After a bit of time, you'll also have no problem with Irish, Scottish, and English.
Nobody will ever understand Bostonian.
Hearing the Boston accent might be akin to getting stabbed in the ear, but I'm pretty sure it's comprehensible (I'm from there, so maybe I'm just acclimated). Heavy Scottish, on the other hand, is fucking incomprehensible (when they speak amongst themselves... the Scottish accent we think of is how they speak to us, much like Jamaicans). Try watching the movie "Sweet Sixteen" without subtitles...
Honestly, the world should be more mad at the fact that us Americans don't use the metric system. Slight variations in how we speak depending on regions and nationalities is only natural and is not gonna change if you try to establish some sort of "standard" English. Language will evolve whether you like it or not, and there will always be those differences.
On January 29 2011 05:50 Perscienter wrote: Yes, it would lead to quicker learning.
theater or theatre specter or spectre honor or honour dialogue or dialog defence or defense in a team or on a team drugs or drug brackets or squared brackets
JUST CHOSE ONE OF THEM! NO MORE FANCY MY PEOPLE ARE SO SPECIAL WE NEED A DIFFERENT SPELLING, PLEASE!
Changing spectre into specter only happens, if you do not know how to spell an 'r'.
Fall and autumn are allowed to co-exist.
It is an issue for me, because I'm reading a lot on the Internet. Many sources even mix the two versions up.
Yes, comprehension would be so much easier if we all spoke the same language. Before asking us English speakers to standardize on one spelling, why don't we first propose getting rid of that angry, nasal cousin of English, German. Because at least British and American English are mutually intelligible.
After a bit of time, you'll also have no problem with Irish, Scottish, and English.
Nobody will ever understand Bostonian.
Hearing the Boston accent might be akin to getting stabbed in the ear, but I'm pretty sure it's comprehensible (I'm from there, so maybe I'm just acclimated). Heavy Scottish, on the other hand, is fucking incomprehensible (when they speak amongst themselves... the Scottish accent we think of is how they speak to us, much like Jamaicans). Try watching the movie "Sweet Sixteen" without subtitles...
CHALLENGE ACCEPTED
Also, it was a joke. I do understand the Boston accent, but it was much harder to comprehend than most other accents. At least for me.
But yes. The real issue should be wtf America doesn't use metric yet.
On January 29 2011 00:39 Shockk wrote:Languages should develop naturally, and they're certainly not something that could be regulated. Let alone internationally.
May I refer you to the fact that grammar and spelling mistakes come naturally, while correct grammar and spelling is the result of adherence to regulations?
English is a language with so-called opaque (also called 'deep') pronunciation. Since the English writing system uses both morphological as well as phonological cues to form words, it's referred to as a morphophonological transcription. What this means is that half the time you can derive the meaning of a word from the way it's written, even if this gives you no clue whatsoever about how to pronounce it. This is true both for general stress patterns ('centrifugal', 'spherical' or just simply 'guitar', which is pronounced with a iambic, not the trochaic stress pattern which is more common) as well as syllabic pronunciation.
Just compare [to], [too] and [two], [there], [their] and [they're]. Probably two of the most frequently violated sets of words sounding alike. Maybe a result of phonemic poverty of the English language, who knows. To reiterate, language requires regulation in order to be intelligible.
(Indian English for instance is barely intelligible to foreigners since Indians make frequent use of 'unnatural' abbreviations of words as a result of 'popularisation' of certain terms.)
On January 29 2011 02:33 muse5187 wrote: I don't really see the problem, it's not like you cant communicate because of spelling or pronunciation. Besides inside American English there are multiple spellings/pronunciations for words. Kwark our parents always tell us "the best defense is an offense" is that an American saying?
the thing is, humans are expert pattern recognitionists.
That's not even a fucking word, but chances are, if you speak english you understood what i meant. which in itself proves itself to be true.
Thus, there's no reason for any standardised spelling, it doesn't work on national levels never mind international, and any reasonably intelligent person has the pattern spotting capabilities to decipher meaning even from horribly broken english. a couple of withdrawn u's isn't really a problem.
That being said, out of pride for the mother tongue i'd prefer more people to use British English.. I suppose it's just kind of embarrassing for the American culture to represent the English language around the world. I'd feel sad if peoples first exposure to English was from things like Twilight or a Mcdonalds menu as opposed to say Orwell or... Ricky gervais ;D . I suppose a lot of that way of thinking comes from the fact that America doesn't really have much of a linguistic history in the way that british english does, Poets, play-writes authors.
None of this is meant to be a slight against America, much more a sign of respect to the origination and rich history of the language, i feel justified in saying there is richer ground to be tread within the realms of British english.. if not for its Heritage than just the simple beauty of its complexity and multi-cultural roots. (which i feel America bastardises for its own sake rather than for any worthwhile reason)
edit: inb4 someone brings up Orwell was born in india.
On January 29 2011 06:24 CheezDip wrote: I would like a new word to represent a singular person of unspecified gender. Not a fan of the singular useage of They, Their, Them.
"cunt" should suffice.
"A pair of cunts" "oi Cunt" "alright ya cunt?" "Cunt, come closer"
On January 29 2011 00:29 KwarK wrote: I'm much more worried about 'payed' and 'layed'. It seems I see these abominations more regularly than I see the correct spelling recently and it makes me sad. Before we get to work on using just one set of acceptable spellings we should teach people to spell.
