[Gllug] Monthly GLLUG grammar report

[Nix]

On Wed, 27 Nov 2002, Liam Delahunty moaned:
> The Americans spell in their idiosyncratic manner [1] partially as they
> (possibly Webster was the author) wanted to distance themselves from the
> British in their language as well as politics.

Webster was purportedly trying to `rationalize' English.

Some of the rationalizations (colour -> color) stuck; some (tongue ->
tung) didn't; and some (ise -> ize) actually didn't change in American
English but *did* change in .uk (and I'm annoying people by
inconsistently using both forms as the fancy takes me).

> English was a fluid language, borrowing freely from other languages and
> adapting to current usage and fashions. I think it's a matter for regret
> that what was once so adaptable has become bogged down by rules and "proper"
> grammar.

In common usage, it hasn't, as far as I can tell; neologisms, slang and
grammatical variations continue to be coined apace (and fall into disuse
as well). The grammarians, even in their high days in the 19th century,
were never really that influential. (It's true that printed books have
probably slowed linguistic evolution somewhat, and dictionaries aided
spelling standardization, but neither of those have much to do with
pedantic grammatical rules.)

Like all languages, English is as she is spoke (and wrote) :)

>          Obviously, some form of standardised usage is to be encouraged, but
> the most important use of language is to convey meaning, and regrettably
> that seems to pass most educators by while the spelling of "kat" or using "I
> ain't" doesn't.

I can your sentence...

(hm, that looks wrong to me; word order askew?)

> [1] Arguably, the British spelling is now idiosyncratic as most global users

It's a regional dialect, of course. :)

> of English are speaking/writing American English. It will only be a matter
> of time before we all do.

Why? Dialects aren't blurring together *that* fast.

-- 
`I keep hearing about SF writers dying, but I never hear about SF
 writers being born.  So I guess eventually there'll be none left.'
                                    -- Keith F. Lynch


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