Use of proper grammar and standard English.

[AspiringAuthor]

I mean, why is it so important for you to be “right?”

He seems to have an overwhelming NEED to be right all the time.

As Americans would say: "Suck it up"...

You forgot "...buttercup."

not in Connecticut, Calgary, Cape Town or Canberra.

Holy alliteration, Batman!

...is a tacit giveaway that this attitude is the default for many who speak American English... they believe it is the only possible version...

Not simply the only possible version, but the BEST possible version.

See? I can make bullshit claims out of thin air, too.

 

[SimonDoom]

I’m more interested in where English is going than where it’s from.

The concept of a ‘Standard English’ is a melange of grammatical style, spelling, phonemes, received pronunciation, all overlaid on a shared psychological model of reality. The linguistics reside in the psychological model of reality. The more distantly related the languages, the more different the model of reality. Like phonemes, the structural elements of reality must be picked up at an early age. The fewer of these structural elements you share with another language the less you’ll be able to master it completely.

Five hundred years ago, the spoken dialects of English, within England, could be mutually incomprehensible. I couldn’t understand my paternal grandmother’s mother. She was born in 1853 and spoke a Cornish dialect of English. Gran was our interpreter.

Today, when I listen to people from all around the world speaking English, I’m surprised at how fluent they are, and how easy to understand. In the age of mass communication, people are exposed to many geographical varieties of spoken English from an early age and pick up phonemes, grammatical structures and the underlying elements of reality. My guess is that, for young people, English will acquire more of all three, and will become a larger, less prescriptive, yet mutually comprehensible language.

This is an optimistic and forward-thinking point of view, and I agree.

So-called "standard" British English and "standard" American English aren't really that different. Any reasonably fluent person from either country can understand the writings of the other. The accents get difficult sometimes, but my guess is that Londoners have more trouble figuring out what some of residents of Glasgow and Liverpool are saying than they have figuring out what Americans from Boston or New Orleans are saying. Every English speaker can understand the English that is spoken by newscasters on the BBC or on CNN.

The main differences are mostly minor. Theatre or theater. Labour or Labor. Not worth fussing about.

Slang can be difficult. I have no clue about much of cockney slang or Australian slang. But that's a whole different issue.

I'll go so far as to accept "English English" as the "mother tongue." I'm fond of it and look on it with a certain filial respect, but I am equally glad to have broken free of it and gone a different way.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Slang can be difficult. I have no clue about much of cockney slang or Australian slang. But that's a whole different issue.

“Go yourself a new target on your back, there, Simon?” Susie asked.

 

[jehoram]

I’m more interested in where English is going than where it’s from.



Today, when I listen to people from all around the world speaking English, I’m surprised at how fluent they are, and how easy to understand. In the age of mass communication, people are exposed to many geographical varieties of spoken English from an early age and pick up phonemes, grammatical structures and the underlying elements of reality. My guess is that, for young people, English will acquire more of all three, and will become a larger, less prescriptive, yet mutually comprehensible language.

You're right that mass communication has been the great leveler. It happened before, when printing fixed the language (or any languages, for that matter) into its first "permanent form." That's why the language of Shakespeare is still largely intelligible to us today, whereas the language of Chaucer isn't. The second wave was the last century's introduction of radio, film, and television, which started a phonetic leveling. I am confident that the English language will continue to change, but that the rate of change will be slower than it was in past centuries.

 

[Trionyx]

You're right that mass communication has been the great leveler. It happened before, when printing fixed the language (or any languages, for that matter) into its first "permanent form." That's why the language of Shakespeare is still largely intelligible to us today, whereas the language of Chaucer isn't. The second wave was the last century's introduction of radio, film, and television, which started a phonetic leveling. I am confident that the English language will continue to change, but that the rate of change will be slower than it was in past centuries.

I tend to believe the rate of change will accelerate as so many people now have quick access large numbers of people. Think of LE and the many other sites with chat rooms, cell phones and the use of abbreviations and simplified spellings, the lack of language teachers rapping us on the knuckles when we misspell or misuse a word. All these will contribute to a faster evolving language.

 

[JaxRhapsody]

Stories are supposed to reflect real life... or at least real people. Sometimes the way somebody speaks reflects their enviroment. People generally don't talk extremely perfect, especially younger people who don't care.

Take these lines from my latest fan fic:

“What do you want, Kanker; another ass whuppin’‽”

“Look… ya got more heart than I thought, I should smear ya all ova this place, but ah love ta too much.”

