The problems of society will also be the problems of the predominant language of that society. It is the carrier of its perception...s, its attitudes, and its goals, for through it, the speakers absorb entrenched attitudes. The guilt of English then must be recognized and appreciated before its continued use can be advocated.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
To write or even speak English is not a science but an art. There are no reliable words.... Whoever writes English is involved in ...a struggle that never lets up even for a sentence. He is struggling against vagueness, against obscurity, against the lure of the decorative adjective, against the encroachment of Latin and Greek, and, above all, against the worn-out phrases and dead metaphors with which the language is cluttered up.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Even a moment's reflection will show that the spoken American language is backed by expressive features lacking in the written lan...guage: the rise or fall of the voice at the ends of phrases and sentences; the application of vocal loudness to this or that word or part of a word; the use of gesture; the meaningful rasp or liquidity, shouting or muting, drawling or clipping, whining or breaking, melody or whispering imparted to the quality of the voice. Written English, lacking clear indication of such features, must be so managed that it compensates for what it lacks. It must be more carefully organized than speech in order to overcome its communicative deficiencies as compared with speech. In speech. we safeguard meaning by the use of intonation, stress, gesture, and voice qualities. In writing, we must deal with our medium in such a way that the meaning cannot possibly be misunderstood.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I don't think it is always necessary to take up the anti-colonial--or is it post- colonial?--cudgels against English. What seems t...o me to be happening is that those people who were once colonized by the language are now rapidly remaking it, domesticating it, becoming more and more relaxed about the way they use it--assisted by the English language's enormous flexibility and size, they are carving out large territories for themselves within its frontiers.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
English grammar is so complex and confusing for the one very simple reason that its rules and terminology are based on Latin--a la...nguage with which it has precious little in common. In Latin, to take one example, it is not possible to split an infinitive. So in English, the early authorities decided, it should not be possible to split an infinitive either. But there is no reason why we shouldn't, any more than we should forsake instant coffee and air travel because they weren't available to the Romans. Making English grammar conform to Latin rules is like asking people to play baseball using the rules of football. It is a patent absurdity. But once this insane notion became established, grammarians found themselves having to draw up ever more complicated and circular arguments to accommodate the inconsistencies.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
It is a mass language only in the same sense that its baseball slang is born of baseball players. That is, it is a language which ...is being molded by writers to do delicate things and yet be within the grasp of superficially educated people. It is not a natural growth, much as its proletarian writers would like to think so. But compared with it at its best, English has reached the Alexandrian stage of formalism and decay.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
But as some silly young men returning from France affect a broken English, to be thought perfect in the French language; so his Lo...rdship, I think, to seem a perfect understander of the unintelligible language of the Schoolmen, pretends an ignorance of his mother-tongue. He talks here of command and counsel as if he were no Englishman, nor knew any difference between their significations.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
And in spite of everything, Ireland remains the brain of the Kingdom. The English, judiciously practical and ponderous, furnish th...e over-stuffed stomach of humanity with a perfect gadget--the water closet. The Irish, condemned to express themselves in a language not their own, have stamped on it the mark of their own genius and compete for glory with the civilized nations. This is then called English literature.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »