The Central Pro/Pre/Per Scriptivisor

[vze422fs at verizon.net]

on 3/10/03 8:01 PM, Dave Monroe at davidmmonroe at yahoo.com wrote:

> My question is, just how many people who demand that
> everybody in These You-Knighted States speak not only
> English, but "Standard English," actually speak and/or
> write it themselves?  The best I can say is, I read
> English, I'm at least capable of writing it, but I
> generally talk American.  And this reminds me of an
> aside in a Bruce Sterling short story in which someone
> on a Japanese film crew filming a remake of Kurosawa's
> Throne of Blood on location in Scotland (...)
> complains that he can't understand the locals.  A
> Bollywood colleague sympathizes along the lines of,
> 600 million of us an THEY speak "standard" English?
> In the meantime, I'm in line behind an African
> American guy at the sub shop, and between me and him
> and the subcontintal Indian girl at the counter, NONE
> of us can undersand each other ...
> 

Every summer I get a new crew of J1'ers. That's Irish college kids on a
student work visa. They have American television. They have American music.
They don't speak American standard English let alone the peculiar dialect of
"Bostonese" that is actually closer to their standard usage than anything
they could encounter in Ohio. Every year there will be one or two kids who
refuse to adapt or assimilate and insist on using the forms that they
consider correct even though the customers or service people that they have
to deal with do not understand them.  My advice is usually "You are not in
Cork. There are 270 million of us. We are heavily armed. Adapt."

I frequently act as translator for people who consider themselves native
English speakers who cannot make themselves understood to Vietnamese,
Cambodian, Somalian, or Eastern European shopkeepers who have mastered the
local dialect.

The bottom line is lingua franca. I learned while driving long-haul trucks
across the south to use the local phraseology at fuel stations, truck stops,
and diners. It works wonders. The same attitude has helped me in Parisian
nightclubs and London pubs. Don't be a jerk, learn to say it their way.
They'll treat you better. But don't try to fake it, they'll be insulted.
Listen, learn, and adapt.

The English language is like rock'n'roll: it absorbs everything,
incorporates it, modifies itself to the local idiom, and uses it to the best
advantage in the circumstances.

Peace
Joe

 > --- Abdiel OAbdiel <abdieloabdiel at yahoo.com> wrote:
>> 
>> "standard english"
> 
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