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

Entry: The Evolution of Written English - A3848655
Author: james-hamid - U1352732

I teach English, I disagree with the way 'they' say it should be taught. I believe that written and spoken English are almost as different as written and spoken Arabic.
There is a second part to this "How Spoken English has Evolved".

Hi there! This is an interesting read, but I admit that I would have enjoyed it quite a bit more if there weren't so many tangents that are pretty unrelated to written English as it were.

One thing I think quite worth pointing out is that there is a tremendous difference between the "written English" used for communication and correspondence, and that used for poetry and literature. The two have evolved in very different ways, but it does feel as if they are a little jumbled together here -- for example, the differences between Shakespeare and Chaucer don't in of themselves speak to only the difference of time, a lot has to do with literary and poetic styles of the individuals involved.

What do you think?


Mikey

I'm not sure what you mean by "so many tangents that are pretty unrelated to written English". My students (French speaking Moroccans are fascinated by how and why English evolved and this was originally written for them and the 'pretty unrelated' bits help. It has also helped enormously in explaining that English is not like French (ie it is perfectly possible to be understood when you speak badly) and half the problem with 'ELT' or whatever it now calls itself is that the teachers take themselves and the subject so damned heavily.
I teach VPSOBE’s (very practical speakers of bad English).
Perhaps we should invent a new word for that which I try to teach - ‘Manglish’ (Maroc English) – after all, we have Franglaise, Jinglish, Strine and a good few others including the hideous "Estuary English" that seems to have taken over the entire younger generation in the UK. Wo’ moi mom yoos’a corl ‘studied ignorance’.

Hi H-J

I don't think it 'goes down blind allewys' either, but I do need more time to digest what you've written.

In the meantime, I noticed this:

"and they had to leave, Briton went back to where it had been before" > Britain.

Back to being primitive savages - not for the first time, civilisation washed us over.

How much of this content did you cover in your previous entry?
Is it possible just to link to it and skip all the parts that don't have to do with written English?

I thought that there were Aramaic-speaking and writing folks wandering in and out of the tin mines on the coast of Britain back in the Jesus days?

The humour bits I don't have a problem with. The opinion bits I do.

For an entry written by an "Englich" teacher, there are a lot of dropouts, tense changes and sentences that are broken by a period.
I realize these might just be copying errors.

Also, I think it is a mistake, in light of your personal thesis, to too strongly link writing with printing.

"not for the first time, civilisation washed us over"

leaving you damp, but undiminished in your wish to become one with the primordial ooze again...

There was no ‘previous’ entry.
Mr Gates leads me to ‘realize’ that you are an American and thereby lobotomised as to the history of the language you abuse. No we did not speak Aramaic in ‘Jesus times’ and comparatively few people did. Christianity went along with the latest superpower and spoke Latin. I came across the following quotation the other day, which agrees with my view that the HORRIBLE word ‘globalization’ actually means ‘Americanization’
"Increasingly, British printers choose to use the American convention in order to appear more global."
If you don’t see that there is a link between printing and writing the entire thing is lost on you and I will have to ‘globalize’.
My point is this. There is one written English (give or take a few differences in spelling). Three years ago I took the leading articles from 25 English Language newspapers around the world. It was the leading article "America’s paranoia after 911 – the ‘Dirty Bomb’ affair. I ‘anglicised’ the English spelling (not the grammar) – separated the papers and writes from the articles and asked the entire native speaking English teachers in Casablanca, if they could put them back together. They were 100% wrong. The only common factor was that a significant number of them thought that the articles written by Indians were British.
(Checked for ‘dropouts, tense changes and sentences that are broken by a period’ by Bill Gates)

Don't understand that one??

It was sarcasm, based on the opening provided by the "washed over" line.

You did write an entry on the history of spoken Englich, right?

By written and printed, I meant that when people are taught to write with their hands, they are not taught to copy the typography of the textbook, unless they are learning calligraphy.

Also part of your case, which I agree with, is that the way people speak is more indigenous and natural and fluid than the way that they are taught to read and write. Thus, autographed writings, such as letters and poems, are a more useful indication of how language was actually used than consulting "correct" books of a period.

H.L. Mencken in "The American Language" completely agreed with you. He decried many forms of bastardization, including turning verbs into nouns, back in the mid-thirties. Strunk and White's "Elements of Style" argues for a more natural style of writing, yet with the civility of knowing how to be natural with a certain elegance.

"you are an American and thereby lobotomised as to the history of the language you abuse"



"No we did not speak Aramaic in ‘Jesus times’ and comparatively few people did. "



Do you know what the difference between education and training is?

I LOVE this article! LOVE LOVE love love love!

"Where the heck does THIS phrase come from" is one of my favorite hobbies! My mom is an English teacher (an uphill battle here in the States), and I'm sending her a link to this, as she'll adore it, too.

I don't have anything to nit-pick ... I like to be helpful, but I love it "as is"!

Great job!

Further reply to Mikey the Humming Mouse –
Thanks for the comments. Yes – I agree that there are different ways of writing and e-mail, SMS messaging and blogging are evolving different was of writing. Personal letter writing has always been ‘more natural’ but tended to obey the rules. When I read much of what is written today I cringe, not necessarily at the content but ‘the bad English.’ If we write as we speak, it can come out virtually unintelligable. When I was a child, my grandmother wrote a play – in dialect - for a village on the edge of Dartmoor. They were completely bemused by it until she re-wrote it in ‘English’ upon which they were able to read their parts and perform the play in ‘Broad Devon’.

I get innumerable e-mails with such things as, "sorry can’t make it." Unless I am teaching them to write formal business letters I don’t insist on "Dear Sir, Further to the above…" but I do think that ‘sorry’ should have a capital letter.

Personally, I think that ‘good’ journalism gives the best insight into how written language develops.
James

>The first date of any real note in the history of the English language is 54 BC when Julius Caesar, on his second attempt at invading Britain, uttered the famous sentence, "Veni, Vidi, Vici," which all the Romans understood, as they spoke Latin correctly.

Caesar uttered those words seven years later after defeating the army of Pharnaces in Syria. Nothing to do with Britain, I'm afraid


Regardless of the quality of your journalism, it's quite hard to read past a first paragraph that is so awfully wrong.

You still haven't dealt with this one:

'and they had to leave, Briton went back to where it had been before, as though nothing had happened'. Briton > Britain. (For some reason I don't think you understood my comment the first time around).

Interesting entry. Will spark some happy debate I hope. A few tips to nudge it into EG quality though;

Use Guide ML to give your piece Headers and Subheaders.
Go here: A187229 for some tips if you don't know how

Add some links to other EG Entries. Here are a few to give you some ideas:

A Guide to British English Speaking for Americans A1006507
Declining English A586640
Estuary English A853003
The Test of English as a Foreign Language A681725
Anglo Saxon (Old English) A695478
Oddities of English A338825
English Slang A128152

Try to lose some of the bias if you can, hard I know, especially when you are so passionate about the subject matter

HF

Also, this is what's mean confusing people:

In your first Post you said, 'There is a second part to this "How Spoken English has Evolved'.


Ah, I've just realised that I and at least one other mis-read this as 'THIS is a second part to this "How Spoken English has Evolved".

I had wondered where the first part was, and in reply to someone else you said that there wasn't a first part... Confusion cleared up.

Sorry I learned my entire history from '1066 and All That' as the (omitted) acknowledgements would indicate. I never set out to write a seminal paper on Roman history.

Yes - I get it and agree.

Thanks for the advice – point(s) taken - sorry I am new to the game.