English and Americanisms

I don’t have a lot of time for nationalists or patriots. They are indeed scoundrels. I’m not even sure I subscribe to the notion of land ownership or territory. Obviously in terms of governance a defined area or jurisdiction is pretty essential but I do think that the majority of people who reside in these islands are far too hung up on national identity. I suppose I consider myself English. I have a great love of the English language (despite my often poor use of it as this blog testifies) and our culture, even though in reality both are so nebulous that they prove near impossible to quantify. But that is the great thing about Englishness it doesn’t really exist. English people and their culture is a dynamic cocktail, an ever changing melting pot of culture and ethnicity. This is not a new phenomena, it’s been like that for centuries, if not millennia. There can never be a pure pedigree English person, it is a genetic impossibility. There is no measurement of Englishness. Over the centuries the land mass known as England has been populated by people from across the world. With them has come language and culture which we’ve absorbed. England’s motto should be ‘adopt, adapt and improve’ and I think that’s what makes this such a good place to live. We are not rigid; we are open to new ideas. This helps us to prosper both financially and culturally. Being open minded and accommodating has brought us tremendous benefits over the years. I hope we never lose it. In evolutionary terms the key to survival is to constantly widen the gene pool.

I like Americans, I like aspects of their culture and I’ve very much enjoyed the small amount of the USA that I’ve seen. I don’t much care for their foreign policy, their cultural imperialism, their gun-control laws, the way they treat many of their citizens at the lower end of the economic scale and the fact that they still have the death penalty is totally despicable. I work for an American owned company, who as capitalist organisations go is an okay employer. My American colleagues tend to be very nice people if not always worldly-wise, and so very few of them seem to have passports. Many have trouble accepting that we (in the UK) don’t celebrate Thanksgiving or have the 4th of July off. I know it’s wrong to make generalisations but much of the time Americans are very culturally insular. Why is it that when books, films, records etc travel from the UK to the USA deference to their version of English needs to be observed but when the traffic is in the other direction it doesn’t matter a jot. It is presumed that American-English will do. I think that it is the pure arrogance of it that irritates me. The attitude that their ways are right and everybody else’s ways are wrong. This BBC News article about how Americanisms (is that an Americanism?) irritate many of us was quite interesting. With plenty I could identify with. I’m sure there are very many reasons why Americanisms irritate so many of us. Some of it will be misguided nationalism, some of it will be racist, and some will believe that anything other than the fictitious ‘Queens English’ is a travesty, but as far as I’m concerned it’s about reducing our capacity to communicate. I have already acknowledged that English is forever evolving. I like the fact that we have regional language differences as well as the international differences (which include African, Antipodean, Canadian and US - apologies for those I’ve missed out). It makes for interesting listening and reading when we have all these variations. What really concerns me is that instead of absorbing new words from various sources we just adopt American-English wholesale, so that we end up with one homogenised language. A language based on inaccuracies. After all American-English does have the tendency to be rather Neanderthal, relying as it does on the lowest common denominator approach. If it works for them that’s fine, but I think it’s very lazy when the English adopt these neo-words and phrases. My fear is that if the change from English to American carries on exponentially we will end up just grunting at each other in a return to our prehistoric past. Some people have commented on Twitter in a rather pompous fashion that they think it’s rude of us to be irritated by Americanisms. Others just don’t understand what the fuss is about and that we should just embrace their language like ‘loving Big Brother’. I fear these sorts of people are quite shallow and really haven’t thought things through. Having vented my spleen I do accept that inevitably we will end up all speaking American-English but that’s no reason to give in quietly. The longer we can retain at least a modicum of sophistication in our language the more enjoyable life will be.

Going back to the BBC article, two Americanisms that really irritate are ‘can I get’ and ‘9/11’. This is because their technical inaccuracies offend my pedantry. I’ve ranted about ‘can I get’ before so I won’t repeat myself. I feel a rant coming on about ‘9/11’ so watch this space.

#hackgate

Anyone who uses the term or hash-tag (as it is popularly known) ‘#hackgate’ on Twitter is a complete tosser. To which gate might they be referring to, and what is its relevance to the hacking scandal that hangs over the murky Murdoch Empire?

