To take over the entire English-speaking world
it as ve a 10”. ged, a word
h.We e it. ulder this. s as public, ng
In my opinion, dictionaries should play a leading role in protecting English, not give in to the mistakes and misconceptions of those who don’t know what they are talking about.
Getting word meanings wrong can be dangerous. A few years ago an angry mob gathered at the home of a professional man because word had got out that he was a paedophile. He was, in fact, a paediatrician. The protovigilantes didn’t know the difference.
The Academie Francais decides which words are allowed into French. The Rat fur deutsche Rechtschreibung does the same for German.
There are, in their home nations, institutions to protect Urdu, Mongolian, Haitian Creole and many other languages.
English is unusual because it doesn’t have such a guardian.
That’s wrong. We need a governing body for the language. It would be fantastic to have a rule that pointed out that saying “wicked”, when you mean “good” is just downright silly.
But English is an international language. Who would run this governing institution?
Well, not the Americans for a start. They can’t spell, they make up ridiculous words and their pronunciation of (well, just about everything) is terrible. Nyew Yoik – need I say more.
And it can’t be the Australians. They add a high rising terminal to sentences so everything sounds like a question.
I’ll have to rule out the English, too. They tend to drop the letter H from the start of words, so clearly can’t be trusted not to lose other parts of the language.
It’ll have to be a Scot. We roll our Rs properly, don’t add an extra R to make “drawrer” and can pronounce Milngavie, Friockheim and Kirkcudbright.
We, too, trace our language to the Angles who migrated to these islands in the Middle Ages and gave their name to part of it.
So the language belongs to us as much as anyone, it is merely an accident of nomenclature that English is used to describe the language as well as a country.
But there are so many different (and wonderful) accents and dialects in Scots English that it might cause trouble between Lallans and Doric speakers if one was favoured over the other. It’s a problem, right enough. I suppose it will just have to be methen.
From now on, the entire English-speaking world should check with me if they want to invent a word or adopt a new pronunciation.
I will use my new powers for the benefit of all, starting with fines of up to £1000 for the misuse of apostrophes and jail sentences for anyone who uses “under way” as one word.