Steadfast

Pretend You Don't Read This

(or Nulla dies sine linea)

I was born a Cockney, complete with flat vowels,  dropped aitches and the bizarre transposition of "f's" and "th's." My father was quite content to let his son continue in this tradition, but my mother felt differently. She encouraged me to improve my speech and how I talked, reminding me that successful businessmen and army officers of rank spoke very well!   There were moments when I suspected it may have been more a gregarious admiration of the upper classes than any real sense of education of her son. Nevertheless by the time I had emigrated to the United States, I had acquired an acceptable (to Americans) accent.

But the leaving out of  syllables and whole blocks in the middle of words - it's still going on. "skeptism" for "skepticism,"   "barbituate" instead of "barbiturate" and so on. The one that makes me cringe the most is "partically" for "particularly."Good conversation -- and its sub-categories of sentence structure, syntax, speech labels and pronunciations, have, for some years, become a lost art. Ed Newman warned us about it for years. I remember a senior senator opposing a bill. He told us, without blush or stammer, that "we're going to finally wrestle to the ground this gigantic orgasm that is just out of control."  Huh?  The fact that he meant "organism"  does nothing to lessen the lack of grace in his statement. Okay, so Americans say "skejule" and the British say "shedyule," them "gararge" us "garridge" and so on. Those aren't mispronunciations, just a different language history.

Malcom X's wife announced her husband was "funeralized" my wife and I made a grab at the dictionary. (No, its not in there.........) That bastion of RP (Received Pronunciation) the BBC still haven't decided  wether is "CariBEEYan" or "CarRIBeyan", "Kenyah" or "Keenya"  and so on.

We can hardly protest the ignorance of today's students when those who decry the situation a aren't much better. Even Sarah Palin gets into the act with "refudiate." I remember qa foreign car maker telling us that its product was "The World's largest Van For Its Size.." 14 ounce pies contain "100% more chicken that it's 7 ounce pies." Duh!


With all this there are pro and con forces for an "official language. I am for a "President's English" that gives schools and academic institutions a base from which to work. Instead, what we have is the specious and odious PC movement, which is not an attempt to improve language and communication, but simply an attempt to control what people say.

It may not matter to most when you say "price" instead of "value" or "timid" instead of "shy" or "sensual" instead of "sensitive," and is certainly not a crime. Neither is expressing double negatives in sentences, but they point to a lack of awareness of just how important it is to express yourself accurately and precisely.  The right to express our individuality through speech is and almost distinct American trait. In education and in business, it is important to express yourself accurately and as precisely as you possible can.

Perhaps schools think with all that children have to learn today, there is no room to teach them how to speak correctly. Unlike many of the skills that have to be taught in the classroom, skills such as math and language can  be expressed very appropriately and fittingly in everyday contacts, in interrelationships, in ordinary and extraordinary ( or extraordinarily as some might say) communication.

BTW, my wife has just looked over my shoulder and said"OMG I hope you have written this perfect, because your readers will just fall all over you." LOL - did she mean "perfectly"?  And so it goes. But where?  If only people could speak proper like what I do!!