I'm an editor in "real life"; have been for almost 30 years now. I work in a fairly narrow field—education. As Managing Editor for an international publisher, I set the editorial standards for the company. Our clients and commissioned authors are, in the overwhelming majority, teachers. You would expect a certain level of literacy from them in the manuscripts they submit for possible publication.
You would be wrong.
I always keep in mind my attendance at a Style Council many years ago, where I was first introduced to the term "the wounded bull syndrome", as it applies to editors. This is when we (editors) collectively and singularly begin to see ourselves as "protectors" of the language. When we see what we perceive as an attack on our beloved language, we form a circle, heads lowered, the same way bulls circle to protect one of their own who is hurt.
It's something to be constantly wary of. The language does not "belong" to us, nor are we its "guardians". The English language has managed to grow, change, evolve for many years now without (or despite) our help. In fact, its ability to do just that is one of its greatest strengths.
But does there come a point where the absorption of new words, phrases and structures actually weakens our language; in this case, Australian English? I think it does, to the extent that we begin to lose our own words, which are part of our unique heritage. For example, I commonly see now the word "curb" to refer to the raised ridge beside the road, rather than the (correct) use of "kerb". Similarly, the term "medium strip" (instead of median strip) has achieved a measure of respectability. Why? What's "medium" about it, as against "median", meaning "middle"? Why am I constantly seeing "sidewalk", "flashlight", "candy", "cookies", "fries" and "should of"? What's wrong with "footpath", "torch", "lollies" (or "sweets") and, most definitely, "should have"? Why do young people greet each other with "Hey!", and why are we all "guys"? We now have travel agencies advertising "vacation" specials; and we think nothing of "grabbing a cab". We "meet with" and "talk with" and I've had an (Australian) teacher teaching positional prepositions to students use "in back of" to mean "behind".
Please, while I'm being picky ... we have "swimming meetings", not "swim meets". So, I'm anti-American? Not at all! I admire them immensely, their freedoms, their "can do" attitude, their glorious countryside. Apart from repetition via the mass media, I just don't understand why we have to adopt their phraseology at the expense of our own. Oops ... hang about! I think I saw a baby in that bathwater you just heaved out!!
And then there are the sheer headshakers: signs in the supermarket that tell us the express lane is for 12 items or "less" (it's "fewer"), the ascendancy of the "polite I", where it is thought more correct to use "I" than "me", which leads to abominations such as "Mum spoke to my sister and I" or "Santa gave both Jessica and I a present". I've had "to all intensive purposes" (what does that mean) instead of "to all intents and purposes". Mind you, the one that threw I ... errr ... me most was when I first saw "wallah!". I had to go back and scan the context to find the wanted word was, naturally, "voila!" Sadly, I've seen it in increasing numbers of late. Even that former bastion of Australian English, the ABC, is drifting into a netherworld where sentences such as "Each of the accused men were interviewed by the police" are heard and read. And commercial television constantly reinforces the belief that it is totally ignorant of the rules for positive — comparative — superlative; both when and how to use them, and their formation. All hail the rise of "more—" and "most—" and mourn the loss of "—er" and "—est". I am not "more clever" than my younger brother, but my youngest brother is certainly the "cleverest" of us all.
And I haven't even started on the fate of the comma or its poor, endangered and elevated cousin, the apostrophe.
Perhaps later.
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