“Gotta funny way of showin’ it,” he snapped.

“Ehh,” she shrugged, “ya got me good, now I know we’re perfect for each other, I need a man, that can be a man.”

“You’re horrible! I don’t want nothin’ ta do with ya!”

“There, you talked, now go away,” Sarah stepped up to Lee.

“Anyway,” Lee pushed her away, “as fun as this cat and mouse game is, I’m getting’ tired of it, we’re supposed ta be tuhgetha.”

“Fuck off, Lee! I’d rather be alone forever, than be with you! You act like I can’t get nobody else!”

“Who else wants ya, but me? Who else could even stand ya, huh‽”

“That sounded like Lee,” May looked up.

“We’re made for each other, we’re the same.”

“We ain’t nothin’ alike!”

“You’re a short tempered, impatient, loud mouthed, egotistical, controlling, manipulative narcissist. Just. Like. Me. Both of us can be toxic tuhgetha.”

And yet... I've yet to be visited by the ghost of Zerna Sharp, for such horrible real world talkin'.

 

[JaxRhapsody]

That's true. The British English of today is not the same as the British English of 300 years ago, any more than American English is not the same as American English of 300 years ago (which actually was identical to British English). Language changes with varying usage, and with collisions with other languages and cultures.


Agreed. As long as the varieties are mutually intelligible, I see no harm in preserving the various dialects of American English, Canadian English, British English, Australian English, South African English, or any other brand of English. They are as "fusion" as cuisine, mixing flavors and spices and cooking methods with impunity, creating new combinations that delight our palates. Language is no different.

On the subject of writing accents, Mark Twain said it best, in the prologue for Huckleberry Finn:

EXPLANATORY

In this book a number of dialects are used, to wit: the Missouri negro dialect; the extremest form of the backwoods Southwestern dialect; the ordinary “Pike County” dialect; and four modified varieties of this last. The shadings have not been done in a haphazard fashion, or by guesswork; but painstakingly, and with the trustworthy guidance and support of personal familiarity with these several forms of speech.

I make this explanation for the reason that without it many readers would suppose that all these characters were trying to talk alike and not succeeding.

THE AUTHOR.

This actually poses a question for me. Knowing this country was settled by escaping brits, I wonder if the native americans learning english from them, helped change the way it was spoken? It is a forever developing language that seems like it's mostly things like accents, and dialects forge the language and it's differences. Given merit to my question, that would conclude that aboriginies and inuits also helped alter the language, too. Maybe that's also kinda why Aussies sound similar to brits, since they sent prisnors there, although Aussies sound a bit more gruff. English is quite the language to explore.

Even a modern Englishman's English is an offshoot of some earlier version. There is no such thing as a "pure" English. Never has been. Even pre-Hastings English was heavily influenced by Norse and Gaelic, resulting in variations that were at times mutually intelligible, although there was seldom a particular geographic line where it could be said that people on each side of it were speaking separate variations. And that was before French, Spanish, Hindi, and God knows what else collided with it.

This has nothing at all to do with hurt feelings. It's linguistics.


Do you see the contradiction in your own statement there? Which form of "English in all its many and glorious accents and variations" is "English English," a standard that comes before all the other many and glorious accents and variations in other countries?

I will grant you that whatever variation that's spoken in England at this time can be considered "English English." And whatever variation that's spoken in the US can be considered "American English." And so on for Canadian, Australian, and so on. But none of them have any claim to be "standard" in the sense that any other variation can be considered inferior or unworthy of serious consideration.

Shan't!

BTW, there is a very good book just out called "The Dictionary Wars" that documents the struggle between scholars compiling dictionaries on the two sides of the Atlantic, as they tried to come up with some sort of "ideal" English suitable for the two continents. I suggest you read it:

https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691188911/the-dictionary-wars

There's a Band called Mice And Men and they had a hit song called Little Talks. My ex had both versions; english and gaelic, the latter almost sounds like english, even not knowing the language, it was almost easy to understand completely.

 

[SimonDoom]

This actually poses a question for me. Knowing this country was settled by escaping brits, I wonder if the native americans learning english from them, helped change the way it was spoken? It is a forever developing language that seems like it's mostly things like accents, and dialects forge the language and it's differences. Given merit to my question, that would conclude that aboriginies and inuits also helped alter the language, too.

I have wondered this, too. It seems plausible to me. British English pronunciation has a musicality to it -- frequent changes in pitch -- that American English lacks. The standard American accent that newscasters speak is a flat accent, unlike British. To my ears, many Native American accents also are flat, so I wonder if they influenced early British Americans.

 

[KeithD]

The last time I was in the UK, we did an around-the-country trip, starting in the Forest of Dean, going over to Great Yarmouth and then up through York to Edinburgh and across and back down through the Lake District. The trip took us to Berkeley Castle for the first time (the tourist guide pronouncing it "Barkley"). A branch of the Berkeley's came over to Virginia and established plantations up and down the James River. The pronunciation I knew was as it was spelled (the "e" rather than an "a"). The tour guide sheepishly acknowledged that the "e" pronunciation was a pure one. The Berkeleys who had come to Virginia had maintained the pronunciation and the British had later bastardized it. I wouldn't be surprised if more of that didn't happen--those fleeing England maintaining original pronunciations of this and that better than those who stayed did.

 

[Voboy]

The last time I was in the UK, we did an around-the-country trip, starting in the Forest of Dean, going over to Great Yarmouth and then up through York to Edinburgh and across and back down through the Lake District. The trip took us to Berkeley Castle for the first time (the tourist guide pronouncing it "Barkley"). A branch of the Berkely's came over to Virginia and established plantations up and down the James River. The pronunciation I knew was as it was spelled (the "e" rather than an "a"). The tour guide sheepishly acknowledged that the "e" pronunciation was a pure one. The Berkeleys who had come to Virginia had maintained the pronunciation and the British had later bastardized it. I wouldn't be surprised if more of that didn't happen--those fleeing England maintaining original pronunciations of this and that better than those who stayed did.

Interesting. It's similar to the point I made above about the Quebeckers. The colonials kept the language, but the speakers back home changed it...

There are many examples in British English of people deliberately mispronouncing (or "repronouncing?") words. Cavalry officers affected a bizarre accent in which R was pronounced as W, for no good reason I can find. Then there's RP, in more recent times.

 

[JaxRhapsody]

I have wondered this, too. It seems plausible to me. British English pronunciation has a musicality to it -- frequent changes in pitch -- that American English lacks. The standard American accent that newscasters speak is a flat accent, unlike British. To my ears, many Native American accents also are flat, so I wonder if they influenced early British Americans.

According to a video of that guy in that posted video, british newscasters had to do the same thing in the past. If you wanna see something humorous; there's a married couple that are both newscasters, that do tiktok or youtube videos, where they use that "speak" for everyday things. I think I saw one where they were getting ready for a date.

 

[FifthEstate]

Laurel is tolerant of imperfect English but seems to hate poor punctuation and walls of text.

As she should! Nothing is worse IMO.

 

[jehoram]

This actually poses a question for me. Knowing this country was settled by escaping brits, I wonder if the native americans learning english from them, helped change the way it was spoken?

I don't think that the Native Americans contributed much in the way of how American English is spoken. They did contribute hundreds of words into the language, though, usually in names of local flora and fauna for which there were no words in European English. And lots of place names, as well. Curiously, their main contribution could have been the introduction of the word "Yankee," by which all Americans are tagged around the world. (The original word seems to be "Yengee," which was an attempt to adapt the wore "English" to their own native language.)

 

[firmbutgentle]

Dialect is awful when it's written badly by people who don't understand it, or are trying to use it condescendingly or as comic relief. Given your background I suspect you have a good ear for it and would write it well. Think Faulkner, Cormac McCarthy, Larry McMurtry, Alice Walker.

 

[SimonDoom]

Here's a tricky one. In America, we do not use "me" in place of "my." But some Brits and Australians use "me" in place of "my." Example: "Tie Me Kangaroo Down Sport." "That's me mum."

Some questions:

Is this a class or regional thing, or is it very common in different regions and classes?

Is "me" just a matter of how to pronounce "my"? When a speaker in dialogue speaks this way, do you write it "me" or "my"?

I would assume that a British/Australian writer would always write "my" in narrative but might use "me" in dialogue to make it clear how it's being pronounced. Is that correct?

 

[TheRedChamber]

Here's a tricky one. In America, we do not use "me" in place of "my." But some Brits and Australians use "me" in place of "my." Example: "Tie Me Kangaroo Down Sport." "That's me mum."

Some questions:

Is this a class or regional thing, or is it very common in different regions and classes?

Is "me" just a matter of how to pronounce "my"? When a speaker in dialogue speaks this way, do you write it "me" or "my"?

