I only speak English when I'm in the UK. The rest of the time I speak demented hillbillyAmerican.
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I live in London and if anyone says to me âeveryone speaks Englishâ my answer is âListen and look around youâ. If people in London do not speak English then the whole question of a global language is completely open.
The promulgation of English as the worldâs âlingua francaâ is impractical and linguistically undemocratic. I say this as a native English speaker!
Impractical because communication should be for all and not only for an educational or political elite. That is how English is used internationally at the moment.
Undemocratic because minority languages are under attack worldwide due to the encroachment of majority ethnic languages. Even Mandarin Chinese is attempting to dominate as well. The long-term solution must be found and a non-national language, which places all ethnic languages on an equal footing is essential.
An interesting video can be seen at http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8837438938991452670
A glimpse of Esperanto can be seen at http://www.lernu.net
His problem, "much of" vs. "enough of" seems pretty lame to me. Prepositional usage is complicated and often arbitrary IMHO. Even experts will argue over certain cases.
I can think of far worse examples of decay of english in the US. For example, at the national laboratory where I work, the Physical Plant dept. trucks now officially display the slogans "Work Safe" and "Do it Safe".
Errr... "Devided"?
Right. De-vided. It's spelled just like it sounds. I know it in my gut, so I know it's true, so don't give me any of that dictionary elitist snobistry.
Become trilingual, speak Canadian too eh?
Of Mice and Men?
A friend of mine recounts his experience of seeing a theater troupe from Atlanta performing Shakespeare's Julius Caesar at a rural Ohio college. Apparently there were snickers with the occasional guffaw from the audience throughout the first two acts as the actor playing Mark Anthony had a distinctive southern accent. Come Act III and the famous lines, "Friends, Romans, Countrymen, lend me your ears," and the audience erupted in laughter.
Can you imagine Martin's response if he listened to sports radio? How many grammatical errors can dance on a microphone?
You might take William out of the hills, but you never get the hills out of Billy.