British English is better or closer to historical English than American English (or any other variety)
What you think: British English is the original English, or closer to ancient English, or more correct, or more sophisticated, etc. than American English.
What’s true: Modern British English has descended from the same 17th century British dialect as Modern American English. That dialect, in turn, was drastically different from the English spoken in the 14th century, and so forth. In some ways, Modern American English is actually closer to Old and Middle English than Modern British English.
http://www.auburn.edu/chaucer/sound.htm
(Scholars recreating 15th century English, complete with rhotic “r” sounds often eschewed by many modern British English dialects)
http://www.nsf.gov/news/special_reports/linguistics/paths.jsp?#audioarea
(Demonstration of pronunciation shifts from Middle English to Modern English)
http://www.bartleby.com/185/
Book: The American Language
Author: H.L. Menken
Pickering, the first to attempt a list of Americanisms, rehearsed their origin under the following headings:
1. We have formed some new words.
2. To some old ones, that are still in use in England, we have affixed new significations.
3. Others, which have been long obsolete in England, are still retained in common use among us.
English is mundane or vulgar; Latin (or Hebrew or Greek) is magic
What you think: Latin (or Hebrew or Greek or Elvish or what have you) is a purer, better, holier, more powerful language than English. Any sort of supernatural/sacred thing is better or more potent in Latin.
What’s true: It’s really not. Ancient Romans used Latin exactly the way we use English today. It’s translations of ancient languages into high-falootin’ English that make these dead languages seem so reverent and powerful; they could just as easily and accurately be translated into colloquial English.
http://agp.wlu.edu/results?city=Pompeii&property=166&
Hic ego puellas multas futui.
Phoebus unguentarius optume (:optime) futuit.
(Search results from a project cataloging Latin and Greek graffiti in Pompeii and Herculaneum; the text is, shall we say, not very noble or sacred.)
http://articles.latimes.com/1993-09-25/local/me-38878_1_king-james-bible
When God decides to unleash floods over the Earth, here's how he breaks it to Noah:
“I'm fed up, Noah, with what’s happenin’ round here. These folks ain’t what’s happenin’ anymore, so I’m gonna do what I gotta do, and end things once and for all. Man, I’m gonna blow the brothers clear outta the water.” [The translator] said the five Bible books she translated, Genesis through Deuteronomy, are true to the original.
Sexist language in English forces sexist thinking
What you think: words like “fireman” or “postman” determine our mindset as thinking of them as masculine. This idea is called Linguistic Determinism or the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis.
What’s true: Linguistic Determinism is, well, false. Linguistic Relativism is more generally accepted. What matters more is the cultural concept than the form of the word. Recent studies demonstrated that gender bias persists strongly even with gender-neutral words like “soldier” and “surgeon.” This doesn’t mean there is no benefit at all to trying to use more gender-neutral language, but when sexist culture changes, the linguistic contribution will probably be secondary at best.
http://linguistlist.org/ask-ling/sapir.cfm
The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is the theory that an individual's thoughts and actions are determined by the language or languages that individual speaks. The strong version of the hypothesis states that all human thoughts and actions are bound by the restraints of language, and is generally less accepted than the weaker version, which says that language only somewhat shapes our thinking and behavior.
Phillips, C., Wagers, M., and Lau, E. (2010). “Grammatical illusions and selective fallibility in real-time language comprehension.” In J. Runner (ed.), Experiments at the Interface, Syntax & Semantics, vol. 37. Emerald Publications.
In an elegant eye-tracking study … Sturt (2003) showed that initial reading times for reflexive pronouns were affected by (mis)matches with the gender stereotype of the noun phrase in the local subject position …” (the nouns in question were gender-neutral “surgeon” and “soldier”)
Ghosts always speak English
What you think: EVP (Electronic Voice Phenomenon) is often used to support the existence of ghosts or spirits of some sort. The gist is: if you listen to recordings of white noise, you may begin to hear voices speaking even if there was nobody in the room. The voices invariably speak either in English (or the listener’s native language) or disorganized syllables.
