THE BEAUTY OF ENGLSIH

The English language is the richest language known to man: it has the largest vocabulary and is spoken, in one guise or another, in every continent on the planet. It is fast becoming the global language. But this richness comes at a price, and that is it is a highly complex language. Its rules are many and varied and can often seem illogical or contradictory. Mastery of the language is a requirement of many professions, and it is highly desirable in many others. But nobody comes naturally equipped with this mastery. Standard English has to be acquired, usually by formal education. Sadly, however, in recent years schools in most English-speaking countries have pulled back from teaching this material, either through lack of time or resources, or a misguided philosophy that language cannot be governed by rules (a spoken tongue cannot and should not be ‘corrected’), and therefore such rules should not be taught. Perhaps this problem has been with us longer than we realise: George Bernard Shaw was moved to say, in Pygmalion, ‘The English have no respect for their language, and will not teach their children to speak it. . . . It is impossible for an Englishman to open his mouth, without making some other Englishman despise him’Anything that helps to bring order to a language as unruly and idiosyncratic as English is almost by definition a ‘good thing’. Even the most ardent structuralist would concede that there must be at least some conventions of usage (otherwise, as Shaw, again, once remarked, we might as well spell ‘fish’ as ‘ghoti’: ‘gh’ as in ‘tough’, ‘o’ as in ‘women’ and ‘ti’ as in ‘motion’). At the same time, rules of language must be its servant rather than its master. Much as we cherish our language for its beauty and power, it exists to enable us to communicate more effectively; any rule that obstructs or hinders such communication is almost by definition therefore a rule that does not deserve to be followed. It must also be recognised that the spread of the internet has lead to English being spoken by far more people for whom English is not their first language than by 'native' speakers. Leaving aside for now the question whether resistance to change is an appropriate response, it has to be acknowledged that the language will be developed by a far greater number of people, themselves subject to an enormous range of linguistic and other influences, than has ever been the case in the language's long and distinguished history. Resistance to such change is therefore futile.