There is no such thing as proper English. The English language is defined by common usage. In other words, if enough people use it, that is proper.
How odd - I was at school in those two decades too, and grammar was pummelled into us!
That is clear. Orwell was a great visionary. Sometimes one can be “cancelled” and possibly looses ones job by just having said wrong words.
So “words speak louder than actions”.
So “words speak louder than actions”.
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They what makes English difficult as a language is not the vocabulary or the pronunciation of words but the fact that for every rule there is another rule to break the first.
However, I think to get ‘up and running’, it’s probably one of the easier ones.
When I was a kid growing up in South Africa, we had lots of English kids who had come out with their parents. Because Afrikaans (which split off from Dutch about 150 yrs ago) has strict, simple language rules, they quickly mastered the written and reading bit. Pronunciation with the ‘ghh’ sound at the back of the throat took longer. Most Brits and Americans pronounce that as a ‘Hhh’ sound.
However, I think to get ‘up and running’, it’s probably one of the easier ones.
When I was a kid growing up in South Africa, we had lots of English kids who had come out with their parents. Because Afrikaans (which split off from Dutch about 150 yrs ago) has strict, simple language rules, they quickly mastered the written and reading bit. Pronunciation with the ‘ghh’ sound at the back of the throat took longer. Most Brits and Americans pronounce that as a ‘Hhh’ sound.
What did Churchill (might have been someone else) say about Brits and Americans? ‘Two nations separated by a common language’.
When I lived in the US in 1986 there was a popular quiz show. One day they had a Brit on who used British spelling in response to one of the questions. The American host rejected his version and the Brit berated him for screwing with his language to which the host replied ‘you may have started English, but we’re going to finish it’. Lot of laughs from the studio audience.
When I lived in the US in 1986 there was a popular quiz show. One day they had a Brit on who used British spelling in response to one of the questions. The American host rejected his version and the Brit berated him for screwing with his language to which the host replied ‘you may have started English, but we’re going to finish it’. Lot of laughs from the studio audience.
Geeze, gramps, I don’t what your problem is; I mean like, she was, like, totally making sense. 🙂
Sorry, but the use of capitals in the titles of threads here is entirely optional and there is no right or wrong.
Here is one of the popular titles that has been around for a long time:
Post a Picture that Makes You Laugh
You also totally misunderstand the definition of the word "degradation" and how it is applied in this title.
It may be from three or four decades ago, when people got upset at the "Ten Items or Less" checkout lines. I recall a local TV news segment on this particular issue.
@chrisb
Enough with the “Gramps”! My daughter is only 21. 😀
When I was courting my wife many years ago, she took a job in Essex for a year or so, so I was a regular visitor there. Since she left, neither of us has been back!
That person brings to mind that line from Desiderata “ Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are vexations to the spirit.” Very true.
Of course not everyone from Essex is like that!
Enough with the “Gramps”! My daughter is only 21. 😀
When I was courting my wife many years ago, she took a job in Essex for a year or so, so I was a regular visitor there. Since she left, neither of us has been back!
That person brings to mind that line from Desiderata “ Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are vexations to the spirit.” Very true.
Of course not everyone from Essex is like that!
I'm surprised this hasn't started something. I happen to have had a decent amount of English instruction. I recall diagramming sentences in the 6th grade circa 1968 and wondering why I was taught that. I was repeatedly taught that sentence fragments are always wrong. Sometime around 2000 I noticed sentence fragments appearing in non-fiction published books and magazines. I saw them in many places. Even in Scientific American. (sentence fragment used for explanatory purposes)
When I was a child, electrocution was a form of capital punishment, the government intentionally killing someone for committing a capital crime. I also heard it used for accidental death by electricity. But in the last 20 years I've heard a "wrong usage," to mean hurt but NOT killed by electricity. That definition is used so often that it now appears in some dictionaries.
These and other changes over my lifetime have both annoyed and fascinated me. I've got several editions of Merriam Webster's and American Heritage dictionaries, and it's interesting to see how words and their meanings have changed over time, even just the last 50 years or so.
There was a guy Chaucer who wrote this a while back:
"Ye knowe eek, that in forme of speche is chaunge
With-inne a thousand yeer, and wordes tho
That hadden prys, now wonder nyce and straunge
Us thinketh hem; and yet they spake hem so,
And spedde as wel in love as men now do."
Here is a translation into modern English:
You know as well the forms of speech may change
Within a thousand years. Words come and go.
What once was common now feels quaint and strange,
Or so we think; and yet men once spoke so
And sped as well in love as we, you know.