Americanisms In School

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 31985, 12 May 1969, Page 12

Americanisms In School

Sir,—My whole-hearted support for “Australasian’s” good sense. I suspect /our correspondents may be motivated by a hatred of all things American, rather than linguistic knowledge. Emotional claptrap like “purveyors and protagonists of rubbish” and “jargon of dog-English” certainly reflects an ignorant anti-Americanism alien to rational argument. “Quercus’s” noble appeal to our national womb complex is quite irrelevant. It would be arrogant superiority for any one nation to claim to be guardian of the English language heritage. As a teacher I shall encourage my pupils to use Americanisms that enrich English (and there are many). The English language is living, changing, and flexible, and productive of an inevitable rich range of dialects and standards. Heaven forbid the self-righteous linguistic totalitarianism that “Parent” and “Quercus” would impose upon us. If their historical counterparts had their way we still might be speaking proto-Indo-European.—Yours, etc., VIVE LA DIFFERENCE. May 12, 1969.

Sir, —A language belongs to its users present and future —rather than to the past. My concern is that we should not let English lose its present enviable position by clinging slavishly to the conviction that our version is right and others are wrong. At present, with no authority representing all English-speaking peoples, we have no supreme arbiter, and hence have diversity in usage and teaching. Lexicographers, educationists, broadcasters, and journalists use their own idiom, generally to the exclusion of others. Improved international communication has slowed the process, but the formation of dialects and independent languages could develop from this concentration on local variants of English. Minor variations can’t be stopped, but retention of English’s privileged position may depend on more efforts aimed at unifying it. This approach is better than one of sniping at other brands of English, which, on the userowner criterion, are every bit as legitimate as our own.— Yours, etc., AUSTRALASIAN. May 11,1969.