From: roger@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Roger Lustig)
Subject: Re: GAZETTE: THE WORLD 'REMARKS' OUR FRENCH-INFLUENCED ENGLISH
Originator: news@nimaster
Organization: Princeton University
Date: Wed, 19 Aug 1992 02:07:44 GMT

In article <1992Aug19.123334.10197@waikato.ac.nz> maj@waikato.ac.nz writes:
>> July 11, 1992.
>
>[Article deleted]
>
>I confess that it was me who made that suggestion. Readers may
>also be interested in the views expressed in a response by
>Thomas Hood.
>
><begin quote>
>
>Group: soc.culture.canada, Item 9452   (Current Item Range #9249 - #9498)
>Subject: Re: GAZETTE: THE WORLD 'REMARKS' OUR FRENCH-INFLUENCED ENGLISH
>From: thood@corvus.matrox.com (Thomas Hood), Matrox Ltd.
>Date: 18 Aug 92 05:43:18 +1200

>govax@wam.umd.edu (Seigneur Tenebreux) writes:

>>Please be very careful about calling variations in relationships between
>>words in a language "errors."  They may be "errors" according to your own
>>personal internalised grammar, but may make perfect sense in the context of
>>another person's grammatical sense.

>Error is divergence from the standards.  English has standards.  People
>who claim to speak English are in error when they deviate from those
>standards.

OK, Tom, you asked for it.

Where do we find those standards?  Who determines what they are?  How
are these determinations made?  Are these standards valid across all
dialects of English?  

What about this "claim to speak English " stuff?  These people are
speaking a dialect of English, just as you do.  It's not the same
dialect.  

Now, are you going to tell us next that your dialect happens to be the
standard?  That would be convenient for you, but fortunately for the
rest of the world, linguistic standards don't work that way.

>Quebec English includes a few words imported from French, thus
>reflecting the proximity of French-speakers in Quebec.  When
>such novelty is truly new (e.g. "animator"), we should embrace it.

Why?  Why not either use it or not, depending on what we need?

>However, novelty arising from the mistakes of half-literate people

Ah, *there* we go.  People who don't speak the way you do are
ignoramuses.  

I hate  to break this to oyu, but about 99% of the linguistic change
that brought about  the state of English as you yourself speak it was
originated by people who were far less literate than the average French
Canadian.

>(eg. "demand" for "ask") should be rejected because it does not
>add a new concept to the language; it only sows confusion.

So does the American word "knickers."  Should we stop calling kneepants
knickers because the British use that word for panties?  

Try this on for size: in Quebec, "demand" means "ask."  In Ontario, it
doesn't.  

>>For example     je demande  /  I demand
>>These may have different connotations NOW for most English speakers (well,
>>those who know that demander simply means "to ask") but the overtones were
>>not always the same.

>So?  "I demand" for "I ask" is an error NOW.

No, it's an error *here.*  This isn't Parsifal; don't confuse time with
space.  In many places, some of your usages are wrong, too, I'm sure.

>>It seems to be a common misconception that people who speak dialects such
>>as que'bec English are speaking "BAD ENGLISH"  Nothing could be farther from
>>the truth.  It is simply different and serves to convey the intended meaning
>>to other speakers with similar usages.

>The question is: with whom do you wish to share your "usages"?  Do you

That's up to you.

>wish to share them with a few ignoramuses, 

Listen, pal, nobody's appointed you sole member of the Academie Anglaise
*yet*.  So, until then, and until you've made your dialect into Official
English, don't call everyone who speaks differently a nasty name.
Speakers of Quebec English are just as educated as you, I'm sure -- and
many of them are a whole lot more polite.

>or with the millions of English-speakers around the world?

Well, how about you show us that this dichotomy exists?  Do speakers of
Quebec English have lots of problems when they go to Toronto or Winnipeg
or Dallas or Glasgow or Hong Kong?  Let's hear your evidence that they
do.

>Language is useful only when it is shared.  The way to share a language
>with the greatest number of people, is to establish standards and educate
>the greatest number of people according to those standards;  it is to
>promote literacy.  To condone unnecessary divergences is to weaken the
>language and hamper communication.

Horseshit.  

English is notoriously fluid with  respect to standards.  Moreover,
there is no board that establishes English standards and raises one
dialect above others as "correct."  French, on the other hand, has just
such a board, the Academie Francaise.

Now, perhaps you could explain to me how English has *replaced* French
as the language of trade, business, science, and scholarship around the
world.  French is in decline; English spreads more and more.  People
around the world have differing dialects--there are a hundred in the
British Isles, many more in the US and Canada, more in India and the Far
East, and so on.  S. African English is yet another version.  

AND WE ALL MANAGE JUST FINE.  Without people like you, hectoring this or
that minority to stop speaking naturally, to stop using the language as
it has evolved for them, telling them they are ignorant or illiterate,
just because they speak among themselves in a way you have problems
with.

>So don't.

I have a better idea: don't condone bigotry and ignorance in the name of
phantom standards.

>Literally yours,

Literally, eh?  In that case, come here and take out the garbage.  

Roger