Apostrophes about to meet it's maker.

It seems that the death sentence has finally been passed on that most problematic of punctuation marks, the apostrophe - in Birmingham, at least. This week Birmingham City Council announced that they would be abolishing the apostrophe - the proper use of which has been the source of much confusion since its first appearance in our langauge 300 years ago - from all newly-produced street signs. You can read more about the reasons for this decision here.

This move has inevitably sparked something of a debate. There are those who welcome the termination of the apostrophe's 'rights of residency', arguing that it was never really necessary anyway. Perhaps the strongest supporters of this side of the argument are those behind the Kill the Apostrophe website. On the other hand, more prescriptivist views are expressed by the likes of the Apostrophe Protection Society, whose campaign does exactly what it says on the tin. There's a very handy summary of both sides of the argument here.

So what do you think? Is the apostrophe worth saving or is it better off dead and buried?

Beryl bashes Scouse brogue

Author Beryl Bainbridge has once again courted controversy by criticising the accent and dialect of Liverpool, as reported in today's Guardian. Bainbridge got herself into a spot of bother over this one about ten years ago when she claimed that her success as a novelist is partly down to the fact that she took elocution lessons to help her get rid of her Scouse accent. Yes, that's right, she's criticising a variety that she herself once used!!

But it's not just Beryl Bainbridge who's been attacking the Liverpudlian variety this week. This article in The Sun considers once again (for this is something that seems to occupy newspaper writers on a regular basis) those linguistic varieties considered to be the 'best' and 'worst' in Britain, and Liverpudlian doesn't fare well. As also reported here, it is frequently the case that people feel the need to change their accent and/or dialect when in a high-stakes situation such as a job interview.

Verdict on slang collector: 'helio proctosis'

Yesterday's edition of the London Student newspaper ran an article on the use of slang among students and other young people. The article features an interview with Tony Thorne, a linguist working at the English Language Centre at King's College, home to the 'Archive of Slang and New Language'.

The article lists some interesting slang terms, and if you're keen to follow this up then why not pay a visit to the Archive of Slang and New Language website, where there are literally hundreds of slang terms listed, together with their origins and uses. The article also makes some interesting references to attitudes towards slang usage, which are relevant to the kinds of debates that we're going to be having in ENA5 (A2) very soon and then later on this year in ENA6.

Feck that for a swear word!

And so the debate about swearing in the broadcast media rages on: this week TV chef Jamie Oliver joins Jonathan Ross in the ranks of TV personalities who are to be linguistically 'neutered'. But in the midst of the sea of language that is coming to be seen as ever more unacceptable, there exists a small island of tolerance... a final stronghold of mild expletive... a last bastion of semi-taboo language. Yes, I'm talking about FECK.

Immortalised by that fantastic comic creation Father Jack from the equally-fantastic 90s alternative sit-com Father Ted, 'feck' is an Irish word that suddenly found its way into common usage in British English slang. Whilst there's no doubt about the context in which Father Jack uses the word, in its wider and general use in Ireland it is actually not synonymous with the similar-sounding word that differs from it by only one vowel (he said, coyly). You can read what the OED has to say about the origins of 'feck' here, and its background and usage are also discussed in this article, which focuses on the word in response to a ruling by the Advertising Standards Authority that 'feck' is not a swear word and its use in a current Magners Cider advert (in which bees are told to 'feck off') is therefore entirely acceptable.

Well, that's one view. Another view, of course, would be that whatever the actual origins of the word, and regardless of its traditional usage, it has now come to be used in exactly the same way as its cousin 'f*ck' (largely - though probably not entirely - thanks to Father Jack), and therefore, the argument goes, it should be treated in just the same way. This is an argument, incidentally, that has been rehearsed with reference to a certain word used frequently on the new 'rebooted' Battlestar Galactica series (I know, I know, more sci-fi anorak references... but they're always so relevant!). This TV show is set somewhere out in space, sometime in the future.. or maybe the past (don't get me started on that one). Anyway, the writers of the show have managed to get around the stringent US censorship rules by inventing their own term to replace the F-word, and that word is 'frak'. Its use is exactly the same as the f-word that we know and love/loathe* (delete as applicable) and, to be honest, I'm surprised they get away with it on prime-time TV! Have a look at this compilation and you'll see what I mean.

Smut, filth and obscenity...?

I knew that would get your attention.

