=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= SFEP-ED-L Vol. 2, no. 3 19 January 1997 SFEP Editorial mailing list =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Contents: [1] Editorial FYI [3s] _Faux pas_ of the week [3aa] Long live the English Empire! [5] Bookmarks [6] Administration =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= --[1] Editorial ---------------------------------------------------- In view of the length of the debate on the "English Empire" topic, I will be putting the entire article from which last week's item was taken on the Editorial Mailing List resources page, to give contributors a chance to see the whole thing in context.---JK +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ A word from the postman: I would like to say sorry to all subscribers who, in receiving *two* copies of SFEP-ED-L 2.2 last week, were a touch annoyed. This mass-mailing was not of my doing. Compuserve obviously had a fit of enthusiasm; as I have said to some, perhaps it was a way of giving me value for money. HA! Let's hope it does not repeat itself. And whilst I'm doing a bit of explaining, I would like to clarify the question of the recipient for each issue. In order to avoid a long (150+) list of e-mail addresses in the header (which would probably be longer than the issue itself), I send each issue to one person only and a blind copy to everyone else. We can always go back to the old ways ... !---IDB --[3] FYI ---------------------------------------------------------- [3s] Date: Mon, 13 Jan 1997 From: Josephine Bacon, 100270.3224@compuserve.com Re: _Faux pas_ of the week Reply to immortality faux-pas: There is a cod genetics thesis doing the rounds among U.S. medical students which proves graphically that if your parents died, you are likely to die as well! It has graphs and everything. ----------------------- Date: Wed, 15 Jan 1997 From: Merle Read, ReadMA@aol.com Faux pas no. 1: I'm glad to see Compuserve users are getting 'proper' addresses, having recently suffered the embarrassment of sending three fairly personal emails to a complete stranger (Stefan in Stuttgart, as it turned out) whose address was one digit shorter than that of the person they were intended for. Spelling errors are a lot easier to spot than digital ones (imagine having to proofread a telephone directory!). I'm positive that it was a software bug that caused the problem as I had previously emailed my friend successfully and had not knowingly tampered with my email address book. At least when you dial a wrong number you should find out if you've made a mistake before you make an idiot of yourself ... Moral: triple check those email (& fax) numbers! Faux pas no. 2 The first piece of work I tackled after the New Year contained the following: > [the software analyses problems] just like what human > beings can do. I swear this wasn't out of a Morecambe & Wise Christmas special. +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ [3aa] Date: Mon, 13 Jan 1997 From: Philip Gardner, 100660.3664@compuserve.com Re: Long live the English Empire! > The good news for we professional pedants is that in Professor > Crystal's vision of the future, Britain will become the world > custodian of Standard English. We professional pedants would always write 'The good news for *us* professional pedants ...'. At least, I hope we would. PS I once heard a curate at my church say in his sermon 'To Richard and I's surprise ...'. Needless to say I didn't hear anything else he said, my mind being focused on this gem! ----------------------- Date: Mon, 13 Jan 1997 From: Naomi Laredo, naomi@smallprt.demon.co.uk > The good news for we professional pedants is that ... Britain will > become the world custodian of Standard English ... > > This represents a great commercial opportunity for we Brits ... and > "those apostrophes and peculiar spellings will come to matter more > than ever". I'm sorry to live up to the 'pedants' epithet, but shouldn't this read 'the good news for us' and 'a great commercial opportunity for us'? If we British editors are indeed the custodians of Standard English, we need to be clear about what we are guarding. Is the 'Standard' bit important? If so, surely grammar contributes the most to the standardization of English and to a high standard of clarity in written communication. I should think that standard grammar is more important than standard spelling. On the other hand, if the 'Standard' bit isn't important, perhaps none of it matters much at all and we can all write as we choose. (Yes, I know we're not supposed to criticise each other's use of language in this forum, but in the context of this topic I think it is relevant.) ----------------------- Date: Mon, 13 Jan 1997 From: Jane Kerr, bywater@zetnet.co.uk Philip and Naomi seem to think that they've caught me committing a grammatical gaff, when in fact - as I'm sure most of the SFEP-ED-L readers would have realised - the error is a mere typo. Of course, the offending sentence should have read "The good news for *we* professional pedants ...". I intended to introduce a small example of non-Standard English, as an ironic commentary on Professor Crystal's thesis, and also as a token of recognition to the aggrieved feelings of our Scottish contributors, who may have been offended by the nationalistic tone of the heading. OK - I admit it. It's a fair cop! [Some days later] Seriously, though, I hope that Naomi's comments about standard spelling and grammar help to open out this debate. When I'm editing, I often find that I "know what the author means", even though his or her meaning may be expressed clumsily, or downright ungrammatically, so in a sense perhaps standard spelling and