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Ask-A-Linguist - Message details
Subject: Standard vs. 'proper' English
Question:
Is ''proper'' English really proper at all? The Brits love to view their version of the language as ''standard'' but if they changed it, then it is not standard at all. Whose pronunciation has changed the most -- the British or the American?

Noah Webster said that the snobbery of British aristocracy changed the language in England. (Wikipedia). But I don't know if this was just his patriotism speaking or if it was the truth, or when this took place. Obviously he made this comment in the first few decades of our nation's history. Webster gave us Americans spellings such as center, color, neighbor, and so on.

From a Hungarian colleague I have learned that British English has changed more in vocabulary then American English. This is determined by viewing writings by authors of the same era on both sides of the Atlantic, and comparing it with current usage.

Thank you,
- Steve

Reply:
As the others have indicated, this is a bit of a problem area.

Firstly, there is no standard accent of English. There are many accents for English and some have higher prestige than others. Generally this prestige is local, so that (for example) people in England cannot reliably recognise the US prestige accents and vice versa.

I have argued (as you will see from papers on my website) that there is ONE Standard English for the whole world. This is a concept that works better in writing than in speech. If you look at the 5 postings here so far, you will find it hard to see where the posters are from because we are all writing in Standard English (I am British). Our accents would differ greatly from each other. The very few differences between the 'US' and 'UK' spelling traditions (e.g. 'colo(u)r') are unimportant and account for less that 0.5% of any text.

I see no evidence that the British are more (or less) convinced that they are right and others are wrong than any other group. There are many nonstandard dialects in Britain so it would be ridiculous to say that all British English is Standard. This sort of accusation is usually made by people prejudiced against British people.

I would be surprised if your Hungarian colleage were right on a large scale sample. Change takes place constantly in language and there is no reason to think that (overall) US varieties of English are more (or less) old fashioned than British varieties.

Anthea

Reply From: Anthea Fraser Gupta    click here to access email
Date: Oct-21-2009
Other Replies:
  1. Re: Standard vs. 'proper' English Elizabeth J Pyatt    (Oct-20-2009)
  2. Re: Standard vs. 'proper' English Suzette Haden Elgin    (Oct-20-2009)
  3. Re: Standard vs. 'proper' English Joseph F Foster    (Oct-20-2009)
  4. Re: Standard vs. 'proper' English James L Fidelholtz    (Oct-20-2009)
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