eastwestdivide
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Yes they’ve added their inputs, but they’re hardly invaders, and their influence is only part of the picture
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The evolution of the English language over time
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DynamicSpirit
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Out of interest, would you react the same way to:
- The above items are on special offer
- The previous paragraphs only apply once payment has been made
- The outdoor swimming pool opens at 10am
I would guess it also in part reflects a minor issue with English grammar: Adjectives come before nouns, but some prepositions can on some occasions come after a noun (The items below). So when you have an adjective whose meaning makes it feel a bit like a preposition, it can feel a bit ambiguous which rule to use.
Strathclyder
Established Member
I suspect I'm also in this minority. It can be irritating, I won't deny that, but I tend not to get that wound up over this sort of thing.
I don't think either of these feels wrong at all, although both sound a bit pedantic and artificially proper. I'd always try to phrase it as "these items are on special offer:"
This is the first time I've ever heard the term Indianism though, and it was interesting to hear it, although I don't think it describes usefully any of the modern changes occurring in British English and does sound perhaps a tiny bit racist.
Xenophon PCDGS
Veteran Member
There is a long-running thread about scams on this website which has featured many examples of Indian call centre staff for whom English is not their first language and their scripts appear to have been written using English as the language but also using Indian grammatical terminology...."Hello, I am calling you from THE Microsoft...."
Ahh right, when described as use of Indian-dialect English it makes more sense. I don't think it's got a lot to do with non-English languages at this point - it's just the normal way English is spoken in India.
Hear hear. Language evolves: otherwise it would be impossible to describe typing on an Internet forum using a computer. But evolution should add to a language, not take away. Including "beachside" in the dictionary adds a useful distinction from the more general "seaside"; using "should of" or confusing "every day" and "everyday" add nothing except a glimpse into the user's skill; muddling "uninterested" and "disinterested", or "enormity" and "vastness", or "washbasin" and "sink", all take away from the language by removing clarity of meaning.
'Below' is a tricky beast, being adverb, preposition and recently also an adjective rolled into one. The current OED suggests that when used as an adjective 'below' comes before the noun (e.g. "the below address") but is usually (but not always) placed after the noun when used as an adverb (e.g "he jumped into the flood below"). However, the use as an adjective was only added to the OED in the 2017 edition, and online Collins seems to think that this adjectival use is US English. It seems to be a neologism: but is it a bad one?
When push comes to shove, it may not matter: my advice when writing style guides was always to avoid using any word, or form of words, that may upset grammarians/pedants (delete as applicable), whether or not you happen to believe in any particular rule yourself. It's so much easier to try to be correct than to have to justify non-standard English.
I'm on the younger side here so my opinions may differ. I don't care if something is grammatically incorrect if:
- It doesn't change the flow of the sentence dramatically
- It doesn't add a mutually exclusive interpretation compared to the intentional meaning
- It still makes sense.
for example this Sentence has alot of errors BUT can still be understood easily until i, add this commer and, suddenly the, hole sentence is, janky, to REED and A mess too try and underst. and
- It doesn't change the flow of the sentence dramatically
- It doesn't add a mutually exclusive interpretation compared to the intentional meaning
- It still makes sense.
for example this Sentence has alot of errors BUT can still be understood easily until i, add this commer and, suddenly the, hole sentence is, janky, to REED and A mess too try and underst. and
Part of the problem with that is that it's mostly easily intelligible to a native speaker who is also a confident reader and is used to British English pronunciation. Take away any of those elements and things get a lot more interesting. That's the problem with using "of" as a verb, but can easily apply to the spelling of comma, hole and read.
For what it's worth, Google translate gave it a pretty good go, but couldn't cope with reed or commer
Purple Train
Established Member
There is a balance, agreed (Kingsley Amis put it very well, albeit indelicately, which is why I shall not quote him here), but enough pedantry is required to keep enough of a standardised "correct" version of the English language that is universally understandable in any English-speaking country.
Indeed, but none of those, as far as I am aware, included the adoption of already-established words to describe something else. They are also all nouns, the corruption of which I can countenance more than other forms of linguistic corruption, as they naturally have several synonyms and dialectal variations, of which there are generally fewer in other groups of words.
Is it?
Me.
I apologise if it is me being dense, as usual, but I fail to see what relevance this has to the discussion, as it uses "of" in the sense of "derivation, origin, or source", which is perfectly correct.
Seconded. The complex languages spoken worldwide are far easier to understand than the stereotypical cave-man's "three sorts of grunt and a scream".
(EDIT: I appreciate this may seem hypocritical of me given I've just corrected an instance of incorrect grammar in this - but I did write it very, very late at night so please forgive me!)
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Xenophon PCDGS
Veteran Member
I was harking back to the mis-use of the word "of" very early in this thread and using those two examples as how that word can be used in a correct context.
This is probably how the use of "should of" instead of "should have" came about. In many accents the 'h' is often dropped, so the phrase becomes "should 'ave". Then in some areas "'ave" might be pronounced or misheard as "'ov", and from there "'ov" becomes "of". Then over time and generations "should of" becomes the norm, even thought technically incorrect. But this is how language evolves, not through sticking rigidly to a set of rules, but through things like accent variation & even simply mishearing words or phrases.
