Call me rude or snobbish I don't care - my rant on the English language

It galls me to hear how so many people do not speak the King's English without a proper Oxonian accent.

Additionally, why must the great unwashed vulgar incessantly end sentences with prepositions? By great Zeus's testicles! this vexes me horribly!

And what travesty of American public school educational malfeasance (cf. my treatise, "On the Manifold Forms of Cultural Epidemiology") contributed to so many people not knowing the nuances of case in sentence structure?

The mind simply reels. I must loosen my ascot before I swoon. Mortimer! My sherry! My sherry!

Buhd yew shorh godda purdy mayouth...

But I shan't tarry whilst I draft a check for your cause. Please apply to my agent in the High Street for your remuneration.

"incessantly end sentences with prepositions"

If it was good enough for Shakespeare, it is good enough for me. Actually, in print I avoid that.

You would compare yourself to William Shakespeare?

That is why I find rustics so comforting and almost pleasant. The things you colonists say!

No, I won't write plays that excuse the autrocities of tyrants. I was actually comparing grammar only.

The English language was pretty clunky and confusing until we colonists improved, modernized and standardized it.

You know, they have books there.

in knowing that you spelled (and hopefully pronounce) library correctly.

Those great repositories which in their better moments can be testimonies to the more sublime aspects of the human condition are indeed "LIBRARIES" and not "LIBERRIES."

duh. And no I doooooooon't know where's it's at.

...we speak American. At least that's the way they refer to the way I speak every time I go to England.

"English as She Is Taught," an essay by Mark Twain. Two excerpts:

Here is one where the phrase "publicans and sinners" has got mixed up in the child's mind with politics, and the result is a definition which takes one in a sudden and unexpected way:

Republican, a sinner mentioned in the Bible.

Also in Democratic newspapers now and then.

...

Truth crushed to earth will rise again. As follows:

The Constitution of the United States is that part of the book at the end which nobody reads.

The below is a quote from "Sleeping Dogs Don't Lay: Practical Advice For The Grammatically Challenged, " by Richard Lederer & Richard Dowis

"Never end a sentence with a preposition is a myth. The notion that it is somehow wrong to end a sentence with a prepositioon likely grew out of old grammarians' attempt to force English to ffollow the rules of Latin. Neverthe less the 'rule' is unsupported by most modern grammarians and has been ignored by some of the finest writers of English prose, past and present."

it is a joke.

notice my stilted, awkward style . . .

Also nowadays it would be called the Queen's English. Also that standard accent has even gained a new name: BBC English.

Which reminds me: it's a shame the BBC had stopped its shortwave lessons of English. I got bored one afternoon in my youth and had the dubious pleasure of listening to "BBC English", and the people were going over in extreme detail the meaning of the phrase "cheesed off". I think it took them about ten minutes to go over the phrase, its history, synonyms, etc. This included slow repetition of the phrase - for those whose grasp of English was weak. The other half of the programme was going over the recent episode of Westway (now sadly cancelled) and what certain phrases meant - as they used language that was often used in London and that might not have been used elsewhere.

Besides, Auntie has been changing. You don't just hear the standard accent anymore: various British and international accents are heard. English is an international language and yes accents differ.

Personally, I just wish more people were tolerant of different accents! Most people I meet like my accent, but some people have a hard time. In my work I handle the second level of calls from members of the public in regards to their credit card bills - and a fair percentage of the calls is simply about the fact that the person didn't understand the other one - yet both spoke plain simple English.

Mark.

And you didn't capitalize the first word in the sentence that reads "T(notice the capitalization?)his vexes me horribly."

So you have no grounds for complaint.

Redstone

Henry Look at her, a prisoner of the gutter,
Condemned by every syllable she ever uttered.
By law she should be taken out and hung,
For the cold-blooded murder of the English tongue.
Eliza Aaoooww! Henry imitating her Aaoooww!
Heaven's! What a noise!
This is what the British population,
Calls an elementary education. Pickering Oh,
Counsel, I think you picked a poor example. Henry Did I?
Hear them down in Soho square,
Dropping "h's" everywhere.
Speaking English anyway they like.
You sir, did you go to school?
Man Wadaya tike me for, a fool?
Henry No one taught him 'take' instead of 'tike!
Why can't the English teach their children how to speak?
This verbal class distinction, by now,
Should be antique. If you spoke as she does, sir,
Instead of the way you do,
Why, you might be selling flowers, too!
Hear a Yorkshireman, or worse,
Hear a Cornishman converse,
I'd rather hear a choir singing flat.
Chickens cackling in a barn Just like this one!
Eliza Garn! Henry I ask you, sir, what sort of word is that?
It's "Aoooow" and "Garn" that keep her in her place.
Not her wretched clothes and dirty face.
Why can't the English teach their children how to speak?
This verbal class distinction by now should be antique.
If you spoke as she does, sir, Instead of the way you do,
Why, you might be selling flowers, too.
An Englishman's way of speaking absolutely classifies him,
The moment he talks he makes some other
Englishman despise him.
One common language I'm afraid we'll never get.
Oh, why can't the English learn to set
A good example to people whose
English is painful to your ears?
The Scotch and the Irish leave you close to tears.
There even are places where English completely
disappears. In America, they haven't used it for years!
Why can't the English teach their children how to speak?
Norwegians learn Norwegian; the Greeks have taught their
Greek. In France every Frenchman knows
his language fro "A" to "Zed"
The French never care what they do, actually,
as long as they pronounce in properly.
Arabians learn Arabian with the speed of summer lightning.
And Hebrews learn it backwards,
which is absolutely frightening.
But use proper English you're regarded as a freak.
Why can't the English,
Why can't the English learn to speak?