Personally, I'm more worried about people confusing 'lose' and 'loose', and 'there', 'their', 'they're'.
'Lose' and 'loose' especially bothers me for some reason.
On January 29 2011 06:34 HansMoleman wrote: No, we must fight for individualism. A Global ANYTHING is a bad thing.
communication is key to advancement of anything. the speed of our technological advancements is largely thanks to the easing and speed of global communication. Now imagine this, but with everyone speaking the same language and nothing being misinterpreted by translations that dont have direct equivalents etc.
You can stay "individual" by wearing your skinny jeans and dying your hear, but in this topic, a global language would only serve to open borders and opportunities.
Feel free to argue against that point, I'd be interested to see if there is another side to this.
On January 29 2011 06:20 Scrimpton wrote: the thing is, humans are expert pattern recognitionists.
That's not even a fucking word, but chances are, if you speak english you understood what i meant. which in itself proves itself to be true.
Thus, there's no reason for any standardised spelling, it doesn't work on national levels never mind international, and any reasonably intelligent person has the pattern spotting capabilities to decipher meaning even from horribly broken english. a couple of withdrawn u's isn't really a problem.
That being said, out of pride for the mother tongue i'd prefer more people to use British English.. I suppose it's just kind of embarrassing for the American culture to represent the English language around the world. I'd feel sad if peoples first exposure to English was from things like Twilight or a Mcdonalds menu as opposed to say. I suppose a lot of that way of thinking comes from the fact that America doesn't really have much of a linguistic history in the way that british english does, Poets, play-writes authors.
None of this is meant to be a slight against America, much more a sign of respect to the origination and rich history of the language, i feel justified in saying there is richer ground to be tread within the realms of British english.. if not for its Heritage than just the simple beauty of its complexity and multi-cultural roots. (which i feel America bastardises for its own sake rather than for any worthwhile reason)
I must apologize (which isn't really an apology), but this sentence really jumped out at me. 'doesn't really have much of a linguistic history...Poet, play-writes authors': What the fuck?
And if the cultures around the world aren't exposed to English through commercialism- Coke, McDonalds and Cher- then how pray tell are they going to be exposed to it?
You're also making the archaeologist's mistake of thinking that the peak of the culture is representative of the whole culture. I assure you a gratuitous amount of shit has been written in British English. That no one bothered to save it doesn't mean that every chimney-sweep read Alexander Pope. To compare the collective legacy of British literature to today's lowest forms is misleading.
On January 29 2011 02:08 Landok wrote: And its Defense, not defence!!!!!!
Don't be silly. The American spelling of defence is attack.
I lol'd.
As for the OP, though, I don't think you'll be getting anywhere with your standardization crusade anytime soon (nor do I think you would really improve anything if you did. But I still love and respect you as a fellow homo sapiens.).
Changes in spelling emerge from the bottom up; spelling changes that are ordained from the top down tend to be highly localized, limited, short-lived etc. etc.. They just don't work (or don't work to nearly the same extent that the natural evolutions of language does).
Also, it's a mistake to conceive of the world as having only two varieties of English, an American variety and a British variety. Linguistic studies in dialectology simply do not support that hypothesis. There are thousands of dialects in America alone. In fact, depending on how you like to define dialect, there are as many dialects as there are individual speakers. You could even say that there are as many dialects as there are individual persistent situations of use in those individual speakers lives (i.e. you don't talk the same at work as you do with your friends, nor do either of those contexts match up with how you talk when, say, you're visiting the doctor).
Language is not monolithic. It's not systematic. We tend to talk about it that way because it's simpler than treating it in all it's complexity, but, when your proposals rely on the idea of there being "an English language" in which you might enact a systemwide change, the messiness of reality will inevitably disappoint you.
(If anyone cares to give it a shot, there's an excellent book on linguistics called The Linguistics of Speech which attempts to model, using inferential statistics and complexity theory, what actually causes languages to change over time. I thought it was great:
I personally enjoy the wide variety it means spelling mistakes are easier covered up ^^, but seriously because of its flexibility its one of the reasons its one of the most well known languages in the world, the only issue i have with it is been on the internet so often and seeing people from other countries type in english sometimes it effects my spelling in situations where it has to be oxford-english (school things)
On January 29 2011 06:18 Dagobert wrote: May I refer you to the fact that grammar and spelling mistakes come naturally, while correct grammar and spelling is the result of adherence to regulations?
This is misleading. A "mistake" is simply a non-standard usage. Some non-standard usages eventually become standard (e.g. decimate). So, mistakes do come naturally, but "regulations" likewise come naturally (I mean, it's not like English has a governing body which writes down these regulations).
On January 29 2011 06:39 couches wrote: Accents, local slangs and local dialects will still change the language even if there's a standard. There's no stopping that.
honor color judgment harbor or gtfo
I wouldn't mind getting rid of boston accents fwiw.
We should make the written language phonetic so that people can actually read! Wi shud mayk Thuh wriitiin layngwij fuhnetiic sou That pipuhl kan akchwuhli rid.
On January 29 2011 06:39 couches wrote: Accents, local slangs and local dialects will still change the language even if there's a standard. There's no stopping that.
honor color judgment harbor or gtfo
I wouldn't mind getting rid of boston accents fwiw.
We should make the written language phonetic so that people can actually read! Wi shud mayk Thuh wriitiin layngwij fuhnetiic sou That pipuhl kan akchwuhli rid.
EPT
