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Press "1" for American (Blog Menu)
A little over a year ago I wrote a blog entitled 'The Disappearance of the "Me" Generation' (click on Blog Menu above). At that time, I decried the disappearance of the subjective pronoun "me" (as in "my wife and me" or "between you and me") in American English. Since then I have revised my opinion, and not for the better.
George Bernard Shaw once said, "England and America are two countries separated by a common language. He was, of course, referring to American English, which has a substantially different vocabulary, principally in the form of nouns. If you doubt me, try asking the whereabouts of a "bathroom" at London's Heathrow Airport sometime. I did once, and was told they had none! Things have gotten worse since that earlier blog: We no longer speak American English in this country, we now simply speak "American."
Case in point: in a discussion about a plugged toilet on recent international flight, one of the ladies on ABC-TV's "The View" said, "...the plane smelled badly." While that plane did have a "nose," it couldn't smell a thing, I'm sure of that. Thus, if we used to speak American English with substitutions primarily for many nouns ('I have some nappies in the boot.' equals 'I have some diapers in the trunk.'), we have taken a step further and rid our English of certain personal pronouns and adjectives. Ergo, my assertion that we have replaced American English in favor of a corrupted language I will simply call "American."
Why are we speaking "American" now? And what can we do about it?
There was a time when Americans said "You and me" with abandon. But somewhere along the line it was pointed out that "You and I" was sometimes more correct, depending on the subject and object of the sentence in question. But sentence diagramming is probably not taught in junior highs anymore ('junior highs' don't exist anymore, let along sentence diagramming). Americans have since dropped "me" in favor of the not always appropriate "I," thinking that it will make them seem smarter, more erudite. The result is dumber and less erudite speech in general conversation. Most recently, on NBC-TV's "Today Show," an interviewer said about Prince William of England, "...the people-watchers are watching he and the one girlfriend..." I guess the "royal we" extends to the "royal he," proper pronouns be damned. The addition of a conjunction gums up the works.
William Shakespeare is reputed to have had a vocabulary of over 15,000+ words. I wonder how it compares to George Bernard Shaw's three centuries later. And in another three hundred years, will we have reduced "American" to even fewer adverbs and adjectives? "Awesome" is becoming a universal descriptor for the younger speakers of "American."
Charlie Rose on PBS recently spoke with an English "chat show" host whose general English vocabulary was as refreshingly broad in scope as his observations. Mr. Rose is no slouch in his use of American English, either. After all, he was trained as a lawyer whose stock-in-trade logic requires a command of language. Charlie Rose' erudition is far from the norm on American television or talk radio these days.
But, please don't get me started on the topic of the disappearance of English or American English in the media again. Just the other night, our local ABC-TV affiliate newscast put up "Debute" below a graphic. Yes, that is a misspelling of the French word "Debut," but "debut," like "premiere," has long been common in English usage, but not in "American," apparently. No spell-checkers on the television character generator, apparently, nor any dictionaries in the media's newsrooms. English is littered with French derivations. American English contains some. But in "American," French or Latin words and phrases are rarely used properly, pronounced properly (e.g., coup de gr ce), nor spelled properly.
Communication courses have replaced English courses in media studies, and apparently English is slowly fading as the medium of expression in the media. Television news, in fact, is slowly replacing language (American English or "American") with graphics as the primary medium of expression. We rarely hear a national newsreader give the name of a city in a foreign country. They opt instead to show a Google Map visual or a static depiction of the foreign country outline with a star where "City X" is located. No need to look up a pronunciation anymore.
Forget teaching everyone Spanish in the U.S. Let's settle for teaching everyone American English first. Those who excel in American English could go on to advanced studies in speaking English and other foreign languages!
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