Free press my arse

Freedom is one of those words that are often bandied about by the right as justification for their actions. When right-wingers use the term what they really mean is ‘the freedom to exploit or oppress others’. And so it is with our press. We don’t have a free press in this country. We have a press of vested interests. We have a press that is owned by a rich, powerful and minute minority, a press that wants to reduce the power of government. In other words a press that wants to reduce the power of the people. The press isn’t free. It is very much un-free. Beholden to their rich masters. We are deluding ourselves if we think that our press represents a vast cross-section of society. It doesn’t and it probably never will. I also happen to think that the newspaper has had its day. It is now in decline and the Murdoch mess has hastened the process. The ‘free press’ has only ever been the stuff of dreams and never a reality.

".... you should understand
That those who own the papers also own this land
And they'd rather you believe
In coronation street capers
In the war of circulation, it sells newspapers
Could it be an infringement
Of the freedom of the press
To print pictures of women in states of undress


When you wake up to the fact
That you paper is tory
Just remember, there are two sides to every story"

It Says Here – by Billy Bragg

Don’t be an ass you arse

Some poor misguided souls don’t seem to know what an ass is. They live under the misapprehension that it is a bottom. Perhaps they have been confused by watching countless performances of Willy the Spear-shaker’s Midsummer Night’s Dream. An ass is a horse like quadruped – see below. What they normally mean is arse. It bemuses me as to why they don’t use the term arse. Is it a stupidity thing?

My thanks to Wikipedia for a definitive definition:

“The donkey or ass, Equus africanus asinus,[1][2] is a domesticated member of the Equidae or horse family. The wild ancestor of the donkey is the African Wild Ass, E. africanus. In the western United States, a small donkey is sometimes called a burro (from the Spanish word for the animal).

A male donkey or ass is called a jack, a female a jenny, and an offspring less than one year old a foal (male: colt, female: filly).

While different species of the Equidae family can interbreed, offspring are almost always sterile. Nonetheless, horse/donkey hybrids are popular for their durability and vigour. A mule is the offspring of a jack (male donkey) and a mare (female horse). The much rarer successful mating of a male horse and a female donkey produces a hinny.

Asses were first domesticated around 3000 BC,[3] approximately the same time as the horse, and have spread around the world. They continue to fill important roles in many places today. While domesticated species are increasing in numbers, the African wild ass and another relative, the Onager, are endangered. As "beasts of burden" and companions, asses and donkeys have worked together with humans for millennia.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ass_(animal)

Bumf

I’m old enough to remember outside toilets. They weren’t too clever, especially in the winter. Most that I experienced were connected to the main water supply and the sewers, but not all. When I was very young my paternal grandparents owned a picturesque thatched cottage just outside Bury St Edmunds. Whilst it every bit looked the part in terms of bucolic gemütlichkeit, facilities it had to be said were rudimentary. There was cold running water to the cottage and that was it. The ‘lav’, for that’s what it was, was a wooden shed. Inside the shed was an oil drum. On top of the oil drum rested a toilet seat. On the right wall (looking in) about half way up and standing proud was a six inch nail that had been strategically banged in. Hanging on the nail joined by a loop of string was a wad of paper. Rough hand-torn squares of scrap ranging from shiny tissue to newsprint. It depended on what was around the cottage at the time. Periodically this wooden construction would be moved around the back garden, with one hole being filled in and a fresh one dug. As a young lad I dreaded having to go to the toilet at Granddad’s. In winter it was cold, dark and smelly. In the summer it was hot and even smellier and flies were your constant companions. This was Britain in the 60s! I was always so pleased to return to our modern council house with it’s inside toilet and hot and cold running water, and with proper toilet paper. Mind you the toilet paper in those days was nothing like today. We used to have sheets in a box rather than a roll, not that it really matter as the paper was the same; the ubiquitous Izal Medicated. Forget the super soft luxury toilet rolls of today Izal Medicated was not the faint hearted. It was hard, shiny, non-absorbent and non-stick. You were left with more than a stiff upper lip after using it I can tell you. “Kids today don’t know they are born!”

Despite having ‘roughed it’ in my youth, camped and having been to quite a number of music festivals I really I can’t imagine what it must be like not to have access to any sanitation. In too many countries having access to a toilet and washing facilities can mean the difference between life and death. The absence of sanitation can kill. That is why I urge you if you can to support the work of the One Difference organisation. One “create brilliant, quality products, and every time you buy one,” they “donate 100% of the profit to life-changing projects in developing countries”. For some time now we’ve been buying One toilet rolls. The profits from which go to fund sanitation projects in Africa. In my humble opinion their toilet rolls are actually some of the best you could hope to buy. They are really really good. Soft yet strong. And by buying them others, less fortunate than us, are benefitting. To use horrible management speak ‘a win-win situation’.