There's been a lot of talk about swearing in the media over the last month or so - prompted, of course, by the now-infamous 'Brand and Ross' incident. In case you haven't heard about this (where have you been?!), comedian Russel Brand and presenter Jonathan Ross have both been suspended from the BBC for making 'lewd' telephone calls to actor Andrew Sachs and broadcasting them on Brand's Radio 2 show. This has sparked a huge debate about the 'role' of swearing on the TV and radio, and quite a range of views have been expressed in one forum or another.

The writer of this article calls for a total ban on swearing in the broadcast media, observing that "it's just plain wrong". This view is supported by the writer of this article and, according to this report, by almost two-fifths of TV viewers. And as if it weren't enough that Messrs Ross and Brand have had their knuckles rapped for their bad behaviour, Radio 1 DJ Scott Mills and even the otherwise squeaky-clean Ant and Dec have got in on the act, each prompting their own flood of complaints in response to their 'smutty' language.

On the other hand, the writer of this article argues that there's nothing wrong with swearing, asking "should swearing sometimes be excused for the sake of its artistic merit?" (and answering his own quetsion with a hearty "Flip yeah!").

To look at things from a more academic perspective for a moment, American linguist Steven Pinker has argued that swearing is an inbuilt language characteristic and one which we revert to as a matter of pure instinct. You can listen to what Pinker has to say in YouTube footage here (click on the 'go' button once you've clicked the link), or in a Guardian podcast here.

So what are your views on swearing? Is it ever acceptable? Does it depend on context? Do any of the people expressing the views above have a point, or are they just talking a load of... well, you know what I mean. Post a comment and share your thoughts.

At the end of the day it's not rocket science

According to a new book by Jeremy Butterfield of the Oxford English Corpus, phrases like the two that I personally (there's another one) have just used in the title (and now the content) of this post are among the most irritating expressions in the English language. As reported by yesterday's Telegraph, the top ten language sins at this moment in time (there I go again) are:

1 - At the end of the day
2 - Fairly unique
3 - I personally
4 - At this moment in time
5 - With all due respect
6 - Absolutely
7 - It's a nightmare
8 - Shouldn't of
9 - 24/7
10 - It's not rocket science

You can add to that list misuses of the word literally and any number of cliches that are spawned by the world of corporate management (witness to incentivise, to action and synergy). The book's author says that "we grow tired of anything that is repeated too often – an anecdote, a joke, a mannerism – and the same seems to happen with some language." Interesting fuel for a language attitudes debate.

So which cliches of the modern age get up your nose the most? Post a comment and let us know.

Speaking of the cliche 'it's not rocket science', have you ever wondered what actual rocket scientists say when they want to make a point about something not being incredibly difficult? No? Just me then...

Beckham's accent gets the boot

The language quest of hotel chain Travelodge continues apace this week, as they publish the results of their survey into both the favourite and most loathed accents of British English. In keeping with many such investigations in the past, the accents of areas such as London, Birmingham, Wales (huge generalisation, but don't shoot the messenger) and Liverpool come off the worst, with varieties associated with the north-east and Scotland coming out on top.

What's particularly interesting about these results is the celebrities that are chosen as examples of each variety. London accents are representated by controversial figures such as Amy Winehouse and Lily Allen, and although David Beckham might not be controversial in the strictest sense of the word, he certainly does divide opinion. Wales gets Charlotte Church (generally considered to be rather irritating), Liverpool gets Colleen Rooney (WAG famous for... well, being a WAG), and Birmingham gets Ozzy Osbourne (unique, but not necessarily in a good way). By contrast, Newcastle gets Cheryl Cole as its figurehead (considered to be quite attractive by lots of people), Bolton gets comedian Peter Kay (current media favourite) and Scotland gets Edith Bowman (popular with 'the yoof', I believe).

All of this supports the observations of linguist Howard Giles, who is famous for (among other things) his discussions of the motivations for language attitudes. One of the points he makes is that people's attitudes towards a particular accent are frequently motivated not by the aesthetic qualities of the actual sounds (although this can be significant), but by the things (people, places etc.) with which the accent is associated.

The results of the Travelodge survey are also reported in slightly different ways here, here and here.

