MSGID: 1:153/716.0 d3912f84   
   REPLY: 2:221/6.0 5d250ff0   
   CHRS: IBMPC 2   
   Hi, Anton!  Recently you wrote in a message to Ardith Hinton:   
      
   AH>  I think Alexander knows I wouldn't recommend using   
   AH>  "ain't" or "wanna" on a grade twelve English exam... but   
   AH>  he's read widely enough to be aware of their existence.   
      
   AS>  He probably is, but I found his usage somehow out-of-place   
   AS>  in our discussion.  It jarred my ear.  Of course, that   
   AS>  feeling was entirely subjective, but I couldn't help it.   
      
      
             Understood.  It's not the way folks generally write here.  However, I   
    would like to think I've helped create an atmosphere in which they feel free   
   to test emerging skills & within reason to lighten up the tone when the   
   discussion of grammar or whatever is a bit abstruse for some members of the   
   audience.  ;-)   
      
      
      
   AS>  When the snobbish Pat Boone (an English major) was recording   
   AS>  a watered-down cover of Domino's "Ain't that a shame" he   
   AK>  tried actually to sing "Isn't it a shame" but the sound   
   AK>  engineer dissuaded him.   
      
      
             Interesting.  I didn't pay much attention to him until recently, when   
    Dallas & I saw a movie of JOURNEY TO THE CENTRE OF THE EARTH in which he   
   looked quite handsome wearing a Scottish kilt... [chuckle].   
      
             I agree with you & the sound engineer that the dialect used in a song   
    cannot... in most cases... be improved upon or translated into standard   
   English without losing something.  IMHO the choice of dialect has more to do   
   with time, place, and/or style than with the colour of a person's skin.    
   Another example I noticed in a folk song book was what the writers or their   
   editors did with "Let My People Go".  AFAIK this song originated with slaves in   
    the southeastern USA, most but not all of whom were black.  If they rhymed   
   "lost" with "across 't", a pronunciation used in some parts of northern   
   England, I can relate.  But I roll my eyes when singers etc. don't notice xxx   
   was meant to rhyme with yyy....  :-)   
      
      
      
   AH>  I also note with interest that our neighbours to the   
   AH>  south tend to shorten the spelling of words like   
   AH>  "cheque" and "neighbour", in an apparent attempt to   
   AH>  simplify the language.   
      
   AS>  Rather, it is to make those words native to English   
   AS>  instead of keeping them immigrants.   
      
      
             I understand why they'd prefer to do things their own way.  We didn't   
    have a serious Canadian dictionary until the 1970's.  Meanwhile, the   
   university here in Vancouver accepted both the OED & WEBSTER'S COLLEGIATE.  I   
   soon learned that if you wanted to know which spelling was [esp. UK] and which   
   was [esp. US] the latter would include this information whereas the OED   
   politely ignored what was happening in the colonies & ex-colonies.  Canadians   
   like to do things their my own way as well.  Sometimes we lean toward British   
   spellings, sometimes not. But I appreciate knowing which is which before making   
    a final decision....  :-)   
      
      
      
   AS>  See, for example, paragraph I (The Naturalization of   
   AS>  Foreign Words) in the third tract by the Society for   
   AS>  Pure English:   
      
   AS>  http://www.gutenberg.org/files/12390/12390-h/12390-h.htm   
      
      
             Hmm.  I reckon Smith does have a point there.  OTOH he was commenting   
    on the way folks in the UK used the language in 1920, when certain accent   
   marks which had hitherto been chiefly abandoned were reinstated by the sort of   
   people who enjoy bragging about how much $$$ their daughter's music lessons   
   cost.  The use of accent marks in English has more generally continued to   
   decline....  :-)   
      
      
      
      
   --- timEd/386 1.10.y2k+   
    * Origin: Wits' End, Vancouver CANADA (1:153/716)   
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