[LAU] Study Finds New Pop Music Does All Sound the Same.

[Chris Bannister]

On Sun, Aug 05, 2012 at 04:51:11PM +0200, Ralf Mardorf wrote:
> On Mon, 2012-08-06 at 01:43 +1200, Chris Bannister wrote:
> > Have you ever seen a "Commando", or any of those war type comics?
> 
> No, I don't know "Commando" and after gooleing and watching all that
> Schwarzenegger pics I'm sure I don't know "those war type comics".
> 
> > "Arrrgh!!!", "Grunt!", Rat a tat tat!!! "Kill the hun!!!" aren't
> > actually replacements for a book, like "Biggles", or "The Wind in the
> > Willows" etc.
> 
> Comics are no replacements for carpets, bottles and automobiles. Comics
> don't replace anything, they once upon a time were something new and
> never intended as a replacement for something, especially not for books,
> since comics are books too.

Your original statement was about teachers rubbishing comics. My
response was, IMHO, the reason why. I vaguely remember kids reading
comics instead of books and thinking it was all right. Quite rightly,
the teachers didn't want that choice reflecting on their teaching
ability. In fact if you were caught with one, it was confiscated!

> > Comics or whatever they call them now may have changed, but so has the
> > standard of English which is so freely (ab)used.
> 
> English isn't the native spoken language all over the world, but the
> international language, so English has got many foreign influences.

True, there is American English, Chinese English, and even Indian
English (remember Benny Hill? :-)) 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
http://www.engrish.com/
http://www.chillibreeze.com/articles/IsitIndianEnglishorEnglishinIndia.asp

respectively.

And, interesting is:
http://www.richard-seaman.com/USA/Life/Language/AmericanVersusNewZealandVocabulary.html

More and more of the words on the right (American words) are now in fact
being used more often as words on the left (New Zealand words).
(With a McDonalds on nearly every corner, there is no need to invade us.
:)

So yes the influence is far reaching, but that doesn't excuse the basic
rules of English -- grammar and syntax being abused; nouns being used as 
verbs, verbs being used as nouns, incorrect use of plurals (i.e. not
understanding compound nouns.), thinking its ok to stick "ability" on the
end of any word, thinking its ok to stick "ization" on the end of any
word ... etc. etc. etc.

> If you need shoes size 12, you won't go to a shoemaker claiming that
> everybody wants shoes of that size, so he won't sell this size anymore.

Mmmm, whenever there is a shoe sale why is that the only size 
available? :-)

-- 
"If you're not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people
who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the 
oppressing." --- Malcolm X