What’s true: More likely than not, we’re looking at a phenomenon called apophenia or pareidolia: your brain is always looking for patterns, and it will sometimes find them where none exist. Try this: travel to somewhere where you don’t speak the language. If you’re really hearing ghosts of that place, why do you hear EVP in English?
http://www.csicop.org/specialarticles/show/electronic_voice_phenomena_voices_of_the_dead
[Apophenia] involves seeing or hearing patterns where in reality, none exist. …
We may be the best pattern detectors that exist, but not all the patterns we find have any objective meaning. However, once we think we have detected a pattern, it is hard to ignore it, and generally, we take it to be meaningful.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0OeFupXFI8
(The famous example of LittleKuribo’s English subtitles to Japanese lyrics making use of audio pareidolia as a joke)
People who speak “bad English” are uneducated or stupid
What you think: People who say things like “Lemme ax you a question” or “My mom be at home” are stupid or at best uneducated.
What’s true: They literally just speak a different dialect of English. English dialects with grammar that differs from the “standard” variety of the language are actually just as systematic, and occasionally even effect back-formations of Middle or Old English. Attitudes that hold speakers of nonstandard varieties of English to be stupid or uneducated are misguided at best.
http://www.hawaii.edu/satocenter/langne ... /aave.html
Unfortunately, many public policy makers and sections of the public hold on to mistaken and prejudiced understandings of what AAVE is and what it says about the people who speak it. … Such ambivalent and multivalent attitudes towards nonstandard varieties of a language have been documented for a great many communities around the world and in the United States. (The summary proceeds to outline a general grammar of AAVE.)
http://www.biblestudytools.com/tyn/john/9.html
“Then agayne the pharises also axed him how he had receaved his sight” Tyndale’s translation of the Bible, 1500s.
English is decaying
What you think: English is in trouble! The reading level of Congressional and Presidential addresses is dropping because of the gradual loss of proper English; English is dumber today than in the past. We who know proper English must safeguard it against all these things like the 300 Spartan Warriors. In short, the Grammar Nazi Credo.
What’s true: Language always changes in such a way that the end effect is that we can still say basically all the same things. Because of the “standard” English taught in school systems and held as a requirement for participation in much of society, we have a love affair with the way it used to be spoken, but that way really wasn’t any better than the way we speak today. What are we English majors really supposed to safeguard against? The sad fact is, it’s used to keep out “undesirables.” “Proper” or “correct” English is all but a requirement if you want a job, any kind of position of authority. It’s ultimately not a safeguard against stupidity or lack of education, but against “undesirables”—unless they are divested of their nonstandard identities.
http://www.linguisticsociety.org/content/english-changing
Is English changing? Yes, and so is every other human language! … Language changes for several reasons. First, it changes because the needs of its speakers change. New technologies, new products, and new experiences require new words to refer to them clearly and efficiently. … Another reason for change is that no two people have had exactly the same language experience. … People tend to think that older forms of languages are more elegant, logical, or ‘correct’ than modern forms, but it's just not true. The fact that language is always changing doesn't mean it's getting worse; it's just becoming different.
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10972-007-9040-0#/page-1
Teachers experience the gatekeeping nature of language and discourse for learning science and acquiring professional certification in science through writing. … African American and Hispanic teachers enter into the NBPTS candidacy pool in numbers proportional to their representation in the U.S. teaching force (17%), yet they earn certification at much lower rates (11%), with only 4% Black and 3% Hispanic making up the entire pool of NBPTS certified teachers.
http://www2.nau.edu/~jar/BOISE.html
Now, by educating the children of these tribes in the English language these differences would have disappeared, and civilization would have followed at once. … Schools should be established, which children should be required to attend; their barbarous dialect should be blotted out and the English language substituted. (US policy regarding Native American languages)
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