LL-L "Language varieties" 2014.01.11 (02) [EN]

[Lowlands-L]

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 L O W L A N D S - L - 11 January 2014 - Volume 02
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From: Mike Morgan <mwmbombay at gmail.com>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2014.01.11 (01) [EN]

Paul, same happens when you set it for Indian English ... which, granted is
nowadays a confused mix of British and American usage (I once noted both
"gaol" and "jail" on facing pages of an issue of the weekly mag "Sunday
 Indian").

so I just -- despite my terrible spelling in ANY/EVERY variety of English
-- turn the d at mned spell-check off. .... OR, better yet, use Open office
rather than Word ;-)

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From: Sandy Fleming <sandy at scotstext.org>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2014.01.09 (01) [EN]

Ron,

Concerning squabbling over American vs British English, I seem to get less
and less concerned about language purity all the time.

The more I've learned about how languages change and adapt, and the more I
think about how different written language is from the way people really
speak, the more I think it's futile to try to control this sort of thing.

The fact is that huge numbers of British people really like American films
and TV, and huge numbers of American people really like British films and
TV. Unless you're going to try to get a grip on culture like the Puritans
did and ban all film-making, this sort of thing is just going to keep on
happening.

A question I find more interesting is about the written language. Jane
Austen (or anybody you like to pick) is still perfectly readable to English
speakers now, will there come a time when we can't read the classics any
more? At any rate, the written language seems to remain intelligible across
a few centuries (given suitable editing for spelling and punctuation
usages), so I don't see how language change is any cause for alarm.

I think some of this intelligibility arises from the fact that people these
days have big vocabularies and good dictionaries, and can cope with a wide
range of writing. Maybe the key to the whole thing is that it doesn't
matter what kind of English gets spoken or written if your education is
broad enough to deal with it.

Sandy Fleming

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