Standard English is the best English. |
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Votes: 379
Comments: 10
Added: October 2003
| italianbro - 7th November 2003 16:33 |
| why are we looking fo sterility?? the standardization of the language, sadly enough, will sooner take away vineyards and the colour from the language leaving just simple and mere cement. |
| Willbut - 9th November 2003 21:09 |
| Standard forms do have a wider coverage, so they have their time and place. There's not much point in learning Cockney Rhyming Slang if you are a Finn who does a lot of business in Brazil and uses English as a common language. |
| italianbro - 10th November 2003 00:31 |
| I do agree with you regarding the businessman doing his job in Brazil will surely prefer a more standardized English rather than Cockney Rhyming:), which however would be interesting listening to. But what I meant was by standardizing the language is as stripping away part of the culture, the whole of the Nation sounding as the BBC News at 8 reader!! Moreover, when you refer to a businessman doing his job, you intend that he will use the business jargon, as all specialists will do in their own areas, they will use a specific jargon, which is totally fine and should be like this. Yet is not jargon in which I am interested, what really worries me is to thoroughly standardise a language, and hence as I have already said it will only make it more sterile: millions of robots walking in the streets with the same accent, tone, use of words… BRRrrrrrrrrrrr a scary perspective of the future! |
| tdol - 10th November 2003 20:51 |
| I agree with your points. I think the problem is the term 'best' which implies a heirarchy. It may well be the most useful or widely understood, but that doesn't make it 'better'. There's n o moral high ground, IMO. ;-) |
| Joan - 24th November 2003 23:17 |
| It's what I like best. |
| www.deutschermichel.com - 1st December 2003 13:39 |
| standard english is the best deutscher michel |
| JT - 15th January 2004 01:38 |
| It's the most widely understood, so it has the edge for me. |
| suziesue - 18th February 2004 08:30 |
| Standard English is a good tool for communication but lacks the individualities, the quirks, the emotional qualities, the history and the passion of dialect English. It depends on context, really. Newsreading demands standard English, but telling a fairy story doesn't. |
| shuchin - 2nd October 2004 16:06 |
| The best English is standard English,but the inverse is false,because the best English includes others besides standard. |
| Vidableek - 8th October 2008 16:49 |
| Standard english, as I know it, is how any American speaks, who is not from New York, New England, somewhere between N. Carlolina and Texas, or with a foreign accent. Is usingenglish.com a UK based website? |
