I know what your thinking. Doesn't the dufus know to use the word hear instead of here?
The answer is most vociferously no!
Why, oh why, does the written language have to be so dang difficult? When we speak we don't differentiate between here or hear, and yet the listeners understand what were saying, why? context that's why.
It might be a shock to you that I did not do so well in English during my formal years of education (Okay, it would not be a shock to anyone who has read my blog before). I didn't do so well in math either. What did I do well in, you might ask? Uummm.... in the one semmester of typing class I took, I got very good at disassymbling the typewriter and putting it back together before the teacher could catch me. I did okay at lunch. Oh, and their (or is it there) was band. In my senior year of high school I spent four of my six classes in the band room......but I digress.
Back to the question at hand, why is it so hard to write English? You Brits are a bit tricky the way you throw in extra letters like u in words like labor and neighbor and how can you possibly justify saying worcestershire with just three vowels? Of course your not as bad as the French. Back when I was driving over the road I asked on the CB if any one knew where versailles Indiana was. Having studied the french revolutioin I knew how to properly pronounce it but my fellow truck drivers (being one hundred percent American) were totally askance as to the township I was looking for, until I pronounced it the way it's spelled. Who ever heard of silent Ls and how does one get shree out of shreve, as in Shreveport?
Let's talk about punctuation, I swear that when I was a child their (or there) was only the period. Do you remember your father telling you that there (or thier) is no such word as can't? Thats because the apostrophe hadn't been invented yet. Okay I understand that the comma is very useful and if anything I now overuse it but when should I use parenthasies instead of comma's (should I be capitalizing the names of these punctuation marks) and when do I use the colon or semi-colon?
I'm starting to think that their (or there) is and has been for some time a conspiracy amongst english teachers to keep the english language as confusing as possible. I dont know why they would do such a thing. Is it possible they envey the French? Certainly it looks as if the British are moving toward "French-ification" (a word for Randi to admire).
Perhaps I could convince someone to come clean and uncover the truth behind This trend of befudduling our language.
Or maybe I'm just crazy.
7 comments:
Imagine if you had to learn English as a second language? I admire the folks that can do that. It's not an easy one. However, we are not considered the most difficult. (I believe Chinese and Arabic rank at the top.)
My English language pet peeve is when people say "I could care less." It's "I COULDN'T care less" meaning you cannot possibly care any less than you do at that moment.
I have never quite got the idea of Worcestershire, either. There are so many unused letters in that word. What have they done, since they should be left out? Poor r, e and e (correct me, if I have left out some) :-)
So miss Devine, come clean, you guys meet in some dank basement once a month don't you? What little twist were you personally involved with? Would you believe my daughter is taking Japanese, it's a little scary how smart she is, she must get it from her mother.
Sharp tongue, How many French have settled in Worcestershire? They always bring an abundance of extra letters wherever they go. I think the letter c gets short shrift. :~)
Jessica, I'd probably drive you nuts. I have a habit of saying things wrong intentionaly. Like pronouncing silent letters and you know that city in the center of the Texas panhandle? I call it Armadillo.
Blame the Normans. Before they arrived, we just a bunch of happy go lucky Anglo-Saxons with our Germanic language that made sense and was phonetic. Stupid Frenchies!
I've argued with my wife in the past over that "u" in color and favor and so on. What Americans did was move these words closer to their Latin heritage instead of fancying them up with a useless "u" like the French did. Spanish for "color" is color. 'Nuff said.
I have to tweak my normal American spellings at work. I write synopses of news articles there and I have to write "criticise" instead of "criticize" and "honour" instead of "honor" and so on. I'm totally fluent in two dialects of the same language, y'know?
I think some brains, like mine, are just naturally wired toward language. I love French and other languages, as well as my native English, so I take to them like a duck to water. It's amazing because I wasn't exactly a bookworm as a youngster -- but somehow, I just picked up all the rules of English grammar and spelling. I became really literate without much trying!
But it's important to me that people use English correctly. I can forgive someone for using the wrong form of a word or omitting an apostrophe if they just don't "click" with language. But you only have to read comments from people in their teens and twenties on YouTube or wherever to realize that English really is in danger if we don't toughen up educational standards.
English is a tough language to learn in its correct, pure form -- but even tougher when those trying to learn it are constantly exposed to bad English usage. It has to be so confusing for them.
I mean, the apostrophe is the only diacritic (accent mark, of sorts) in our language. We don't have to deal with umlauts, cedillas, circumflexes and suchlike that other languages abound in. So, honestly, I don't think it's too much to expect our yout's to use it correctly. I guess I'm just a grammar nazi, but so be it. Just the way my brain is wired, I suppose.
Not having a go at you, Roc, just sayin' -- I'm tough as nails when it comes to language. Just my "thing."
Wey Dragon, I'm sure you could tell that my tongue was firmly planted in my cheek. I agree with you that their is an assault on the english language as well as thinking in general.
Hold fast, my friend.
If you find errors in my writting I will consider it useful if you point them out, I have no problems being corrected
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