What's happening to out British language

[Tom K]

I wonder if the English language is suffering from mainly being spoken by non-native speakers? Such a language tends to be reshaped into some kind of pidgin-laguage with rather irregular grammar and limited means to explain things accurately and a very corrupted pronounciation.

It depends. In my job, I encounter many highly educated people with English as their second langugage.

I am often struck by the disconcerting perfection of their use of English.

Far from being a pidgin form, they tend to speak in a very formal way, whereas native speakers use far more contractions, "flexible" grammer, adjectival nouns and so on.

BugBear

I have never met a person that speaks English as a second language that speaks English. Even those that were born here.

 

[Jacob]

I wonder if the English language is suffering from mainly being spoken by non-native speakers? Such a language tends to be reshaped into some kind of pidgin-laguage with rather irregular grammar and limited means to explain things accurately and a very corrupted pronounciation.

It depends. In my job, I encounter many highly educated people with English as their second langugage.

I am often struck by the disconcerting perfection of their use of English.

Far from being a pidgin form, they tend to speak in a very formal way, whereas native speakers use far more contractions, "flexible" grammer, adjectival nouns and so on.

BugBear

I have never met a person that speaks English as a second language that speaks English. Even those that were born here.

I have. Several Welsh people, a German and some frogs of my acquaintance.
But in fact you wouldn't know unless they actually told you that their perfect english was their second language.

 

[wobblycogs]

The best English speaker I've met was actually a German and her mastery of the language was second to none. She was so good in fact we would get her to edit our papers before submitting them for publication. I think just about everyone in the office studied grammar within the first year out of shear embarrassment.

 

[bugbear]

I think just about everyone in the office studied grammar within the first year out of shear embarrassment.

[compulsory]Did anyone study differentiating homophones?[/compulsory]

BugBear

 

[wobblycogs]

It would seem that I didn't . Stupid mistake, I even briefly collected homophones so I should know better. English was never my strong point though.

 

[Jacob]

I think just about everyone in the office studied grammar within the first year out of shear embarrassment.

[compulsory]Did anyone study differentiating homophones?[/compulsory]

BugBear

Oop north we speak of little Else.

 

[RogerS]

It depends. In my job, I encounter many highly educated people with English as their second langugage.

I am often struck by the disconcerting perfection of their use of English.

Far from being a pidgin form, they tend to speak in a very formal way, whereas native speakers use far more contractions, "flexible" grammer, adjectival nouns and so on.

BugBear

I have never met a person that speaks English as a second language that speaks English. Even those that were born here.

I have. Several Welsh people, a German and some frogs of my acquaintance.
But in fact you wouldn't know unless they actually told you that their perfect english was their second language.

There you go, then, Jacob.

If they can be bothered to speak perfect English then there is no excuse for anyone born here not to do the same.

 

[Tom K]

I have never met a person that speaks English as a second language that speaks English. Even those that were born here.

I have. Several Welsh people, a German and some frogs of my acquaintance.
But in fact you wouldn't know unless they actually told you that their perfect english was their second language.

Not what I said Jacob and I'm not talking about accents either.

 

[rth]

Well, y'know, this very interesting, it's, y'know, a bit silly, y'know, I love the English language, y'know, the many rich and varied, y'know, meanings,y'know. We have to, y'know, change with times,y'know, but we should, y'know, keep hold of our heritage, y'know ?

 

[dickm]

OK, here's my pet hate - the way kilo-metres have now become kill-ometers. Sounds like a piece of kit to measure my urge to kill whoever uses that mispronunciation (i.e., 95% of the BBC).
So when do we have to start asking for kill-oggrams? Or being technical, kill-opascals?

 

[gregmcateer]

...and what about people that pronounce 'Marylebone' as 'Marleebone'? - Utterly unacceptable, IMHO
Greg

 

[whiskywill]

Has anybody else noticed how many television and radio presenters pronounce sixth as sicth?

And..... assume as ashume, Australia as Oshtralia, student as shtudent, strong as shtrong, Tuesday as Chewsday, tune as chune, the Tube as the Chube, education as ejucation, schedule as skejule. Shall I go on?

 

[bugbear]

Has anybody else noticed how many television and radio presenters pronounce sixth as sicth?

And..... assume as ashume, Australia as Oshtralia, student as shtudent, strong as shtrong, Tuesday as Chewsday, tune as chune, the Tube as the Chube, education as ejucation, schedule as skejule. Shall I go on?

Whatever

BugBear

 

[Jacob]

Has anybody else noticed how many television and radio presenters pronounce sixth as sicth?

And..... assume as ashume, Australia as Oshtralia, student as shtudent, strong as shtrong, Tuesday as Chewsday, tune as chune, the Tube as the Chube, education as ejucation, schedule as skejule. Shall I go on?

On and on and on :roll:

My pet hate is the golden hamster.

 

[rth]

Something may be "Free" or "For nothing" but "For Free" !?!?!??...all hope is gone..

 

[Jacob]

Yah torrible innit.