The death of the English language?
In the current The Big Issue, a quote from an article sits in the corner of the page saying:
“You can sit their unshaven, with your gut hanging over your trousers, and believe you are a total sex god.”
Comments on new BBC blog The Editors are peppered with spelling mistakes. Comments on virtually any blog you care to name are peppered with spelling mistakes and grammatical errors, for that matter. Apostrophes litter the English language like bullet holes, sitting on signs where they don’t belong, and in sentences they shouldn’t be in. The taxi rank sign at Ipswich (Queue here for taxi’s) Railway Station. Shop fronts. E-mails. Everywhere you look, glaringly poor English.
As if this weren’t enough, swearing lost its power somewhere along the way because profanity is everywhere. Radio 1 DJs apologise for a guest swearing as often as they announce the news, US celebrities appear on Jonathan Ross because they can get away with swearing when they couldn’t in America, and more and more people use swear words the way Indians use car horns. There’s no blue word I haven’t used, but swear words are to be used carefully, selectively, and sparingly – a well-placed curse can deliver a thumping close to a sentence, add spice to an insult, or express anger in a way no clean word can, but overuse has left even the most taboo swear words with all the efficacy of a stern look.
We created about the most successful language in the world, and now we’re flushing it down the toilet. I’m not an old man, but I find myself lamenting the fact that children are taught English by Fifty Cent, text messages and MySpace. Bastardisation of the English language is rife - abbreviated, mispronounced, adulterated and dumbed down. Languages evolve, of course they do, and I’m not suggesting we should all be talking like we’re in a Miss Marple mystery, but I reserve the right to stand up for my language in the face of a tide of stupidity and laziness.
Quite Random is the blog of Nathan Nelson, a human male who lives in the UK and is not entirely sure what he's going to do when he grows up but is interested in international development, photography, secularism, technology, music and movies and other things anyone of his age would be.
"I have laboured to refine our language to grammatical purity, and to clear it from colloquial barbarisms, licentious idioms, and irregular combinations."Samuel Johnson, 1709 - 84He’s on telly tonight - http://tinyurl.com/zyc99For an alternative to boring profanities, try a Shakespearian insult -http://tinyurl.com/kt9z5
If my previous comment appears ungrammatical and badly laid out, it’s because this dratted comment box does things it ought not to.
Verily I say unto you: He who is without inconsistencies in his use of serial commas should cast the first stone.
Forsooth the stranger hath a point.
I’ve got a blog. It’s to showcase my cartoons, but I add some waffle alongside my cartoons too. A large amount of comments are based on my terrible spelling. I sometimes suspect it’s my mother, trying to influence me. All the spelling and grammer comments are made anonymously. I always publish them.
I like what you did there. I’ve got a blog. It’s here. Come and look! Now! It has things on it! Oh, and, by the way yeah sometimes my spelling is ropey as well.
Just joking
. Or am I?
You’re more then welcome to do that same on my blog
It is a nice thing to discover that, there is some one who watches over the mistakes we or I know we or I often commit. I will be more than happy to see you have a look at my blog, even though I am afraid you will discover a lot of English or gramatical errors. All the same, if you can have a look, don’t hestate and I will be more than happy to read your observations. It is refreshing that, while some of us are battling it out ideologically, some one is fighting a clean non partisant and just fight for the purity of the langauage of liberty and wealth. All the best my friend.