Absolutely agree with this. "Should of" isn't a language evolution. It's just a common mistake that is becoming more and more prevalent, and people don't bother to correct others because they'll just get abuse back. I'd agree with some others that there is a wider, general fall in grammatical standards.
Xenophon PCDGS
Veteran Member
Noting what you say above about the word "ov", this was in graffiti vogue some years ago with a notable example being "Billy ov Moston" which was seen all over that particular area of North Manchester.
70014IronDuke
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I would posit, from my experience, it's got an AWFUL LOT to do with the influence of the non-English language(s) upon which English has been superimposed. (This is perfectly normal in any language acquisition process.)
But the first point is that India comprises two very distinct language groups (at least) - with the Indo-European family in the north and the Dravidian languages of the south, so I'm not sure if one can talk about "the normal way English is spoken in India".
For example, in Tamil Nadu, people will say (assuming they speak English), on leaving the house: "I will go and come."
When I asked my friend why he said this, he replied: "For us, Tamils, if we say 'I'll go' or 'I'm going [now]' - it implies I won't be coming back. So we can't say that."
Hence "I'll go and come" is the mirror translation of what the Tamils say naturally, put into English. I didn't hear this expression in non-Dravidian India.
However, one seemingly common theme in Indian English is the far more frequent use of continuous tenses (eg I am eating curd every day for breakfast - rather than I eat curd every day for breakfast in "standard" English.)
I have never been to north-eastern India (eg Bengal), and I'm not sure how their "English" differs from other Indian English. If Bengali is not an Indo-European language, I fully expect it too influences the local English variety.
Irish influenced-English also tends to use continuous tenses more than 'standard' English.
Incidentally, isn't the title of this thread tautologous? (Hope I've spelled that correctly.
)What is interesting is that the words pig, cow and sheep are derived from Anglo Saxon, whereas the associated meat from these animals (mutton, beef and pork) are derived from the corresponding French words (mouton, boeuf and porc respectively)
Some people have said that this arises from the Norman Conquest, where the Norman lords ate the meat, whereas the animals were looked after the Anglo Saxon serfs and peasants. This is difficult to prove conclusively, but it does sound plausible.
Some people have said that this arises from the Norman Conquest, where the Norman lords ate the meat, whereas the animals were looked after the Anglo Saxon serfs and peasants. This is difficult to prove conclusively, but it does sound plausible.
70014IronDuke
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I'd say the use of words in English derived from the Norman-French is clearly provable. Look at the word 'demand' (in English) - the Norman Lord may have 'asked' but to the Saxon servant, it was an order.
If you look at certain adverts, eg for homes, the use of Norman-French words becomes even clearer - eg 'residence' for 'house' .... the list is long.
It's been a long hard thousand year fall for the Normans, from conquerors and overlords of England to estate agents.
That’s how language evolves. From mishearing things and making “errors”.
Mcr Warrior
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It's maybe one way, but more often it just seems to be a demonstration that someone perhaps doesn't have anything more than the most rudimentary grasp of the English language.
With the result that we end up increasingly spotting mangled expressions ("eggcorns") in social media, such as "a damp squid", "a mute point", "lack toast intolerant", "to wet your appetite" or "an escaped goat".
Xenophon PCDGS
Veteran Member
One might ponder how the northern and southern European languages have been affected by such "language evolution", notably French, German and Spanish.
There are a lot of expressions that are grammatically wrong but have been in common usage for years (or have become so in the last few years), for example double negatives, split infinitives, and "it were" instead of "it was" (which I think has always been common in certain dialects, for example in Sheffield and I believe in Yorkshire in general).
There are also a lot of words whose meanings have change over time, such as (with their more traditional meanings in brackets):
Cool: trendy (the opposite of warm)
Gay: homosexual (happy)
Gig: Pop or rock concert (horse-drawn passenger-carrying cart/carriage/wagon)
Pot: Cannabis (container for a plant or for liquid)
Indeed, see this now locked thread on Americanisms in UK English: https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/americanisms-in-uk-english.239128/ and (relevant to the evolution of the English language in general but not specifically to railway station versus train station) this one on whether the English language should have a spelling reform: https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/should-the-english-language-have-a-spelling-reform.212765/
“Squib” is onomatopoeia meaning a pathetic explosion, which is surely the least imaginative use of language (why not use the existing words? Don’t you know them?) but people haven’t an issue with it.
The six letter word beginning with "p" and ending with "d" that is a slang word for being drunk in the UK just means being angry or annoyed in the United States.
When I was growing up in the 1970s, "bum" was considered a very rude word on a par with a well known four letter word beginning with "f".
But now the word "bum" is considered innocent enough to be printed in newspapers and used on mainstream broadcast media.
Bum as rude as f? Did you live on some sort of religious commune?
No, but in the 1970s if you were caught using the word "bum" at school or at home you would get a telling off from the teachers or your parents.
A squib is a small explosive device. A damp squib would not work well. Hence the term.
Xenophon PCDGS
Veteran Member
In America, were "bums" and "hoboes" names given to those itinerant travellers who illegally travelled in freight cars on the railway systems?
I believe they were.
Just goes to show how even the same language can evolve in different areas where it is spoken.
The same is true of French, where la fin de semaine is "weekend" in Quebec, whereas in France they say Le weekend
In the French speaking parts of Belgium, septante and nonante are the words for "seventy" and "ninety" respectively, whereas the corresponding words in France are soixante - dix and quatre vingts dix.
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