# Is an Official English Language Academy/Board a Good Idea? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 25, 2017, 1:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-an-official-english-language-academy-board-a-good-idea/799808 "2017-10-25T13:15:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2017, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-an-official-english-language-academy-board-a-good-idea/799808/21 "2017-10-25T18:44:45Z")
> [@Inner\_Stickler](#): > > A lot of the functions of a language board are already done in English by private dictionary companies and the lexicographers they train and employ. Regardless of whether you have a board or not, language changes frequently and the movement of those changes from slang to informal to formal speaking and writing is pretty well filtered by the myriad journals, newspapers and publishers who maintain style guides and update and adapt as needed to satisfy their consumers. Which touches on the one enormous advantage of having one official reference. I think it was Martini Enfield who was extatic at the thought of having a single “style guide” (the _Ortografía_) which anybody can access and is supposed to follow, with specific publications only needing to add one or two pages with their own idiosyncrasies. I don’t think any given language “needs” an Academy or 20, but your paragraph there boils down to “it’s much better to have a dozen different references which disagree constantly than to have a single one everybody agrees on.” ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2017, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-an-official-english-language-academy-board-a-good-idea/799808/22 "2017-10-25T18:48:10Z")
I think we do just fine with the various “style guides” that major publications like the NYT uses. AFAIK, anyone can access that if they wish. And that would be the “singular they”, which I’ve grown to love recently. ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2017, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-an-official-english-language-academy-board-a-good-idea/799808/23 "2017-10-25T20:36:55Z")
it would staunch the increasing degradation of the language and literally save it. surely the SDMB would have one of it’s moderators on the language board grammer errors and spelling would be instabanned. The quality of this board will increase literally exponentially. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2017, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-an-official-english-language-academy-board-a-good-idea/799808/24 "2017-10-25T23:51:18Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > Which country is going to sponsor this board or academy? Because British English is different than American English which is different than the English spoken in one of the other countries on five continents where English is a de jure or de facto official language. Or as I would put it: British English is different **from** American English which is different **from** the English spoken in one of the other countries on five continents where English is a de jure or de facto official language. Same problem with spelling reform. Whose spelling? Whose pronunciation? Anyway, these academies remind me of King Canute trying to stop the waves. Actually, my claims the good king was simply trying to illustrate that there were things even the king could not do and got a bad rap. ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2017, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-an-official-english-language-academy-board-a-good-idea/799808/25 "2017-10-25T23:53:39Z")
> [@Yllaria](#): > > OK. We start an academy. The academy makes one choice, Hollywood makes another. Guess who wins. Then why do all the Hollywood stars thank the Academy? 😕 ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2017, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-an-official-english-language-academy-board-a-good-idea/799808/26 "2017-10-26T01:36:26Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > Which touches on the one enormous advantage of having one official reference. I think it was Martini Enfield who was extatic at the thought of having a single “style guide” (the _Ortografía_) which anybody can access and is supposed to follow, with specific publications only needing to add one or two pages with their own idiosyncrasies. > > I don’t think any given language “needs” an Academy or 20, but your paragraph there boils down to “it’s much better to have a dozen different references which disagree constantly than to have a single one everybody agrees on.” Plus the Academia is such a convenient whipping boy about how the accepted usage fails to comply with our particular would-be standard of correctness! We can say it’s because they are reactionary old farts, not because our proposed style sounds daft! ---
**Author:** ![I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/i_love_me_vol.i/32/521_2.png) [@I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I_Love_Me_Vol.I)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2017, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-an-official-english-language-academy-board-a-good-idea/799808/27 "2017-10-26T01:55:30Z")
Maybe there shouldn’t be such a language board for English but could we pass a Constitutional amendment or something to take care of the whole “lose”, “loose” travesty? I’d be happy. ---
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2017, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-an-official-english-language-academy-board-a-good-idea/799808/28 "2017-10-26T02:32:34Z")
As far as I know any languages in recent history that have been controlled by a language board, are spoken in only one country (Turkiish, Norwegian, Romanian, etc.). German recently went through a spelling change, and it was widely ignored by a lot of publishers, and as I recall, Austria ignored it completely. The Swiss already speak a language that Germans believe is intended to infuriate them. French is the notorious example of dictionary inclusions being bound by the famous Academie, but the French went ahead and shopped at le drugstore anyway. I think Quebec considers itself pretty autonomous, linguistically. Académie française does not pretend to have any authority outside France, and any nation that has French as an official language is free to adopt any form of French they like. ---
**Author:** ![installLSC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/54ee81/32.png) [@installLSC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/installLSC)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2017, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-an-official-english-language-academy-board-a-good-idea/799808/29 "2017-10-26T03:15:07Z")
Plus how are you sure they wouldn’t be as ridiculously nitpicky as the 18th century grammatarians who saddled us with “no prepositions at the end of sentences”, “don’t split infinitives”, or worst of all "no singular ‘they’ (it’s highly pratical and is used both by Shakespeare and the King James Bible, but dammit it wasn’t good enough for your high school English teacher)? Also, not only are the Academie losing the war against English and Franglish, but with computer terms and social media they’re losing it faster than ever. English is the clear winner of the language wars, its usage gaining every day. Why saddle yourself with the outdated idea of a language academy if there’s no real gains to be made. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2017, 4:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-an-official-english-language-academy-board-a-good-idea/799808/30 "2017-10-26T04:40:10Z")
