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It is weird if you look from top down view like organized “Queens English”. Truth is people just made stuff -bottom up- if some phrase was used it just spread

by ozim 2y ago

It is weird if you look from top down view like organized “Queens English”. Truth is people just made stuff -bottom up- if some phrase was used it just spread out or not. It is that even rather close neighbors might use different names or phrases for the same thing or same names for different things. Even if at school you learn a generic version.

dylan604 2y ago
> Even if at school you learn a generic version. On a slight tangent, I took 3 years of Spanish in school in Texas where they taught Castilian Spanish instead of Mexican Spanish. You know how often I speak to Castilian Spanish people vs Mexican Spanish people...in Texas?
- bryanlarsen 2y ago
  Similar problem in Canada where Parisian French is often taught in English Canadian schools rather than Quebecois.
  - willsmith72 2y ago
    i dunno, when i hear french teachers at english schools in bc, that accent is far from parisian
  - fatnoah 2y ago
    As the resident of a northeastern US state, relatives on one side of my family grew up speaking French, so naturally I took French in high school. I was embarrassed when I still couldn't speak French with the family and had to resort to English when visiting Montreal. I was, however, vindicated later in life when I visited France and was able to get by without English.
    - devilbunny 2y ago
      AIUI the Quebecois understand Metropolitan French (from movies, literature, etc.), it's just not what they actually speak. Canadian and Cajun French, again AIUI, are mostly derivative from Norman and Breton, which were never really the same as Parisian, and the emigrants who defined the language left before the French state was able to force Parisian language onto everyone in the country. It's not as far removed as, say, Provencal (which is in some respects closer to Catalan), but definitely not the same as Parisian, and they've had centuries of isolation from the developments in the mother country, during which they've been exposed to a torrent of English (and American English at that; don't @ me, Canadians, we speak the same English and it's distinctly not British, ANZ, or Indian, even if we spell and pronounce a few things differently).
      - fatnoah 2y ago
        That's a great breakdown. To my ears, one of the big differences in Canadian vs. Metropolitan French is that the former is very much in the throat, while the latter is in the nose. Standing in line for currency exchange in Montreal behind a French couple almost broke my brain as I tried to listen into their conversation with the worker.
        devilbunny 2y ago
        I don’t know how true this is, but I have read that the French view of Quebec is “they aren’t French people in America, they’re Americans who happen to speak French.”
- selimthegrim 2y ago
  A lot of people in RGV are directly Castilian descended as they will insist on telling you.
AmericanChopper 2y ago
That’s why I personally don’t like ideas like “queens English”, ect… language is defined by the way people use it. Some sort of authority attempting to police it’s correct usage has always just seemed like gate keeping to me.
- dylan604 2y ago
  I think the horse left the barn a long time ago with the concept of gatekeeping English. Now, it's just a label of a dialect. Queen's English vs Newfie vs Geordie vs American Mid-Atlantic vs Southern vs Bostonian vs vs vs
  - yakshaving_jgt 2y ago
    In Geordie you don't tend to have completely different words though, save for a few colloquialisms borrowed from old Scandinavian languages. It's not as far removed from actual English as, say, a Pidgin.
- fragmede 2y ago
  but maybe there are some gates are meant to be kept. language evolves, sure, but I literally can't use literally to mean literally anymore because it's sloppily become to also mean figuratively. in this day and age, bureaucracy doesn't have to be glacially slow, and new words could be proposed and officially adopted, if (wait hang on there couldn't possibly be a problem with my plan) people would follow the rules set down by a committee. Thing is, we have such committees for English, and they say Internet should not be capitalized and I say it should, just like Earth or Sun, there's only one.
  - AmericanChopper 2y ago
    The thing about language is it’s basically the world’s most pure democracy. Communities, cultures, ect… each decide for themselves how they’re going to use it. Individuals or organisations can attempt to establish themselves as an authority on how it should be used, by forming committees or writing dictionaries, but the only people who care what they have to say are their own respective community of aligned interests. Everybody else ignores them. I would say if you want your dictionary to be actually useful, then it should attempt describe the way words are actually used, rather than attempt to dictate their permissible use. I think English is a language that lends itself to this rigid approach a bit more than some other languages, because of how common it is for English as a first language speakers to only speak English. Where I live there are a lot more languages, basically everybody is multilingual, and the level of slang, language mixing and other general bastardisation would probably make a lot of English speakers cringe…
echaozh 2y ago
Why not "Kings English" now, as the Queen, well, is gone?

