mike wilson wrote:
John Forbes wrote:
<old fart mode on> I have always considered it thus:
English is the language of England. The clue is in the name. English
has also for some time been the most popular language in the rest of
the British Isles. The language has been taken to other countries
through the vehicle of the British Empire, and over time has become
altered in many of these countries. These different versions are
dialects, and should be distinguished as such by a suitable
qualification, such as "Australian" English. There is no such thing
as British English; it is simply English.
There are, it is true, regional variations within the British Isles.
The Scots have a distinct vocabulary of their own (you can still hear
"wight" and "aye" in Scotland, and a female clerk is a clerkess).
As Bob, I think, pointed out, the biggest group of English speakers on
the planet is found in India. Indian English speakers use proper
spelling (rather than the American variant), and have imported many
words from local languages, of which one of the most common is
"lakhs", meaning a great many. A "lakh" correctly is 100,000. In
turn, English also has many Indian imports, such as bungalow,
jodhpur, chutney, etc..
One interesting development in America is the way the pronunciation
of certain English words has changed quite recently. An educated
American would not I think have rhymed Moscow with cow until a few
years ago, and route was likewise not always rhymed with rout.
What saddens me, and many other old farts too, I expect, is that many
of these linguistic changes are not, as supporters claim, a sign of
richness or diversity, but of simple ignorance, stemming partly from
poor education and partly from incorrect usage by non-native
speakers. "Lense" is a case in point. "Specie" for "species" is
another, and "criteria" for "criterion" is a third. The worst is
"media" for "medium", as in "a media". The proponents of richness
and diversity claim this is just organic change; I say it is
degeneration.
</old fart mode off>
John
How would you write the singular for species?
[...]
Species is what it is. Singular and specific.
Genus = Homo, Species = Sapiens.
No choice of more than one.
Just because it has an "s" on the far end, doesn't mean it's one of many...
keith whaley
I join the O.F. Brigade in July ;-)
