Sunday, December 16, 2007

English as it is meant to be spoken


You no doubt know that the French have an august body that is charged with protecting the French language. L'Académie francaise is the eminent institution that, amongst other things, protects the French language from corruption and in particular from corruption by the English language. The joke doesn't end there. It is run by forty individuals called immortels.
Now excuse me, but as every sensible person knows, language changes constantly. It is a living thing and any attempt at controlling change is unnatural, is itself open to criticism and futile. Today, neither English nor French is spoken as it was spoken 100 years ago. The English language is full of French words or words with a French source. We don't get paranoid about it. But maybe, just maybe we should. Let me explain. I have felt for a while that we should play the French at their own game. What about an English Academy called 'And Don't Even Think About Pissing About With Our Language.' ADETAPAWOL for short. You see good examples of what I'm talking about all around you. We were in Intermarché yesterday afternoon and Jan sent me off to get some computer paper. See how she trusts me? Well, there it was, just what I wanted, A4, 80 gm, white ink jet paper. And what was it called? It was called 'Sign Your Life.' What's that supposed to mean? On our way out of the shop I saw more examples. A clothes shop called 'Hot Tension' that was having a closing down sale (any wonder with a name like that?) and another called '2 Shoes'. Have you ever bought one shoe (with apologies to all my one legged friends) or worse still three shoes?
France be warned. I am going to name and shame your pathetic attempts at messing about with the English language.

1 comment:

mpprh said...

Haute Tension ?