That Harrowing 7/7 Telephone Call

Language is continually evolving. Sure, it pisses me off when you see e.g. 'The 90's' or e.g. 'In it's place' but it's about communicating ideas. Apply the same discipline to the spoken word and you would soon see what a load of nonsesne we all talk. To use the example of 7/7 is just ridiculous. What does it matter as long as the emergency services were informed? You can't keep English from evolving, changing, it's why it has by far the largest wordbase than any other langugae - not because we are wordy, but because we nick all the best words from other langugaes and invent, create new ones and meanings. Just look at everyday words like Jungle or Bungalow. You really can't be precious about the English language, it will evolve and change and be used in interesting and unexpected ways - or we could be like the French and ban all foriegn words from the language - yeah, right, the French, as we can presently see are not the most inclusive nation, and that is why, ultimately if it doesn't evolve, French will die.

it's a commonly raised point whenever someone gets arsey about language to say that it's always evolving. I agree, it is and we should be very glad that is it but that doesn't mean that it can't be adhered to at any given point in its evolution. I doubt for a second that Styx was suggesting that the mesaage wasn't worth getting across just because of poor language. Are you suggesting that the incorrect way of speaking highlighted above is a form of 'New English'- a new generation of our language that we should all adopt? Or is it just badly educated lazy speaking? I have nothing against the evolution of English but, as it evolves, we should still be able to say, "right, at the moment an acceptable way of speaking is as follows...." as it changes, so what's correct and incorrect change with it in ordert to remain parameters for our tongue

I know what you mean Ely. Obviously as writers, we have to take the form seriously, if we're going to 'misuse' language, we have least got to know that we are misusing it before going ahead and fucking about with it. The spoken word, is where it's all at though. My feeling is that as writers, we will still mostly use formal construction, but will have a more colloquial dialgue when charcaters are speaking. New English is not lazy speaking - this is a real trap to fall into. Formal English isn't there for us to protect, far from it, for it is in it's fantastic diversity that it shines. It becomes very interesting when it is used as a second language, and some of the rhythms and phrasing of the original language is reflected in their version of English - the popular bits that get taken up by the general population. I feel that if we jumped ahead a couple of hundred years, written English would be pretty much the same, but there would be so many new everyday words that in normal conversation would baffle us, and ways of putting English together that would confuse us, but I think it woulkd be very exciting to see what it was like - and, I have no doubt that we could understand what was being said to us and vica-versa. I do raise an issue with Styxbrook's example. It is about the message not the form. Is the operator going to correct the person on the Emergency call? No, of course not because they have made themselves perfectly clear. Where is Styx from anyway, has he ever been to Tynside? Or Scotland, or Wales or Birmingham or Cornwall? They all use English in these places, but the spoken form is very different, and very interesting. Anyway, the upshot is that English doesn't needs the likes of us bleating on about it, it's healthy and will survive regardless of any misguided attempt to protect it, and that, to coin a new definition of the word 'cool' is totally 'book' with me.

Standdard English? Then what is the silent 'b' in comb and other wrrds all about? And words like 'thought', and words that are spelt the same but with different meaning - e.g. live, well, etc. - Having had a few foriegn girlfriends, let me tell you that they are united in finding 'standard English' utterly irrational in many cases - as they say, you just have to learn it, you can't work it out like in other languages. Why didn't Dr Johnson spell 'thought' and 'through': 'thort' and 'thrue'? A silent 'g' and a silent 'b' - anybody know why he did that?

there's a huge differene between adapting words or creating new ones as part of a local culture (ie accents from geordie to cockney) and just getting it wrong. "there IS ambulances on the way" is just wrong, it's nowt to do wi't evolution o't mutha tong. It's just using singular for plural. It would be wrong most other languages too ( I say 'most' because there's bound to be some linguistics expert reading this who'll drag up a form of cantonese that only has one gender, or where plurals are stressed in the pitch and not the spelling)