I would assume that a British/Australian writer would always write "my" in narrative but might use "me" in dialogue to make it clear how it's being pronounced. Is that correct?

In Britain, a regional thing is always also a class thing, by which I mean the prejudice has always been that anyone northern is automatically considered to be working class poor if they speak with anything like their regional accent (until you hit Edinburgh where it's possible to be posh again.) This has gotten slightly better e.g. with the introduction of news presenters with regional accents on the BBC about twenty years ago.

Best example I can think of the use of 'me' is from Billy Elliot. Billy is opening up to his dance teacher about the death of his mother. They're having a moment.

Teacher - "She sounds like a very special lady, your mother."
Billy - "Nah, she were just me mam."

Brilliant line which I always interpreted as Billy's working class perceptions of it being impossible to be anything more than you are (the essential theme of the movie). Replace it with 'my mum' and it sounds more stiff upper lipped.

I've used 'me' in dialogue before (see here) and attempted to capture younger and older speakers of the Yorkshire dialect which is fairly tricky to keep in the authentic flavour but not overdone range.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Here's a tricky one. In America, we do not use "me" in place of "my." But some Brits and Australians use "me" in place of "my." Example: "Tie Me Kangaroo Down Sport." "That's me mum."

Some questions:

Is this a class or regional thing, or is it very common in different regions and classes?

Is "me" just a matter of how to pronounce "my"? When a speaker in dialogue speaks this way, do you write it "me" or "my"?

I would assume that a British/Australian writer would always write "my" in narrative but might use "me" in dialogue to make it clear how it's being pronounced. Is that correct?

Might be a bit of a class thing in Australia, "my mum" being more middle class, Protestant background; "me mum" being more working class Catholic background. Not that religion is foregrounded so much these days, not according to the latest census anyway, but the residual dialects linger from parents and countries of origin.

Class legacies are more noticeable in some states than others, with South Australia for example having a big Brit migrant population (came out to build cars in the sixties), plus not being colonised by convicts (SA was free settled, lots of Germans as well as the Brits who laid out the town plans).

When I was a teen, mums were very often, "the ched," or, "the old cheese," kids not being very reverent. Certainly no wanting to bang them, that seems to be an American thing.

 

[jehoram]

Which all goes to show that when you write in a particular dialect, you'd better be careful because it's not just regional variation but class variation that you're conveying. That's true of any country, I think.

 

[MetaBob]

In Britain, a regional thing is always also a class thing, by which I mean the prejudice has always been that anyone northern is automatically considered to be working class poor if they speak with anything like their regional accent (until you hit Edinburgh where it's possible to be posh again.) This has gotten slightly better e.g. with the introduction of news presenters with regional accents on the BBC about twenty years ago.

Best example I can think of the use of 'me' is from Billy Elliot. Billy is opening up to his dance teacher about the death of his mother. They're having a moment.

Teacher - "She sounds like a very special lady, your mother."
Billy - "Nah, she were just me mam."

Brilliant line which I always interpreted as Billy's working class perceptions of it being impossible to be anything more than you are (the essential theme of the movie). Replace it with 'my mum' and it sounds more stiff upper lipped.

I've used 'me' in dialogue before (see here) and attempted to capture younger and older speakers of the Yorkshire dialect which is fairly tricky to keep in the authentic flavour but not overdone range.

In the native Irish language, the "my" possessive does not exist. Same as the "h" sound. When Irish are speaking vernacular English, instead of saying "my thing", they would say "me ting" or "me ding".

Other ways the native Celtic languages (also including Scots Gaelic, Welsh, Breton, Manx, and Cornish, plus extinct variants and ancestors like Brittonic) also changed English, for all English speakers, hanging on more in places like Yorkshire than others:

 

[Kumquatqueen]

In Britain, a regional thing is always also a class thing, by which I mean the prejudice has always been that anyone northern is automatically considered to be working class poor if they speak with anything like their regional accent (until you hit Edinburgh where it's possible to be posh again.) This has gotten slightly better e.g. with the introduction of news presenters with regional accents on the BBC about twenty years ago.
...
I've used 'me' in dialogue before (see here) and attempted to capture younger and older speakers of the Yorkshire dialect which is fairly tricky to keep in the authentic flavour but not overdone range.

Ah, like The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie - that cut-glass Edinburgh accent which sounds more English than RP English!

