| Stop torturing the language! |
| By Lina Gavena in London |
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If you hear people criticising the kiwi way with words, take heart. Some critics, particularly new New Zealanders, say it's too nasally, too American, too packed with Aussie drawls, too busy with swear words and locally unique terms like skite.
The critic is poet Taylor Mali, and although he was born in New York, he is something of an authority on English. He studied at Oxford with hopeful Shakespearean actors, he has been an English teacher for nearly a decade, teaches language to teachers and is the author of two books of poetry. Taylor Mali asks, 'What are we doing to our language? We put question marks into our voices where no question marks exist, and we use quite the wrong words.’ On a Skype call, the amiable Taylor Mali said, 'Take for example the parenthetical interrogations like "Ya know what I am saying?" or simply "You know", which incorporate themselves into the end of absolutely non-interrogative sentences.’ Non-interrogative sentences? 'Sentences that are not questions,' he said. 'Take "How are you?" That's an interrogative sentence. We are asking a question. "The cat sat on the mat" isn't, but we often say that with the voice rising, as if we are asking if the cat really did sit on the mat. 'It makes us sound as if the things we say we are unsure about. This uncertainty of speech is becoming more and more trendy and cool.' Taylor Mali has collected together examples of the torture of the language and produced an amusing and entertaining video Taylor Mali's poem called Typography and it is played by radio show host Ronnie Bruce on the YouTube video. Mr Mali emphasises in this excellent presentation the point he made to me. 'In case you hadn't realised it, somehow it has become uncool to sound like you know what you are talking about.' He says, 'Unnecessary questions only make us look uncertain and we are no more credible and strong when we express our belief.'
Perhaps watching the video should be compulsory in NZ schools and in all schools of the English-speaking world. And it deserves a place in the homework workbook of every English-speaking student ... while they can still speak understandable English. |
The good news is that it's not just New Zealand that's at fault. It's all of the English-speaking world. And the view comes from, believe it or not, the US where the English language has been worse than waterboarded since the Pilgrims arrived in the 1600s. Yes, an American dares say we are all destroying the language.