It goes like this: "Yew SAID yewer goin to the TORLET an yew just run off! Just run off! That's NORDY, real NORDY. Say yew just goin to to TORLET and then run off. Yew NEVA do that, that's real NORDY."
And then the boy says very quietly, "I wonder where this Torlet place is. Sounds exciting!"
"Yep. You know, I was just thinking about how to spell that in the interests of accurate pronunciation."
Or something along those lines, because it is a fine summer evening and we are basking in a glorious sunset, albeit on Frankston's finest particles of silicon.
I am constantly amazed by the multifarious ways people torture the English language. With us Aussies, it's not so much the devising of a new lexicon that bothers me as our enunciation. I understand that English grammar, in all its irregular glory (ah, not for nothing is it a pearl of a language) is a complex beast. However, that does not give us the right to genetically modify the poor creature at will, let alone call it all kinds of nasty names.
Yes, this is what I do instead of sleeping. I also teach in my sleep. I'm wondering whether there is a discernible difference between my awake-teaching and my asleep-teaching, and if I can maybe spin that into discount rates if you come for a lesson during my afternoon nap. This would give me the advantage of (a) an afternoon nap and (b) more teaching hours in the morning. (Surely I could get up earlier if there would be a nap. Oh, bliss indeed.)
Anyway, lucky hubs tells me I'm remarkably coherent. I don't know I could display the same level of physical co-ordination ... but I'm not all that graceful when awake, so maybe it's worth a shot. Seeing as my husband is now behaving like a two-year-old (waving hands between me and the screen, shoving one down my top... now THERE'S something you didn't need to know) I'm going to give up on blogging and go to bed. Ballet concert tomorrow and the curse of the leotards begins. How did summer arrive without me noticing?
2 weeks ago
1 comment:
I do agree, it sounds awful. On the other hand, this is how dialects arise. It is a natural, inevitable process, and it could be that we should embrace it as healthy diversity, rather than deplore it. Z has been taught to say "haitch" at school, and it gives her grandma the screaming heeby jeebies - "People will think her parents are truck drivers." to which my response was "...er... so?"
Truly, in language, there is very little right or wrong - there's what used to be, and what there is now, and both of those are very broad categories. I recommend "Mother tongue" by Bill Bryson, for a very interesting discussion of the evolution of English. It has an american focus, but Australia does get a mention here and there. :) And it's fascinating, well written, and funny. :)
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