Fuddy Duddy Talk

It may have come to your attention that many persons of modern times are in the habit of using that great tool named language in an improper manner.  When faced with such boorishness one finds it difficult to accede to the kinder parts of our nature and not sneer with contempt at a lesser intellect.  I offer for your examination the following example, which I feel exemplifies this lamentable situation.

"I done real good."

Now, being educated individuals we all know that the proper manner of communicating in this instance is, "I did really well."  The difference grates on one.

However, we all know exactly what the original sentence means.  If language is supposed to be about effective communication then the two versions are equal in merit.

When I was being educated on how to write there was certainly a correct, and an incorrect, method of writing.  It was wrong to write "a hundred" rather than "an hundred."  You didn't end a sentence with the word, "of."  I cannot remember the last time I saw "An hundred" in modern text, and you are far more likely to see in an essay "that I was thinking of" than "of which I was thinking."

Language is changing and that change feels uncomfortable to those who were taught that there is a right and wrong way to write.  The thing is, it wasn't until the mid 18th century until there was an agreed upon way to write.  Language has changed enough that even with the advent of printed books a near translation is needed for books but 400 years old.  Here's some Shakespeare, from Hamlet;

"Marry, well bethought: 'tis told me, he hath very oft of late given private time to you; and you yourself have of your audience been most free and bounteous: If it be so, as so 'tis put on me, and that in way of caution, I must tell you, you do not understand yourself so clearly as it behoves my daughter and your honour.
What is between you?  Give me up the truth."

Then some Dickens, Great Expectations;

"All these things I saw without then knowing that I saw them, for I was in an agony of apprehension. But, beginning to perceive that the handcuffs were not for me, and that the military had so far got the better of the pie as to put it in the background, I collected a little more of my scattered wits."

I want you to imagine a person, to whom Shakespeare's english was familiar, reading that piece by Dickens.  How frightfully full of modern slang it would seem, almost incomprehensible.  This corruption of proper language is a myth that has continued unceasingly throughout history.  The very idea of, "proper" is simply a product of place and time, a piece of fashion.

I was brought up when many of the books available were from the middle of the twentieth century, and English.  The writers of the time seemed to be almost exclusively those of the upper middle-class, and therefore with a very particular voice.  C.S. Lewis is an excellent example.  Here is the beginning of his Mere Christianity, which philosophically is simply execrable, but is written in a beautifully clear prose;

I have been asked to tell you what Christians believe, and I am going to begin by telling you one thing that Christians do not need to believe. If you are a Christian you do not have to believe that all the other religions are simply wrong all through. If you are an atheist you do have to believe that the main point in all the religions of the whole world is simply one huge mistake. If you are a Christian, you are free to think that all these religions, even the queerest ones, contain at least some hint of the truth.

I have an aesthetic based on my upbringing.  I like old stone buildings without flashy colours, understated and surrounded by greenery.  I like greek statues and dutch landscapes.  I like wood and leather.  I like the look of faded empire.  I also like the words and sound of fade empire.  I am under no illusions that if I had been born in a different place and a different time my aesthetic would be quite different.  I am confident that should I have been born fifty years from now what I consider proper language would be as archaic as that of Dickens.

Still, I can't help being annoyed by improper use of the English language, and thinking someone who does so is lacking in intellect and education.  I know this is stupid.  After all, I am sure this post is littered with grammatical and spelling mistakes, but I bet you understood it.