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From: rcd@opus.UUCP (Dick Dunn)
Newsgroups: net.nlang
Subject: Re: (English)
Message-ID: <250@opus.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 18-Nov-85 03:55:02 EST
Article-I.D.: opus.250
Posted: Mon Nov 18 03:55:02 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 20-Nov-85 07:42:31 EST
References: <36@diku.UUCP> <40@diku.UUCP> <797@inset.UUCP>
Organization: NBI,Inc, Boulder CO
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[Moved from net.internat]
> PROPSITION: Americans, in the large, not only cannot speak English,
> 	they can't even *understand* it.

Choosing terms a bit more carefully, one might say that Americans, by and
large, speak a variety of dialects of English which are sufficiently
different from any of the dialects of English in use in the British Isles
that it may be different for a native speaker of one group to understand a
native speaker of the other group.

"English" is a word with different uses.  It may occasionally be used to
refer to the dialects native to certain parts of Britain, but it is more
generally used to refer to the language spoken in the USA, Canada,
Australia, England (whence the name), etc.  The distinction is much the
same as the distinctions around the use of "Spanish" as the language of
Spain vs. the language also spoken in Mexico and a large part of Central
and South America.  Only an uninformed (or more likely, parochial)
viewpoint will insist that English (resp. Spanish) is properly defined as
the language of England (Spain).

Americans (meaning here, residents of the United States, lest I be labeled
careless for this) speak various dialects of English.  They understand one
another.  Therefore, the stated proposition is patently false.

> SUPPORTING EVIDENCE: Whenever I go there, I have to drop into Standard
> English (restricted vocabulary of 1500 words, no idiomatic use), and use
> Received Pronunciation (special attention paid to stress points, word endings;
> standardised vowel sounds), if I want to be understood.

Speech is a form of communication.  Communication succeeds only when
transmitting and receiving entities agree on communication protocol.
Failure to communicate may lie with transmitter, receiver, or simply
failure to agree on protocol.  You, as transmitter, seem to want to blame
the receiver for protocol problems...again, this is a parochial view.  Since
we in the United States have fewer problems, perhaps it is your own
inability to communicate which is the problem?  We work from a much larger
vocabulary than 1500 words, of course.  (Is Standard English in some wise
comparable to what we know as Basic English(c)?)

Restriction in vocabulary is only one of many ways to increase the
reliability of communication.  It is also possible to speak and listen in
different dialects.  If you will agree not to be condescending, but to be
attentive instead, we may use words such as "biscuit", "circus",  and "boot"
(to name a few well-known examples) in the senses we each understand them.
I will not be taken aback to hear of a biscuit coated with chocolate if you
are not offended at the idea of biscuits and gravy.

Care in pronunciation and restraint in the use of idioms is only common
sense when an obvious difference in culture/dialect exists.  Small gaps can
be bridged; for example, I understood you when you used "in the large"
above, even though that phrase has a rather different meaning here.  In the
US we would be more likely to use "by and large" as I did in a later
paragraph.  (Incidentally, the etymology of "by and large" is interesting.)

> I find that use
> of normal spoken English results in incessant requests from U.S. native
> citizens for me to slow down and repeat things; occasionally blank
> gazes make me realise that I am just not being uderstood at all.

Then if, as we might say, "everyone is out of step but [you]", perhaps you
should make some effort to improve your ability to speak English in order
to be understood in the English-speaking world...if you fare badly in the
USA, I doubt that you will be much better received in Canada.

> Interestingly, Australians have no trouble whatsoever with English English.
> We, of course, have trouble understanding them :-)

(Perhaps Australians are more cosmopolitan, hence understand a wider
variety of speech?:-)
Australian accent ("accent" is relative; spare the flames) is close to that
of some "working class" British.  (I once asked for someone to try to
illustrate Cockney.  Pushing aside the incredibly idiomatic usage, it
reminded me of a hurried Australian, to an extent that Australians might
find embarrassing--the origins of their white population notwithstanding!)
-- 
Dick Dunn	{hao,ucbvax,allegra}!nbires!rcd		(303)444-5710 x3086
   ...If you get confused just listen to the music play...