journalist whining about Americans ruining English
A friend sent a link to this article about how Americanisms are ugly and have ruined British English.
I replied to him:
I don't think the writer made his point. He just sounds like a fussy old man. "I don't like it because I don't like it" is not sound reasoning. Of course, it would be difficult to prove, in a short newspaper article, that loanwords from other dialects cheapen a language. It would be impossible, actually, because that's totally subjective. He can't prove that a) the language had value the way it was before "barbarous" words invaded and that b) its value since then is somehow decreased...how do you quantify its value in order to make the first point?
And then how does he defend himself when some astute scholar draws himself into a discussion of Angles, Saxons, Jutes and the Norman conquest? A concise comment to this article could just be a link to a page in Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Saxons. But of course they don't have comments open. It's not a forum, it's a pulpit.
I replied to him:
I don't think the writer made his point. He just sounds like a fussy old man. "I don't like it because I don't like it" is not sound reasoning. Of course, it would be difficult to prove, in a short newspaper article, that loanwords from other dialects cheapen a language. It would be impossible, actually, because that's totally subjective. He can't prove that a) the language had value the way it was before "barbarous" words invaded and that b) its value since then is somehow decreased...how do you quantify its value in order to make the first point?
And then how does he defend himself when some astute scholar draws himself into a discussion of Angles, Saxons, Jutes and the Norman conquest? A concise comment to this article could just be a link to a page in Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Saxons. But of course they don't have comments open. It's not a forum, it's a pulpit.