h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Incidently, isn't 'how are you' short for 'how are you doing?'? Answering the question that's asked, rather than the question that *was* asked, is correct, surely?

The only possible answer to "How do you do?" is "How do you do?"
The only polite answer to "How are you?" is "Fine. thank you."
Answers to "How are you doing?" depend on how well you know the questioner.
or possibly that should be

<>

Very true. A question has become a statement. No doubt this was considered bad form in the 18th Century or whatever.

I think that a language cant be murdered unless people dont want to or arent allowed to speak it.

Some people insist on speking it differently to me, but isnt that their own prerogative?

Dont we all speak English qutie differently to how Chaucer did and I think that there is a distinct difference between the English of Shakespeare and Chaucer. Did Shakespeare murder English?

IM not that good with these things but when I listen to Tricky what I hear is one of the most beautiful and expressive renderrings of the English language, maybe Im distracted by the music or its his tone of voice butit works. It works on many levels there is a poetic flow its expressive and an understandable form of cummunication.

Its fancinating the way language keeps "evolving" and I think its best to paraphrase one of the languages greatest exponents when suming up what I think.

Reports of its demise have been greatly exaggerated.

Language can never be a static thing - it has to change and evolve as people do otherwise it'll become dead.

For instance, a lot of words are creeping into the English language which are from different nationalities. For instance, I recently heard the word 'chuddies' used between several teenagers (both white and asian) on a bus recently. Chuddies is a Hindi (maybe urdu not sure..) word meaning underwear, and became increasingly used after it was used fequently in 'Goodness Gracious Me'

Text speak is an annoying creep into the english language. I hate text speak (although I am in my 20s), and always prefer to use properly written sentences when texting people. My parents on the other hand use text speak which is quite amusing as I spend a very long time trying to figure out what they've texted me. Sometimes I even get it wrong! But at the same time it saves money on text messages as it cuts down the message length and saves time for the typer (less characters to be typed in).
The problem occurs when people start using text speak for things not related to mobiles, e.g. writing an essay (I seem to recollect hearing that a number of GCSE essays have begun to have text speak found in them). For this - the only thing that can be done is teaching children the proper way of writing.

I don't think English is being murdered. I think it's changing and evolving and I think that's good. It's reflecting us. Just remember that if we were to speak the way we do to someone born in the 16th Century - they'd accuse us of either not speaking English, or destroying the language.

Nice one Kitush

Please be aware that I chose a deliberately provocative title for the thread in order to stimulate some debate!

I agree that language will evolve, as you and Blicky have said. It is progress - but not all progress is good, and therefore we should guard against becoming too sloppy in the use of our beautiful language.

Apart from txt spk, gave a couple of examples of what I find so annoying, basically they are Americanisms which use 'catchy' words instead of the perfectly decriptive existing ones. One example was BBC Speak for "forthcoming" now replaced with "upcoming"........ Ugh !'

Novo

I think that is just a matter of taste on the part of people who dont find it agreeable.

Lots of people wouldnt notice a difference between the two. Language is only wrong when it doesnt do the job intended.

If a someone tells me "I aint done nothing" I know tey are not deliberately using a double negative to be affirmative. If I assumed that after all my years hearing dounle negatives it would be me in the wrong for being a pedantic twit.

Sometimes new uses of words and new words do cause a peiod of confusion but this is when people say progress is bad seen as bad nad yes it is bad that there can be breakdowns in commmunication but it doesnt mean the progress itself is bad.

Ask around and see who would like a return to imperial money. Id bet my chuddies it would only be those who lived with it for a certain period of time. Even then not all of those wrinklies would want it back the decimal system is much more simple. If we did go back aside from the problems inherent in imperial we would have tough time in transition. The important thing is the problems in transition are not the problems of impeial money. A change from any system to another tends o through up problems it is the nature of progress and peoples resistance to change which are the problem not necessarily the new system itself.

