What's happening to out British language

[newt]

You think it's bad over there, you should hear, and especially read, the language here in the United States. There are actually people who think less of you, if you try to use proper grammar and punctuation. I mean, no one's perfect all the time, but at least I try to be coherent. In fact, this is the ONLY woodworking forum I've ever joined. One of the main reasons I chose this one, is the intelligent and concise language I've read here. I hope you guys don't kick me out for being a foreigner. I also hope I haven't made any grievous errors in this posting. If so, let me hear about it.

No errors, you are very welcome.

 

[Jacob]

For normal day to day communications it probably does not matter, however for example a safety report, an airworthiness statement and a legal document need to be unambiguous.

I've got some old deeds to my current property. They are made more secure by the complete omission of all punctuation, as the later insertion of the occasional comma or full stop can completely alter the sense. There's a lot of "whereas" "hereinafter" "aforementioned" etc.

Over the last few years I have been involved with assessing graduates ability / inability to write factual technical reports, the results are not encouraging.

The results are never encouraging in these moany threads. It's all part of the fun! Basically everything has been going down the pan for the last 3000 years. :shock:
The big moan has been orchestrated by the Daily Mail since it's first edition, but not entirely on its own.

 

[Mark A]

what I really really detest :twisted: :twisted: is 'up-speaking' (Oz fashion) at the end of a sentence.

I can't stand this either! It turns every statement into a question.

Mark

 

[Elapid]

The big moan has been orchestrated by the Daily Mail since it's first edition, but not entirely on its own.

I beg to differ. The Daily Mail were very excited and positive in their support of Hitler during his rise to power. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daily_Mail

 

[gregmcateer]

Good Peepull,

I thort you wood injoy this littul ditty - It's best red allowed :lol: ;

Pronunciation for Foreigners

I take it you already know
Of tough and bough and cough and dough?
Others may stumble, but not you,
On hiccough, thorough, lough and through.
Well done! And now you wish perhaps
To learn of less familiar traps?

Beware of heard, a dreadful word,
That looks like beard and sounds like bird.
And dead: it’s said like bed, not bead –
For goodness sake don’t call it “deed”!
Watch out for meat and great and threat,
(they rhyme with suite and straight and debt).

A moth is not a moth in mother,
Nor both in bother, broth in brother.
And here is not a match for there,
Nor dear and fear for bear and pear,
And then there’s dose and rose and lose –
Just loo them up – and goose and choose,
And cork and work and card and ward.
And font and front and word and sword,
And do and go and thwart and cart –
Come, come, I’ve hardly made a start!
A dreadful language? Man alive,
I’d mastered it when I was five!

ANON

 

[Sawyer]

I'm like, fed up of all these unnecessary 'likes' that get used all the time, like.

 

[Grahamshed]

Do am I. Ya no wat I meen like ?

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Words like "schadenfreude" and "mission creep" are wonderful, useful additions to a language - language changes all the time. But why use words for nothing as in "you can get this FOR free"?..........."it's an ADDED bonus"?

Actually a lot of what I do is seriously affected by schlimmbesserung.

 

[monkeybiter]

Actually a lot of what I do is seriously affected by schlimmbesserung.

Perfect self defining example, I looked it up and now it's in my head. I will probably use it at some point. Then I will have to explain it. Which will take more time than just saying "you're trying to make it better but you're making it worse!"

 

[James C]

I was like this with exacerbate.

 

[RogerM]

I was like this with exacerbate.

:lol: :lol: :lol: =D> =D> =D>

 

[whiskywill]

Words like "schadenfreude" and "mission creep" are wonderful, useful additions to a language - language changes all the time. But why use words for nothing as in "you can get this FOR free"?..........."it's an ADDED bonus"?

The sales manager where I work lists options as "Additional Extras".

It annoys me.

 

[Titus A Duxass]

The sales manager where I work lists options as "Additional Extras".

That is a pleonasm, the use of too many words or word parts to describe something clearly - like "a little baby" - all babies are little therefore the little is not necessary, all extras are in addition.

 

[Jonzjob]

GregM I love that ditty and got it write on abart the 3rd trie :mrgreen: :mrgreen: I also pinched it for another forum!

I think that it must be very unique?

 

[Phil Pascoe]

I heard "nearly almost exactly 1 o'clock" one day on the radio.

 

[heimlaga]

I wonder if the English language is suffering from mainly being spoken by non-native speakers? Such a language tends to be reshaped into some kind of pidgin-laguage with rather irregular grammar and limited means to explain things accurately and a very corrupted pronounciation. That same thing has already happened to Latin and Coptic and Hebrew and Sanskrit.

Personally I am able to understand Lowland Scottish and other old dialects much better than the kind of city-slang-english I often encounter on the net. The more oldfashioned the language is the easier it is to understand. This because all germanic languages come from a common root while the new slang is put together from a mish-mash of parts collected all over the planet.

I have notised that many native speakers of Swedish from the Stockholm area have a tendency to use the same kind of pidgin-Swedish as their immigrant neighbours. At times their language becomes almost undecipherable to me and apparently they often have problems expressing things. Up here we do not mix Arabic and English into our language the way those southerners do.
We stick to our oldfashioned dialect that still has the old grammar that officially went out of use in the 16th century and much of the old pronounciation that officially disappeared in the 12th century.

 

[Jacob]

I wonder if the English language is suffering from mainly being spoken by non-native speakers? .....

! Who says it is suffering? Not me - a "native" speaker i.e. born here. It seems to be in very good health, and adapting/changing by the day.

 

[Jonzjob]

My biggest problem is that I have always bin a bad speler and am Now in the position of not being able to spelll in either English AND French

Now! Really to confusticate the non native English spelling I think we should to revert to Cockney ryming slang and to get it on the frog, I'm off darn the rubadub :mrgreen:

 

[James C]

The sales manager where I work lists options as "Additional Extras".

That is a pleonasm, the use of too many words or word parts to describe something clearly - like "a little baby" - all babies are little therefore the little is not necessary, all extras are in addition.

My friend has had a very premature birthing and I can tell you her baby is little. Compare that to some babies that are born weighing 12 pounds and you can see the difference.

 

[bugbear]

I wonder if the English language is suffering from mainly being spoken by non-native speakers? Such a language tends to be reshaped into some kind of pidgin-laguage with rather irregular grammar and limited means to explain things accurately and a very corrupted pronounciation.

It depends. In my job, I encounter many highly educated people with English as their second langugage.

I am often struck by the disconcerting perfection of their use of English.

Far from being a pidgin form, they tend to speak in a very formal way, whereas native speakers use far more contractions, "flexible" grammer, adjectival nouns and so on.

BugBear