Hi, Anton! Recently you wrote in a message to Ardith Hinton:
I think Alexander knows I wouldn't recommend using
"ain't" or "wanna" on a grade twelve English exam... but
he's read widely enough to be aware of their existence.
He probably is, but I found his usage somehow out-of-place
in our discussion. It jarred my ear. Of course, that
feeling was entirely subjective, but I couldn't help it.
Understood. It's not the way folks generally write here. However, I
would like to think I've helped create an atmosphere in which they feel free to test emerging skills & within reason to lighten up the tone when the discussion of grammar or whatever is a bit abstruse for some members of the audience. ;-)
When the snobbish Pat Boone (an English major) was recording
a watered-down cover of Domino's "Ain't that a shame" he
tried actually to sing "Isn't it a shame" but the sound
engineer dissuaded him.
Interesting. I didn't pay much attention to him until recently, when
Dallas & I saw a movie of JOURNEY TO THE CENTRE OF THE EARTH in which he looked quite handsome wearing a Scottish kilt... [chuckle].
I agree with you & the sound engineer that the dialect used in a song
cannot... in most cases... be improved upon or translated into standard English without losing something. IMHO the choice of dialect has more to do with time, place, and/or style than with the colour of a person's skin. Another example I noticed in a folk song book was what the writers or their editors did with "Let My People Go". AFAIK this song originated with slaves in
the southeastern USA, most but not all of whom were black. If they rhymed "lost" with "across 't", a pronunciation used in some parts of northern England, I can relate. But I roll my eyes when singers etc. don't notice xxx was meant to rhyme with yyy.... :-)
I also note with interest that our neighbours to the
south tend to shorten the spelling of words like
"cheque" and "neighbour", in an apparent attempt to
simplify the language.
Rather, it is to make those words native to English
instead of keeping them immigrants.
I understand why they'd prefer to do things their own way. We didn't
have a serious Canadian dictionary until the 1970's. Meanwhile, the university here in Vancouver accepted both the OED & WEBSTER'S COLLEGIATE. I soon learned that if you wanted to know which spelling was [esp. UK] and which was [esp. US] the latter would include this information whereas the OED politely ignored what was happening in the colonies & ex-colonies. Canadians like to do things their my own way as well. Sometimes we lean toward British spellings, sometimes not. But I appreciate knowing which is which before making
a final decision.... :-)
See, for example, paragraph I (The Naturalization of
Foreign Words) in the third tract by the Society for
Pure English:
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/12390/12390-h/12390-h.htm
Hmm. I reckon Smith does have a point there. OTOH he was commenting
on the way folks in the UK used the language in 1920, when certain accent marks which had hitherto been chiefly abandoned were reinstated by the sort of people who enjoy bragging about how much $$$ their daughter's music lessons cost. The use of accent marks in English has more generally continued to decline.... :-)
--- timEd/386 1.10.y2k+
* Origin: Wits' End, Vancouver CANADA (1:153/716)