Quality of English Degrading?

mik   Wed Jan 21, 2009 9:56 pm GMT
<<Just because languages change does not mean that "the quality of languages are degrading." If anything, languages adapt and evolve to fit our needs. How do you define the quality of a language? >>


{{>>What DOES make many of us angry, those of us literally born into the English Language from the moment the maternity nurse snips our umbilical cords in the delivery room, and who subsequently came to love and adore our native tongue with passion, are our own kind, similarly born into it, but who have such little regard for it that they decimate it in the speaking of it. This has nothing whatsoever to do with their respective accents and regional dialects - more to do with a complete linguistic massacre in its delivery in a variety of ways.<<


That's natural in any language. It's just more noticeable today with more varying and extreme levels of education amongst the densely packed populace. }}


DISCUSS!
mik   Wed Jan 21, 2009 10:00 pm GMT
<<That's natural in any language. It's just more noticeable today with more varying and extreme levels of education amongst the densely packed populace. >>


I think this is true. Back in the day a highly educated person wouldn't be caught dead with an uneducated peasant or factory worker. They would never come in to contact at all. Nowadays we're all living together, on the same bus, in the same building, an especially on the same websites.
Johnny   Thu Jan 22, 2009 2:18 am GMT
English is not degrading. It is evolving, like Windows XP evolved into Windows Vista. No, wait. That was actually an example of degradation. LOL

Modern English, English 2.0, is totally rad, with lots of awesome words like dumbass. I love it. If you don't, then don't upgrade your version to English 2.0. You can still use your old English, because it's still supported, and it'll be supported until you die. Plus, for most applications, both versions are compatible.

Where's the problem? English is beautiful.
12345   Thu Jan 22, 2009 2:45 am GMT
Some changes in languages I call evolving others I call degrading.
The I/me situation is a degrading one for me. Why? Because such things, using 'me' instead of 'I', means to me people who are using 'me' oftenly don't know the differences between them.

The same is happening in Dutch with zij/hun stuff. If 'hun' once becomes third person plural instead of 'zij' it's just because many people don't know they have to use zij, so they make it easier for these people.
Johnny   Thu Jan 22, 2009 1:09 pm GMT
<<Some changes in languages I call evolving others I call degrading.
The I/me situation is a degrading one for me. Why? Because such things, using 'me' instead of 'I', means to me people who are using 'me' oftenly don't know the differences between them. >>

No, that's evolution through simplification. You don't actually need a difference between "I" and "me". Imagine you had this: It was I who did it - It was me who did it - I am going to bed - Me is going to bed... There would be no difference, no confusion, so the distinction is, at least in theory, useless. Whoever claims otherwise should try to explain why English doesn't need any masculine or feminine forms for adjectives and nouns. Is English worse than other languages that have that distinction? If useless distinctions are so important to some people who don't understand languages at all, why don't they suggest English should be "improved" by introducing masculine and feminine forms? However stupid, it should definitely sound like an improvement to them.
Also, consider this:

fewer cars
less cars
= no ambiguity, distinction not needed. No wonder a lot of native speakers discard "fewer" and just use "less" in every context.

few cars
little cars
= ambiguity, basic difference in meaning, distinction needed. No wonder this distinction is preserved.
Skywise   Thu Jan 22, 2009 7:09 pm GMT
<<...so the distinction is, at least in theory, useless.>>

Unfortunatly, using Englisch takes place in practice.

Ever heard from keeping redundancy for better communication?

If you throw out redundancy and some ''oddities'', you'll loose the ''soul'' of a language, that what makes that language unique. Many people don't like artificially simplified languages. Be proud of the complexities of your mother tounge and don't try to rape it!
Skywise   Thu Jan 22, 2009 7:15 pm GMT
<<No, that's evolution through simplification.>>

Evolution does not necessarily mean simplification. Life forms get more complex during the course of evolution. Ok, some still are in the one cell state, and if there would be no such kind of life, our planet soon would become uninhabitable.

