Tuesday 15 September 2015

Good English and Bad English

Evaluating the text 'Good English and Bad' by Bill Bryson has broadened my perspective on how to judge the good and supposedly bad forms of English. Bryson has created some persuasive contradictions suggesting that 'bad' English is not considered informal or academically incorrect as regards to the time period we live in now. On the contrary, the Latin grammatical complexity is considered entirely meaningless once thoroughly observing its 'standard' usage. Bryson provided some interesting examples that reveal the uncomprehendingly defects within the usage of the English grammatical Language, as he declares himself "we seldom stop to think about it, but some of the most basic concepts in English are naggingly difficult to define." He uses the formulation of a sentence to demonstrate the defaults of grammatical sense: "most dictionaries define it broadly as a group of words constituting a full thought and containing, a minimum, a subject and predicate," however if someone says "your car got stolen" someone can reply with "what?!", which provides enough meaning to express a "full thought". His entire article depicts and illustrates all anomalies in the English Language with further reference to the impact of these anomalies created through 'refining' academies of the English Language throughout the past centuries. Nevertheless, Bryson is very appreciative of the continuous and inevitable change of grammatical use. 

As regards to my own grammar lapses, I make them regularly due to the fact that English is not my first language. However, there have never been unintelligible moments where people are incapable of understanding what I'm trying to say. They will often correct me using the standard and grammatical definiteness of English even though they have no idea why it would be considered as correct. Why could I not formulate a sentence slightly different if my audience is still able to understand and communicate with me? Bryson cherishes evolution of linguistic changes, so why not disseminate and promote more logical, academically seen as erroneous, formulations onto a fresh society to ease communication and evoke sensible grammar? 




1 comment:

  1. This was an insightful post Coco. You effectively incorporate evidence from the text and communicate using an academic register.

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