_dhj_ said:
What is so bad about the natural evolution of the language anyway? I know this sounds a bit like a "wanky post-modern" thing to say (aesthetic egalitarianism), but why should the state of literary discourse today be regarded as a degeneration from Shakespearean discourse
In my opinion it isnt' "Shakespearian" to pronounce words properly. The so called "natural evolution" you speak of is, at a stretch, natural, however I would argue manufactured by morons, and, it is not in any way an "evolution". It is not evolutionary for us as humans to develop an allergy to oxygen, it is deadly, so to start mispronouncing words isnt an evolution, it's a dismissal of the principals of elocution, and as any linguist will tell you, mispronounciation is poor form for people that speak a language secondary to their native tongue, so surely mispronounciation by people who are native speakers is not only shameful, but indicative of a malfunction of the education system.
And so we get back to my original point...seeing as so many people can barely speak properly, surely we should focus on grammar and elocution rather than sipping chardonnay and discussing bullshit poetry.
Yes, it is beginning to become in our society, acceptable for people to be publicly ignorant...Howard's regime has encouraged this by making tertiary education more difficult to get into, and by his pursuit of narrow minded public policy.
But people who want lay claim to being able or diligent in the language have no right to make mistakes...either get it right, or shut up and stop telling me how good you are at English, because I contend that there is a vast void of difference between people who excel at the"Advanced English Course" and people that can actually articulate themselves in any intelligible sense.