Think before speaking and writing
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Re: "The dangers of listening to language pedants," Letters, October 1.
An international language such as English allows its speakers and writers to communicate intelligibly globally because of its established grammatical base. As with most things that are shared, a common datum is essential.
The writer asserts, “The spoken word has no spelling at all.” Really? The spelling in the spoken word is called pronunciation. This is vital to communication and the first step to learning English or any other language. In spoken English, the apostrophe is indeed heard, as in “could ’ave”. Sloppy pronunciation becomes, “could of”. Grammar is as vital to the spoken word as it is to the written form.
In my previous letter to which the writer refers, there was no mention of spelling, which is of lesser importance than syntax, grammar and punctuation.
Comparing a language to a river is in order to some extent. Both develop and change over time, but the principle of a river is moving water. That does not change – just as the principles of clear English do not change. Having said that, a river flows downwards, rather like the English language would do were the shackles of the rulebooks cast aside.
There used to be another golden rule imparted by good English teachers: “Think before speaking and writing.”
JC Wilcox
