- Firstly I love the idea of an Academy of English to preserve our language.
- English is so widely used and well known; and the fact that other languages are protected but ours isn't doesn't seem right.
- I think the Academy of English is good because it promotes better use of English and caters for the common mistakes regarding grammar and punctuation.
- Many people are already 'Pedants' and 'nit-pickers' and emphasise the 'proper' way to write and speak English, so surely they should do something about it.
- We can't take advantage of technological advances and rely on the unreliable Microsoft to correct our language mistakes.
Monday, July 4, 2011
Initial thoughts on Queen's English Society...
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I love your passion for English! And I share your views on Microsoft's inability to cope with grammatical complexity. However, you would now benefit from a wider view on language change - Jean Aitchison's Reith lectures called 'The web of worries' would give some different perspectives. Clarity of communication is always one of the tests of 'good' language and you could profitably explore the tensions between our ability to make sense of material that breaks rules and our need to have grammar and spelling rules so that we can be precise and unambiguous in what we write. Bring in some of the history of people's attitudes to language change; perhaps comment on the problem that 'traditional' English grammar rules were written by experts in Latin.
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