A single version of English

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if there was an internationally-recognised standard for written English? If people saw the word color (or indeed colour) and didn’t recoil. If there was a widely acknowledged view as to whether The meeting Thursday or The meeting on Thursday was acceptable.

I’m not asking us to can our respective versions of English—British, American, Australian, Canadian etc. I’m instead suggesting that a new version of English is created that would, over time, supersede our respective versions, taking the loveliness from each and consolidating it into a single set of rules that people can abide by in certain media, predominantly the web at first.

And I’m not suggesting that any one of our beautiful set of idiosyncrasies overrules those of the other countries’. There are some beautiful American constructs; and some equally beautiful British ones. I’m sure the same is true of the other variants, although I’m less familiar with these.

To achieve the goal, I’m proposing we first brainstorm the inconsistencies. And then we bring together five leading literary luminaries representing each of the English variants to agree on which version is preferable, leaving aside their local bias.

The whole process would strengthen the language and bring closer the English-speaking world.

Thoughts?

Posted by Dan, 21 November, 2009 under Grammar | Thoughts
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Should of vs. should have

I have a couple of well-educated ex-colleagues who shall remain nameless who, in the written form, have started using the phrase should of, in the following context:

Mum should of gone to Iceland.

I must stress that this is not the actual phrase they used.  They used more business-like phrases.  But you get the picture.

Speech has always influenced the development of written language.  But the world we now live in is made up of people whose English education is often, at best, questionable—people who, even if educated appropriately to suspect a mistake, have neither the time nor the inclination to search for the truth.  This means that mistakes like that above will become increasingly prevalent with time, which is a shame.

The correct construct is:

Mum should have gone to Iceland.

Or indeed:

Mum really shouldn’t have gone to Iceland.  Especially now that they’ve fired Kerry Katona.

Posted by Dan, 4 November, 2009 under Grammar | Life
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