The English and their English...

[AIQ88]

I´m surprised how people who can only speak one language can be so terrible at it. I don´t even know if I should laugh or cry.

I work in an Irish pub and this girl asked me: "You aren´t Irish now are you." (as if it wasn´t obvious enough from my accent). I replied with: "No but my mate Matt here is dead Irish. He is completely incomprehensible and drinks like fish". Guess what she said... "What does incomprehensible mean?" How on earth do you not know what incomprehensible means!?!?!?!

Another time a girl asked me what disillusioned meant and that I should stop using such complicated words...

Then there is the spelling. Half the people on this forum don´t even know the difference between there, they´re and their. Someone just spelled yesterday yesturday. The U and E keys are nowhere near each other! My girlfriend works for a real estate company and the amount of spelling mistakes in the emails and faxes sent by Brits is not even funny. Some can´t even spell mortage correctly let alone words that are more complicated. How can you write like that when you are trying to do business?


Anyway this came off as a rant so ill give this thread a focus.

What do you think is happening to the English language? Is it important that it´s spelled and spoken correctly or not? Has it always been this bad? Why is this happening and is there anything that can be done to improve the situation?

Oh and I´m not English myself nor have I ever been to a English speaking country.

 

[brooklandsblue2.0]

Re: English and their English...

Im more concerned by how the youth of today now almost exclusively spell in 'text speak'

 

[mat]

innit.

 

[goat boy]

If you can't talk proper, shut yer mouth.

;)

 

[masterwig]

Some can´t even spell mortage correctly let alone words that are more complicated. How can you write like that when you are trying to do business?

Hmmm...

 

[Stuart]

Some can´t even spell mortage correctly let alone words that are more complicated. How can you write like that when you are trying to do business?

Hmmm...

PMSL , tru dat ;-)

 

[AIQ88]

Some can´t even spell mortage correctly let alone words that are more complicated. How can you write like that when you are trying to do business?

Hmmm...

Mortgage you got me on that one or maybe I was just testing you! Yeah that´s what I was doing.

 

[Sultana of Brunei]

To some extent I agree with the Stephen Fry school of thought in that he believes that the English language is forever evolving as it always has done. However, there is a difference between the evolution of language and the outright bastardisation of it. Some of the spelling, grammar and punctuation I see at work from the younger generation is absolutely shocking.

I also totally accept your point about vocabularies being eroded which seems to be a trend that runs in parallel with the Jafaican accent which seems to be everywhere at the minute. There was some guy from Bolton on the radio the other day talking in that ridiculous Jafaican gangster accent about someone he knew "Ooo always carry a knaaf". The rest of his sentence was in a thick Bolton accent.

 

[clairepartyring]

Hmmm...

Mortgage you got me on that one or maybe I was just testing you! Yeah that´s what I was doing.

Unfortunately, when you post a thread about mis spellings and grammar etc, you need to do a quick spell check!! You will easily get caught out with this lot!!

 

[goat boy]

On a more serious note, part of me is tempted to believe the 'dumbing down' of British education is actually part of the elite agenda for the guaranteed maintenance of the status quo.

... In the best Orwellian sense. Consider Newspeak, and Orwell's explanation, in his book, of why it was brought about..

If you don't have a vocabulary, how do you engage with the concepts that words express, by their meanings? If you have an idea, how do you express it to someone else?

The answer is, you can't. The proletarian (again, borrowing from Orwell here) is docile, intellectually impotent, frustrated... and less of a threat.

Though, that said, I don't really go in for that vaguely militant leftist thinking anymore. I'm more inclined to ascribe it to a general wealth of incompetence, and some trends in modern popular culture. :)