Living in a Multilingual World (The One About "Correct" English)

It don’t ma’er coz it ain’t about being rich or poor, innit?

I had to resist the temptation to correct the speaker on the spot. Also, if I did, which I did in the end, by the way, where would I start? Would it be the “it don’t” howler? Or the typical London-accented “ma’er”? “Coz”, perhaps? Or, “innit”, again, a Cockney-influenced linguistic prop commonly used by the villagers of Londontown? In the end I just corrected the “it don’t” and the “innit”. Couldn’t be arsed to deal with the rest.

And that’s English for you, my dears.

Where do the boundaries of what is considered “good” English start? Where do they end? This was the subject of a recent, fascinating debate in the pages of Prospect magazine between Simon Heffer, author of Strictly English: The Correct Way toWrite and Oliver Kamm, who recently penned Accidence Will Happen: The Non-Pedantic Guide to English Usage.

Enough to give a pedant a heart attack

I could write another hundred posts like this, a thousand articles, a million words and the message will always be the same: as a non-native speaker, I am truly mesmerised by the seriousness with which the English language is taken. I was never surprised about finding linguistic pedants in my own native Spanish. Nor was I to find them in French, too, when I began to study the language. Both Spanish and French have academies that act as the guardians of the language. Compared to both, English was a breath of fresh air.

How wrong I was. From slamming miscreants who violate the rule that dictates that pronouns change their case when they follow prepositions to indulging in the peccadillo of fused participles, the English language (or at least its defenders) can sometimes come across as modern inquisitors.

Heffer makes a good point about correct English being the standard from which most dialects are derived. It is true that if you do not have a word like “father”, it is unlikely you will come up with its patois equivalent “fadda”. On the other hand, Oliver’s riposte that the problem is not English grammar but the constant, obsessive linguistic nit-picking, is the type of argument with which I totally agree.

Where I think both columnists fail miserably is in not moving their debate beyond the narrow confines of language. Not everyone who uses slang, or falls into the trap of the grocer’s apostrophe is an illiterate person. Social, historical, economic and even political elements come into play in daily parlance. If you were born in one of Britain’s former colonies, your patois might be a way to defy the old, imperial status quo. If you feel that society is out to get you, language becomes a barrier with which to defend yourself. The wall you build around you or the trench you dig to duck in is made of words that only you and a select group of people will be able to understand. In that case pedants will become ammunition for your cause.

To be sure, there are various shades of grey in this discussion and I find myself siding slightly with Mr Kamm rather than with The Heffza. Parents, teachers and society in general must act together to teach our younger generation the context in which they can use a particular phrase and when it is better to default to Standard English. Replacing “they’re” with “their”, “would have” with “would of” and “you’re” with “your” is grammatically incorrect. Same with “don’t” in the third person singular. We live in a world where the job market has shrunk considerably in the last seven years. It would be irresponsible and plainly idiotic for a young person to deny themselves the opportunity to break into that market just because they can’t be bothered to switch to Standard English. At the same time there is a time and place for “ma’er” (“matter”, but with a London accent) and “innit”. In my opinion, these are not mistakes but identity markers.

Knowing when to use one and not the other is one of the most valuable lessons I have learnt in my life. Not just in English but also in Spanish. We, Cubans, have a reputation in the Hispanic world for being hard to understand, given our proclivity for chopping off the end of words (especially those ending in “s” and “r”) and leaving sentences unfinished. Taking into consideration that this contravenes the rules laid down by the “holier-than-thou” Royal Spanish Academy, I should be on Oliver’s side, wearing my linguistic rebelliousness on my sleeve. Yet, I am also very practical. Nail that job first, son, and then go back to your natural, linguistic, niche, aw'ight mate?

© 2015

Next Post: “Saturday Evenings: Stay In, Sit Up and Switch On", to be published on Saturday 7^th March at 6pm (GMT)

Living in a Multilingual World (The One About MLE)

Michael Rosen is an acclaimed British author who has written countless books for children and adults. Whilst not familiar with the latter that much, I am well acquainted with the former. We’re Going on a Bear Hunt, Sonsense Nogs and Tea in the Sugar Bowl, Potato in My Shoe are some of the titles I have read over the years. Michael’s imagination knows no limits.