...And yet more on dialect

Following on from the previous post on various regional dialects, the Lancastrian and Cornish varieties now get their turn in the spotlight. The Travelodge hotel chain has commissioned a study into the extent to which people understand various accents and dialects of British English. You can see reports on the results of their research into the Lancastrian dialects here (complete with a link to the short dialect guide that came out of it) and the findings of their Cornish dialect investigation here.

Some accents just Palin comparison to others

Tee hee hee, see what I did there? A headline truly worthy of the hallowed pages of the "Sun Writer's Pun-Writer" handbook. For this post is indeed all about accents (accents such as that of Sarah Palin, candidate for the US Vice-Presidency) and how some accents (Sarah Palin's, for example) are seen to be less prestigious and/or desirable than others - in fact, some accents pale in comparison to others (Palin comparison... geddit?). Ahh-herrmmm... anyway...*

One article from the American press chooses to headline specific negative perceptions of Sarah Palin's accent ("What an accent! Mush!") as a summary of the writer's generally less than positive views about her as a politician. This highlights the fact that people tend to see accent and dialect as an important characteristic when it comes to making judgements about other people, and another article from the American press picks up on this. Like the first article, this one starts by focusing on Sarah Palin's accent ("Really? That's an Alaskan accent?") but moves on to a more detailed discussion of the significance of attitudes towards language varieties, drawing on the views and observations of a number of expert linguists. Whilst this article focuses exclusively on American accents (and is therefore technically outside of our remit for Unit 5 'Contemporary Language Variation in the British Isles'), many of the issues that are raised about accents of American English are of equal significance for British English varieties. Among the points raised is the observation that, contrary to earlier predictions that regional accents would 'die out', people are actually holding on to their distinctive linguistic varieties as a means of marking their identity.

On the other hand, the article reports, there are some people who see a distinctive regional accent as an obstacle to progression in socio-economic terms, and it is perhaps these people that are adopting a more standard language variety that is not marked for any particular region. The writer picks on "rural Maine" as the undesirable antithesis to the "city", and there's an important point to bear in mind here: attitudes towards regional accents and dialects are not always based on their linguistic characteristics, but often on society's percpetions of the region with which the variety is associated.

Nowhere is this more true than in Britain, where you can pretty much guarantee that any opinion poll asking which is Britain's coolest/most prestigious/sexiest accent will show one variety coming bottom of the heap: the Birmingham accent and dialect. The results of a recent CoolBrands survey identified 'Brummie' as the least cool accent of British English, with Received Pronunciation seen as the coolest (don't ask me why, I don't make up the rules!), closely followed by Scotts and Geordie. You can read the full story here and here. Like users of any regional variety, though, many Brummies are proud of their accent and dialect, even if they are aware of the negative light in which it casts them in many people's eyes.

The road sign pictured left actually appeared at roadworks in Dudley in the West Midlands a few years ago (I'm offering a prize for the first correct translation posted in the 'comments' section of this post), and gives a clear indication of the sense of solidarity that can come with the use of a regional variety. As a proud ex-pat Brummie myself, I'm always pleased to see this kind of thing. Imagine my delight last year, then, when I found out about national Talk Like a Brummie day. And how much more delighted do you think I was when I found out that said event is to be repeated on 19th July 2009?!! Yowm gunna loov it, aah kid.


_____________

*I'll get my coat...

txt speak - luv it or h8 it?

There's been a lot of media interest in the language of text messaging recently, not least because of the latest book to be published by David Crystal, one of the UK's leading linguists. In Txting: the gr8 db8 Crystal explores the impact that the language of texting has had on the spelling system of English. This article features a detailed account of some of Crystal's thoughts on the subject. Whether you're an AS student thinking about the language of so-called 'blended', mixed mode electronic texts, or an A2 student focusing on language change and attitudes towards it, this article is a very useful one to read.

Lend us a word, mate

With the history of the English language at the forefront of our minds on the A2 course at the moment, this article was a timely find. The article reviews a new book, The Secret Life of Words: How English Became English by Henry Hitchings, and focuses in particular on the wide variety of foreign loanwards that have worked their way into the English language for one reason or another over the centuries. As well as citing some of the usual suspects (Latin, Old Norse, French), the reviewer highlights some of the other languages that have so generously donated their lexemes to our beloved tongue - among them Turkish, Arabic and Dutch. As the reviewer points out, this rich linguistic history reflects and indeed emphasises the multifaceted nature of Britain's social, political and economic history.

