User talk:Bennelliott/English

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 

Contents

[edit] English Spelling differences

British English was only partially standardised when the first permanent English-speaking colony in North America in 1607 was established. Separated from each other by the Atlantic Ocean, the dialects in England and the colonies began evolving independently. The differences between American English and British English were then magnified by choices made by the first influential lexicographers on each side of the Atlantic. While spellings such as "center" and "color" had been common in both North America and England since the time of Shakespeare, Samuel Johnson's dictionary of 1755 greatly favoured Norman-influenced spellings, i.e. emphasising etymology. On the other hand, Noah Webster's first guide to American spelling, published in 1783, moved sharply away from this, preferring instead to give emphasis to the spelling of the sounds heard. The difference in strategy and philosophy of Johnson and Webster are what gave rise to the main division in English spelling that exists today. Spelling is, however, but a small part of the differences between dialects of English, and International English refers to much more than an agreed spelling pattern.

[edit] -ise and -ize

"English spelling (unlike Finnish or Italian) largely depends on etymology, not on pronunciation".

That said, as noted above, Samuel Johnson's dictionary of 1755 greatly favoured Norman-influenced spellings, i.e. emphasising etymology. On the other hand, Noah Webster's first guide to American spelling, published in 1783, moved sharply away from this, preferring instead to give emphasis to the spelling of the sounds heard. Therefore, the above statement can be for and against many aspects of both ways of spelling.

[edit] For-ise / against -ize

1. Inconsistency - The spellings of -ase (e.g. lipase) -ose (e.g. prose) -ese e.g. (Chinese) -ease (e.g. please), the s in use, the s at the end of most plurals and the s in -ism have an s in them, rather than z.


2. The translation service of the European Commission advocates -ise for the reason that it avoids questions of exceptions, as there are no English words that always use the -ize suffix (in the words size, prize, capsize, and seize, the -ize is not a suffix.), but there are words that always use -ise, regardless of whether or not it is a suffix (advertise, advise, apprise, arise, chastise, circumcise, comprise, compromise, demise, despise, devise, disguise, enterprise, excise, exercise, franchise, improvise, incise, merchandise, revise, supervise, surmise, surprise, and televise), and is therefore the most convenient solution for non-native speakers, and native speakers alike.


3. This one is solely my personal opinion, which I know is a weak reason, but I think it may have some credit to this argument (and may be shared by others, particularly francophiles):
The s is more aesthetically pleasing to my eye, the harsh horizontal lines and the diagonal line in z are not common in other lower case letters (except in x, which is very rare anyway).


4. The ending -ize is used by the Oxford University Press, who, along eith Thomas Nashe, argue its use by it's Latin/Greek etymology. The suffix comes from Latin -izare, and Greek -izein through French who spell it -ise.

This quotation is adapted and wikified from the Oxford English Dictionary:
In modern French the suffix has become -iser, alike in words from Greek, as baptiser, évangéliser, organiser, and those formed after them from Latin, as civiliser, cicatriser, humaniser. Hence, some have used the spelling -ise in English, as in French, for all these words, and some prefer -ise in words formed in French or English from Latin elements, retaining -ize for those of Greek composition. But the suffix itself, whatever the element to which it is added, is in its origin the Greek -izein, Latin -izare; and, as the pronunciation is also with z, there is no reason why in English the special French spelling should be followed, in opposition to that which is at once etymological and phonetic. In this Dictionary the termination is uniformly written -ize.
But on the other hand, there is a reason why the French spelling should be used. We can't ignore the fact that our language has been influenced by French, and totally disregard that part of a word's development/history - maybe -ize would be preferred if it had been derived straight from Latin/Greek, but it wasn't. French got there first for us.

[edit] For-ize / against -ise

1.-ice can be pronounced /aɪs/, but has other pronunciations for example in police, accomplice, service, hospice, Alice, and liquorice.


2. The -ise suffixes in promise, precise, concise, expertise, practise are not pronounced like the -ise suffix, because the letter s represents several sounds in English.

[edit] -our and -or

[edit] For -our / against -or

1. The ending -our mainly sounds like (IPA ə). If it is intended to sound like -or (IPA ɔː(r)), it would be spelt that way in those words.


2. The ou (in the spellings of colour and honour) differentiates between the two vowel sounds of o (IPA ʌ) and our (IPA ə), otherwise non-native speakers would pronounce them the same, instead of making different sounds (like in culler [IPA ˈkʌlə]).


3. Most words in the our/or set derive from Latin through French. When Webster chose color, honor, favor, labor, vapor, vigor etc., he actually reverted to the Latin spelling. Therefore, these spellings are not etymologically more conservative because he reverted some of those words' history, therefore totally disregarding part of is etymology.

