> Well, throw-in-the-towel is known (at least the acording
> phrase is in wide use in Germany - just most don't know
> the orgin), but what is Ebonyx ?
Ebonyx was the attempt by some boards of education in California to establish
the slang associated with Black culture as a language so they could get funding
to teach english as a second language. It was always a brazen attempt to get
funding, nothing more.
>
> And, Jim, for the Grammer ting, don't forget that English
> is a bastard based on (at least) 5 languages from 3 different
> language families (No Offense Ment).
None taken. You're absolutely correct. English took much of its structure
from Norweigan, and much of its vocabulary from Norman French, and simplified
both. It picks up vocabulary from everywhere, and when that fails words are
simply made up. I'm thinking here of Scuba and Radar, wich both started out
as acronyms and are now ordinary nouns.
*snip*
> Serious, ain't we are going exactly the same way with
> programming languages as with real ones ? Just instead
> of centuries, it took only some dozend years to go from
> Machine code (grunting sounds) to ADA (Goethes Poems)
*laugh* I'm not sure I'd compare any computer language to Goethe, but it's
a good analogy...
> and only less than 10 years to fall back to C ?
>
> Gruss
> H.
I think Hans is making a bit of a joke here, but he's not far from the mark.
A living language is not a static thing. It grows. It evolves. Parts are
added and other parts dropped as the society that speaks it changes. Until
recently (ie the last 20 years or so) English was taught in a very prescriptive
way - x is the correct way to speak, where x is whatever dictionary and/or
grammar system you embrace.
However in the late 60s (things take time to
filter into the education system) some language experts - notably Webster's
Dictionary among them - began to realise that language *changes* over time.
Websters dictionary embraced a descriptive philosophy - we're not in the
business of telling you how you SHOULD speak, only how you DO speak.
One of the results of this was the formation of the American Heritage
dictionary, which clung to the prescriptive philosophy.
Ultimately I think the descriptive folks are correct. While I agree with Dick
and others that as the English language is simplified it looses alot of its
elegance and beauty, I'd rather see that than the total stagnation that results
with rigid prescriptiveism. A great example of what happens to a language when
it is artificially prevented from changing is French. With the establishment
of the French Acadamy and the legislation against borrowings from other
languages, in a few hundred years French went from the language of diplomacy
to a linguistic backwater, populated with grotesque and awkward words created
to describe things where a borrowing had been previously used.
None of this changes the fact that today's schools are doing a lousy job
teaching people to communicate. (In the US). One need only look at the web
to see this - US domains which are so cluttered and badly designed and where
the text is so obtuse and irrellivant that the entire page is useless abound.
(Yes, in this graphical age, I think page layout should be taught alongside
some understanding of grammar and spelling). Schools are instead focusing on
self esteem building, instead of teaching and letting students develop self
esteem when they *succeed*. Obviously grinding a student's ego into the floor
every time they mess up is the wrong way to go about teaching anything, but
so is pushing self esteem above education. *sigh* If I had children, I would
definately feel ripped off by todays schools.
Anyway, I've gone on much longer in this message than intended, but in addition
to hitting a nerve this thread also hit stuff I studied in college, so... :)
--
Jim Strickland
jim_at_DIESPAMMERSCUMcalico.litterbox.com
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Received on Thu Mar 09 2000 - 13:20:47 GMT