Talking of decimalisation - coinage came into the conversation at work the other day. My young colleagues had not even heard of a farthing, let alone knowing its monetray value

What I find depressing is that language evolution appears to be driven by the common masses which has the effect that speech gradually becomes sloppier & coarser. The richness of our language is underused - but perhaps that's always been the case.

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indeed.



There's lots of weird spanglish happening as well, such as adding 'ing' to Spanish words (newish airline here called Vueling, for example). I think this sort of thing is a bit fun and also makes people aware of at least a few words in a different language.

Still can't stand txtspk though. Grrr...

az

Verily twas ever thus.

Thou do'st speak the truth my Liege !

Novo

Acrually, I disagree that a decimal/metric system is automatically easier to use than an Imperial one. If you know your times tables then an Imperial system can be easier to use becuase Imperial measurements tend to be divisible by more whole numbers than metric ones.

I thought that txtspk vanished when the T9 was invented

It's a curious notion that a language can be murdered. If it's dead, will we all have to start talking Polish or something? Nah. It evolves. Things evolve by mutating. Some mutations survive.

Of course, these days it's fashionable for the technologically challenged to rail against the appalling spelling of the young. What on earth do they thing those red squiggly lines are there for? But then, I bet once upon a time neolithic farmers would sit around muttering about the appalling decline in bison-hunting skills.

Mind you..there are things like the notorious 'Greengrocer's Apostrophe', as in "Banana's" Obviously it's terrible...the way it's been killed off. A curious tribe of self-appointed arbiters of 'correct' English are trying to stop people writing their plural's like that. But if it was good enough for Jane Austen, it's good enough for me.

Yup. To Austen, Apostrophe-S was the standard plural form. Then it was killed off. Ain't it funny how language evolves?

CU L8R, OK? (&c &c)

Forthcoming vs upcoming...

That would be a fine one to discuss on the British English thread (please! that's NOT a forum for discussing 'declining standards'). 'Forthcoming' contains a fossil. The word 'Forth' only survives elsewhere in the language in cliche phrases such as 'sally forth' and 'gush forth' - the sort of stuff that only the kind of eejit who'd say "A pint of your finest ale, meinhost" would ever come out with.

So it's no great surprise that 'forthcoming' is also losing its ecological nice, no?

Can we think of any other uses of forth? (apart from the river on the wrong side of Scotland)

Forthright?

A curious word, but quite descriptive.

Now that is a good one. I'd thought of 'henceforth'. I think that one falls into the category of tushery. It's a stupid way of saying 'from now on'.

btw..
Q. Who led the Pedant's Revolt?
A. Which Tyler.

Formal written English has been fossilised. It has rules which we must learn (though it does not deviate as much from spoken English as does written from spoken French).

Spoken English and informal written English can go their own sweet ways. Meaningless business jargon creaping into the rest of the language is annoying and should be resisted.

TRiG.

I could not disagree more.

see what you like to call meaningless jargon is only meaningless in the sense that you can judge the gramar of a sentce against certain rules and find a sentce or passage to be tautologically lacking or have some other problems.

That doesnt not make it meaningless because like it or not and judging by what yourve said you dont like it, some people use words in a different way to you. In a way that according to the rules of grammar are wrong but never the less in a way that manages to convey meaning.

Or have I missed the meaning of what you said?

I'm wondering, then (Trig), what you'd hold up as a model of formal English?

On several occasions I've been called on to teach others to improve their written English. Often my task involves convincing them to drop what they *assume* is wanted - 'formal English' - in favour of a clearer style. "Write what you'd say".

So here are some examples of 'formal English', and I'd appreciate your comments on which are comprehensible:
The King James Bible
A Parliamentary statute
Your average scientific report.

Or - if none of the above - what?

Actually, I *do* think there are good examples. Interestingly, the model demonstrated by The Plain English Campaign (god bless Chrissie Maher!) comes over to me as refreshingly conversational and modern. http://www.plainenglish.co.uk/