being labeled as "girls" or "gals". Even in Australia the use of "sheila" is now considered highly misogynistic and anachronistic, like "broad" in the US or "birds" in the UK.

 

The US south has a perfect expression in y'all, (pronounced yawl) but this is considered irredeemably low brow anywhere but the southern states, particually preceded by "all" as in: "All y'all wanna have lunch?"

[Guest Max Stafford]

I don't do forelock tugging, Mickey. Mate. ;-)

 

Dave.

[Pacific231G]

The whole story of "The King/Queen's English" is an odd one. Countries like France attempt to set their language in stone with about as much success as King Knut. The difference is that Knut wasn't really trying to command the tides but making the point to his sycophantic courtiers that he couldn't whereas the Academie Francaise still think they can stop Le Weekend. However, unlike French where the pronouncements of the Academie have some legal force, for our healthy and ever evolving language there is not and never has been anybody with the authority to pronounce on what is and is not "correct" English. Nevertheless a bunch of English teachers and academics decided to assume that role, applied Latin rules to the language and came up with "Standard English" which they proceeded to teach in public and grammar schools. I've got some sympathy with the teachers because they have to teach something if they want their students to be literate, their students will probably do better in life if they can sound "educated" and it's anyway a good idea to communicate in a version of English that is widely accepted. I have far less sympathy with people who complain (often to the BBC or the Daily Telegraph) whenever they hear someone departing from this particular dialect that they happened to be taught in school.

 

We have the good fortune to speak a language that originated here more or less as a head on collision between Frisian German and Norman French and has become the world's lingua franca but that also means that nobody owns it. I can't somehow imagine the US Congress (nor the Australian Parliament) agreeing to allow an English Academy in London to tell their citizens how to speak and write and I certainly can't imagine us accepting pronouncements from some Federal Office of Language in Washington DC. I don't believe in "correct" English though I do like well written English but that's a lot more subtle than pedantically following a set of rather artificial rules.

 

There's a very good piece about this in the Belfast Telegraph

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/opinion/columnists/robert-mcneill/why-death-of-the-queens-english-society-leaves-me-lost-for-words-16169153.html

[chrisf]

 

... it's anyway a good idea to communicate in a version of English that is widely accepted.

 

Clearly we have become too easily pleased.

 

Chris

[Tim Hale]

This thread at least provides some evidence that hubris is alive and well amongst the chattering classes in society.

 

Tim

[Ozexpatriate]

There's a very good piece about this in the Belfast Telegraph

http://www.belfastte...ds-16169153.htm

Your link is missing the final "l". Spelling is important in URLs!

 

Here is the complete link to: Why death of the Queen's English Society leaves me lost for words

 

The Belfast Telegraph piece was authored by one Robert McNiell, which reminded me a nine-part television series that ran on PBS in the US (many, many years ago) called "

" that was hosted (and co-authored) by one Robert MacNeil. It was a very entertaining show that examined the trajectory of International English.

 

I found it interesting to see Mr. McNiell choose "cooky" in his Belfast Telegraph piece ...

But there's something cooky about making a fetish of rules

where I would choose kooky.

 

Cooky is the name we use for our (lady) shipmate in the galley. Perhaps he was making a point, but I found the meaning of the sentence less clear.

 

I was pleased to see multiple posts recommending Bill Bryson's "The Mother Tongue". An excellent read on this topic.

[DavidLong]

. I don't believe in "correct" English though I do like well written English but that's a lot more subtle than pedantically following a set of rather artificial rules.

 

 

Could you elaborate a little on this sentence as it seems to contain several contradictions and I'm trying to work out what it all means. I would expect that if something is well written then it probably is in a correct form of English that follows a generally understood set of rules.

 

David

[Pacific231G]

"I don't believe in "correct" English though I do like well written English but that's a lot more subtle than pedantically following a set of rather artificial rules."

Could you elaborate a little on this sentence as it seems to contain several contradictions and I'm trying to work out what it all means. I would expect that if something is well written then it probably is in a correct form of English that follows a generally understood set of rules.

Certainly, and I do not see this as a contradiction. To say that something is "correct" or "incorrect" is to judge it against an absolute rule. For example, a model of a Mikado or a Consolidation with three driving axles is simply incorrect. That is different from "following a generally understood set of rules" or perhaps "generally following a widely accepted set of rules" as there will be occasions when it is better to depart from them. For example, if I decide to deliberately use a split infinitive it will not be because I don't know the convention that they should be avoided but because I've judged that it makes my point more clearly than to write "if I decide deliberately to use a split infinitive". The pedant would say that is "correct" but I'd say is clumsy. You may disagree that it sounds clumsy but that's a matter of style not right and wrong.

To put it another way, I think it's better to regard the "generally understood set of rules" as a box of tools and use them to best achieve the meaning you want to convey than to judge every sentence by reference to the rules. Clearly if someone has no idea what the tools in the box are for because they've never learned the widely accepted rules then their writing is likely to be fairly unpleasant to read.

[Pacific231G]

Your link is missing the final "l". Spelling is important in URLs!

I've edited it but I blame the computer. It was a cut and paste but computers are the worst sort of pedants. They go postal if you get a single letter wrong but still think that 12 is a smaller number than 2. I resent having to start lists with 01 just to please the digital idiot.

[oldknotty]

Applying this to earlier eras, I find the erstwhile use of 'shew' in place of 'show' rather irksome. It gives the impression of people made to feel ashamed of regional dialects affecting a false, 'RP' accent. That's something I feel was utterly wrong and at least when I started school it was dying out anyway.

 

Dave.

 

I think that word died with Ed Sullivan mate :-)

[oldknotty]

Good job your not me then!

 

I've been a Soulmate, Shipmate, Crewmate, Room mate, Class mate, Mess mate, Gunners mate, Plumbers mate and was almost a Matelot!

 

I have mated with a lot , but that is another tale !!!!

[Ozexpatriate]

For example, if I decide to deliberately use a split infinitive it will not be because I don't know the convention that they should be avoided but because I've judged that it makes my point more clearly than to write "if I decide deliberately to use a split infinitive". The pedant would say that is "correct" but I'd say is clumsy. You may disagree that it sounds clumsy but that's a matter of style not right and wrong.

Bill Bryson in particular argues that any notion of a proscription of the split infinitive is unnecessarily fussy anyway. If you want to deliberately split the infinitive, go right ahead.

[BoD]

Breaking the rules? That is something up with which I will not put.

[Welly]

I can't stand double negatives.

 

Is there such a thing as a double positive?

 

...Yeah right!

[rodshaw]

Anyone for a grocer's apostrophe or an Oxford comma?

[woodbine]

Since pedantry is the topic here, may I point out that 'evolve' means 'incremental change over time', and not 'progress', to which it is indifferent. The language will evolve this way or that way under the weight of usage, including yours and mine, not by dictat.

[Guest Max Stafford]

Anyone for a grocer's apostrophe or an Oxford comma?

 

Are those legal? ;-)

 

Dave.

[Poggy1165]

Punctuation is certainly important:

 

The teacher, says the councillor, is a fool.

The teacher says the councillor is a fool.

 

Same words, but the punctuation (or lack of it) reverses the meaning.

 

As as been pointed out a lot of what we think of as Americanisms are actually terms that were once common in England. I was once criticised by a colleague for using the word 'cab'. She thought it more correct to say 'taxi'. 'Oh, you mean like the Hansom Taxi?' I retorted.

 

The English language has evolved and will continue to evolve. There was a whole vowel shift in the middle ages. Was that down to the bad influence of TV and the Americans?