What Do Yall Think About Fixing English?

[SyleusSnow]

Larry Wall (linguist and creator of Perl) said "English is a language that manages to be both thoroughly logical and thoroughly insane at the same time. It is a mess, but it’s a flexible mess, and that’s what makes it successful". In other words, English has evolved over time, incorporating words and phrases from various cultures and languages making it versatile in expressing a wide range of ideas and concepts.

Personally, I think everyone on earth should just learn Esperanto and be done with it.

 

[Bramblethorn]

We haven't even standardised how we spell "standardized" yet.

 

[SimonDoom]

Larry Wall (linguist and creator of Perl) said "English is a language that manages to be both thoroughly logical and thoroughly insane at the same time. It is a mess, but it’s a flexible mess, and that’s what makes it successful". In other words, English has evolved over time, incorporating words and phrases from various cultures and languages making it versatile in expressing a wide range of ideas and concepts.

Personally, I think everyone on earth should just learn Esperanto and be done with it.

If everyone learned English, it would be less work for me. I find that persuasive.

 

[SimonDoom]

We haven't even standardised how we spell "standardized" yet.

If the English-speaking countries can't even decide between

standardize-standardise
offence-offense
aluminum-aluminium
color-colour

I don't see much hope for this project.

 

[M_K_Babalon]

I believe the proper use would be "All Y'all" in this context.

All you all?

 

[M_K_Babalon]

Definitely to confuse foreigners.

Carn't av them seppos twigging wot yez on as you's on the dog telling the trouble how as you ain't dahn the Mucky Duck honest, scoffin a ruby till yous less brahms an' can get back t'yer drum, only then you's brassic an she says you're aving a giraffe, mate.

I love you aussies.

 

[M_K_Babalon]

Larry Wall (linguist and creator of Perl) said "English is a language that manages to be both thoroughly logical and thoroughly insane at the same time. It is a mess, but it’s a flexible mess, and that’s what makes it successful". In other words, English has evolved over time, incorporating words and phrases from various cultures and languages making it versatile in expressing a wide range of ideas and concepts.

Personally, I think everyone on earth should just learn Esperanto and be done with it.

I actually looked into Esperanto years ago, when I saw they were teaching it in the local college. I found it seemingly underdeveloped from being not really picked up. Plus... there's probably more people that would understand latin. Unless people are still developing it; it has the same problem but bigger, that other languages have, certain nuanced things that the likes of german and japanese has sought to fix.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

Definitely to confuse foreigners.

Carn't av them seppos twigging wot yez on as you's on the dog telling the trouble how as you ain't dahn the Mucky Duck honest, scoffin a ruby till yous less brahms an' can get back t'yer drum, only then you's brassic an she says you're aving a giraffe, mate.

I love you aussies.

Aussie? Aussie? I've never been so insulted in all my puff! Do I look like a kangaroo?

(How long does it take for avatar changes to go live, btw? I figured out how to update mine on Monday. If it had come up, it would be even more obvious I'm a Londoner! Translation of the above available on request - it's not actually an exaggeration of how my next-door neighbour speaks, mix of some rhyming slang (aka Cockney, but it's never been limited to them), older widely-used English slang words, and some more modern constructs from what they now call MLE, Multicultural London English.)

 

[Kumquatqueen]

Personally, I think everyone on earth should just learn Esperanto and be done with it.

There's a cliche that the main problem with Esperanto becoming more popular is the kinds of people who learn Esperanto...

I know a couple who don't refute this hypothesis.

I reckon we're getting to a sort of creole of Simple English around the world, which doesn't have the richness of native Englishes but is undeniably useful. And then there's English as used by the EU, which sure ain't English as we know it. I was told it makes more sense reading EU directives in English if you bear in mind they're generally drafted by the French, and pissed-off French lawyers at that, after a compromise agreement has finally been reached at 4am and most countries' reps have lost the will to live. It certainly often helps to translate EU docs back into French or German in order to understand them!

 

[M_K_Babalon]

Aussie? Aussie? I've never been so insulted in all my puff! Do I look like a kangaroo?

(How long does it take for avatar changes to go live, btw? I figured out how to update mine on Monday. If it had come up, it would be even more obvious I'm a Londoner! Translation of the above available on request - it's not actually an exaggeration of how my next-door neighbour speaks, mix of some rhyming slang (aka Cockney, but it's never been limited to them), older widely-used English slang words, and some more modern constructs from what they now call MLE, Multicultural London English.)

Ehhh... sometimes I forget where some of yall are from. No need to get in a tizzy.

 

[Duleigh]

Accent marks are for dictionaries and other languages. We got enough problems.

 

[StillStunned]

And then there's English as used by the EU, which sure ain't English as we know it. I was told it makes more sense reading EU directives in English if you bear in mind they're generally drafted by the French, and pissed-off French lawyers at that, after a compromise agreement has finally been reached at 4am and most countries' reps have lost the will to live. It certainly often helps to translate EU docs back into French or German in order to understand them!

I've done a fair bit of work for the EU, and the English is just the tip of the iceberg. You can probably play the game of "read the Directive and spot the inconsistencies" in any of the official languages. And that's even before you consider local variations within the languages for example the various forms of German or Dutch.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

I've done a fair bit of work for the EU, and the English is just the tip of the iceberg. You can probably play the game of "read the Directive and spot the inconsistencies" in any of the official languages. And that's even before you consider local variations within the languages for example the various forms of German or Dutch.

Yup, and 'guess which language was the original' and 'which politicians were still awake at the end'!

I remember the first time I was asked to write a 'non-paper' and suggested, you know, just not writing the paper!

Then you get into accents and some new colleagues thinking they were discussing cookery - ackee being more interesting than the acquis - and a guy called Sion being confused with the Cion multiple times a year...