Fix this Language.

Hi, thanks for your visit.

Recently the London newspaper, The Independent ran an article on use of language. You can read it here.

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/columnists/miles-kington/mind-your-language-or-

he-word-squad-will-have-kittens-803134.html

The idea of keeping the language intact has been put into practice by the French who value it but English has just grown unchecked from the day grunts were associated with meaning.

Now it is a conglomerate of whatever language the many invaders used. Words were modified to fit the mispronunciation of travelers or coupled with other words already distorted to form hybrids. This mixing and adopting continues today.

This island where nothing is far from anywhere else except in language is unique. The Scots, Welsh and English speak different languages. In many cases the English from one county speak differently than the next. London English is the “official” language yet this is constantly changing.

When the brave dissidents left England for The New World they brought their Puritan speech and writings with them. After a while the word spread back home and further abroad. Soon the French, Spanish and who knows who wanted a part of the action with free land and no taxes. They all contributed to the lingo.

By the way there was not a time when German was almost the official language of America. It is a myth. Go to http://german.about.com/library/weekly/aa010820a.htm

Australia was settled by brave and brutal jailers and brave and desperate prisoners. It was so far from home there was no way back. The prisoners who didn’t die in confinement settled in the sunnier shores along with the governors. But the language stayed more or less proper English despite the gold rush influx of nationalities. Even in the 1950s Australians felt British.

The influx now is being made by texting, slovenly Americanisms, youth ignorance because they weren’t taught well and a need for brevity that often takes longer to interpret than proper words.

The article up top was an April fool’s day joke. Did you notice? But English is changing rapidly and increasing pace. There really is a need for some official body to give it direction to stop it splintering into tinder. The French, Italians and Dutch have them.

Obviously easier, more phonetic English is desirable. Where ‘c’ is pronounced like ‘k’ use ‘k’ as in ‘kake’ not ‘cake’. Similarly with ‘g’ when it has a ‘j’ sound as in the suffix ‘ology’. It hasn’t got the sound as in ‘gear’. Does ‘oloji’ seem too daunting? How about ‘f’ instead of ‘ph’ as in ‘fone’? That would be easy to get used to.

The ‘ough’ puzzle is a hurdle to students of English; bough, trough, through, etc.

Why use silent letters that need to be written but ignored by the reader?

This article from Wikipedia gives a summary http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_reform. Please read it.

America seems to be the worst offender in corrupting its native tongue. This is mostly due to the hopeless education system where spelling was ignored as long as it made some sense. Now we have words like ‘gonna’ (going to), ‘wanna’ (want to), ‘thet’ (that), and misuse of words. “It’s bigger then that.” “It flew by it’s self.” “It was plane wrong.” He put it their. “He became a where of”

I’m not concocting these. I read them and cringe every day.

Some of it makes sense. Replacing ‘a lot’ with ‘alot’ is amusing and somehow valid.

Texting is abbreviated phonetics. Let’s hope it remains a second language or at least a fad like teentalk. I used it once in my own way in a forum. A girl replied that she couldn’t understand what we were saying. That was the whole point. I think ‘sumfin’, for ‘something’ is going too far.

The scary bit is that these people are teaching others by example.

Start by correcting your own bad habits and then teaching kids the proper way to speak and write. You don’t have to speak like the Queen of England, just sound a bit better educated or at least like a news reader or TV host. You’ll be treated better if you don’t seem like a brainless yobo.

Language is there to communicate! That’s its purpose. If your reader can’t understand you; why bother? English speech is easy enough to learn but the spelling is woeful. We need to change it.

I was a founding member of SR1 many years ago. You can look it up on that previous link. It wouldn’t work now. Changing the language bit by bit would be totally impractical. A full change would still take many decades.

Australia changed to the metric system of weights and measures in 1970 to ‘77 but we still hear of miles and inches after all this time. I do blame the prevalence of American TV and movies partly for this. Fortunately moves to change this U.S. attitude are looking promising. Let’s hope it happens. Imagine if there were 12 dimes to a dollar. Why work with 12 inches to a foot or 5280 feet in a mile? Surely 1000 meters in a kilometer is simpler. If you can influence this or a more phonetic English; please do so.

This language is the most widely spread and looks like being the planets’ world language. It outstrips all other attempts at invention. We can put it into gear by making it phonetic.

We can ensure this extremely adaptable language will establish itself as the world standard if we correct its faults.

We see massive constructions and mind bending projects across the planet. Some of them are astonishing. This is another one that the future will hail as a great leap for mankind. It will still take decades but it starts with one step. Let’s take that step in this generation.

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Stimulate your toes for thinking?

“Jay, have you gone nutty or been smoking some of that stuff again?”

“No, listen to the explanation and give it a chance.”

Reflexology states that acupuncture meridian points for the head and neck are located in the foot; particularly in the big toe. These can be stimulated to enhance mental clarity.

You can play with your tootsies and feel better for it. What have you got to lose by trying?

Put your right foot over your left upper leg and stimulate the area below the toenail with your thumb. Use a firm circular pressure but don’t hurt.

Continue this down both sides of the toe but pay most attention to the area you started on. Keep this up for about three minutes.

This has benefits for the master glands – the pituitary, hypothalamus and pineal.

Just type these into Google for a stack of information.

Do this with the other toes but only for a minute or less for each toe.

Now it is only a matter of swapping feet and repeating.

You can do this anywhere you can take your bare feet and it feels good. Get into the habit of doing this after a shower or during a work break. You can even do it at the park. That’s a good place to be to get away from the everyday work load.

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Keep well and if you see somebody without a smile give them one of yours.

Jay Ross.