About Andrew Cusack
Writer, web designer, etc.; born in New York; educated in Argentina, Scotland, and South Africa; now based in London. read more
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À bas l’Académie anglaise!
Proponents of an Academy of English are guilty of leaps of logic
IT STANDS AS one of the great monuments of autonomy and decentralisation that ever existed — the English language. But this great monument is under threat from an unlikely source: one sworn to defend it. The Queen’s English Society has announced plans to form an “Academy of English” along the lines of the Académie française for French or the Real Academia Española for Spanish.
“People misunderstand things if language is not used correctly,” argues Rhea Williams of the Queen’s English Society. “Misuse of apostrophes is the best-known problem, but people also don’t seem to know about tenses any more, for example, you hear ‘we was’ a lot.”
“An academy is needed because the correct information is not something that people can find easily. I suspect that many people in this country have easier access to a computer than to a reference book. They will be able to search without embarrassment, although people should be unafraid to say that they do not know what a word means.”
“At the moment, anything goes,” says Martin Estinel, the founder of the new academy. “Let’s set down a clear standard of what is good, correct, proper English. Let’s have a body to sit in judgment.”
No less an authority than Gerald Warner of Craiggenmaddie has waded into the debate, asserting on his Telegraph blog that “all champions of literacy will wish the society success.”
The complaints raised have a great deal of justification behind them, but the establishment of an academy does absolutely nothing to solve them. Indeed, the very complaint that the misuse of English is rampant and on the rise correctly presupposes that we are already able to discern proper English from improper English.
Rhea Williams and her confrers assume that when a person says “we was”, he is also claiming that it is right and proper English for him to say so. But, on the contrary, if you heard someone on the bus say “we was” and then inquired “Is that proper English?” he would almost certainly, if perhaps sheepishly, admit that it is not.
Similarly we hear complaints about “text speak”, as the shorthand version of English used in text messages (also known as SMSs) is called. But text speak similarly makes no claims to being acceptable as proper English. None would dream of preparing a job application, for example, in text speak.
Furthermore, the Queen’s English Society does not even use proper English on its website.
The Society aims to start using its BLOG [sic] again, following a period of inactivity. If you have something to say about the English language, in the context of education, employment, the media and feel able to contribute to the debate, we invite selected guest bloggers to send in their blogs.
“Blog” is a contraction of “web log” which has rapidly achieved legitimacy, and refers to the entirety of a blog, but the QES almost certainly used the word “blog” instead of what they actually meant, “blog entries”.
The very word “blog” itself is a perfect example of the threat to English that establishing an academy poses. I dislike the word myself, but its usefulness is inescapable. We needn’t refer to that wide and varying array of websites which are in fact an agglomeration of personal writings and links to other items of note — we can simply say “blogs”. An English Academy, on the other hand, might have banished “blog” from its fatuous version of what constitutes proper English early on, in which case the language would be all the poorer, or at least all the more cumbersome.
English speakers know good use from poor use, and when they’re not sure they overwhelmingly defer to those who do know. An Academy of English would do more harm than good and would solve none of the problems that would provoke its foundation. A massive and broad-based information campaign, on the other hand, paired with the return of authoritative teaching in schools, would aid the better use of English infinitely more than a body of pedants to settle disputes that do not exist. Pressure must be exercised against broadcasters, who spread improper English through a misguided attempt at authenticity, and we must also challenge the widespread perception of a social bias against proper speaking.
All these things can be done without any academy, and indeed establishing one would take energy away from these efforts. I’m sure therefore that, pace Mr. Warner, all champions of literacy will join me in shouting “À bas l’Académie anglaise!”
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This reinforces well what I instinctively thought when first reading Gerald Warner’s post on the subject. I was more than surprised by his opinion on the matter, because I usually agree with everything he writes.
By the way, speaking of the Queen’s English Society, I would be interested in knowing where Andrew Cusack places himself on the monarchist spectrum:
http://themonarchist.blogspot.com/2010/07/where-do-you-lie-on-monarchist-spectrum.html
How can you do these things efficiently without an Academy?
1. a massive and broad-based information campaign
2. return of authoritative teaching in schools
3. exercise pressure against broadcasters, who spread improper English
4. challenge the widespread perception of a social bias against proper speaking
P.S. You regularly use the word “hopefully” incorrectly. The Academy would not approve!
;)
1) Are you saying a massive and broad-based information campaign has never been executed in human history except by an academy?
2) Schools used to teach authoritatively without an English academy; presumably they can do so again.
3) Have broadcasters never given in to pressure from anyone but a language academy?
4) Again, I don’t see why this can’t be achieved by a more targeted approach than by an academy.
1) I don’t see how it can be done without a central organization.
2) Presumably they can do it again, but how would you get them all to do it without some organization pressuring them to do it?
3) Who would pressure them on the question if not a language academy?
4) Again, who would do it? I’ve been doing it for years, and made no progress with the general culture.
Well I never said there shouldn’t be an organisation to do this or that or another thing.
The point is this:
1) The “Academy of English” has usurped for itself the putative right to decide what is correct English and what is incorrect English.
2) Its purported grounds for establishing itself is that English is being too often abused.
3) But even the fact that it is abused presupposes that 3a) there is correct usage of English and 3b) the ability to discern between correct and incorrect usage exists.
Thus:
4) Establishing a group to decide what is correct and what is incorrect is useless, because the proper usage of English is already established.
Therefore:
5) Establishing a campaign to promote the more widespread use of proper English, etc. would be a much more effective deployment of resources than uselessly establishing a usurpatory power to tell us what is already known.
Andrew …
There are a couple of typos in the above piece, methinks. Shouldn’t ” “Blog” is a contraciton of “web blog”” be ““Blog” is a contraction of “web log” “?
Sorry for being schoolmarmish … I get roasted all the time for my own messy English, mostly due to not proofreading before I submit!
Mooi bly …