A cousin of mine called the other night and we got to talking about our American language. Bob is a retired teacher, and he knows about my interest in words. We have that in common. We were talking about words that have come into usage and other words that have gone out.
Cell phones are new, and texting, as well as Blog, for that matter! And app, what is that? And now there are App stores, where I could buy apps if I knew what they were! Running boards and rumble seats are no longer common. As for phones, no one remembers when we had “party lines”. Those were managed by the operator ringing long and short rings. The phones rang at every home on any particular party line. For example my ring might have been 2 longs and a short, while my neighbor had a short, a long and another short.
What was fun, for us kids, was to wait till the neighbor answered her phone, and then we could pick up our “ear piece” and listen in on her conversation! Everyone did it! Also does anyone remember when we placed “person to person” calls when we called “long distance?” And of course you did not call it unless it was an emergency of some sort. Usually a death in the family.
After talking to Bob, I got to thinking about our lingo and why it must be difficult for foreigners to deal with. For one thing America, being the melting pot that it is, has a little bit of other languages thrown in with our English. Many Indian and Spanish words are very much used. When you throw in brogues, like Brooklynese, and Southern drawls, you really begin to have problems.
And then, have you ever thought of how many words sound the same, but mean entirely different things. Great-grate, hale-hail, bough-bow, etc.! Also, we can have several words for one item.
Some are spelled the same, but are pronounced differently. "I read it, but I will read it again"!
I did get off the subject didn’t I? My mind wanders a bit, or rather it gets to dwelling too long on one subject, language in this case!
Although, when I went to school, we had the strictest teachers regarding our enunciation that, for years, I would pronounce the “ing” and not shorten to “en” on words like something or nothing. I have learned to relax a bit. I have even learned to like slang. Those same teachers drilled it into our heads that slang was the ruination of our language. But, I ask you, how could you say “That child had me climbing the wall”, in a more colorful way? Slang is a part of our language, like it or not.
Here in the U.S.A. our language has changed and evolved, over a period of time. So I ask you, is it just me or does everyone have this problem? The other day I was watching a cooking show on TV. The hostess of the show, a Chinese girl, had as her guest an English woman. They both spoke perfect “King’s English” and I could hardly understand a word they were saying! For the first time in my life it occurred to me that English is actually a foreign language!
