Job Discussion Forums

[Will.]

Ok...
Sod this for a game of soldiers.
Let us consider the quality of the original settlers and inhabitants of the original colonies. The colonists were, of course educated to the highest level of social interaction that the state offered at that time. They could read the bible if they were religious or religiously educated and listen to,it being read if they were not. Take a look at the examples of contracts for the less well off who sold away seven years of their life to work on plantations and suchlike. How many had a signature and how many a cross. American English started with a lot of dregs and that is why there are many errors, mistakes or call them differences if you like. the spellings and variations must have developed because the words were spelt as they sounded and by illiterates eg thru, nite, tire etc or, if not for this reason then, sheer bloody mindedness and a genuine attempt to undermine the established order of written English. take your pick.
Enjoy

[Gordon]

Will, I hope you were kidding. I think we all hope so.

[Will.]

Sorry if I cause (d) offense Gordon, not my intention. but said with a smile and a little tongue in cheek.
This is not for flaming. Genuine input.

Anyone have a better theory for this misuse of established norms?

Is it "we spell it like this because we can", "we want to" or because that is the way we spell it? Where did all this variation start and why?
Please do tell me it was not a conscious decision.

[Atlas]

[johnslat]

Dear Atlas,

". . . is diversity a bad thing or a good thing?"

Judging from the postings on this thread (and others), the answer to your question would seem to be: "Yes".

Some think diversity's good; others see it as bad. Personally, I'm of the Chairman Mao "Let a thousand flowers bloom" school (only, in my case, that's NOT so they can then be cut down more easily).
Diversity forever - not that it needs a cheering section. Diversity's going to triumph whether we're for it OR against it.
Regards,
John

[Atlas]

I'd have to agree with you, John.

Rats, weeds, roaches, humans--survival potential is stronger because of adaption, diversification, and letting some new DNA seep into the gene pool once in a while.

I don't like what popular culture does to our dictionaries, but those words that do stand the test of time enrich our language and understanding, broaden our cultural horizons, and let's not forget, accomodate an evolving mix of societies and human development.

In geological time, the English accent problem looks a little silly. Our descendents are going to look back at us and laugh their feelers off.

[guest of Japan]

In response to Will,

There's actually a lot of truth to your tongue in cheek post.
The rebellion against the established order is most clearly seen in Mr. Webster the dictionary man. He set out to make a distinct American dictionary. In places where he felt variation should exist, even if it didn't already, he made one up.

As for the quality of English of the original settlers have a look at some of the original writings of William Penn or the explorers. Their writings are littered with mistakes (and these were educated men).

[Will.]

Thanks Guest,
I have, when I was sojourning over there, back in the seventies, read the journals of which you speak and agreed, they are peppered with variations, that was one good reason to read them. The stylistic differences of the two authors was of intense interest to me and this reflects on my reference to the illiterate and the educated comment from my earlier post. I also enjoyed the adventure, sense of discovery, side of the story to be honest.
A big "THANK YOU" to your noble self for providing an answer to the never ending conundrum that plagues the erudite and irritated who post here on the subject of dialectical and linguistic difference between N.Am and other varieties of English.
The response:
It was Webster's fault.
As the kids today say "game over"
Let's move on.

[killian]

hey ya'll...i just dunno. i was taught in school that shakespeare didn't have a dictionary as such a thingee didn't exist back then. spellings became standardized later.

want to be fascinated? research why the journal of the british medical society ("the lancet") spells fetus as "fetus" and not as "feotus." google should provide such quite easily.

[shmooj]

foetus I believe

perhaps it's cos they couldn't remember how to spell it

[Stephen Jones]

British spelling was standardized by the end of the seventeenth century, some sixty years after the death of Shakespeare. For cultural reasons it was standardized on etmylogical grounds, so words like "through", that hadn't been pronounced that way since the time of Chaucer, nor written that way for a hundred and fifty years or more. became the standard. Dr. Johnson's dictionary was published in the middle of the eighteenth century and made the changes/reversions in spelling definite. Of course by that time there had been over a hundred years of emigration to the States (the Pilgrim Fathers set sail during Shakespeare's lifetime) and so there was already a rift.

Webster deliberately set out to increase the rift, for political reasons, but he did not create it.

[Will.]

Funnily enough Killian, Shakespeare even had trouble spelling his own name and there are differing examples of his signature too.

[Dr.J]

Clearly it's a little silly to argue about the roots of English, because although we would like to assume that it issued straight from Britain like clean water from a natural spring, it is actually the result of thousands of years of bas tardizing whatever they were talking in Babylonia.

The fact is that now, it is what it is, and variations are small and trivial. Ask any learner of English whether they are more worried about the things that are different between variations (a little vocab and pron) or what they have in common (entire grammar, syntax, vocab and pron system).

I can't believe this has run to three pages based on what was clearly an attempt to start an argument. Did I post that before...