[timwilky]

Is it only me, or are standards in the use of the English language no longer slipping, but instead careering downhill at mach 2.


Yes I know language is dynamic, I read Dickens as a child, Shakespeare and attempted Chaucer as a teenager and is is obvious that language constructs, spelling, even words evolve. However, even then language had constructs and rules.

It would appear that today, a *******isation of the language is taking place in order that sub cultures can have their own unintelligible language. Such as in the case of Polari amongst the gay communities of the 30-50s.

However, this sub group who feel the need for their own language are our children. I have had many a discussion with my son and his friends. Who refuse to accept that the way that they speak will leave them stuck in the stereotype mould of wasters and nerdowells. Strange then that my thoughts seem to have hit home with my eldest. She at least is now attempting to shake of the shackles of a vocabulary and pronunciation formed on the concrete school yards of comprehensive Britain. Strange that she should now feel the need to learn her own language, 15 years too late.

When I was at school, the boys as well as girls had to undertake an element of deportment. We learnt how to stand in a room, to walk with our shoulder back, head upright. We learnt how to pronounce words and articulate clearly. Basic grammar, good reading and taught to shun certain popular childrens authors. For me, an Enid Blyton in my satchel would have got me six on the knuckles with a 3 ft wooden rule. Girls got the flat, boys the edge. Note in the above. A measuring stick, is a rule, not a ruler. A ruler sits on a throne. We were taught to use a fountain pen, cartridge pens were frowned upon, and work was rejected if thought to have been written with a ball point pen. Some of this still sticks with me today. I always use a fountain pen for my hand written correspondance.

Why the drivel in the above paragraph?. Well just to point out there was a time when our educators thought about quality of education. Now it would appear that they no longer have this concern and instead have lowered the standards to ensure large number of exam passes. My concerns were raised some years ago when my own daughter with a GCSE grade A in English was unable to tell me what an adjective was.

Is it not time that a body equivalent to the French Académie Française was formed, to protect and direct the evolution of the English language. Sloppy English should be rejected by all, we should no longer be compelled to put up with the use of street slang and vulgarity within daily life.


It is my own personal opinion the worst offender for the use of poor English has to be the BBC in the insistence of referring to the oblique character within URLs as "slash"

I do recognise that I too use poor and sloppy English. However, since it is now 30 years since I last had an English lesson. Please excuse it as yet another premature senility moment.