The Curious Role of English Language

If you wish to hear English spoken properly, you should go to Denmark

In a football report on television last week there appeared an unusual figure. He was talking about his team's success earlier that day, but adopted a modest, academic air: his characterization of his club's performance was disinterested, almost scholarly. In an area of discourse which is wonderfully free of such grammatical decoration as adverbs and the imperfect tense, he seemed capable of using both appropriately.

He was, of course, not English, but the French manager of Arsenal football club, Arsene Wenger. A few days earlier, a persuasive letter had appeared in one of London broadsheets which noted that if you wish to hear English spoken properly, you should go to Denmark.

How true. Many will recall the most famous speech ever given by a Dane but few know how it came to be written. In fact Shakespeare had a "mate" in Southwark, South London, whose uncle had killed his dad and then run off with his mum. When the great man asked his young friend what he was going to do about it, the latter replied: "Dunno really. Might just grin and bear it. Might nail the bastards to the floor." And so great Danish rhetoric was fashioned from those lapidary sentences.

Then, right on cue, the National Association for the Teaching of English came out with something called The Grammar Book. It argued that children should not be taught grammatical rules but should observe the patterns of language and how they change over time.

It is funny how those whom the late philosopher Ernest Gellner called narodniks (they were 19th century Russians who believed that the illiterate peasant was always right) always mention the split infinitive. It is 70 years since Sir Ernest Gowres, a leading authority on correct English, showed that "to boldly go" could be better than "to go boldly."

There is a fundamental problem with the narodnik view: all too often one has no idea what the peasants are talking about. And the peasants, when told of their inherent rightness, are naturally discontented when they fail to land jobs as judges or merchant bankers.

Britain, although this is not widely recognized, is the last home of the narodnik. Only in the UK are people encouraged to think that in language, as in many other areas, anything they do is perfectly all right. The English often sneer atthe way Americans express themselves. But listen! Listen to the clarity of the 12-second soundbite (piece of news), as a witness of a domestic fire in Newark describes how "the structure was subject to intense incendiary activity, but fire-fighters gained an entry and safely evacuated the residents." Listen to the weather forecast on a local station in Tennessee and hear the standard American accent and grammar. Not attractive, maybe, but you know what they are talking about, which is not always so in Britain.

In other countries the rules are even stricter. However, one has to face the fact that there is a strange global yearning for the English way. Children who are bilingual in English and another language will naturally talk English with each other because of the ease with which phrases can be fashioned and understood. It is the dream language of advertisers and sign-writers.

Where else but in England could one see a perfectly contented building bearing this notice: "These premises are alarmed "?Why is it that the language of obscene graffiti, not only in Birmingham, but also in Brussels or Belgrade is so often English?

Maybe the fact is that English has to be systematically corrupted to enable it to perform its curious global role.

James Morgan, BBC World Service

economics correspondent

Комментарии discourse — зд. речь;

broadsheets = "quality" newspapers (cp. tabloids);

lapidary = brief, curt (лапидарный);

on cue = on time (кстати, вовремя);

inherent = with which they are born;

sneer at = зд. despise, mock at;

alarmed = equipped with an alarm system;

graffiti — надписи на стенах (ср. tagging — инициалы там же).

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