Cultural Cartography

Democratisation of English

I heard an interesting article on the World Service today about the way that the Internet is causing the democratisation of English. Interestingly enough I have always thought that English is a profoundly undemocratic language, as to be very good at it, you have to be very well educated. This is definitely not the case in other languages! But back to the point: as English is now more or less the working language of the web and everyone is using it, the words that they use or create get passed round the web in much the same way a virus does and take hold just as quickly. This also means that the typical authorities such as the OED and the Webster Dictionary in the States are no longer the gate keepers of what is considered to be an English word or not. Increasingly they are the momentary recorders of what is changing very quickly (check out this link and you will see that the OED at least has recognised that). 

What I like about this fact is that it moves English away from being the preserve of a few and into being a working object that changes and morphs as it is needed. Much like a well loved knife in the kitchen which no longer has a straight sharp blade but which is perfect for opening letters with. It's what you need and not what someone else thinks you need. At least that is what my mother tells me, when I try to sharpen her knives. 

I remember a friend of mine in London who used predictive texting. Whenever he typed in the letter combination for "cool", it came up with "book". So after a while, his friends and he just used "book" for "cool". Now that is quite "book" isn't it? 

Some new words which have supposedly developed are things like roariffic, a griefer and leetspeak.

Here is to the democratisation of English!! Long may it continue. 

Du or Sie unplugged

After writing my last post, I started thinking about Du and Sie again, and realised that there has been a big change in Germany in the last few years when it comes to the usage of Du or Sie. It is now much more common to say Du to someone on the first meeting or pretty soon afterwards. All it takes is for the two people to be of roughly the same age (and probably under 40), work in more informal branches of industry like the media or consulting, or for everyone around you to be saying "du" to each other, because they all work together. And bob's your uncle. Or bob is your neighbour at the meeting and not Herr Kaiser anymore. 

I am not quite sure what I think about this. I actually quite like Sie and its ability to signal distance between you and someone. It is like saying 'yes, we might be sitting here joking together but I am still going to get a bill from you tomorrow and I want to be able to question it'. 

However on the other hand, we get on quite fine without it in English (see my last post) and even countries which used to have two forms like Sweden are all happy with just using 'du'. 

The difficulty comes (as is often the case when language is in flux) when there are both usages around. Du as the default 2nd person pronoun and the choice between Sie and Du. 

I am convinced however that in 50 years there will be no Sie form, or only for the Queen (who as we all know is quite German). 

Things that drive me mad in Germany Part 1 Du or Sie

This has nothing to do with planning or semiotics or even anything but I just want to get something off my chest. 

I hate it in Germany when people say to me that we are really lucky in English because we all say "Du" to each other. I should explain for those that don't know that German has two ways to address someone: Du which is the informal and generally only used for people you know very well or for children and Sie, which you use for people you don't know very well or don't want to be very intimate with. Along with having to conjugate the verb differently for either Du or Sie, strictly speaking you use someone's first name with Du and address them as Ms. Smith with Sie. So some clever people think that because in English we often use first names straight away, that we are all really informal and best buddies, on the Du level of intimacy. 

Well, let me tell you here: We are not. There are a thousand ways in English to talk to someone and each one demonstrates more or less distance. Just because you call someone by their first name doesn't mean that you know them well, or even let's be honest here, even like them. An example: "Joan, would you please bring in the coffee now?" is more distant (IMHO) than "Joan, bring in the coffee, will you?" and so on. 

I don't know why it annoys me so much but it might have something to do with the fact that I feel that people that make this mistake can't have understood English very well. They are making that classic mistake of translating a concept from their language into another language. I tend to just take a deep breath and smile when someone says this to me. So be warned, if I am heavy breathing around you! 

PS. On this level, another tip for people who might meet me: Don't come up to me and say in bad, heavily accented English "Oh, you are English. I like to talk English." Well, I do too, but only to people whose English is as good as my German. And I don't like people who assume that because I am English, I don't speak German - Why?