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Thursday, March 04, 2010

American English Down the Men's Room, sorry, Toilet

from sean ban in the manhattan bar tralee;

American English is getting worse. How impenetrable do you find the following piece of nonsense (I presume it's nonsense) from the web?

NBC Deletes Message Board Overrun with Conan Separatists (and a Weird Yale Theater Plug)

Just when NBC thought it could slip back into Lenonian ennui, aTonight Show forum for "things you want Jay to see" overruns with I'M WITH COCO's and is deleted. Weirdly, Brian Williams' daughter singing Ke$ha on YouTube plays a role.
Under the title "Jay, look at this!" a moderator invited users to post "photos, ideas, links, and other things you want Jay to see." The first response was an embarrassingly earnest plug for Yale viral video upstart Kurt Hugo Schneider (one of the kids behind Yale: The Musical) from a commenter named "MakeMoney." Then, the commoners raze the board with three pages of wall-to-wall Conan separatist JPEGS.
 
Does it really matter? Of course it does. The point of language is to communicate and be understood. Slang is of a different order, I do not mean slang. I don't even mean proper grammar. Certainly not.
 
How soon will it be before we have a translator at the White House on St. Patrick's Day ? Obama meets Cowen. Going forward.
 
This americanisation (americanization) is slowly creeping into journalism. It is so easy to recognise a report from an american journalist. American - "I find it easy to recognise american reportage" said Fred Munchin, a homesteader from Litchfield, CT. (pop 6,562). Irish/English - "It is easy to recognise a report from an american journalist, I find." said Fred Murray, 51 from Atlone.
 
Oh I could go on. But as this is a blog I will continue it in a more structured way elsewhere

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

English be moribund langwidge annyway. Yoou shold lern irish instedd. Wonce Irish lern Inglish becoss it woz de wurld lengwidge. Now Inglish no yooze in bigg wurlld annymoore. Thus de Irish shold as wel get back to dere ansestral langwidge. Me no speak English native, me no speak Irish native. This just me neutral and scientifick opinyun. Kod pless.

kerryview said...

>anon, tank yu. most knsidered opinyon. Kod pless yu tu.