I read with great interest today the comments by actress Emma Thompson on the use of the English language. According to the BBC website Thompson describes those who do not speak properly make her “insane”
She said: “We have to reinvest, I think, in the idea of articulacy as a form of personal human freedom and power.”
Ms Thompson added that on a visit to her old school she told pupils not to use slang words such as “likes” and “innit”.
“I told them, ‘Just don’t do it. Because it makes you sound stupid and you’re not stupid.”‘
I personally have to disagree with Emma on this one. Of all the European countries I cannot think of one that has more accents, dialects and a more variety of terminology than the UK. What means something somewhere can mean something totally different a hundred miles away?
Thompson’s educational standard maybe higher than most and certainly more prestigious. But she is wrong to criticise the way people speak. For them it is the only language that they know and if anyone is to blame them for the failure of English then it’s surely the educational system.
I admit that listening to my nineteen year old niece saying bands being ‘Peng’ often confuses me but no doubt my father would have been confused when things were ‘Fresh’ or ‘Rad’ when I was the same age.
The English language needs to evolve in order to survive. It has to adapt to the modern world we live in. Compare a newspaper of the eighteenth century to a Shakespeare novel and see how much it’s changed. Compare a newspaper today with the same eighteenth century article and see how much it has changed.
The world in which we live in is eternally changing and the languages need to adapt in order to survive. What is acceptable for one may not be acceptable for another in terms of the level of English but neither is in a place to criticise.
We all have freedom of expression when it comes to speaking our language and as long as we can communicate and understand the people we need to then who is in a place to be critical?
Sorry Emma I think your incorrect.