Having worked through some examples of words that have come into English from other languages, the reviewer touches on some of the attitudes that are often expressed about the proliferation of foreign loanwords in English. He comments that English has never been short of its "furious defenders against foreign corruption", an observation about 'linguistic gatekeeping' that links very nicely with a couple of other articles that I found recently - this time not about words but about spelling.

This one talks about "the utter irrationality of British spelling", commenting on the somewhat controversial views of John Wells, a professor of phonetics and president of the Spelling Society, before going on to discuss in detail the arguments for and against spelling reform. Professor Wells argues:

"Let's allow people greater freedom to spell logically," adding, "Have we really
nothing better to do with our lives than fret about the apostrophe?"

You can read more about Professor Wells' (Wells's?) views in another recent article, which focuses on - among other issues - the use, misuse and abuse of the apostrophe. This third article adds further detail to the same story.

To round off this posting on language change and people's attitudes towards it, you might like to have a look at this article, which reports on some of the new slang words that have earnt their place in the pages of the latest Oxford English Dictionary of Modern Slang. The only thing I'll say is that I cannot be held responsible for the image that they've chosen to accompany their story, nor for the feelings of revulsion that are certain to ensue. Enjoy.

More grammar gripes

Following their report on Tesco's decision to re-label their "10 items or less" checkouts (as discussed in my recent Less is more blog posting), BBC News on-line magazine has published a 'rogues gallery' of the 20 most hated grammar crimes, as identified by its readers. Have a look at the list and see whether you feel as strongly about these misuses of language as some people apparently do. Perhaps you have some additional gripes of your own that don't get a mention here...

Less is more

The language police are on patrol again - and this time they've got Tesco under surveillance. As this BBC News article explains, there are those who object to the grammatical inaccuracy of the "10 items or less" sign that appears on some checkouts, arging that 'fewer' is the correct term to use in this context:

Both words are used as comparatives - fewer meaning "a smaller number of", less
meaning "a smaller amount or quantity of"... Fewer should be used when you are
talking about items that can be counted individually, for example, "fewer than
10 apples". Less is correct when quantities cannot be individually counted in
that case, e.g. "I would like less water".

So we return once again to the presecriptivist debate. Grammatical pedants (and I hold my hands up to being one of them on this particular occasion, the confusion between 'less' and 'fewer' being one of my own language 'niggles') strive for technical accuracy, while their more linguistically liberal counterparts might argue that nobody is confused by the supposedly inaccurate "10 items or less" so why bother about it? All good fuel for the language debates furnace.

Just hanging around

While trawling through today's news pages for interesting material for the blog, this editorial article jumped out at me. Now, if the sentence that I've just typed fills you with horror because of its sheer grammatical ineptitude, then you will probably be in agreement with David Mackie's views on the hanging participle (AKA the dangling participle). And if you didn't see anything wrong with my first sentence then it would be worth your reading Mackie's article to find out what it is about this construction - and others like it - that many people find so abhorrent.

The problem (as far as the strictest rules of grammar are concerned) is as follows: the first clause's present participle verb form 'trawling' appears in that clause without an agent (the 'do-er' of the verb), so it is assumed (again, by the strictest rules of grammar) that the agent of the verb in the second clause (the 'editorial article' that 'jumped') is also the agent of the particple verb in the first clause - there being no other agent mentioned (in this example, at least). The 'while' in the first clause supports this, implying as it does that one action ('to trawl') takes place alongside another action ('to jump'). Now, because these two verbs actually have different agents ('me' and the 'editorial article' respectively), the construction is, strictly speaking, ungrammatical. With me so far?

Now, those of you that are still awake and still reading at this point in the argument might well be thinking 'What does it matter? It's obvious from the context that it wasn't the 'editorial article' that was doing the 'trawling' - and not just because it is an inanimate object'. That might be what some of you are thinking... others of you might be thinking 'Shut up Jones, I'm bored now - and anyway, haven't you got anything better to be doing during your summer holidays than sitting at your computer writing dreary blog entries about grammar?'. Well, in the interest of preserving self-esteem I won't address the latter of these hypothetical comments (and no, it's not because the answer is 'no'), but in answer to the first comment I would say that I agree... to an extent. Certainly editorial articles don't do much at all in the way of physical action (although by means of personification we have seen them 'jumping out', but we'll leave that to one side for now), but what if the agent of the second verb had been a person - for example 'While trawling through today's news pages for interesting material for the blog, the missus brought me a cup of tea'. Now it's not clear who was doing the trawling - me or my long-suffering other half. See the confusion... and the source of the prescriptivists' consternation?