Please support them if you can.

Lundy

At the beginning of June we spent a week on Lundy. It was a holiday that had been planned on a dark winter’s evening over two years ago in February 2009 when staying at The Castle of Park, a Landmark Trust property in Glenluce, Dumfries and Galloway. Lundy is a small island 3 miles long and ½ mile wide that sits in the Bristol Channel 10 miles off the coast of Devon. It is owned by the National Trust who in turn lease to the Landmark Trust. If you don’t know who the Landmark Trust are well they are a wonderful organisation that restores old and interesting buildings and then rents them out as holiday lets. Most of the buildings on Lundy are situated in one small village in the south of the island. For our week we were staying in Government House. With one shop and one pub on the island we were concerned that our stay might seem very long if the fare was mediocre. But we needn’t have worried, the shop was like a mini Waitrose and the pub was a most excellent hostelry.

Lundy is a nature lover’s paradise. It is an emerald in a sea of lapis lazuli. The water around is so clear in various shades of blue and turquoise. With so few people on the island it is a haven for sea birds including the puffin, from which in Old Norse the island gets its name. Goats, Soay sheep, deer and ponies roam wild on the island. One day I wandered down to the small beach close to the harbour. There was nobody around as I stood gazing out to sea. I was suddenly aware that I was being watched. Two heads popped out of the water close to where I stood. They stared at me quizzically then disappeared. Moments later they popped up again ain a slightly different position. Two grey seals with their sad black eyes; a magical moment and I kicked myself for not having my camera with me. Lundy is full of experiences like this. It is essentially a remote theme park for the middle classes, but a place well worth a visit. Here are a few of my holiday snaps:

I worry about Twitter.

Not just Twitter I might add, but social media in general. The likes of Twitter have enjoyed, of late, what might be described as some success, with the super-injunction debacle, and this week playing their part in the attacks against Murdoch and the News of the World. Is this all good for democracy? I have mixed feelings.

Whilst it feels good when popular victories are won against the forces of evil, like Murdoch, and I must say I have a mild Twitter addiction, I do worry that there is a fine line between justified protest and a sort of herd/lynch mob mentality. My concern would be if the latter were to prevail.

A free press is important in a democracy (not that we necessarily live in a true democracy) but we don't really have a free press. We have a press owned by a small number of very rich and powerful individuals. Most of whom have a vested interest in the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. If we really had a free press it would greater reflect society as a whole.

I have no love of the rich and famous or an interest in the cult of 'celebrity'. I really don't care who is shagging who and in what orientation or denomination. So from that point of view I think that I would possibly welcome privacy laws but on the other hand I fear that those same laws could be used to gag journals and journalists from reporting on matters that in my opinion would be matters of genuine public interest. It is all quite a dilemma. I do quite like the idea that Hugh Grant has been advocating. He feels that newspapers should be subject to the same rules as television in terms of impartiality etc. Would this work? Possibly. It surely would be better than what we have at the moment; where papers just print out and out lies that smear an individual or a party. Once a story is printed in a paper that story is treated by many as fact. It is very hard for innocent individuals to clear their name and refute allegations. It is the total opposite to our justice system where individuals should be presumed innocent until proven guilty. As far as newspapers are concerned if they think you are guilty or your face doesn't fit or they don't like your politics then they will condemn you. Newspapers are never going to let fairness or justice get in the way of a 'good' story. Yes we have libel laws. But justice is slow and expensive and really only open to the rich. Innocent people have their characters besmirched and destroyed just to sell newspapers. That really can't be fair. The press do need a regulatory body that is truly independent and with the power to fine, order prominent retractions and apologies and to suspend publication if necessary.

There is no doubt that the mass circulation newspaper is on the decline. Electronic media will take its place. The gutter press thrives on rumour and innuendo. My fear is that Twitter could well go the same way, if it has not done so already. I do hope that it doesn't become lowest common denominator saturated.

This last week's events have reminded me of a John Cooper Clarke poem 'Suspended Sentence'. No prizes for guessing why.