But on the other hand, some of these words, however, don't have a Latin counterpart - parlo(u)r, neighbo(u)r, harbo(u)r, behavio(u)r, flavo(u)r. Some 16th and early 17th century British scholars indeed insisted that -or be used for words of Latin origin and -our for French loans; but in many cases the etymology was not completely clear, and therefore some scholars advocated -or only and others -our only, before Dr. Johnson settled the question.

[edit] For -or / against -our

1. The suffix -our can sound like /ə(r)/, but in devour, detour, contour, velour, paramour (compare British enamour), troubadour it is not. The suffix -or-, when unstressed, can sound like /ə(r)/. Many words end in -or (in BrE and AmE), mostly agent nouns: actor, doctor, mentor etc. etc.


2. In American usage, derivatives and inflected forms are built by simply adding the suffix in all environments (favorite, savory, etc.) since the u is absent to begin with. When using -our you have to learn a complex rule for derivatives and inflected forms:

The u is kept before English suffixes that are freely attachable to English words (neighbourhood, humourless, savoury) and suffixes of Greek or Latin origin that have been naturalised (favourite, honourable, behaviourism); before Latin suffixes that are not freely attachable to English words, the u is most often dropped (honorific, honorist, vigorous, humorous, laborious, invigorate), but can be either dropped or retained in some cases (colo(u)ration, colo(u)rise), is occasionally retained (colourist), and is occasionally dropped (honorary).

[edit] Replies

I welcome your contributions, please post below
I will add your reasons into a reorganised top section, in due time of course.

[edit] Sketch051

The main strength of the English language is its flexibility. It has become the lingua franca (ponder the irony of using the Latin name for the French language to describe English; now we'll move on) because French couldn't keep up with the world.

If English doesn't have a word for something, it steals it from another language (taco, sushi) or makes it up altogether (google). With a central linguistic authority, French succumbs to the same faults as a centrally planned economy (English would be the free market in this analogy).

English evolved from Indo-European by way of (at least) German, French, Latin, and Greek. It thrives from its ability to continue adapting. To correct the common misconception of the core of Darwinian evolution: "Survival of the most adaptable."

- Sketch051


I agree; but I also would hate to see the language evolving in two separate directions. Some kind of consensus in needed with authority on these changes, or we could see it go out of control to the point where it becomes even more inconsistent and hypocritical.
Also, (in my very personal opinion) this kind of authority shouldn't be in the hands of such a radical nation as the USA, dare I say it, our language needs to be dealt with in a more efficient European fashion, and we simply can't entrust to the USA to do so. It sounds very anti-American I know, but the French couldn't entrust any other nation to keep the French Language as fluid and elegant as it is (even though the French spelling isn't exactly perfect), some things are best left to their namesake nation. I'd be more inclined to accept a standardised spelling, with a governing body like L'Académie Française rather than reforming it totally.
Another thought on the matter - Why does it have to be a perfect language? If we wanted absolute consistency in our communication, we'd have Ido or Esperanto as the lingua franca.
- Bennelliott

[edit] Thinghy

I find it somewhat amusing that your are arguing over words that were lifted directly from their French form by Shakespeare! Because of his play writing, he wanted a larger vocabulary than what was in common use in those times. So yes, the words are derived from Greek or Latin, but were taken from French.
Consider, English has around 8 000 common use words, French on the other hand, counts 32 000 common use words. JackLumber, English may now be the lingua franca for commerce because of american business. However, most diplomats speak French.
As to where these languages should have a unified overseer, what better place than Canada? We have a good grasp of both languages...
Besides, the current trend in the simplification of the English language has been brought down upon us by the inability of MicroSoft to create a proper grammar checker! ;-P Thinghy 17:19, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Bennelliott

Grrrr, if there's one thing I hate, it's the fact that American English is the standard on PCs. I was listening to a conversation about this aired on Radio in Pretoria (that's in South Africa for those who don't know), and it was rather interesting. Like me, they detest it. A rather good quote was: "When you buy a new PC, what's the first thing you do?" to which the others answered: "Change it to British Spelling". I though that was rather apt.

Another thing I agree with you on, an argument someone introduced for AmE was that many spellings are based on Latin/Greek root words. As we well know, English is a Germanic Language, and not directly derived from Latin or Greek (apart from modern introductions in the form of medical words and phobias etc.) Words are derived through other languages, like French and German, so why skip that part of their etymology? That's like saying let's ignore that fact that Maggie Thatcher was in power in the 1980s, and go back to how things were done in the 70s. English spelling is based on etymology, and the very definition of etymology is that it's an account of the origin and historical development of a word.


Note to self: Ideologue is the only way to spell ideologue.