grammar are not essential to comprehension. (And in my more cynical moments, I wonder why I should worry about "correct" English, when so many authors evidently don't.) On the other hand, we don't want to end up like Humpty Dumpty, where a word means "just what I choose it to mean" - that would make our job extremely difficult! ------------------------- Date: Thurs, 16 Jan 1997 From: Naomi Laredo, naomi@smallprt.demon.co.uk It was indeed my intention to provoke a debate on standard English and standards. I agree with you that it is often difficult to decide where to draw the 'correctness' line, but for 'language professionals' like us, I believe that the decision should be a conscious and considered one. Of course English is constantly developing, so we are aiming at a moving target - and yes, it does wear you down sometimes! I look forward to seeing what the others have to say. ----------------------- Date: Mon, 13 Jan 1997 From: Darlene Davidovic, davidovic@sanynet.or.jp I wouldn't get excited about booming business yet. On a global basis, it is not clear that British English is preferred. In many parts of Asia, for example, the preferred style is American English, and US-English language courses outsell British ones, as British ELT publishers know. In South America, I believe the sales battle is just now heating up. It's an extremely competitive industry, selling English language training to the locals. I discovered this while investigating this subject as part of a course I took last year. The source materials are packed in the bottom of a cardboard box somewhere, but in general were articles in The Bookseller, information from the annual 'Book Publishing in Britain', comments from publishers themselves, as well as data from other sources I can't recall at the moment. No matter what version of English is spoken, however, I agree the future at first glance seems rosy for the written form, but only if, like alcoholics, bad writers of any persuasion realize they have a problem and ask for help. They may not; just look at the Internet or most of the junk mail coming through our doors as examples. In addition, much of the English language communication in the future will be second-language speaker to second-language speaker, and articles in the spouse's ELT teaching journals suggest that these types of communicators prioritize communication goals over linguistic pedantry. ----------------------- Date: Mon, 13 Jan 1997 From: Josephine Bacon, 100270.3224@compuserve.com Reply to article re Prof. David Crystal's view of English: As a professional translator of British to American English and vice versa, I sincerely hope Prof. Crystal is right when he thinks that British English will be the dominant version, though I would like to know what proof he has. Now that Berlitz is no longer so dominant in the teaching of English, we may have a better chance, since Berlitz outside Britain teaches American English. Otherwise, the American version may predominate. As it is, I am horrified at the number of americanisms which cross the Atlantic via television ads. Words like "zit" for pimple. There ought to be a vetting committee for the wording of ads to prevent this infection. The tragedy is that EFL teachers (ESL to Americans) usually are totally unaware that they are only teaching one version of spelling, punctuation, etc., and their students are totally unaware of the difference. Only the other day, I sent a translation into English to Denmark and the agency I translated the article for complained about my "wrong" spellings, which she had put through an American English spell checker. ----------------------- Date: Wed, 15 Jan 1997 From: Jane Kerr, bywater@zetnet.co.uk > ... Berlitz outside Britain teaches American English ... the > American version may predominate. ... There ought to be a vetting > committee for the wording of ads to prevent this infection. Here's another quotation from the article about Professor Crystal's book: "...world-wide more that 70 per cent of Berlitz lessons are to teach English. English teaching is expanding rapidly to such 21st-century giants as China and Indonesia." In the light of your comments about Berlitz, this would seem to pour cold water on Professor Crystal's optimism about the role of Britain as the custodian of the English language. I should imagine that the growth of the internet and the IT revolution, which are also mentioned in the article as factors involved in the global expansion of English, would also tend to favour the American form of the language, if only because of the sheer dominance of the Americans in numerical terms. My heart shares your feelings about the "infection" of americanisms, but my head says otherwise: English has always changed (if not developed) through the import of foreign words. Indeed, as Professor Crystal puts it: "a language that in 1066 looked to be on its last legs opened itself to thousands of foreign (French and Latin) borrowings and has never since attempted codification." ----------------------- Date: Sat, 18 Jan 1997 From: Darlene Davidovic, davidovic@sanynet.or.jp Dear spouse says that, although it doesn't say so in the biographical information in Crystal's books (of which spouse has several and which I just checked), Crystal is (or has been) associated with the British Council. If I'm not mistaken, it is one of the BC's remits to spread the English language worldwide, no doubt using British English. (Correct me if I'm wrong. I don't have time to pop over to the BC web site to check.) I haven't seen the article you quoted, and the quote has no context, but it could be functioning in part as subtle PR for the BC and its activities. Not that there is necessarily anything