Months of December, January, February

[wight1984]

Diary: General Stuff

Comments

[wight1984]

I've no objection to the concept of standardised spelling, although I dislike being people snobs about it (particularly as that still boils down to ableism and classism). I did a rant about snobbery regrading spelling and grammar on my last update, which wasn't 'there should be no standards' but 'why do people care so much as to be condescending and rude about it?'. I get it with morality, politics and perhaps even religion... but spelling conventions? That's strikes me as less serious than something like 'being bad a math'.

I don't accept that there is any need for a 'standard' of pronunciation, especially as we've gotten this far without using one in practice. It does no harm to the English language that pronunciation varies between South England and Scotland for instance. Personally, I quite like that diversity.

Heck, if we can accept that the UK can have multiple languages (both foreign and native) then we ought to be able to get over the idea of there being multiple dialects of the same language without everyone getting annoyed or bothered about it.

Lastly, if we really must declare one dialect as being 'the standard' then I really loathe the idea that it should just happen to be the one spoken by the (urban) rich and that the dialects spoken by everyone else are then said to be 'incorrect'. It's arbitrary and just reinforces classist notions.

The idea of embracing one standard in order to improve communication both across and between nations strikes me as disingenuous, if only because if it was taken seriously then we'd all be speaking American English (something I had a debate about followed by an lj entry a while ago). Notably, American English has embraced spelling pronunciations as standard, so is probably a little easier to learn.

I'd wager that most people would be uncomfortable adopting American English as a standard and the principle reason would be national pride. Throwing away out accents and dialects for the sake of 'better communication' would sacrifice too much of our national identity. I'd say the same applies within the nation... dialects and accents aren't just a matter of communication, they're markers of identity; they speak to us about not only where in the nation we live but our background in general.

Etten, by the way, is common in rural dialects and now new. I don't much care about the spelling or whatever rules we've come up to justify a given pronunciation (the idea that spelling determines pronunciation is why people pronounce 'ate' as 'ate'), 'etten' is a common pronunciation and carries an obvious meaning that ought to be understandable to just about everyone.

At the point where dialect obscures meaning then there are actual downsides to discuss but none with 'etten' as I see it. It's a good English word with a sizeable history and connection with certain British cultures (it notably appears in a popular folk song in Yorkshire entitled 'On Ilkla Moor Baht 'at')