English Lesson: Learn Your Own Language Before Complaining About Those Who Don't Speak It
Jan 10, 2007 Filed in: Arts &
Letters
The assassination of the English language is not the
fault of immigrants, but our own cultural
illiteracy
The tenure of the first newspaper ever published in what would become the United States, Publick Occurrences, published September 25th, 1690, was short. It lasted one single issue before being shut down and all copies confiscated, because of crown disapproval of inflammatory language contained within. The heat of the words, however, are not the first thing apparent to a modern reader, but rather the difficulty of reading it at all. In explaining why the newspaper is being published, the first paragraph of the document reads, to the modern eye, as:
It is defigned that, the Country shall be furnifhed, once a moneth (or if any Glut of Occurrences, oftener,) with an Account of such confiderable things as have arrived unto our Notice.
Misspellings, awkward capitalizations, and the frequent exchange of the letter s for a letter nearly matching f make for slow and awkward reading. Spoken language has evolved some, but written language has evolved greatly since the 17th century, due entirely to the rise in literacy. The more of us who are literate, the more we need a common set of rules to convey our thoughts in written form. And just as vandalism would mar a painting, poorly written English mars the thought that underlies it. While much has been gained in written English, there has been a considerable amount of backsliding recently. I have no desire to arouse ire, royal or otherwise, but I feel compelled to protest the conditions of modern English as presented in the mass media. Among the literary offenses that must be eliminated:
“What we oughta do…” Some writers of fiction (Mark Twain, JD Salinger) are able to accurately reproduce dialect and accent on the written page. They are able to do this because they have talent, something notably absent from the mainstream media. In place of talent, mainstream authors pepper their stories with what they see as folksy charm. Thus, even highly respected news sources will report a politician’s speech with such bastardizations as “shoulda,” “oughta,” “gotta,” and “ain’t.” This must be stopped. If speakers choose to imply humility, or to charm audiences with chicken-soup sentimentality, they have that right, but to attempt to reproduce a verbal slur in a written news article is to promote illiteracy.
“Alright.” There is no such word, and as printed it reads Al-right, as in Bundy. To say that all of something is right requires two words, and I hope it's all right if I sound a little frustrated.
“Is they’re a problem here?” English is a difficult language, full of many exceptions, but that it what makes our written language so expressive. There are three words—their, there, and they’re—that are phonetically identical but have very different meanings. There is a place, as in, “look over there.” Their implies ownership or possession of them as in “their chair” or “their lack of language skills.” (It can also refer to an individual of unknown sex; for more on that touchy subject, see below.)“They’re” is a contraction of “they are,” referring to a group: “They’re all out on the dance floor.”
“His or her or its…” Ownership by a male makes it his but for a female to have something it must be it must be hers. For example: It is her car but the car is hers. And as a fine example of the complexity of English, although it seems as if it should be her’s, there is no such word. In any case, the expression is tedious: “Whatever a person wants out of his or her education, repeatedly referring to his or her knowledge base, and his or her facility with language, will soon have him or her sending his or her audience fleeing the room.” This is to say nothing of the criminalities of his/her which reads as “his slash her” or the literary abortion s/he, which renders either as “s uh he” or “s slash he.” Use of one is correct, but sounds both pompous and dry, as in, “Whatever one thinks of this sentence, one certainly cannot argue that it is not grammatically correct, no matter what one’s education may have been.” There are many solutions to this conundrum. The easiest option is to make it plural: “Christians acknowledge their sinful nature” reads so much better than “A Christian acknowledges his or her sinful nature.” Alternatively, pick a sex: “A person will often vote based on his emotions rather than his understanding of the facts.” Or, if the female singular is preferred, thus: “A person will usually want her opinion respected.” Either is correct, but choosing sides and always picking one sex runs the risk of sounding sexist, while switching pronouns back and forth is cumbersome and interrupts the flow of the narrative. Probably the most used yet most controversial choice is the word “their.” Some grammarians argue that to use a word that implies plurality (as in, they have their point) when referring to an individual is incorrect. But the history of the evolution of the word “their” shows that in it’s origins, dating back at least to the 13th century, and continuing to the present, it was used and continues to be used when the sex and/or number referred to is unknown. This argument will continue, but if ease of communication of ideas is the principal purpose of written language, surely it can be argued that asking “Will anyone get their due?” reads more smoothly than “Will anyone get his or her or their due?” To put it another way: Anyone who disagrees can go soak their head.
Proper! use, of punctu-ation? Punctuation, used correctly, adds versatility to language, allowing a more accurate representation of a writer’s thought. Examine, for example, these differently punctuated sentences: Yes it is. Yes it is! The former implies agreement, the latter excitement. A comma indicates a pause; a period the end of a thought; a paragraph, the end of a closely related group of sentences; a question mark, a question; quotes, something that was spoken, or something that is implied to be not really accurate. When a large sign at a car dealership declares “Sale” This Saturday, is the implication that one of the owners is being quoted, or that, nudge-nudge-wink-wink, it’s only a discount from their artificially inflated prices? A final plea: Italics can be used for many things, including emphasis, but ALL CAPS renders as SHOUTING and is very hard to read, ESPECIALLY WHEN THE ENTIRE SENTENCE OR PARAGRAPH IS IN ALL CAPS!
