Me fail English? That's unpossible!
It has not been a good few weeks for the English language. First Countdown was plunged into crisis and then a lecturer at New Bucks University suggested that common spelling mistakes be allowed as variants. This really annoys me.
Yes some people have problems with spelling, but if general literacy standards at schools and universities are slipping then they ought to be addressed, not just accommodated. Do these people just have to text ‘dgree’ to be accepted on a course?
Sadly such tolerance of laziness and ‘dumbing down’ is symptomatic of a wider malaise across many sections of society. Why let historical fact get in the way of a Hollywood adaptation? Why learn another language, because others are sure to speak English? Why vote, because ‘they are all the same’? It makes my blood boil.
What is particularly annoying about this state of affairs is that, more than ever before, the solution to many answers is only a Google search or a spell-check away. It is pure laziness and ignorance. Of course language, like civilisation or democracy, is a living entity. Language evolves, mutates and changes over time as new words enter our daily vocabulary. Yet that does not mean that we ought to tolerate sloppiness. To do so degrades our linguistic traditions and the role that language plays in our lives.
I suspect that I will be called an intellectual snob (though hopefully spelt with two l’s) for having such views, but I am not…
Dumbing down jst rlly irit8s me.
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Comments
New environments for communication like email and texting are bound to generate evolution in written language that will be both good and bad. Maybe most of it will only ever be appropriate to its environment, but some of it will leak out into general use.
I find this more interesting than annoying, even though I still text in what I think of as 'longhand.'
I was reading a David Crystal book a while ago which said that rationalised spelling is historically fairly recent, and that the process was very tortuous and acrimonious. This implies that for most of the history of writing we have been fairly relaxed about these things.
Speaking as someone who could do a quality PhD on maintaining a relaxed attitude to life, it could be that I'm the wrong person to have a credible opinion.
Are our "linguistic traditions" such as the spellings of "choir", "through", "accommodation" and suchlike "embarrassments" really worth preserving?
Ai advoukeit ei komplytly founetik speling, ywzing ounly jy egzisting alfqbet. Wij jis yw kan dyust spel wrdz egzaktly jq wei yw sei jem. Jy ounly tyeindzhez ar jat "x" and "j" rypleis jy tw saundz ov "th", "c" reprezents jy "u" saund in "hut" and "q" iz jy indefinit vawel.
This could be adopted immediately as an alternative spelling wordlwide, and then who would want to go back to the old illogical system?
Starting again with a completely new system is about as unworkable as it gets. At least evolution carries everybody along the same path, albeit reluctantly for some. I was recently sent the following on Facebook and, dammit, it's easier to read.
i cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno't mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a pboerlm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Azanmig huh? yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt! if you can raed tihs forwrad it.
On a different tack I would like to defend laziness, and I speak as a congenitally lazy person. There are two ways to be lazy:
Try to do bugger all with no particular objective in mind.
or
Use your intelligence to find quicker, simpler, easier, less expensive ways of doing things. This is creative problem solving driven by laziness. It frees up energy and time to either fart about or do something else that's productive. Both equally legitimate.
I was on the bus last week listening to my new Raconteurs album, when it was interrupted by a text. My longhand reply took so long that my musical pleasure was severely impaired.
I shld def lrn shrthnd txtng
Roger says: "Starting again with a completely new system is about as unworkable as it gets." But what I'm advocating is not really "a completely new system". It is just using the existing alphabet in a consistent way.
Starting agein widh a kompliitly nyuu sistem iz abaut az unwrrkabal az it getz. Ai kudn't biiliiv dhat ai kud aktyuwali undrrstand wot ai woz riiding.
This is one stage short of my complete reform. using "ii" and "uu" for the long "Ee", "Ooh" and "Err" sounds and "dh for the voiced "th", with "a" and "u" remaining ambiguous.
Wow, my blog has become a place for heated debate...
Along with 'correct' spelling comes the fact that person x can, and person y cannot. This is regarded by many (dare I say generally of a <i>Guardian</i> persuasion) as being an inequality, and therefore needing to be got rid of. John Wells, president of the Spelling Society thinks that 'there are more important things to worry about than correct spelling'. That's like a surgeon saying before an operation 'ah, what's another dead person', is it not?