by ozim 2y ago

dylan604 2y ago

> Even if at school you learn a generic version. On a slight tangent, I took 3 years of Spanish in school in Texas where they taught Castilian Spanish instead of Mexican Spanish. You know how often I speak to Castilian Spanish people vs Mexican Spanish people...in Texas?

bryanlarsen 2y ago
Similar problem in Canada where Parisian French is often taught in English Canadian schools rather than Quebecois.
- willsmith72 2y ago
  i dunno, when i hear french teachers at english schools in bc, that accent is far from parisian
- fatnoah 2y ago
  As the resident of a northeastern US state, relatives on one side of my family grew up speaking French, so naturally I took French in high school. I was embarrassed when I still couldn't speak French with the family and had to resort to English when visiting Montreal. I was, however, vindicated later in life when I visited France and was able to get by without English.
  - devilbunny 2y ago
    AIUI the Quebecois understand Metropolitan French (from movies, literature, etc.), it's just not what they actually speak. Canadian and Cajun French, again AIUI, are mostly derivative from Norman and Breton, which were never really the same as Parisian, and the emigrants who defined the language left before the French state was able to force Parisian language onto everyone in the country. It's not as far removed as, say, Provencal (which is in some respects closer to Catalan), but definitely not the same as Parisian, and they've had centuries of isolation from the developments in the mother country, during which they've been exposed to a torrent of English (and American English at that; don't @ me, Canadians, we speak the same English and it's distinctly not British, ANZ, or Indian, even if we spell and pronounce a few things differently).
    - fatnoah 2y ago
      That's a great breakdown. To my ears, one of the big differences in Canadian vs. Metropolitan French is that the former is very much in the throat, while the latter is in the nose. Standing in line for currency exchange in Montreal behind a French couple almost broke my brain as I tried to listen into their conversation with the worker.
      - devilbunny 2y ago
        I don’t know how true this is, but I have read that the French view of Quebec is “they aren’t French people in America, they’re Americans who happen to speak French.”
selimthegrim 2y ago
A lot of people in RGV are directly Castilian descended as they will insist on telling you.

AmericanChopper 2y ago

That’s why I personally don’t like ideas like “queens English”, ect… language is defined by the way people use it. Some sort of authority attempting to police it’s correct usage has always just seemed like gate keeping to me.

dylan604 2y ago
I think the horse left the barn a long time ago with the concept of gatekeeping English. Now, it's just a label of a dialect. Queen's English vs Newfie vs Geordie vs American Mid-Atlantic vs Southern vs Bostonian vs vs vs
- yakshaving_jgt 2y ago
  In Geordie you don't tend to have completely different words though, save for a few colloquialisms borrowed from old Scandinavian languages. It's not as far removed from actual English as, say, a Pidgin.
fragmede 2y ago
but maybe there are some gates are meant to be kept. language evolves, sure, but I literally can't use literally to mean literally anymore because it's sloppily become to also mean figuratively. in this day and age, bureaucracy doesn't have to be glacially slow, and new words could be proposed and officially adopted, if (wait hang on there couldn't possibly be a problem with my plan) people would follow the rules set down by a committee. Thing is, we have such committees for English, and they say Internet should not be capitalized and I say it should, just like Earth or Sun, there's only one.
- AmericanChopper 2y ago
  The thing about language is it’s basically the world’s most pure democracy. Communities, cultures, ect… each decide for themselves how they’re going to use it. Individuals or organisations can attempt to establish themselves as an authority on how it should be used, by forming committees or writing dictionaries, but the only people who care what they have to say are their own respective community of aligned interests. Everybody else ignores them. I would say if you want your dictionary to be actually useful, then it should attempt describe the way words are actually used, rather than attempt to dictate their permissible use. I think English is a language that lends itself to this rigid approach a bit more than some other languages, because of how common it is for English as a first language speakers to only speak English. Where I live there are a lot more languages, basically everybody is multilingual, and the level of slang, language mixing and other general bastardisation would probably make a lot of English speakers cringe…

echaozh 2y ago

Why not "Kings English" now, as the Queen, well, is gone?