Elena wrote:

mraltair wrote:

twistor59 wrote:Does anybody think that the apostrophe that seem's to be creeping into plural's and, well, anything ending in an "s" will eventually be adopted as standard ?

Don't you mean a's?

Nope, the s is unnecessary because the next word starts with s.

Silly me! I should've known.

On the Dutch television there was an interesting discussion on the subject. Between 1500 and the 20th century, language became stricter and stricter, thanks to a culture of books and texts. Before 1500 there were no standard languages and often people could say different words that mean the same. One distinction in Dutch that is often confused is between dan (than) and als (if). It used to be that both can be used for both circumstances, until a strict seperation was made by writers. But, both words are still being confused today and throuout the last centuries. The emergence of the radio, television and internet is reversing the strictness of language and language becomes fluid again.

Daan wrote:The emergence of the radio, television and internet is reversing the strictness of language and language becomes fluid again.

I think to a certain extent it is becoming less fluid, in that there is a tendency in many languages due to global media to move towards the prestige dialect. English is experiencing dialect leveling (a notable country being that in my home country of Australia, Australian slang is being replaced by American slang in younger generations).

I still hate anyone who can't pronounce "ask" properly.

Saim wrote:

Daan wrote:The emergence of the radio, television and internet is reversing the strictness of language and language becomes fluid again.

I think to a certain extent it is becoming less fluid, in that there is a tendency in many languages due to global media to move towards the prestige dialect. English is experiencing dialect leveling (a notable country being that in my home country of Australia, Australian slang is being replaced by American slang in younger generations).

Yes, you are right. The present global mass culture means that everything is Americanized. Maybe in a couple of decades it will be followed by a Chinese dominance. But, the ecological disaster might reverse the process.

Wiðercora wrote:Language degradation is not caused by chavs, teenagers, text-speak or even Americans.

It's caused by people who rename soap as a 'cleansing bar'.

+1

And "used car" to "previously-owned transportation". (Uh-oh...I think I might sense a derail coming on)

stephen fry is utterly brilliant.

I'm With Stupid wrote:I still hate anyone who can't pronounce "ask" properly.

I pronounce it like "assed" in the past tense. It's hard to pronounce a 3-letter consonant cluster.

Wiðercora wrote:Language degradation is not caused by chavs, teenagers, text-speak or even Americans.

It's caused by people who rename soap as a 'cleansing bar'.

There actually is a distinction between soap and cleansers. A cleansing bar/cleanser is a cleaning product formulated specifically for use on the face.

The boundaries aren't always clear-cut, but the label is useful. While a cleanser may contain soap, they are specifically intended/made for use on facial skin; they are usually pH neutral (soaps are alkaline), contain moisturisers, and so on. The details of how they achieve this can vary, but the point is that calling something a cleanser provides a useful distinction to consumers.

Even the US Food and Drug administration uses the distinction between "soaps" and "cleansers", with "soaps" specifically defined to be products in which "the bulk of the nonvolatile matter in the product consists of an alkali salt of fatty acids and the product's detergent properties are due to the alkali-fatty acid compounds, and the product is labeled, sold, and represented solely as soap [21 CFR 701.20]"

This distinction is useful because it determines how a particular product should be regulaated: "If a product intended to cleanse the human body does not meet all the criteria for soap, as listed above, it is either a cosmetic or a drug."

Source: http://www.fda.gov/Cosmetics/GuidanceCo ... 074201.htm

This can produce some weirdness, such as a product that doesn't contain soap as defined by the FDA might still market itself as a soap, but be regulated as a cosmetic.

Daan wrote:

Saim wrote:

Daan wrote:The emergence of the radio, television and internet is reversing the strictness of language and language becomes fluid again.

I think to a certain extent it is becoming less fluid, in that there is a tendency in many languages due to global media to move towards the prestige dialect. English is experiencing dialect leveling (a notable country being that in my home country of Australia, Australian slang is being replaced by American slang in younger generations).

Yes, you are right. The present global mass culture means that everything is Americanized. Maybe in a couple of decades it will be followed by a Chinese dominance. But, the ecological disaster might reverse the process.

I don't think it can just be generalized down to just "Americanization". Yes, that is part of it, and other cultures are being Americanized. But dialect leveling is also occurring in other cultures and this has less to do with Americanization than being more connected with communities who speak the same language. So I’d think that, for example, Quebecois and Hexagonal French will not split into different languages because of global communication and travel. This is despite the fact that Old French split into many (mostly endangered) distinct languages (Norman, standard French, Walloon, Picard) relatively recently.

You’re also ignoring a third possibility - that there will be no civilization-destroying environmental disaster and that the world will become more flat (i.e., no more superpowers). This is probably a preferred future.

ayee kum prom eh kolomized bvorltd. Ayee hum borsed 2 leev jim eh bvorltd vear Inglish phas decome mesessary teh glearn. Suh aye bhav beken ip opon mekud elf teh bin10tionally Dgrade yeeeth.
buu kares?, bile gife vis dere de appy.

akigr8 wrote:Stephen Fry on the subject.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7E-aoXLZGY[/youtube]

The full podcast is awesome. Just half an hour of him waxing rhapsodic over language and such. It's a great listen

I think Stephen Fry is a pompous, overrated potty-mouth!
Not really. I think he's well brilliant. If only I had a tenth of his knowledge and erudition.
(Then I might know what erudition meant.)