That is why I was really looking forward to reading his contribution to Radio 2 and the New Statesman’s What Makes Us Human series. The name might ring some bells to some of you as, back in the summer when I was away from my blog, I uploaded a couple of articles from the series. Mr Rosen did not disappoint me. His essay was on history and what he called the “paradox” of it. Like his monthly “letters” to Michael Gove, our education secretary, his column was thought-provoking as well.

Reading Rosen’s wonderfully crafted write-up led me also down a path I had not considered before. On musing over what history represents for humans (I’m the bloke scurrying about trying to find out stuff to do with my great-grandparents or great-uncles and aunts. More history. Or I’m the bloke wondering why British people say “I’ve got” and Americans say “I’ve gotten”) Michael reminded me of the role language has played in the making of our history. As part of our human culture, regardless of nationality, gender, class or race, language is a key element of our identity. No two human beings speak the same way, have the same inflection or even pronounce words the same way. The current rising-intonation-at-the-end-of-affirmative-sentences epidemic sweeping the UK teenage population might mortify some, but, believe you me, these adolescents still sound British, as opposed to Australian.

Recently I have been hearing more and more people talking about the correct way we ought to speak English. Or rather, about the incorrect ways some people speak it. More specifically, there are self-appointed guardians of the English language who are terrified of a new phenomenon: the linguistic melting pot. We all know about the melting pot. New York is one, so is London and Paris does not lag behind. It is the confluence of different nationalities and races in one place. It is what makes an ordinary, run-of-the-mill city a metropolis all of a sudden. Language is a logical part of this process. So far, though, linguistic contributions had remained in the periphery with the host nation being able to fend off (unintentionally) most advances. Think of the RP accent that dominated the BBC for so many years. But the landscape has changed dramatically in the last decade or so. Regional intonations are frequently heard now on both radio and television. What could have been thought of niche accents years ago, are taking on a more prominent role nowadays, if not on mainstream media, at least amongst the youth. It is this last group that is calling the shots. They are changing the rhythm with which English is spoken, stressing syllables that are normally unstressed.

Without wanting to come across as a fence-sitter, I understand both camps. Those who criticise the expansion of what’s come to be known as Multicultural London English (although it’s not a phenomenon that only takes place in the British capital) might be striving for a linguistic structure that is easily accessible to all and perfectly understandable. I can sympathise with that feeling. As a non-native speaker, I find my language resources wanting when faced with a regional dialect or a slang-ridden sentence. Even those born and bred in English-speaking countries sometimes struggle with certain speech patterns. The desire for a linguistic level playing field is, thus, justified. Besides, with a job market getting narrower by the day, people need to show as many skills as possible. In order to do this, they have to be able to be fluent, confident speakers. Someone who ends her/his sentences with “innit?” is not going to get very far, no matter how much we protest and say that experience and the ability to perform the role efficiently is what counts.

However, that would be almost like denying the evolution of language. To me that would be as if the creationist movement suddenly took control of the way we spoke and built its own Royal Academy of the English Language. God made us this way and this is the way we ought to speak forever and ever. Again, I turn to Michael Rosen for a beautiful reflection on history: People all around us sing songs, tell stories of what’s happened to them, talk about their parents and grandparents, where they used to live. We remember some of this, and somehow it all becomes us. Becomes us. That is what happens to language, too. It becomes us. We become it. When we sing “Old pirates, yes, they rob I; Sold I to the merchant ships”, we forget about the objective case of “I” and lose ourselves in the message of redemption the song conveys. I say “ourselves”, I can’t vouch for you, but I do. When I talk to older people in my barrio who have lived in it for so long they can’t remember any longer, they tell me tales of exodus, of Cockneys migrating to Essex and Poles, Somalis and Turks replacing them. Whether the self-appointed guardians of the English language like it or not, this influx has an impact. On our lifestyle, our habits, our culture and, of course, it has a deep impact on our language. I have no other option but to (willingly) embrace it. Will you, too?

© 2014

Next Post; “Sunday Mornings: Coffee, Reflections and Music”, to be published on Sunday 2^nd March at 10am (GMT)