Modern parlance

[colin-yorkshire1]

hi all
I think the saying goes something like the english and americans are divided by a common language

a lot of american slang was adopted during and since the last war not helped by the bombardment of yank shows on tv. also because true english (if one can call it that) is derived from other languages adopted over the millenia starting way back in viking days "and before" right up to the present day, and the american lanuage seperated after independance to a basic written word derived from their own past and present adoptions and making a big difference in spelling and meanings of certain words it so contains more words from native indians and spanish and dutch than ours does.
I also believe that because america started as a colony made up of convicts and later slaves who were illiterate and could not spell written words derived a grammer all of there own replacing words that did not "to them make sense" into something simpler so "centre" became center with only one meaning ie; the middle and so on. it may also be noted that the aussies use the same spellings for some words as the americans do so it would seem to confirm the senario.

colin

 

[colin-yorkshire1]

ok so who pinched the last bit??

 

[Parksy]

ok so who pinched the last bit??

I did and I sent an email to you at 09.13 am explaining the situation.

 

[ProfJohnL]

I completely agree that English is a living language, and it will continually evolve. However I do believe that over recent years the pace of change has become excessive, and I put this acceleration down to the wider access to other none UK English cultures through the use of computers and the WWW.

My own grasp of English spelling and grammar is far from perfect, but I am dismayed at what I can only describe as the dumbing down of the language we now see in common usage.

The most recent and I think damaging development has been the rise of the mobile phones with Short Message Services or SMS or Texting. The constraints of the format mean that the use of conventional English is impractical for sending long messages, so there are now common abbreviations for certain syllables. I have no problem with this type of encoding in the context of a Text, but as I do not make great use of such services I am not proficient at decoding them.
But where space constraints do not exist, such as in this forum, the use of text language I find to be most difficult to follow. Frankly I think it displays a laziness on the part of the writer, especially where they choose to ignore the conventional tools of capitol letters and full stops and spaces!

Sadly I know from my contact with secondary schools, there is an increase in the appearance of such text language in school work assignments, including English work.

With regards to the development of spoken English I do recall one lecturer suggesting that the English spoken in parts of America could be closer to old English, because it was taken across the pond by the pilgrims, and ther have been fewer cultural pressures on the Americans compared to the British over the same period.

Like Parksey I also live within the Black country, and within only a matter of miles there are quite distinct differences in dialects between Birmingham, Walsall, Wolverhampton, Dudley etc. I live nearest to Walsall, and I reckon the local dialect is probably the most highly developed version of English anywhere in the world. Can anywhere else claim to have shrunk the entire English language down to about five uttered syllables. There is so much information contained in each syllable, that to give the listener time to decode it all, every alternate word spoken is an expletive!

so 2 paraphrase a gr8 english st8smen
"Never before in the history of English language has so much been said by so few words"!

 

[Parksy]

...............Like Parksey I also live within the Black country, and within only a matter of miles there are quite distinct differences in dialects between Birmingham, Walsall, Wolverhampton, Dudley etc. I live nearest to Walsall, and I reckon the local dialect is probably the most highly developed version of English anywhere in the world. Can anywhere else claim to have shrunk the entire English language down to about five uttered syllables. There is so much information contained in each syllable, that to give the listener time to decode it all, every alternate word spoken is an expletive!

so 2 paraphrase a gr8 english st8smen
"Never before in the history of English language has so much been said by so few words"!

The Black Country dialect is universally unpopular except in parts of South Wales for some strange reason, they enjoy hearing a good old Black Country voice in Cardiff and Swansea

Unpopular though it may be the Black Country dialect is as close to old English as it would have been understood by William Shakespeare that modern listeners are ever likely to hear.

Even the frequently used bad language is Anglo Saxon in origin and would have been in common usage in Shakespeare's time.
The more modern standard English of today owes much to the Norman Conquest which goes to prove that proud Blackcountrymen have never bent the knee to Jacques come lately invaders and have stuck resolutely to their Anglo Saxon phraseology.

 

[Lord Braykewynde]

like prof i find it difficult reading some written posts infact i give up on some why they cannot use a full stop or capital letter to start of and differentiate betweens sentences cannot be blamed on conditions like dyslexia before long text abbreviations will be used in school english and exams just as calculators were allowed to be used in mathematics while talking about dialects i have even noticed how they are slowly vanishing into television speak due to soaps like eastenders we will all be talking with a cockney accent soon kids today no matter where they are in the country cannot pronounce words like butter along with many other words because they seem incapable of pronouncing the letter t among others for those who manage to read through this post i apologise but at least ive got my point across

 

[OmOnWeelz]

I completely agree that English is a living language, and it will continually evolve. However I do believe that over recent years the pace of change has become excessive, and I put this acceleration down to the wider access to other none UK English cultures through the use of computers and the WWW.

My own grasp of English spelling and grammar is far from perfect, but I am dismayed at what I can only describe as the dumbing down of the language we now see in common usage.

The most recent and I think damaging development has been the rise of the mobile phones with Short Message Services or SMS or Texting. The constraints of the format mean that the use of conventional English is impractical for sending long messages, so there are now common abbreviations for certain syllables. I have no problem with this type of encoding in the context of a Text, but as I do not make great use of such services I am not proficient at decoding them.
But where space constraints do not exist, such as in this forum, the use of text language I find to be most difficult to follow. Frankly I think it displays a laziness on the part of the writer, especially where they choose to ignore the conventional tools of capitol letters and full stops and spaces!

Sadly I know from my contact with secondary schools, there is an increase in the appearance of such text language in school work assignments, including English work.

This makes I larf ;-)
Here we are, quite a few of us must have been around from daysl long before every house had and indoor toilet and a bath with water on tap and drainage to the main sewer. We discuss our interest on our personal computers, we order parts over the internet, caravanners wan't to know about satellite tv, Sky and Freesat, questions about dongles and information re tethering mobiles for internet access I've seen.
Questions about Iphone 'apps' and E book readers for easy purchase and storage of thousands of books but some wonder about the
changes in our language

A lot has changed very fast in the past few years, so surely we have to expect language to change quickly as well when we have a shared global viewing window through the internet, film and TV