{"id":699,"date":"2023-08-18T12:21:00","date_gmt":"2023-08-18T12:21:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tellwell.fi\/en\/?p=699"},"modified":"2023-09-25T14:04:22","modified_gmt":"2023-09-25T14:04:22","slug":"adventures-of-the-language-police-1-when-bad-is-good-sick-is-pleasurable-and-shit-is-fantastic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tellwell.fi\/en\/adventures-of-the-language-police-1-when-bad-is-good-sick-is-pleasurable-and-shit-is-fantastic\/","title":{"rendered":"Adventures of the Language Police #1 \u2013 When Bad Is Good, Sick Is Pleasurable and Shit Is Fantastic"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Written by Stephen Bathurst<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

When one is born an Englishman there are certain expectations that are often placed upon one\u2026talking about the weather, keeping a stiff upper lip (sisu), moaning about whatever prat happens to be running the country. Of particular note, however, is an aversion to all things French. There is a lot of material to go on: jokes about food (horse meat and snails, anyone?); jokes about their military performance or lack thereof (white flags for every solider and tanks that can only go in reverse); the constant rebooting of the country (we\u2019re onto the Fifth Republic now). But the one most relevant to this article is that of the L\u2019Acad\u00e9mie Fran\u00e7aise, known to the rest of us as L\u2019French Language Police.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Academy, a collection of crusty academics and snooty bureaucrats, sits pontificating in a lofty tower in the centre of Paris, dispensing dictats from on high on how the language and its grammar must be used!<\/em> \u2018At least 89.613% of any public broadcast must be in French!\u2019 \u2018Only 7.2 foreign words are allowed to be used on a billboard advert\u2019. \u2018It is illegal to call it a computer, it is an ordinateur<\/em>\u2019. Computer <\/em>is a word of the perfidious Anglais and it is NOT ALLOWED!\u2019 What power they have to actually enforce these rules (they try), and whether the world\u2019s 270 million French speakers will pay any attention to them (they don\u2019t), leads us to the purpose of this article \u2013 Who owns a language?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Lingua Franca<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Much to the annoyance of the French, after the Battle of Waterloo and the humbling of Napoleon English replaced French as the main international language. Today one of the great advantages of being a native English speaker is that no matter where you go in the world there is normally someone who understands you. However the experience of this British person is different to his American friends. In Africa, Asia and even in the USA itself I have been told I am not speaking English.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At first it does grate. \u201cHow dare you?! I AM English!\u201d What they mean of course is they don\u2019t understand my accent, or my word choices are different. It\u2019s understandable, American movies and media abound, I am prone to superfluous floridity and expression; often they\u2019ve simply had much less exposure to a British accent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So who owns English, the current lingua franca? Is it the country that birthed it, that defined its rhythms and idiosyncrasies through stories and songs, that adapted and moulded it through generation after generation? Is it the economic and cultural superpower whose media and entertainment dominate the globe? Or is it the countless billions who speak it collectively, together, a language as a common tongue that builds bridges, businesses and community? Is it even possible to \u2018own\u2019 a language? I\u2019m not sure it is. And if it is, it certainly isn\u2019t the right of the native English to define its rules.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Evolution of Language<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

This is Beowulf, written around the 10th Century: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Oft Scyld Scefing scea\u00feena \u00fereatum, monegum m\u00e6g\u00feum, meodosetla ofteah, egsode eorlas. Sy\u00f0\u00f0an \u00e6rest wear\u00f0 feasceaft funden, he \u00fe\u00e6s frofre gebad\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Understand that? I don\u2019t! That\u2019s because it\u2019s Old English.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let\u2019s jump a few hundred years to Chaucer, writing in the 1390s: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Herkneth, felawes, we thre been al ones; Lat ech of us holde up his hand til oother, And ech of us bicomen otheres brother. And we wol sleen this false traytour deeth.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I can understand that but it is a push, even for a native.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jump again, Shakespeare in 1623:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2026Then if thou hast A heart of wreak in thee, that wilt revenge Thine own particular wrongs and stop those maims Of shame seen through thy country, speed thee straight And make my misery serve thy turn. So use it That my revengeful services may prove As benefits to thee, for I will fight Against my cankered country with the spleen Of all the under under fiends.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I get it, but I\u2019m a theatre actor, I\u2019m trained to get it and even I still have to think hard sometimes. The average Brit would struggle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We see above how English has evolved, it\u2019s rules broken and remade. Shakespeare was famous for just making up new words when he couldn\u2019t find a suitable existing one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Nature of Control<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The point of this is to show how language is organic, changing over time, adapting by circumstance, affected by events. You can\u2019t control it or manage it. I find this even within my own 31 years of speaking. When I was a boy things were nice and simple, \u2018good\u2019 meant good and \u2018bad\u2019 meant bad. Then in my teenage years everything changed. Suddenly if something was described as \u2018bad\u2019 it could mean both good or bad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat\u2019s sick!\u201d, a refrain often heard when frequenting the youth. Sick means vomit, vomit is disgusting. But now apparently sick also means \u2018good\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis slaps\u201d, a common refrain among those of a Yankee persuasion. A slap is a bad thing but now also means good?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis restaurant is shit!\u201d \u2013 Bad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis restaurant is the <\/em>shit!\u201d \u2013 Good. Confused? You\u2019re not alone. I hate it. It\u2019s illogical and stupid. But trying to control it is like fighting the tide. It can\u2019t be done. Like the Apostle Paul, I\u2019d rather speak five words that can be understood by others than a thousand that can\u2019t. Language is a tool, a means to an end, that of communication.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Limited Arm of the Law<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Returning to French, it too is a global language, spoken as far afield as Tahiti, Cameroon and Quebec, cultures that have history with France but have been respectively autonomous, independent or abandoned from the Metropole long enough for language and culture to distinctly diverge. If, for example, you\u2019re a young, tech-savvy YouTuber from a completely different continent who likes gaming on Twitch, why would you listen when some old buffer poncing around in pantaloons (the Acad\u00e9mie uniform\u2026) orders that you can\u2019t be called a streamer and must instead label yourself as a \u2018joueur-animateur en direct\u2019?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The answer is you don\u2019t, you completely ignore them, as happened in 2022 when L\u2019Acad\u00e9mie spaffed out that last nonsense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBut, wait!\u201d you cry. \u201cWhat of the need to protect a language, keep alive a tongue, bequeath to the next generation, steward a culture, a tradition, its stories and songs?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well, that\u2019s a very valid argument, a worthy one too, one we sadly don\u2019t have the space to cover here. So let us discuss next time in Part 2 of Adventures of the Language Police<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stephen Bathurst is an actor, playwright and poet currently pontificating in Pirkkala. He is very pleased to have finally accomplished his mission of sourcing proper British sausages in Finland. Custard is sadly yet to be found. Follow him at strangersandexiles.net<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Written by Stephen Bathurst When one is born an Englishman there are certain expectations that are often placed upon one\u2026talking about the weather, keeping a stiff upper lip (sisu), moaning about whatever prat happens to be running the country. Of particular note, however, is an aversion to all things French. There is a lot of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-699","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tellwell.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/699","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tellwell.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tellwell.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tellwell.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tellwell.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=699"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/tellwell.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/699\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":829,"href":"https:\/\/tellwell.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/699\/revisions\/829"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tellwell.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=699"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tellwell.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=699"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tellwell.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=699"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}