expresso and other Itaglish

[Alexey I. Fuchs]

> Isn't anyone bothered by "exetera"?
>

I guess it becomes a puristic argument similar to a meeting of anonymous
alcoholics. People who are fond of the language are always bothered when
other people talk incorrectly. But we are helpless, for if you hear
"exetera" around, it will be "exetera" and not the old good Latin "et
cetera." When I was younger, I was furious about "kofe" (russian "coffee")
being colloquially used in neutrum. It has to be masculine, I knew it, I
heard it in my family, I read it in books. A couple of years ago a
freaking "language academy" introduced a new "law," allowing (sic!) people
to regard "kofe" as neutrum. Those for whom language was merely means of
communication were celebrating - they did not have to fight themselves
anymore. What academy can introduce laws for language which is a form of
existence and a living body (at least, for me)?
A couple of further examples. The german-whatever-academy for a long time
now tries to get rid of es-zet, a gothic letter sounding like "ss" in
English. They also try to eliminate "ph" in Greek words and substitute
simple "f" for it. It is normal, it is orthography, nothing more, nothing
less, but why does it have to be artificial?
A construct "I about to fucking died" appeared recently on the list. It
does not have to be studied (maybe, just noted). It has to be eliminated.
A person using such a construct does not suggest an interesting usage of
grammatical and lexical units, he is merely mistaken. For me, it is
disgusting (though I do not possess exemplary knowledge of the English
language myself).
On the other hand, one can do nothing about that. I can bring more
examples from Hebrew with its poor lexicon heading to the huge gap which
already exists in Arabic between the spoken language and the literature,
but the efforts to stops this process are probably vain. The language will
"develop." For me, a consolation is that the good old language does not
die. It may not be spoken, but it is in the books.
I vainly hope that the "language academies" will rather die while standing
than live on their knees, "legalizing" "I about to fucking died" instead
of supporting propoer language education. This may decelerate the process
of language degeneration and stimulated deterioration.

Of course, "exetera" bothers me.

                                                        A.Fuchs

P.S. "Don't afraid. Everybody must dead." is my favourite movie quotation.