Why are the Americans ruining our language?

Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports
1

Whilst I think that this website is interesting, I object to Cecil’s final comments about the usage of ‘different to’ as opposed to ‘different from’ and the way that he admonishes English speakers in the United Kingdom.

The misleading assertion that ‘logic demands the former’ is unjustified within the context of language. Webster sought to make the English language logical (a concept that is inconceivable, except for Microsoft) and I am not aware of a worthy justification for his desecration of the process of the evolution of language. I have heard two excuses: 1) Webster, and the other philistines, did it to make writing English simpler, 2) He did it because he wanted to distance the Americans from the English by changing the spelling of certain words. Neither of these reasons justifies the desecration of the heritage bestowed on those of us lucky enough to speak such a beautiful language. The American ‘logicising’ of English is the linguistic equivalent of the Taliban’s destruction of Buddhist temples in Afghanistan.

English is a language, like many others, that has evolved over a great many hundreds of years. During this evolution it has developed countless idiosyncracies that define its beauty and diversity as a language. I am not suggesting that we develop an equivalent to the French Academy, which seeks to cling on to redundancies purely because they are French. The evolution of language must be allowed to occur but this should not be dictated by individuals.

Americans, under the banner of simplification, make words such as paedophile (from the Greek) into a combination of Latin and Greek that actually means ‘foot lover’ (pedophile). Is this because Americans are incapable of coping with two juxtaposed vowels because I fail to see how this arbitrary removal of letters could be regarded as ‘simplification’? In the United States, one talks of ‘aluminum’. Consider sodium, calcium, barium, lithium, potassium, magnesium, titanium, uranium, gallium, germanium, cadmium, rubidium etc.? Where is this supposed ‘logic’. Name one other element that ends in simply ‘um’. Surely Caesium should be renamed ‘Cesum’.

Grammar and spelling are derived from language, which is a function of human expression. It is as fatuous to try to simplify language as it is to try to simplify human expression.

I appeal for the return to writing and speaking an unhomogonised, unpasteurised and uncorrupted language in America.

2

Ok, first go here. This is where the question of “different from/than/to” is discussed.

“Different than” is NOT an Americanism. As one of my posts on that thread states, it has been used “by such exalted writers as Defoe, Addison, Steele, Dickens, Coleridge, and Thackeray, among others.” (Bryson, Bill, “Mother Tongue: The English Language”, p 134.)

I also disagree with Cecil, as you’ll see in my posts, and I can understand the “different to” construction, although I personally favor “different than” and then “different from.” From an absolutely linear logic, “differnt from” would probably be the most correct, although to me “different than” sounds more naturaly, and I make a case arguing the logic of that.

Now, for you to say that simplification of the English language is bad is, IMHO, misguided and counterproductive. You yourself state that language has evolved over a great many centuries. Orthography is part of this evolution, and the trend is toward simplification.

Read Shakespeare; read Chaucer. If we had it your way, it seems that spelling would never be consistent and simplified. Almost every record of Shakespeare’s signature has his name spelled a different way. (Interestingly enough, it seems “Shakespeare” is one spelling he never used. [It’s in that Bryson book. If you need the cite, I’ll dig it up.] ) If you read “The Canturbury Tales” you will notice inconsistencies in the spellings of the same word from one page to the next.

In matters of orthography, “logicizing” is perfectly acceptable and, IMHO, inevitable.

As for “aluminum,” it helps if you know all the facts. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, “aluminium” is "
a modification of aluminum, the name given by its discoverer, Sir H. Havy c. 1812 (for which he had first of all used alumium.)" So, according to the OED, a Brit named it “aluminum.” (Interestingly enough, my other sources state that aluminum was discovered in 1825 by a Dane named Hans Christien Oested. I cannot account for the discrepency.) Their cites go back to the writings of Sir Havy in 1812. Also according to the OED, “the termination -ium now preferred harmonizes best with other names of elements, as sodium, potassium…” So who’s doing the simplification here?
Looking at the style of the OP, I think this post will end up in GD or, if worse comes to worst, the Pit.

3

bmerton; cross-posting the same topic in multiple forums (fora?) is frowned upon.

4

Well put, pulykamell.
RR

5

OK, molybdenum
Not to mention tantalum.

6

Do you mean “cesium”?
::d&r::

7

Posting the same thread in two different forums is called cross-posting and is not allowed here. Please don’t do it again. I’ll close this thread. The other one is in GD, http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=94914

bibliophage
moderator GQ