China Ban's English

[Darkster]

Latin is pure, but it is a dead language.

English is the most dynamic language, so I do not believe it is fair to use it as the basis of most of the argument. When something is made or discovered and the concept is not covered by existing words, a new word is made. Most things come from the West and/or English-speaking countries, so it is natural that there are English words. There are words for inventions and many still sound the same as the original word. I'm not sure what the French call a telephone, but in Spanish, it's teléfono. We'll keep running into similar words, but it doesn't mean that English words only are the ones that exist. If you actually read the article, it says that words that are fused so bad no one can understand it, similar to Konglish or Spanglish, but worse will be prohibited. It actually helps them because now Chinese readers can understand them. There were less readers who slaughtered both languages to read it.

Googling is not an actual word. If it keeps getting used, it will become like aspirin.

 

[BlackCatGodess]

I really always though French was being a bit stupid trying to insist on language purity. That just seems impossible to me, given that language is always evolving. It's preventing a basic necessity from adapting as situations change, like forcing people to wear t-shirts and no coat in the dead of winter for "clothing purity."

Darkster, that's the point that I was trying to make. The article sounds like they just want to keep the written language accessible to the masses much like how English grammar nazis are trying to keep vowels and proper spelling around. They don't want to stagnate the language as a whole, just keep it readable. And also I had heard that "googling" had made it into an English dictionary, which to most people makes it a word. Wikipedia article for reference. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_(verb)

And what's wrong with aspirin as a word, may I ask?

 

[Darkster]

I really dislike it when people say "Grammar Nazi." :redface2: We use vowels all the time. I don't understand what you mean by that.

It's very different. What before was in the media in China was accessible, but it was incorrect and most people could not understand it. Even those who did would need to be English-speaking Chinese-reading people and I'm sure many of them must have been appalled by it. Googling may be in the dictionary, but it's not the search engine related word.

Aspirin was trademarked by Bayer, but now everyone uses it because it kept being used. It's now the common word for the name.

 

[BlackCatGodess]

I use Grammar Nazi to refer to people who are near obsessive in their need to correct people on the internet or in real life for poor spelling or grammar. I usually mean it in a less than polite connotation, as I feel going after people to the point of humiliation, unnecessary meanness, or obsession is not called for. Most people don't qualify as that, at least to me. As for the vowels thing, most people that I know who have become puritanical in keeping the written language pure dislike word shortenings like "u" and "r" and the removal of vowels from words for little reason or replacing them with numbers. Personally, if I can't look at what someone has written and be able to read it with little effort, I just go my merry way. It couldn't have been that good if they couldn't bother to make it legible.

If you have a problem with aspirin, do you have a problem with making a xerox of a document, or getting a Kleenex to wipe your nose? What about getting a formica counter top or writing up a post-it so you remember what you need to get at the supermarket? Those are all examples of trademarked names becoming part of contemporary vocabulary; I didn't even KNOW Formica was a company until my parents had brought up that Formica had been the one to INVENT formica as a counter top material and had issues protecting the copyright on their name (They call it "Formica-brand formica now, since there exists no other name for it.) Google is going the same way as formica. There doesn't exist a good, clear word to mean "use an internet search engine to look for something." and Google, being a brand name that everyone uses, is being co-opted into that definition as a layman's word. There's not much that can be done about it, unless another word is offered up in place of "googling" that the general public takes to.

And I think we are saying the exact same thing, so I'm not sure why we're on the verge of arguing about this. I'm saying that they are trying to keep the language pure so that it can still be read by native speakers; much like how how numbers replacing letters, shortened words, and missing vowels can make English unreadable, random bits of English in Chinese and amalgams of Chinese and English words and letters has made Chinese unreadable and so their government is doing something about it.

How is what you're saying that really different from the point I originally made? I don't think it is, but I guess I'm missing something? :/

 

[Darkster]

You really should go back to reading the post instead of trying to argue with me.

 

[BlackCatGodess]

I'm not trying to argue with you, that was the whole point of my post. It seems to me we're just saying the same thing in different, roundabout ways. If that's arguing, then I'm sorry for that, because I HAVE reread your post, several times, and I'm really not seeing any argument between us.

 

[ForeverRed]

Oh well, what else can we do? The answer is nothing.

My English grammars are not perfect. So what? Don't have to be perfect.

 

[CPS]

Meh. I like the idea of language evolution. No mutations is boring.

 

[chronoxiong]

Poor Chinese kids. They will probably not know much English while they are over there. I understand that they want to purify their language but c'mon, they need to know English too.

 

[Kamen Rider Rage]

You could say the same about the damn Mexicans who have the nerve to speak Spanish and refuse to speak English. BACK BEHIND THE BORDER YOU JOB-STEALING IDIOTS.

Seriously, thoguh I see nothing wrong with Mexicans other than they have too many kids (lol catholics) and they refuse to learn English.

This really offends me as a hispanic.