Spelling and Grammar is Ancestor Worship

The fetishization of "correct" English -- which is to say, white, wealthy English -- is in direct opposition to everything that makes English such a glorious drunkard's debauch of a language.

English came to us from the inventive malapropism and linguistic entrepreneurship of its speakers: from Shakespeare, who coined words wholesale; to the working-class streets with their heterodox cursing and rhyming slangs.

To demand the immobilization of this restless, incontinent language is a form of barbaric and backwards ancestor-worship. When the Michael Goves of this world tell "language" teachers that their job is to teach the kids in my neighbourhood to forego their innits and I wasn'ts and nuffinks, he is engaging in a kind of linguistic lapsarianism:

"Our ancestors lived in a state of grace and purity and were able to bend the language to suit their needs. Now we are fallen from grace and we must hew to the margins they set, because they -- and only they -- were qualified to expand the map of expressive speech beyond the edge of the page. Every way of speaking not established by our exalted ancestors exists in a terra incognita and none of us are qualified to reach it. There be dragons. Shelter here in what remains of English -- and England -- and don't dare take yourself beyond its borders."

Notes:

Folksonomies: grammar spelling reform culure

Taxonomies:
/art and entertainment/movies and tv/movies (0.458244)
/science/social science/history/genealogy (0.325551)
/education/english as a second language (0.276533)

Keywords:
glorious drunkard (0.954954 (positive:0.512429)), heterodox cursing (0.947976 (negative:-0.568728)), Ancestor Worship (0.906136 (neutral:0.000000)), wealthy English (0.905583 (positive:0.415336)), working-class streets (0.904300 (negative:-0.568728)), linguistic entrepreneurship (0.902267 (positive:0.452149)), direct opposition (0.901741 (positive:0.512429)), inventive malapropism (0.883800 (positive:0.452149)), incontinent language (0.880526 (negative:-0.676466)), backwards ancestor-worship (0.876100 (negative:-0.676466)), terra incognita (0.865799 (positive:0.293903)), exalted ancestors (0.857915 (positive:0.293903)), linguistic lapsarianism (0.857402 (positive:0.566697)), Michael Goves (0.838177 (neutral:0.000000)), expressive speech (0.831422 (positive:0.403913)), slangs (0.621659 (negative:-0.568728)), immobilization (0.602130 (negative:-0.718373)), grace (0.597939 (positive:0.091701)), restless (0.585324 (negative:-0.718373)), neighbourhood (0.584377 (positive:0.312255)), margins (0.583021 (negative:-0.321361)), Spelling (0.577375 (neutral:0.000000)), purity (0.571560 (positive:0.413062)), Grammar (0.565458 (neutral:0.000000)), fetishization (0.565136 (neutral:0.000000)), debauch (0.564263 (positive:0.512429)), borders (0.561212 (negative:-0.514677)), kind (0.560249 (positive:0.566697)), speakers (0.559895 (positive:0.452149)), words (0.559710 (negative:-0.268733))

Entities:
England:Country (0.894373 (positive:0.512429)), Michael Goves:Person (0.655870 (positive:0.566697)), Shakespeare:Person (0.613972 (neutral:0.000000))

Concepts:
Language (0.984083): dbpedia | freebase | opencyc
Linguistics (0.862315): dbpedia | freebase | opencyc
English-language films (0.825027): dbpedia
Terra incognita (0.824351): dbpedia | freebase
Speech (0.771919): dbpedia | freebase | opencyc
American films (0.713351): dbpedia
Dialect (0.678893): dbpedia | freebase
Recursion (0.672983): dbpedia | freebase

 Barbaric, backwards ancestor worship
Electronic/World Wide Web>Internet Article:  Doctorow, Cory (Dec 16, 2014), Barbaric, backwards ancestor worship, BoingBoing, Retrieved on 2015-03-21
  • Source Material [boingboing.net]
  • Folksonomies: spelling english


    Schemas

    31 DEC 2010

     Arguments for English Spelling Reform

    This schema is a collection of arguments about how proper grammar, with its illogical and inconsistently applied rules, is used by academics and intellectuals to create a privileged class of people who's ideas deserve considering because they have successfully learned the irrational system.
    Folksonomies: phonetics grammar
    Folksonomies: phonetics grammar
     38