Variation and Change in English
When I was younger, or should I say quite a lot younger, things were different. And it's not just the iPads and Tablets that have forced themselves upon me, but the very language itself. Somewhat like those old codgers that used to lament the Crispy Bacon there used to be before the War, I find myself noticing that "things ain't what they used to be". All very natural and just as it should be of course, for, as the writer Henry James pointed out, the world is nothing but "ineluctable modality" and we are ineluctably stuck on this turning wheel of change, in all things.
Languages are no different and very much subject to change. One example is the fact that "Have you any frozen peas?" is no longer a common way to question our local shopkeeper,but rather we find the American form "Do you have any frozen peas?" is more the norm in many English-speaking contexts. And certainly the aforementioned shopkeeper isn't going to reply, "Sorry, I have not". Even "Have you got any frozen peas?" is apparently being superseded. This example is just one of many ways in which the standardization of British English is happening. People no longer dine, they have dinner , they no longer chat, they have a chat etc.
A similar thing has happened with like. "I feel as if I am getting the flu" is now more commonly expressed " I feel like I'm getting the flu".(In my childhood if I said the second one, I would be corrected to the first one: "Kevin, speak proper English!") Now it is standard. And that American use of "like" to precede everything is catching on too! " It's like, I was like going to like stop doing it but I like couldn't help myself, like."
The apostrophe. AH, the poor long-suffering apostrophe. This beastie is now in eminent peril of succumbing to the avalanche of misuse that it is subjected to. Sometimes I feel that only (a few) English teachers now know how to use it. Under the pressure of unremitting abuse, it may one day become the standard form to put an apostrophe in all plurals, so that all those "shot's" and "cocktail's" for sale in bars all around the world will be able to hold their heads up high! In Australia, it is already, it seems, perfectly OK to put apostrophes anywhere you feel like, so that ads can claim You 'oughta be proud of yourself" and "cabbage's " can be bought on any street corner. I predict that this problematic mark may very well either be allowed anywhere or totally disappear in the future.
Our teachers also used to spent a good deal of time driving "poor English" into hiding. Take the the phrase "Here's your papers", which would in that dim and misty past, have immediately been corrected to "Here ARE your papers". A statement like "John and me went to the beach" was driven away, to be replaced by the "correct" "John and I went to the beach". Nowadays these boo-boos are met with much more tolerance. If the "error" is widely enough used, it becomes acceptable. This process has many illustrations. Here are some examples:
- Old form - "Whom do you trust?"
- New form: "Who do you trust?".
- New: "I will be in touch soon"
- Old: "If I were you..."
- New: "If I was you..."
- Old: "You did it wrongly"
- New: "You did it wrong"
- Old: "it is commoner to do this"
- New: "it is more common to do this"
- Old: "a drug problem"
- New: " a drugs problem"
- Old: "fewer people do it"
- New: "less people do it"
- Old "Peter has just gone out"
- New: "Peter just went out"
- Old " I have already done it"
- New: "I already did it"
Changes which may well become the norm in the future include the progressive undermining of one of those "rules" that English teachers spend so much time banging into their pupils heads, where we teach the difference between the present simple tense and the present continuous tense: it seems the verbs we say are "stative" are now increasingly adopting "dynamic" uses too: "I'm understanding Portuguese better these days" and "How many eggs are you wanting?" are now OK, it seems. (sigh...all those hours teaching the difference...)
So, I suppose we just have to accept that ineluctable feeling,and be glad we no longer have to teach or learn "thou art" and Ye merry gentlemen" any more! To put it in the more "modern" form of the third conditional "If I would have known what was going to happen to the language I might have chosen to be a plumber instead"!
With thanks to the gentle genius of Michael Swan.
Kevin Charles Rowe
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