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Re: The Worldwide Queen's English
By Darrell Clarke

Robbie et al (now that's not English!),

   I had a gud larf at ze mesij and fownd it not at orl difikult to
reed, wich iz rarver teling!

   This is not a new problem as you will appreciate and a number of
serious attempts have been made to address it in the past, particularly
in the U.S.  (Ben Franklin etc.), mostly unsuccessfully.  The French
Word Police have been fighting a losing battle against the inroads from
other languages.  Once again though, especially in the U.S., the
process has been occurring naturally, promoted by large numbers of
writers who learnt English as a second language.  Education via the
television set has made an enormous "contribution".  The Internet, I
believe, has a large number of participants who are more comfortable
speaking rather than writing English and this shows up not just in
spelling, but in grammar and usage.  Now we have authors who previously
would have been unlikely to have been writing so frequently,
communicating widely with many others similarly situated.  I think this
will hasten the changes (and I have very mixed feelings about it) as
people become more confused about "correct" usage of the language.  As
an example, I have seen vacuum spelt "vaccume" quite commonly and I
expect it might become "vacume" before long!  Some of us will, however,
be attempting to hold back the irresistable tide.

BTW, over here, we do pronounce the "e" not as an "i" in enquiry, as we
do also in "ensure".

Cheers,ΒΆ
Darrell

(Message sent Mon, 30 Sep 96 10:23:00 CST , from time zone -0600.)

Key Words in Subject:  English, Queen's, Worldwide

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