Have you considered all possibilities of usage of the various different forms meaning almost the same? Maybe, once you will relay on the little difference they denote.
Gerhard Shroeder   Thu Jan 22, 2009 9:51 pm GMT
Have people always been complaining about their language being degraded or is that a new phenomenon?
a very gemein person   Thu Jan 22, 2009 10:16 pm GMT
<<using Englisch takes place>>

Oh god! Please learn to spell even the name of the language you're learning, du nazisau.
Johnny   Fri Jan 23, 2009 12:30 am GMT
<<Have people always been complaining about their language being degraded or is that a new phenomenon?>>

I think it's a common phenomenon for people who are over 60 or so. In their opinion, everything in society is degrading. Young people just don't care, and love the word "dumbass" and to say "awesome". And if someone comes up and butchers the English language further, young people will take it as an awesome improvement to their slang.
I was not saying that I would like to simplify English or that it needs to be "butchered". I was just trying to say that I still have to hear a good reason why the common changes in some parts of modern English we all know must necessarily be considered "butchering" and not "neutral" or even "good changes".
Anyway, it's not a problem. Most people just don't care. Only 0.2% of native speakers of English is really concerned about this "butchering". So, like, I like totally don't care! Whatever! Duh! LOL
Johnny   Fri Jan 23, 2009 12:32 am GMT
0.2% of native speakers ARE... damn it, I just butchered English for real. LOL
Sarmackie   Sat Jan 24, 2009 2:56 pm GMT
We should get rid of articles. It's worked out tremendously for the Slavs.
AOK   Sat Jan 24, 2009 10:00 pm GMT
''I'm not good at spelling, I'm not good at math''
(Gwen Stefani)
Kate   Sun Jan 25, 2009 8:35 pm GMT
I think "degrading" is both the right and the wrong term. If you look at the word "degrading" as meaning demeaning, then it is the wrong term. If you look at the word "degrading" as similar to erosion, then it is the right term. I prefer to use the word, "dialect."

As in all languages; English has no claim to fame on this one... they all change as we advance and change to our environments. Old words that don't change suddenly have new meanings quite different from the original, as in the word "gay." It used to mean happy, or joyful. Now it is a sexual preference of gender. Whew! Big change! lol

But, on the note of the "degradation" of the language. A better word to use would be a new "dialect" of the language.

......................................................................................................
"Dialect" -
a: a regional variety of language distinguished by features of vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation from other regional varieties and constituting together with them a single language <the Doric dialect of ancient Greek>
b: one of two or more cognate languages <French and Italian are Romance dialects>
c: a variety of a language used by the members of a group <such dialects as politics and advertising>
d: a variety of language whose identity is fixed by a factor other than geography (as social class) <spoke a rough peasant dialect>
......................................................................................................

For some reason, the word "dialect" is commonly used to explain all other differences or changes in languages other than English, but we don't commonly use the word "dialect" to explain the changes occurring in the English language.??!! I wonder why?

In other countries of languages foreign to English, when you travel from town to town, or city to city, it is the same language, but in a different dialect. hmmmm

Could that be what we are experiencing? I know I am living in an area where the English "dialect" is VERY different. I couldn't even understand some of the people here at first, although I speak the same language. I am from western Canada, and living in the countryside of the deep south. The language here is not something that is "demeaning," it is just a different "dialect" of the same mother language we all share here. One could say it has "degraded," or "eroded," because some of the letters in the original words in this language have been dropped, but I could not say it is any less than what I grew up speaking; just different.

......................................................................................................
"...more to do with a complete linguistic massacre in its delivery in a variety of ways.<<"
......................................................................................................

Ummmmmm....... "massacre?" The English language used to be spoken as "thou art," and "thou shalt beist..." So one could also say that the proper English we were born into speaking is also a massacre of the language. Tell me, where was the line drawn that said which version, or "dialect" of English was "right?"

I do love the English language and have worked hard at mastering it; as it is my passion, but as I learn, it changes, and this has made it an ongoing quest for me to understand. I LOVE this forum! Just found it a couple of hours or so ago. Yummmm! LOLOL
Another Guest   Mon Jan 26, 2009 9:15 pm GMT
The distinction between "me" and "I" is important and does often reduce ambiguity. The distinction between "Less" and "fewer" is less often important, but there are situations where it does prevent ambiguity.

And "oftenly" is not a word.

Skywise: you should say "lose the soul", not "loose the sole".