Little things that irk you.. (no swearing please)

[Decider-VT]

Can you teach them the correct use of "on" as well? For example:

A man was arrested on Tuesday after...

as opposed to

A man was arrested Tuesday after...

[randombs]

I think 'write me' is like 'call me' or 'twat me round the head with your plonker'.

I've now officially given up arguing against American grammar*. I've decided to just accept it. I don't even mind them calling it English, whereas before I would rather they called it American or American English.

Something that irks me is how sweaty my feet get when wearing slippers for a while.

Who do we blame for this? Is it whoever decided socks and slippers is a big no-no? I can't stand wearing slippers without socks. Same goes for any footwear. I dunno how people can wear trainers without socks, maybe they have dodgy android feet? I wear slippers in the kitchen and bathroom and garden and that, but am too scared to venture forth into the world in case I get silently laughed at.

* giving up does not mean refraining from giggling at their funkdubious spelling and grammar

[Darwock]

I think 'write me' is like 'call me' or 'twat me round the head with your plonker'.

...but it's not. Nobody ever says "call a telephone call to me" but it's correct to say "write a letter to me". The object taken by the verb is different in the case of write. So if you omit the preposition it just sounds like nonsense.

[endo]

There is a correct usage in British English where you can use both the direct and indirect objects and use 'write me', minus the preposition. For example: 'write me a letter'. Whether the common US usage whereby the preposition is dropped in other circumstances is an extension of this, I have no idea. But yes, I find it a bit irksome too.

That said, it could be argued it's not so much a corruption of English grammar but an evolution of American English grammar. Gawd knows. Maybe some linguistics PhD student has done a thesis on it.

[JP]

English evolves like all languages do, it's almost unrecognisable to how it was in the past. It's a language that has stolen from other languages over time as trade routes were established and it also varies from location to location.

It's never evolved as quickly as it does now but we've never had the speed of communication that we do at the moment.

The language is a good language because it's a living breathing language, if languages don't evolve they cease to exist. There are rules which deem something as correct and others as incorrect but again these rules change over time and also from location to location. There's a different version of English for every person that uses the language and people have their own rules for what is correct and what isn't.

The essential purpose of language is to communicate, if it's doing that then it's done what is required irrelevant of the format used. The rules are set up to give a broader understanding of how to communicate between different people, if everybody on the planet used exactly the same rules then we would all be able to communicate with very little confusion.

There are times when a lack of mutual rules does get in the way of communication, an example being when an ex first visited the UK and met my mother and introduced the word "fanny" into the conversation which means something very different in the US.

One thing that changes language greatly is globalisation. As unpopular as globalisation seems to be it's a very natural thing and has been happening since the first two tribes started communicating over 10'000 years ago. It will continue to happen, languages will continue to evolve and we will end up using a single language. There will of course be variations in that language from region to region much as there is now if look at the UK but there will inevitably be a global language as well as a global culture.

[merf]

sounds like a perfect opportunity to eat a scotch egg and quote Keith from the office :-

'word of warning, in America a fanny is your arse. Not your minge'

[Dirty Sanchez]

http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/writeme.html

So in the context of the envrionment the usage quoted is 100% correct.

[Darwock]

...given that the page you linked to is apparently an excerpt from a book called "common errors in english usage", I don't think you can really say it is correct. Acceptable maybe, but correct?

Also the environment it's being taught in is an actual school, as opposed to a conversation school where naturally spoken english would be acceptable. I don't see any excuse for an educational text book to include incorrect grammar just because it's a common mistake. Do you think textbooks printed in London should have stuff like "I didn't do nothing" in it, just because it's a common expression? Only native speakers can get away with using common errors like that without the listener thinking "er, what?"

[Dirty Sanchez]

Correct in that the textbook you are working from is most likely American. American influence in Japan > English influence, so the most common usage would be the American one.

[endo]

The language is a good language because it's a living breathing language, if languages don't evolve they cease to exist.

One thing that changes language greatly is globalisation. As unpopular as globalisation seems to be it's a very natural thing and has been happening since the first two tribes started communicating over 10'000 years ago. It will continue to happen, languages will continue to evolve and we will end up using a single language. There will of course be variations in that language from region to region much as there is now if look at the UK but there will inevitably be a global language as well as a global culture.

Languages don't have to constantly evolve in order to survive. Certainly, they need to adopt new words to express new concepts, but lots of languages are relatively 'unevolved' and still survive today. Off the top of my head, modern Icelandic is relatively unchanged compared with the Icelandic of 1000 years ago. Even modern Italian is very similar, on a fundamental level, to the language of Dante (not least because the modern 'standard' Italian is based on the Florentine dialect).

I don't think we're really headed for one universal language either. No one knows for sure how many languages there are in the world, but the generally accepted figure is somewhere around 6500. Those on the verge of extinction, or which have even become extinct, tend not to be languages that have failed to 'evolve' but languages where the ethnic groups that speak them have dwindled to practically nothing, or those that have been supplanted by the language of a dominant ethnic majority. Papua New Guinea alone has 850-odd languages - they aren't going to all start speaking English any time soon.
Indeed, the trend in the development of languages has been precisely the opposite of what you suggest. In the case of Proto-Indo-European, a posited common ancestor has spawned whole families of languages throughout Europe and Asia, i.e. we haven't moved from lots of languages to fewer, we've gone from one to thousands.
Not to mention that lots of countries also have institutions to actively combat perceived corruption of their language too, such as the Académie française.

Besides all of which, if we do end up with one standard language, it'll be some form of Chinese

[randombs]

At least we won't need to wait for games to be localised!

[NW2013]

"NatWest - helpful banking." Hateful c**ts more like, if the adverts are anything to go by. I'm happy to use HSBC the most impersonal bank going. I never hear from them and it's great.

[Jebus]

Natwest customer services are the best I've ever used!

[prinnysquad]

My missus hates Natwest too. Really pissed her around, so much so that she upped sticks and moved elsewhere.

[Lyris]

English evolves like all languages do, it's almost unrecognisable to how it was in the past. It's a language that has stolen from other languages over time as trade routes were established and it also varies from location to location.

+1. I'm always amazed at how irritated British people seem to get over other forms of English.

I see your point, they're teaching English, but they never specifically stated it was British English, did they? In any case, American English is what they'll have the most exposure to.