Amglish, in Like, Ten Easy Lessons: A Celebration of the New World Lingo - Softcover

Rowse, Arthur E.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1442211679 ISBN 13: 9781442211674

Verlag: Rowman & Littlefield, 2011

Inhaltsangabe

One of the world's leading linguists recently wrote: "We may be seeing the birth of a new language as yet without a name." He was referencing the new informal mixture of English and other languages being freely formed around the world, with little effort to conform to prescribed rules of grammar, syntax, or spelling.

Amglish in, Like, Ten Easy Lessons: A Celebration of the New World Lingo, by Arthur Rowse with illustrations by John Doherty, offers both a name for this new language and an enjoyable guide on how one can learn to use the language through ten easy "lessons." The authors describe how Amglish, or American English influenced by online grammar and syntax, has begun to dominate our global language.

Featuring an ironic manual on how to use this developing language, Amglish is a light and highly entertaining addition to the recent literature on grammar and punctuation. Illustrated with original drawings throughout, the book shows readers how to improve their Amglish and have fun doing so.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorinnen und Autoren

Arthur E. Rowse is a retired journalist, formerly with The Washington Post, USNews, and other papers. He is the author, most recently, of Drive-By Journalism: The Assault on Your Need to Know. The National Press Club runs an annual award program in his name for excellence in criticism of the news media. He has been an award-winning free-lance writer since retirement and has spent five years researching language.

John Doherty is a professional caricaturist living in the Boston area. He has drawn senators and other public figures over his thirty-year career, and his work can be found in print and in advertisements.

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Amglish in, Like, Ten Easy Lessons

A Celebration of the New World LingoBy Arthur E. Rowse

ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD PUBLISHERS, INC.

Copyright © 2011 Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4422-1167-4

Contents

Preface.........................................viiAcknowledgments.................................xiiiMade in the U.S.A...............................1Teachers and other Pioneers.....................39The New World Lingo.............................81From Revolution to Tsunami......................137The Lishes of Amglish...........................175Ten Easy Lessons................................207Notes...........................................223Index...........................................229

Chapter One

Made in the U.S.A.

Peaceful muslims, pls refudiate. —sarah Palin on Twitter, July 18, 2010

With her words above, the former Republican vice presidential nominee was trying to urge people to reject a proposed Muslim center two blocks from Ground Zero in New York City. She immediately drew some flak for partially misidentifying the issue and maligning Muslims. So she toned down the wording in a subsequent tweet.

But her worst crime, judging from press reaction, was to make up the term refudiate. Grammarians were shocked. Journalists exploded. "There's no such word," they shouted in print and on Twitter as they relished one more chance to show that the feisty former Alaska governor was out of touch with reality.

The flames temporarily singed Palin into hastily substituting the word refute. When that didn't work, she fired back, adding an old gem from former president George W. Bush and some slang for getting too excited:

"Refudiate, misunderestimate, wee-weed up. English is a living language. Shakespeare liked to coin words too. Got to celebrate it!"

Write on, sarah! it's time to celebrate the new lingo that's sweeping around the world. All nitpickers should put their picks away. Let's face it, formal English is dying. A new, much less formal language is taking over this country and the world. And it's time to welcome it with open arms. In fact, there's no way to stop it.

IN PRAISE OF PALIN

Asher smith, a reporter for the Huffington Post, was notable in his objection to the firing squad lined up against the former Alaska governor. "Hand it to Palin," he wrote. "Refudiate is catchy and sounds right to the ear." Smith had a point. Palin's word could be considered more logical than many words already accepted in the famously illogical English language.

What was so wrong about combining refute and repudiate? Palin had used the word a few days earlier on The Sean Hannity Show without arousing any reaction. Palin obviously assumed that was enough approval to make it an OK word in today's environment. She knew that the ultraconservative host would not allow a verbal abortion on his program.

And what about Palin's abbreviation for please? This slimmed-down version of the word was propelled by the advent of texting and has become so universally understood and accepted, especially on Facebook and Twitter, that none of her detractors even mentioned it. Language establishment leaders may not have been plsd, but they are no longer able to control the spelling of many wds, especially now that so many people are alluva twitter about language.

THE QUIRKS OF ENGLISH

for centuries, Americans have been trying to deal with the mysteries of the language their forebears heedlessly brought with them from England in the seventeenth century. No other language has ever been stitched together by so many sight-impaired, hearing-impaired, tongue-impaired babblers into such a crazy quilt of rules and traditions.

Numerous books, including many recent ones, have been written to show people how to comply with the increasingly outmoded requirements. Some sell well perhaps because of the large amount of grammar guilt still harbored by many people. But the only thing that has improved is the failure rate of national language tests.

What makes English so fascinating is not the impossible challenge of finding perfection so much as its large number of irregularities, defects, peculiarities, and just plain illogical requirements, not to mention the difficulties of pronouncing and spelling it.

People from all parts of society have tried to use their native language without error. But nobody has yet been able to do so, no matter how hard he or she or they have tried. There will always be some defect or quirk that prevents perfection. Take mark Twain's words for it. When he considered the idea of English without error, he grunted, "The thing just can't be done."

It should not be surprising that a new, less formal, easier-to-use version of English is rapidly taking shape with a character of its own. Among the names suggested for it, the best appears to be Amglish, since it is clearly an American version of English.

When Sarah popped up with refudiate, she—like countless lesser-knowns—was simply doing her bit to help the natural language process work its way. It was her explosive genius for mixing and matching words that captivated the public. Perhaps her most masterful coinage came on march 29, 2011, in the early phase of U.S. Involvement in the Libyan uprising, when she was asked to assess the nation's role by Greta Van Susteren on fox TV: "I too am not knowing. Do we use the term intervention, do we use war, do we use squirmish?"

No word, accidental or not, could better describe the American role after strongman muammar Qaddafi refused to quit and the United States began efforts to unseat him without widening the conflict into a full-fledged war. Weren't many Americans squirming to find the right word to describe the situation?

COMMON SPEECH PATTERNS

It's not only Palin's uncanny ability to burst forth with the perfect new word but her concomitant ability to level with the average person by speaking in a natural, informal manner. She was in clover with Van Susteren, who has some similar language patterns.

For example, on the same show six days earlier, Van Susteren had asked her, "What do—what, in your opinion, is, in general, not necessarily just here, but the role of the military? Is—I mean, what—what is the role of the military?"

To which Palin replied: "Well, the UN obviously wants this—the role to be of our military just a humanitarian effort per the UN resolution that America has been a part of, and that's why we are engaged in enacting the no-fly zone. However, again, with Qaddafi having the blood of innocent Americans on his hands—and we have an opportunity to say, OK, finally we have—you're going to be held accountable. You're going to be gone."

Disjointed syntax like this, of course, is not unusual for ordinary conversations. But we used to expect leading figures and media types to use less fractured language on the public record. No longer. John McWhorter, a language specialist at the New Republic, saw a major change occurring when he wrote that "having trouble rubbing a noun and a verb together is not considered a mark against one as a figure of political authority."

It should be clear to everyone by now: American English is rapidly changing into something much less formal when national leaders are catching...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Rowman & Littlefield
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2011
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1442211679
• ISBN 13: 9781442211674
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Zeichner: Doherty John G.
• Anzahl der Seiten: 236
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar