Protecting English from spell of txt spk

[Stuart]

It’s enough to make purists celebrate and schoolchildren, like, wonder what all the fuss is about.

An Academy of English is being formed by the Queen’s English Society, to protect the language from impurities, bastardisations and the horrors introduced by the text-speak generation.

France has L’Académie Française, Spain the Real Academia Española, and Italy the Accademia della Crusca — august institutions that uphold the rules of their languages. English, however, has no such bastion against corruption and continuously mutates as new words develop, or fall out of use, grammar changes and the intricacies of punctuation go in and out of fashion.

The Queen’s English Society, made up of professionals, academics and self-confessed pedants, has decided that an English Academy is long overdue. Its members hope to win official recognition, or even a Royal Charter for their academy.

The society says: “Other languages, French and Spanish for example, have supreme authorities that try, while moving with the times, to define what is good and acceptable usage and what is not. They do not stop the language from changing over the years, but they do provide a measure of linguistic discipline and try to retain valid and useful new terms, while rejecting passing fads. “English has never had any such academy. The 21st century is a bit late to start one ... but precisely because our language is so widespread — and also because there has been a dreadful devaluation and deterioration of education in our hectic, modern, digitalised world — we do desperately need some form of moderating body to set an accepted standard of good English.”

The academy is not shunning the modern world: it has a website (queens-english-society.com). This provides access to dictionaries, points of grammar, comparisons between UK and US English, and a section for other English-speaking communities. It also includes a section on the “tragic failure of the British education system (and the teachers that it produces) to meet the needs of our children”.

Martin Estinel, who founded the academy, said that he hoped it would earn the eminence of its French, Spanish and Italian equivalents. Mr Estinel, 71, a retired translator and interpreter, said: “At the moment, anything goes. Let’s set down a clear standard of what is good, correct, proper English. Let’s have a body to sit in judgment.”

Mr Estinel said that he still used the word “gay” to mean “happy”, but grudgingly accepted that its newer definition was now in the dictionary. “Some other words are fads that die out,” he said. “People misplace stress within a sentence. All these things are going haywire in the language.”

Rogue apostrophes aside, Mr Estinel’s bugbears include the tendency of the young to make liberal use of the word “like” to break up sentences, the confusion of “last” and “past”, and the dropping of the conditional (“if I was you”, instead of “if I were you”).

The society has worked on setting up the academy for the past two years. Mr Estinel said: “I would love the academy to have a Royal Charter.”

In 2008, France’s leading dictionary, Le Petit Robert, allowed alternative spellings for 6,000 words, in the most sweeping linguistic reform in centuries. It allowed accents on some words to become optional, and a more flexible approach to the doubling of consonants and use of hyphens.

[lancelot]

What an excellent idea! As long as it also protects English from the dialect they speak in the USA!

[hamin_aus]

Ah can laaik tu be wearink a rokkie wiff a belt!

[Stuart]

What an excellent idea! As long as it also protects English from the dialect they speak in the USA!

I'm afraid that in order to seriously challenge that particular spawn of the language, we would have to deal a death blow to the television. My daughter (3 years old) already insists that I mispronounce "fast" because I don't say it the same way as do the Little Einsteins. It's just the beginning for her.

[doo_much]

...self-confessed pedants...

Rusty! We've found a society for you to join!

[Monty]

Strike me down for this, but I would rather people used American spelling instead of TXTSPK (American is the lesser of the two evils).
(Ideally everyone should use British English.)

[Stuart]

(American is the lesser of the two evils).

That's debatable.

[rustypup]

i care not for the rest of the offenders as long as their primary target is the single most pervasive group of socially inept, and intellectually challenged, generators of twaddle the world has ever known... rap "artists" and their "fans"...

possibly introducing them to the complex worlds of "how to wear pants" and, dare we hope, "this is how a cap operates without making you look 'special'"

[Anakha56]

Ah can laaik tu be wearink a rokkie wiff a belt!

i care not for the rest of the offenders as long as their primary target is the single most pervasive group of socially inept, and intellectually challenged, generators of twaddle the world has ever known... rap "artists" and their "fans"...

possibly introducing them to the complex worlds of "how to wear pants" and, dare we hope, "this is how a cap operates without making you look 'special'"

Now kids which one is correct English? The one that makes you laugh or put you to sleep?

[ADT]

So this is the thread for the proper Grammar-Nazis??

[Studio Touch Visagie]

rap "artists" and their "fans"...

Yes. I never understood why rappers call each other dogs and spell it "dawg". But South Africa has the worst dialect for instance "people" pronounced as "pee-pool", "work" as "weck" and so on

[Tribble]

I hate it when they say "me and Jonny" or "me and Susan" or "you and me". They have forgotten how to put other people first and that we refer to ourselves as I.

Oh well - and then we come to the plurals.......nevermind, (do you know that the Americans insist that this must be two words?) I give up.

[GreyWolf]

South Africa has the worst dialect for instance "people" pronounced as "pee-pool", "work" as "weck" and so on

I may be wrong, but you seem to be confusing dialect with accent.

[hamin_aus]

i care not for the rest of the offenders as long as their primary target is the single most pervasive group of socially inept, and intellectually challenged, generators of twaddle the world has ever known... rap "artists" and their "fans"...

possibly introducing them to the complex worlds of "how to wear pants" and, dare we hope, "this is how a cap operates without making you look 'special'"

rustypups rap

[rustypup]

let's be honest here.... if we were playing "spot the special kid" would there be any contest?...

and don't let me get started on the "hoody" victims....
ha! take that, you young scallywag...

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