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[Gilliver's Travels]

Ad on Firefox. Incomprehensible headline.

Anyone speak American?

 

[SeagullSongs]

I met some of my dad's American colleagues once, so I have a minor grasp of the language.
I think they're trying to say that you can rely on it and it won't let you down.

 

[Gilliver's Travels]

Thanks. The presumption that everyone speaks American does them no favours at all.

So, yet another example of where English language creep is entirely unidirectional. Too many Brits now adopting "Meet with"… "Partner with"... Not to mention the appalling "Can I get?" -To which the correct response is: " No, sir. If you did that, that would make you the barman, instead of me."

If someone could demonstrate that Americans were now saying "bollocks" instead of bullshit, and "lavatories" instead of "restrooms" for example, their own language abuses might be easier to swallow.

 

[Mellotron]

Thanks. The presumption that everyone speaks American does them no favours at all.

So, yet another example of where English language creep is entirely unidirectional. Too many Brits now adopting "Meet with"… "Partner with"... Not to mention the appalling "Can I get?" -To which the correct response is: " No, sir. If you did that, that would make you the barman, instead of me."

If someone could demonstrate that Americans were now saying "bollocks" instead of bullshit, and "lavatories" instead of "restrooms" for example, their own language abuses might be easier to swallow.

I don't actually mind "can I get" because it's obvious to anyone with a brain what they mean, and I think that's just pedantry.

If someone said "Me and Dave are just going down the shops" that is just as grammatically incorrect, but people use common sense and go "oh, I know what they mean".

 

[Dorset Seagull]

"I'm good"....whatever happen't to "No I don't thanks"

 

[Simster]

I don't actually mind "can I get" because it's obvious to anyone with a brain what they mean, and I think that's just pedantry.

No he's right. Anyone saying "Can I get..." shoud expect a verbal slap. It's a shit phrase.

 

[Driver 8]

No he's right. Anyone saying "Can I get..." shoud expect a verbal slap. It's a shit phrase.

A physical slap would be more satisfying.

 

[Brightonfan1983]

No he's right. Anyone saying "Can I get..." shoud expect a verbal slap. It's a shit phrase.

It's the sly rolling out of 'got/get' to replace any other verb ever spoken and yes it's lazy nonsense.

You get me?

 

[PILTDOWN MAN]

I don't actually mind "can I get" because it's obvious to anyone with a brain what they mean, and I think that's just pedantry.

If someone said "Me and Dave are just going down the shops" that is just as grammatically incorrect, but people use common sense and go "oh, I know what they mean".

Not pedantry at all, knowing what somebody wants is fine but I believe it's nice to hear people talk properly, especially children. I expect my children, some of which are now adults, to ask in the proper manner, to me that's "may I have". Can are what baked beans come in.

 

[Mellotron]

No he's right. Anyone saying "Can I get..." shoud expect a verbal slap. It's a shit phrase.

"Me and Dave are just popping to the shops" is JUST as grammatically incorrect.

I just think it shouldn't be one rule for one and another for another, when they're equally as bad. Either be pedantic about all grammatical inaccuracies or none, why only ones you don't like, i.e. Americanisms?

 

[Brightonfan1983]

Can are what baked beans come in.

HA! That takes me right back to Mrs Heaton at school!

 

[Mellotron]

Not pedantry at all, knowing what somebody wants is fine but I believe it's nice to hear people talk properly, especially children. I expect my children, some of which are now adults, to ask in the proper manner, to me that's "may I have". Can are what baked beans come in.

See this is where it gets stupid. They're not allowed to use the word "can" because that's already in use. In that case, you wouldn't be able to say "in that case", as a case is something that holds objects. As you say, this isn't pedantry, this is just bizarre.

 

[Mellotron]

It's the sly rolling out of 'got/get' to replace any other verb ever spoken and yes it's lazy nonsense.

You get me?

As Stephen Fry said, it's just language evolving. Someone from Shakespearean times would think your use of grammar was appalling. It's just language evolving.

This is a stunning article from Fry on the matter:

http://www.stephenfry.com/2008/11/04/dont-mind-your-language%e2%80%a6/

Disliking Americanisms is PURE personal preference, not a question of grammar really at all.

 

[PILTDOWN MAN]

HA! That takes me right back to Mrs Heaton at school!

Hopefully you listened to her teachings.

 

[Mellotron]

Here we go, says it far better than I can:

The worst of this sorry bunch of semi-educated losers are those who seem to glory in being irritated by nouns becoming verbs. How dense and deaf to language development do you have to be? If you don’t like nouns becoming verbs, then for heaven’s sake avoid Shakespeare who made a doing-word out of a thing-word every chance he got. He TABLED the motion and CHAIRED the meeting in which nouns were made verbs. New examples from our time might take some getting used to: ‘He actioned it that day’ for instance might strike some as a verbing too far, but we have been sanctioning, envisioning, propositioning and stationing for a long time, so why not ‘action’? ‘Because it’s ugly,’ whinge the pedants. It’s only ugly because it’s new and you don’t like it. Ugly in the way Picasso, Stravinsky and Eliot were once thought ugly and before them Monet, Mahler and Baudelaire. Pedants will also claim, with what I am sure is eye-popping insincerity and shameless disingenuousness, that their fight is only for ‘clarity’. This is all very well, but there is no doubt what ‘Five items or less’ means, just as only a dolt can’t tell from the context and from the age and education of the speaker, whether ‘disinterested’ is used in the ‘proper’ sense of non-partisan, or in the ‘improper’ sense of uninterested. No, the claim to be defending language for the sake of clarity almost never, ever holds water. Nor does the idea that following grammatical rules in language demonstrates clarity of thought and intelligence of mind. Having said this, I admit that if you want to communicate well for the sake of passing an exam or job interview, then it is obvious that wildly original and excessively heterodox language could land you in the soup.