Iz profreading rely so hart? In spoken language, everyone, even the most uneducated, will correct an error of speech. Having lisped, for example, “The American Flag and the bald eagle are thimbals of our democracy,” the speaker will be quick to repeat the sentence without the lisp. If our natural inclination is to immediately correct a spoken error, which no one will remember 30 seconds hence, why do so many shy away from correcting what is written, which, especially if published anywhere in cyberspace, will likely outlast their grandchildren? If a boy, wishing to gain favor with a girl, sends an email that states: “I think yor eyes are rely great,” what will his level of embarrassment be when she forwards that series of typos to her five hundred closest friends? We live in an age of great scrutiny, and we are held far more accountable for our written words than our spoken ones. Five or ten seconds of proofreading eliminates the problem.
Hey. Cn u rd this txt msg? Text messaging is useful, and there is both a large generation gap and a large gender gap with how useful different groups find this technology. No one can be blamed for not writing out the entire sentence that begins this paragraph on a cell phone because it would be extremely tiresome and time consuming, defeating the purpose of texting in the first place. But it is not acceptable when the language of cell phone text carries over into other mediums. An email that reads “wht do u wnt tdo Sat?” marks the sender as possessing a second-grade education, and may have long-term consequences for the sender (see previous paragraph).
Pencils, Lead, Number Two, One Each. Request Submitted 10 January 2007. The Texas oilmen currently in power have done much to erode freedom, but even with the Patriot Act essentially placing the country under martial law, it is absolutely going too far that the militarization of our society extends to written language. Who, inside or outside the US Military, ever answers a question about the date as: “Today is 10 January 2007.” The responder would be thought of as a pompous fool or mentally deficient. Why, then, has this crept into written language? If the printed media have done it as a cost-saving measure because of the saving of a comma, surely this argument cannot be used on the megabyte-rich Internet. It should be written as it is spoken, because that is how it renders in the mind.
Language Nazis Need Not Apply. Some Ivory Tower types use their knowledge of English to look askance at those who know less. I have no such desire. The basic tenet of a common language is that it is inclusive not exclusive. But for the language to be common to all, all must agree and abide by some basic rules. After all, don’t we all just want a little understanding?
Return to Home Page
The tenure of the first newspaper ever published in what would become the United States, Publick Occurrences, published September 25th, 1690, was short. It lasted one single issue before being shut down and all copies confiscated, because of crown disapproval of inflammatory language contained within. The heat of the words, however, are not the first thing apparent to a modern reader, but rather the difficulty of reading it at all. In explaining why the newspaper is being published, the first paragraph of the document reads, to the modern eye, as:
It is defigned that, the Country shall be furnifhed, once a moneth (or if any Glut of Occurrences, oftener,) with an Account of such confiderable things as have arrived unto our Notice.
Misspellings, awkward capitalizations, and the frequent exchange of the letter s for a letter nearly matching f make for slow and awkward reading. Spoken language has evolved some, but written language has evolved greatly since the 17th century, due entirely to the rise in literacy. The more of us who are literate, the more we need a common set of rules to convey our thoughts in written form. And just as vandalism would mar a painting, poorly written English mars the thought that underlies it. While much has been gained in written English, there has been a considerable amount of backsliding recently. I have no desire to arouse ire, royal or otherwise, but I feel compelled to protest the conditions of modern English as presented in the mass media. Among the literary offenses that must be eliminated:
“What we oughta do…” Some writers of fiction (Mark Twain, JD Salinger) are able to accurately reproduce dialect and accent on the written page. They are able to do this because they have talent, something notably absent from the mainstream media. In place of talent, mainstream authors pepper their stories with what they see as folksy charm. Thus, even highly respected news sources will report a politician’s speech with such bastardizations as “shoulda,” “oughta,” “gotta,” and “ain’t.” This must be stopped. If speakers choose to imply humility, or to charm audiences with chicken-soup sentimentality, they have that right, but to attempt to reproduce a verbal slur in a written news article is to promote illiteracy.
“Alright.” There is no such word, and as printed it reads Al-right, as in Bundy. To say that all of something is right requires two words, and I hope it's all right if I sound a little frustrated.
“Is they’re a problem here?” English is a difficult language, full of many exceptions, but that it what makes our written language so expressive. There are three words—their, there, and they’re—that are phonetically identical but have very different meanings. There is a place, as in, “look over there.” Their implies ownership or possession of them as in “their chair” or “their lack of language skills.” (It can also refer to an individual of unknown sex; for more on that touchy subject, see below.)“They’re” is a contraction of “they are,” referring to a group: “They’re all out on the dance floor.”