unusual about that; all sorts of organisations get their messages into the media in all sorts of ways. The main point is that it's hard to draw conclusions from one small snippet, and like Josephine, I would also like to see some evidence. Despite the feelings on both sides of the Atlantic, increased communications (by way of Internet, telephone, international business, etc.) are expected to continue leading us to a form of 'world' English. There is at least one body researching world English; spouse says he can find a name if anyone is interested. > The tragedy is that EFL teachers (ESL to Americans) usually are > totally unaware that they are only teaching one version of spelling, > punctuation, etc., and their students are totally unaware of > the difference. I suggest care with these terms. EFL means teaching or studying English as a 'foreign' language, where the study takes place in a location in which English is not the everyday working/living language. ESL is English as a -second- language, meaning that the student needs it to work/live because it is the language in everyday use around him/her. There has always been discussion as to whether teaching materials and methods designed for ESL can be transferred in whole to EFL situations; it appears the two are very different beasts. Teaching trainers may not be making this clear to teachers, and some textbook publishers would rather produce -a- book, call it ELT (English language teaching, ignoring the differences between ESL and EFL), and sell it world-wide, appropriate or not. (We see this all the time here in Japan; I've heard teachers in Korea and Singapore and elsewhere complain of the same.) Thus teacher training courses and textbook publishers may both be contributing to the lack of awareness of other forms of spoken or written English. The good point is that people have a variety of opportunities to learn English these days; sitting in a classroom is not the only or necessarily best way. Movies, TV, conferences, e-mail, journals, etc. come to mind. > Only the other day, I sent a translation into English to Denmark > and the agency I translated the article for complained about my > "wrong" spellings, which she had put through an American > English spell checker. This would seem to be a matter of inadequate briefing by the client; they should have specified the form of English and the dictionary to be used. Also, I realise now that I wasn't clear in the last part here. Stars indicate clarifications. > No matter what version of English is spoken, however, I agree the > future at first glance seems rosy for the written form, but only > if, like alcoholics, bad writers of any persuasion realize they > have a problem and ask for help. They may not; just look at the > Internet or most of the junk mail coming through our doors as > examples. In addition, much of the English language communication > in the future will be second-language speaker to second-language > speaker, and articles in the spouse's ELT teaching journals > suggest that *****some of these***** communicators prioritize > communication goals over linguistic pedantry. *****(There are of > course those with other priorities, including linguistic perfection, > pleasing the teacher, etc.)***** --[5] Bookmarks ---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 13 Jan 1997 From: Colin Hutchens, by snail mail WATCH (Writers and their Copyright Holders): < http://www.lib.utexas.edu/Libs?HRC/WATCH > This is a searchable list of copyright holders, jointly maintained by the Universities of Texas and Reading. It contains copyright information on over 2000 authors, and is updated regularly. The database is searchable on authors' surnames, and it returns a contact name and address for copyright enquiries. [Source: _The Author_, Winter 1996, pp.145--146] ------------------ Date: Sun, 19 Jan 1997 From: Colin Hutchens, 106372.1721@compuserve.com I expect most of you know of _The Cambridge Biographical Encyclopedia_ edited by David Crystal. There is now a distillation of it entitled _The Cambridge Biographical Dictionary_ edited by Crystal with 'more than 15,000 entries for deceased and living prominent personalities. Entries, generally less than 50 words, are limited to core information ... Coverage is international in scope, emphasizing the leading English-speaking countries.' The review is from the leading academic review journal _Choice_. (I have not seen this dictionary, but I assume that since it is published by CUP it is available in the UK as well as the US.) The review goes on to say: 'As the Internet continues to grow, online sources such as _Notable Citizens of Planet Earth_ < http://www.tiac.net/users/parallax/ > which offers brief biographies of some 18,000 men and women, will probably supplant works like Crystal's.' I did have a look at the online source. The information contained is very basic. An entry always gives surname, first name, nationality, profession, and birth and death dates. For (I assume) the more famous people, some information about their achievements seems to be given. While this online resource is clearly a very basic reference tool, it may be useful for checking/finding very basic information such as spelling, first names, and birth and death dates. Do members know of other basic biographical dictionaries or biographical dictionaries that are available online (and are of good quality)? --[6] Administration ----------------------------------------------- SFEP Editorial, a private, moderated e-mail discussion list, provides the opportunity for a weekly online discussion of matters editorial. For more information on the adminstration of this list, go to the SFEP-ED-L homepage. [END OF FILE]