I think what offends examiners and employers when confronted with extremely informal, unpunctuated and haywire language is the implication of not caring that underlies it. You slip into a suit for an interview and you dress your language up too. You can wear what you like linguistically or sartorially when you’re at home or with friends, but most people accept the need to smarten up under some circumstances – it’s only considerate. But that is an issue of fitness, of suitability, it has nothing to do with correctness. There no right language or wrong language any more than are right or wrong clothes. Context, convention and circumstance are all.

I don’t deny that a small part of me still clings to a ghastly Radio 4/newspaper-letter-writer reader pedantry, but I fight against it in much the same way I try to fight against my gluttony, anger, selfishness and other vices. I must confess, for example, that I find it hard not to wince when someone aspirates the word ‘aitch’. Haitch Eye Vee, you hear all the time now, for HIV. It’s pretty much nails on the blackboard to me, as is the use of the word ‘yourself’ or ‘myself’ when all that is meant is ‘you’ or ‘me’ but I daresay myself’s accent and manner is nails on the blackboard to yourself or to others too, in itself’s own way. Myself also mourns, sometimes, the death of that phrase I bade you upon pain of slapping to remember some time back, ‘willy-nilly’, do you remember? Fold it in your hope chest, I urged, or seal it in a baggie. Well you can take it out now. Willy-nilly. What happened there? Willy-nilly is now used, it seems, to mean ‘all over the place’; its original meaning of ‘whether you like it or not’ (in other words ‘willing or unwilling’) is all but forgotten. Well, that’s ok, I suppose. I don’t mind either that the word ‘meld’ is now being used as a kind of fusion of melt and weld, instead of in its original sense of ‘announce’. Meld has changed … that’s okay. There’s no right or wrong in language, any more than there’s right or wrong in nature.

Evolution is all about restless and continuous change, mutation and variation. What was once ‘meant’ in the animal kingdom to be a nose can end up as an antenna, a tongue, eyes, a pair of lips or a blank space once evolution and the permutation of new DNA and new conditions has got to work. If the foulness of the Kennel Club mentality was operated in nature, just imagine … giraffes’ necks wouldn’t be allowed to stretch, camels wouldn’t get humps, such alterations would be wrong. Well it’s the same in language, there’s no right or wrong, only usage. Convention exists, of course it does, but convention is no more a register of rightness or wrongness than etiquette is, it’s just another way of saying usage: convention is a privately agreed usage rather than a publicly evolving one. Conventions alter too, like life. Things that are kept to purity of line, in the Kennel Club manner, develop all the ghastly illnesses and deformations of inbreeding and lack of vital variation. Imagine if we all spoke the same language, fabulous as it is, as Dickens? Imagine if the structure, meaning and usage of language was always the same as when Swift and Pope were alive. Superficially appealing as an idea for about five seconds, but horrifying the more you think about it.

If you are the kind of person who insists on this and that ‘correct use’ I hope I can convince you to abandon your pedantry. Dive into the open flowing waters and leave the stagnant canals be.

 

[Brightonfan1983]

As Stephen Fry said, it's just language evolving. Someone from Shakespearean times would think your use of grammar was appalling. It's just language evolving.

This is a stunning article from Fry on the matter:

http://www.stephenfry.com/2008/11/04/dont-mind-your-language%e2%80%a6/

Disliking Americanisms is PURE personal preference, not a question of grammar really at all.

Yep, he argues a good case. You could also argue that all of the rules/guidelines re. language/manners are also simply personal preferences, hence their admittedly evolving nature. But there is a) enjoying using the rules to better communicate precisely one's meaning, and b) being lazy and jarring.

 

[Simster]

"Me and Dave are just popping to the shops" is JUST as grammatically incorrect.

I just think it shouldn't be one rule for one and another for another, when they're equally as bad. Either be pedantic about all grammatical inaccuracies or none, why only ones you don't like, i.e. Americanisms?

I'm not arguing with you there though. "Me and Dave are just popping to the shops" is also lazy, shit and is chav-speak. In no way am I allowing one and not the other. I find it odd that you hold the opinion that society at large is accepting of this nonsensical grammar but not the American use of "get".

 

[Brightonfan1983]

Hopefully you listened to her teachings.

Most definitely. One always remembers the good 'uns.

 

[Was not Was]

I expect my children, some of which are now adults ...

"Some of whom", surely? Set an example!

 

[Mellotron]

Yep, he argues a good case. You could also argue that all of the rules/guidelines re. language/manners are also simply personal preferences, hence their admittedly evolving nature. But there is a) enjoying using the rules to better communicate precisely one's meaning, and b) being lazy and jarring.

As Fry says, EVERYONE knows what someone means when they say "can I get". If you went back a few centuries and said "may I have?" they would look at you like you were an alien.