[BITList] Why English Is Not the "Official Language" of the UnitedStates

[HUGH]

John,

A hefty read. I go along with him, more or less - sometimes he lost me, or I him.  What is a language?  A dictionary? A grammar?  What is the "official language" of the UK?  English?  What brand of English? It must be a version of the one we all speak so as to be understood by strangers, so it's only a convenience. Or is it the one foreigners learn from Linguaphone or the like?  I was once on a train opposite two Geordies, and I only caught one word in ten. I daresay that was their idea. My problem, not theirs. On Chakdara, Jock Carty and I (West of Scotland) used to annoy Sandy Souter (a Fifer) by refusing to make concessions to his inability to understand us if we talked fast.  Equally, Sandy in full flow could lose us.

Now it's the post-modernists and the deconstructionists, then it was the fidgety snobs who bullied us into viewing our local speech and dialects as inferior.  They're always at the language in one way or another. I suppose they've got to earn a living some way.

Hugh.
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