When I was little (late 70s), diversity on the BBC meant a kids' programme called Why Don't You (switch off the television and do something else more interesting instead?), which was a magazine programme presented by teenagers, but each week filmed in a different city. It was quite scandalous, because the kids had regional accents, and many people couldn't understand it. I wasn't allowed to watch it so of course I did as soon as my mum left the room, and slowly learned how to understand accents from exotic places like Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds, Hull, and even Glasgow, Cardiff and Belfast!

Scottish middle-class and posh accents were always reasonably acceptable, but Welsh and especially Irish ones definitely not! Unless you were Terry Wogan.

'me mum' would be typical of many working-class accents in England (eg Pam Ayres' Wiltshire 'I wish I'd looked after me teeth') but 'mum' is also regional - in Birmingham it's mom (they ship in mothers day cards from America), Yorkshire and Newcastle might be mam, much of Scotland and NI would use Ma...

I couldn't tell you offhand where 'me ma' and 'ma ma' split, but both exist. M' for my happens in Yorkshire where the fewer sounds the better ("tin tin tin" is local pronunciation of "it isn't in the tin"), but my is more 'moy' in Brum.

 

[jaykaythree]

I'm about 4300 words into the story I had in mind to write in so non-standard a way, and it's my most difficult one to write so far. On one hand, I'm not as polished as I have been in previous stories (and will be again); on the other, I'm going for something of a homespun feel, one in which my male lead (who is from central Arkansas) is relating the story as though you or I were sitting on his front porch or in his living room, sharing a cold beer.

 

[Dr_Strabismus]

English is a great language because it doesn't have standards committee (other languages do, famously France's Académie française).

 

[Kumquatqueen]

English isn't a language. It's three languages standing on each other inside a trenchcoat.
(Not original to me, don't argue about exactly how many it is...)

Previously writers like Dickens used NSE dialog but mostly in satire, and although his work had radical political and social messages, middle class readers still felt they could safely laugh at the working class characters' accents and fumbling with language or be repulsed by their crudeness. ... literacy was improving, at the time few working class people could read, and it was the middle and upper classes who were mostly buying the books. ...
A verse from the hymn Morning has Broken, sums up how things should be, at least in the minds of middle and upper-class readers:

‘The rich man in his castle
The poor man at his gate;
God made them high and lowly
And ordered their estate.’

That verse is All things Bright and Beautiful, not Morning has Broken. MhB is by Farjeon, in the 1930s!
As my Sunday School's church always said, "we shall sing ATBAB, omitting verse 4", or secondary school, "omitting verses 2 and 4" - because they didn't like that verse nor teenagers turning "the purple-headed mountain" into a purple-headed penis...

Lots of Dickens is about the clash of classes - Pip in Great Expectations feeling awkward because of his speech in front of Estella and Miss Havisham, for example. Things were changing, particularly with the rollout of education, which became compulsory to age 10 in 1880 (and enforced by 1890).

The Tate Libraries and other public libraries were built from 1880 onwards, so the late Victorian period (1880-1901) was very different to the society in early Victorian times (1837-50) - pre-1880 libraries at Boots the Chemist etc charged for you to borrow books.

 

[oggbashan]

When I was a senior manager, I had staff spread throughout the UK. Most were in London and Birmingham. As soon as I answered the telephone, I could tell the Brummies from the Londoners. The Londoners came from the East End and aklthough they might be from different communities, they all spoke generic London East End. Those from Birmingham were obvious but understandable.

I had some trouble at first with the staff from Newcastle, Sunderland and Belfast but after a few months I knew which were which. I had no trouble at all with Edinburgh and Cardiff. But all of them understood me clearly becasue I spoke like the BBC.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

Interesting, one of my much elder relatives, when I was young, and he was alive, told me in the 1930s he used to borrow books from an 'institute'. I need to follow that up one day.

Another thing about that generation, there was an elderly farmer I knew, who claimed he hadn't been out of the village or on a bus into the nearest town, since 1950-somehting.

Could be this one: Mechanics Institution - but there were many lending libraries run by various bodies, until around 1940 all councils had to run public libraries - some simply took over local private ones.

Not leaving a village wasnt uncommon, though usually farmers would go to the fortnightly market for business and gossip, but I suppose some might leave that to their sons? But even in 2001 we had to have legislation for farmers ensuring paperwork said "I confirm I have read and understood this document or have had it read to me in a language I understood". There were still a number of functionally illiterate hill farmers, not to mention they weren't all lying when they claimed to only understand Welsh or Gaelic.