“His or her or its…” Ownership by a male makes it his but for a female to have something it must be it must be hers. For example: It is her car but the car is hers. And as a fine example of the complexity of English, although it seems as if it should be her’s, there is no such word. In any case, the expression is tedious: “Whatever a person wants out of his or her education, repeatedly referring to his or her knowledge base, and his or her facility with language, will soon have him or her sending his or her audience fleeing the room.” This is to say nothing of the criminalities of his/her which reads as “his slash her” or the literary abortion s/he, which renders either as “s uh he” or “s slash he.” Use of one is correct, but sounds both pompous and dry, as in, “Whatever one thinks of this sentence, one certainly cannot argue that it is not grammatically correct, no matter what one’s education may have been.” There are many solutions to this conundrum. The easiest option is to make it plural: “Christians acknowledge their sinful nature” reads so much better than “A Christian acknowledges his or her sinful nature.” Alternatively, pick a sex: “A person will often vote based on his emotions rather than his understanding of the facts.” Or, if the female singular is preferred, thus: “A person will usually want her opinion respected.” Either is correct, but choosing sides and always picking one sex runs the risk of sounding sexist, while switching pronouns back and forth is cumbersome and interrupts the flow of the narrative. Probably the most used yet most controversial choice is the word “their.” Some grammarians argue that to use a word that implies plurality (as in, they have their point) when referring to an individual is incorrect. But the history of the evolution of the word “their” shows that in it’s origins, dating back at least to the 13th century, and continuing to the present, it was used and continues to be used when the sex and/or number referred to is unknown. This argument will continue, but if ease of communication of ideas is the principal purpose of written language, surely it can be argued that asking “Will anyone get their due?” reads more smoothly than “Will anyone get his or her or their due?” To put it another way: Anyone who disagrees can go soak their head.
Proper! use, of punctu-ation? Punctuation, used correctly, adds versatility to language, allowing a more accurate representation of a writer’s thought. Examine, for example, these differently punctuated sentences: Yes it is. Yes it is! The former implies agreement, the latter excitement. A comma indicates a pause; a period the end of a thought; a paragraph, the end of a closely related group of sentences; a question mark, a question; quotes, something that was spoken, or something that is implied to be not really accurate. When a large sign at a car dealership declares “Sale” This Saturday, is the implication that one of the owners is being quoted, or that, nudge-nudge-wink-wink, it’s only a discount from their artificially inflated prices? A final plea: Italics can be used for many things, including emphasis, but ALL CAPS renders as SHOUTING and is very hard to read, ESPECIALLY WHEN THE ENTIRE SENTENCE OR PARAGRAPH IS IN ALL CAPS!
Iz profreading rely so hart? In spoken language, everyone, even the most uneducated, will correct an error of speech. Having lisped, for example, “The American Flag and the bald eagle are thimbals of our democracy,” the speaker will be quick to repeat the sentence without the lisp. If our natural inclination is to immediately correct a spoken error, which no one will remember 30 seconds hence, why do so many shy away from correcting what is written, which, especially if published anywhere in cyberspace, will likely outlast their grandchildren? If a boy, wishing to gain favor with a girl, sends an email that states: “I think yor eyes are rely great,” what will his level of embarrassment be when she forwards that series of typos to her five hundred closest friends? We live in an age of great scrutiny, and we are held far more accountable for our written words than our spoken ones. Five or ten seconds of proofreading eliminates the problem.
Hey. Cn u rd this txt msg? Text messaging is useful, and there is both a large generation gap and a large gender gap with how useful different groups find this technology. No one can be blamed for not writing out the entire sentence that begins this paragraph on a cell phone because it would be extremely tiresome and time consuming, defeating the purpose of texting in the first place. But it is not acceptable when the language of cell phone text carries over into other mediums. An email that reads “wht do u wnt tdo Sat?” marks the sender as possessing a second-grade education, and may have long-term consequences for the sender (see previous paragraph).
Pencils, Lead, Number Two, One Each. Request Submitted 10 January 2007. The Texas oilmen currently in power have done much to erode freedom, but even with the Patriot Act essentially placing the country under martial law, it is absolutely going too far that the militarization of our society extends to written language. Who, inside or outside the US Military, ever answers a question about the date as: “Today is 10 January 2007.” The responder would be thought of as a pompous fool or mentally deficient. Why, then, has this crept into written language? If the printed media have done it as a cost-saving measure because of the saving of a comma, surely this argument cannot be used on the megabyte-rich Internet. It should be written as it is spoken, because that is how it renders in the mind.
Language Nazis Need Not Apply. Some Ivory Tower types use their knowledge of English to look askance at those who know less. I have no such desire. The basic tenet of a common language is that it is inclusive not exclusive. But for the language to be common to all, all must agree and abide by some basic rules. After all, don’t we all just want a little understanding?
Return to Home Page
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