Grammatical pedantry or reasonable cause for linguistic outrage? Admittedly this is a debate with a very narrow focus, but it's the kind of thing that comes up all the time when considering language attitudes, as we will be in unit ENA5. It's up to you to decide where you stand.

You say tomato...

In her editorial column in today's Guardian Siobhan Butterworth brings a well-worn language debate out for another airing. The debate focuses on the use (or rather misuse) of the phrases "bored of" and "disinterested in", among others. Butterworth gives a clear explanation of the 'correct' (as prescriptivists would have it) uses of these phrases and of the debates surrounding their misuse, but ultimately makes her own - more descriptivist - views plain by observing that "at some point we have to let go and accept modern usage or risk sounding clumsy, or worse, pompous".

Arguments like these about changes in what is considered to be 'standard' usage are the stuff of which Language Debates (ENA6) and the Language Change element of ENA5 are made, so it's worth considering your own views on these issues.

Siarad Cymraeg...?

There's a bit of a language debate going on in the pages of the WalesOnline website this week. It's all about the proposals to expand the provision of Welsh-medium education in Cardiff, as reported here earlier this week.

In 2003 the Welsh Assembly Government published its National Action Plan for a Bilingual Wales, but only recently has a coherent strategy for Welsh-medium education been established. This has resulted in an increase in the number of schools teaching primarily (or, in some cases, solely) through the medium of Welsh.

The strategy has polarised the opinions of people living in Wales. In an opinion piece published in the South Wales Echo yesterday, Dan O'Neill speaks out against the "language loonies" and argues that the average citizen of Cardiff is "being bulldozed and bullied into a culture no-one here cares much a damn about". Mr O'Neill's view is that speaking Welsh is of little real benefit to anyone, and he argues that "our schools should be used for all-round education, they should be preparing kids for a tough life... they should not be pandering to a Welsh-speaking elite".

Today's South Wales Echo features a response to Mr O'Neill's opinion piece, written by Meirion Prys Jones, chief executive of the Welsh Language Board. Mr Prys Jones argues that there are "many advantages to being able to speak two (or more) languages... children are able to enjoy two (or more) cultures, and are able to mix and communicate with a wider variety of people". He also points out that "the fact that parents continue to campaign for more Welsh-medium and bilingual provision proves how successful the education is in these schools", citing studies that "show that children who study through the medium of Welsh do just as well, if not better, at school".

Interesting debate... and the stuff of which ENA6 is made! Watch the pages of WalesOnline over the next few days - you can bet there'll be more people pitching in with their own views on the matter.

Storm Brews over Translation Proposals

They say there's no accounting for taste, and this is never more true than when talking about views on language use. Ask ten people to identify what they consider to be the most heinous 'language crime' and you'll probably get ten different answers. Different people's attitudes towards language use are as varied as their tastes in music or their favourite colour... and just as hard to account for.

Take, for example, the polarised reactions to plans to translate the Bible into Patois, the unofficial language of Jamaica. As reported in this article that appeared in last week's Telegraph, there are those who welcome the proposals, arguing that Patois is a "powerful tool of communication" among the vast majority of Jamacians and that there is "nothing wrong with translating the Bible into someone's native tongue". Those who oppose the plans, however, claim that "errors could be made, and essentially what is translated is not necessarily reflecting the true meaning of the Scriptures".

At the heart of this controversy lies a very common language debate. Many people are of the opinion that there are certain places in which standard English should be preserved - and, along with law, medicine and the world of education, the Bible is one such place. It's important to bear in mind that Patois is an unofficial language (English being the official language of Jamaica) and, as the article tells us, "only recently have the middle and upper classes been speaking it in public". So it would seem that this debate boils down to the age-old battle between prescriptivists and descriptivists, a fight between those who wish to preserve the standard form of language in formal contexts such as the Bible and those who see language variation as inevitable, desirable and part and parcel of everyday life.

So what do you think? Should texts like the Bible be translated into non-standard linguistic varieties? Should we do the same with, say, Shakespeare, or legal documents, or school and college text books? I'd be interested to hear your views... please feel free to express them in whatever linguistic variety you prefer.