| Kantor said: More than anything else, I wanted to use the word "pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis" in a post. It's been several months since I've done that. English is, indeed, English. Which is to say, it's not American. Therefore, America shouldn't really be going around and changing the language, taking out letters which really aren't all that confusing, and indeed are integral to the meaning of the word, just to make the pronunciation literal - doughnut, for example. A doughnut is made of dough. A donut is not made of do. Similarly, aluminium is a metal, and ends with the same suffix as quite a few other metals, and aluminum... really? A third example: ethanoic acid. "eth" refers to the presence of two Carbon atoms, and to the fact that it's oxidised Ethanol. So what the hell is Acetic Acid? Oxidised Acete? Actually, there's nothing wrong with that. What's wrong is when they enforce it on everyone and set it as some stupid unchangeable default on Microsoft Word. When it is taught in schools worldwide (as seems to be clear from this thread), in place of the actual original language. If I took the French language and took out all of the accents and called it "British French", the French would be annoyed, wouldn't they? It destroys the feel of the language. Also, does "colour" really take that much longer to type than "color"? Did you really have to remove one-sixth of the letters to save you...what, half a second, if that? |
Etymological loss is a common argument against the American changes made to words. The logic is not entirely horrible, though. Why have a "u" in "colour" when it is silent? Same with "donut" and "doughnut." The "ugh" is unnecessary and doesn't need to exist even if it changes the etomological meaning.
Also, your logic is of issue. Simply, the issue is that 18th century perspectivists would further argue that YOU are also destroying the feel of the language. The argument eventually becomes cyclical because anyone can argue that "their" language is being destroyed. Past individuals could simply say the same thing to you saying that you're destroying their "original language."
And French has had different versions like Norman French (in comparison to Central French), but that led to the evolution of the English language. The "Ur" language is something none of us know. There is no original English language. It is constantly evolving. You're displaying perspectivist-type idealogy but there are issues with that. There have been unnecessary grammatical rules. Hell, perspectivism is sometimes grammatical incorrect. I've had many times where people use "I" instead of "me" in the wrong instances because it's more "appropriate." Either way you slice it, language is not as simple as you're describing it. If that's how you then that's how you feel but a lot of people can use your argument against you.