> [@Senegoid](#): > > it would staunch the increasing degradation of the language and literally save it. > > surely the SDMB would have one of it’s moderators on the language board grammer errors and spelling would be instabanned. The quality of this board will increase literally exponentially. We need to squash that type of thinking before more if comes down the pipe. We’re not going to tow the line, no matter what you say! ---
**Author:** ![chappachula](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/d2c977/32.png) [@chappachula](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chappachula)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2017, 5:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-an-official-english-language-academy-board-a-good-idea/799808/31 "2017-10-26T05:21:24Z")
> [@installLSC](#): > > no singular ‘they’ (it’s highly pratical and is used both by Shakespeare and the King James Bible . This is news to me. May I please ask for the relevant verses? ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2017, 5:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-an-official-english-language-academy-board-a-good-idea/799808/32 "2017-10-26T05:32:06Z")
> [@chappachula](#): > > This is news to me. > May I please ask for the relevant verses? For Shakespeare: “There’s not a man I meet but doth salute me As if I were their well-acquainted friend” - _Comedy of Errors_ IV, 3 There are other examples. There’s one in _Hamlet_, though I can’t place it right now. For the King James: “Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves.” - Phil 2:3 “So likewise shall my heavenly Father do also unto you, if ye from your hearts forgive not every one his brother their trespasses.” - Matt 18:35 And, again, there are more examples if you look for them. ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2017, 5:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-an-official-english-language-academy-board-a-good-idea/799808/33 "2017-10-26T05:44:02Z")
Dr Samuel Johnson - the creator of the first serious English Dictionary - put the case against language academies very clearly in the Preface to his Dictionary in 1755. Nobody has said it better: Those who have been persuaded to think well of my design, require that it should fix our language, and put a stop to those alterations which time and chance have hitherto been suffered to make in it without opposition. With this consequence I will confess that I flattered myself for a while; but now begin to fear that I have indulged expectation which neither reason nor experience can justify. When we see men grow old and die at a certain time one after another, from century to century, we laugh at the elixir that promises to prolong life to a thousand years; and with equal justice may the lexicographer be derided, who being able to produce no example of a nation that has preserved their words and phrases from mutability, shall imagine that his dictionary can embalm his language, and secure it from corruption and decay, that it is in his power to change sublunary nature, or clear the world at once from folly, vanity, and affectation. With this hope, however, academies have been instituted, to guard the avenues of their languages, to retain fugitives, and repulse intruders; but their vigilance and activity have hitherto been vain; sounds are too volatile and subtle for legal restraints; to enchain syllables, and to lash the wind, are equally the undertakings of pride, unwilling to measure its desires by its strength. The French language has visibly changed under the inspection of the academy; the style of Amelot’s translation of father Paul is observed by Le Courayer to be _un peu passè_; and no Italian will maintain, that the diction of any modern writer is not perceptibly different from that of Boccace, Machiavel, or Caro. Total and sudden transformations of a language seldom happen; conquests and migrations are now very rare: but there are other causes of change, which, though slow in their operation, and invisible in their progress, are perhaps as much superior to human resistance, as the revolutions of the sky, or intumescence of the tide. ---
**Author:** ![mbh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2017, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-an-official-english-language-academy-board-a-good-idea/799808/34 "2017-10-27T22:22:38Z")
I think we should have an academy. Not to police the language, but to publish reference works. An online encyclopedia with Wikipedia’s breadth, and Britannica’s scholarship. Project Gutenberg-style texts of the Great Literary Classics. (Yes, I know, there are a lot of e-books available already, but the editing is often rather shoddy.) Oh, and when Congress opens a session, or a president is inaugurated, they should attend the ceremony, wearing _ **l’habit vert** _. ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2017, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-an-official-english-language-academy-board-a-good-idea/799808/35 "2017-10-28T00:01:04Z")
> [@Cardigan](#): > > Why are there no “official” English language regulatory bodies? Do you think having one would be a good idea? Not so much. I do believe that we need to make English the official language of the country, though. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2017, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-an-official-english-language-academy-board-a-good-idea/799808/36 "2017-10-28T00:48:16Z")
> [@Clothahump](#): > > Not so much. I do believe that we need to make English the official language of the country, though. _¿Por qué?_ ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2017, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-an-official-english-language-academy-board-a-good-idea/799808/37 "2017-10-28T13:14:29Z")
I’m sure no one will be surprised to learn that xkcd is already on the job: [xkcd: Standards](https://xkcd.com/927/) ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2017, 1:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-an-official-english-language-academy-board-a-good-idea/799808/38 "2017-10-28T13:22:57Z")
Even if such a board existed, what could they do that would genuinely affect everyday speech? Over time, words and phrases enter the English language naturally and organically, and no official pronouncements from a body of English professors can stop that. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2017, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-an-official-english-language-academy-board-a-good-idea/799808/39 "2017-10-28T13:24:27Z")
> [@Clothahump](#): > > Not so much. I do believe that we need to make English the official language of the country, though. Just curious- what specifically would change if Congress declared that English is our official language? ---
**Author:** ![orcenio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/orcenio/32/1036_2.png) [@orcenio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/orcenio)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2017, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-an-official-english-language-academy-board-a-good-idea/799808/40 "2017-10-28T13:25:24Z")
> [@Clothahump](#): > > Not so much. I do believe that we need to make English the official language of the country, though. Um. It already is one. [😕](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Official_Languages_Act_(Canada)) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-an-official-english-language-academy-board-a-good-idea/799808.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-an-official-english-language-academy-board-a-good-idea/799808.md?page=3)