Exposition on the English Language

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But it’s not only America, as previously mentioned, there are many other English dialects across the world. In fact, there are 83 countries, officially blessed with native English and another 105 that speak it as a second language. This means that there are over 849,000,000 civilians developing new, cultural interpretations of the Queen’s English. We often laugh at the significant variety of accents throughout the United Kingdom; Yorkshire, Scouse, Welsh, Cockney, West Country, to name a few. But we mustn't forget the newest form of English speech developing over time and being associated with a particular age group rather than a geographical location. Ladies and Gentlemen, I bring to you the language of the youth. Some of you may laugh, but this is a serious issue, potentially detrimental to the social progress of our younger generations. Now in order to exhibit how droll and common this form of speech is, I’ll give two examples of the same message.

Queen’s English:

“We were on our way home from school the other day, when we saw Markus and his rather attractive girlfriend, Chelsea, kissing by the bus stop.”

Now for the more modernised, youth version: (typically South London)

“We was walking ‘ome from school, yeah, when we saw Markus snoggin’ ‘is new piece of meat! She is lookin’ fit as, man!.”

Where do I start? Firstly, the sentence itself is made up of incredibly basic words, communicating the one key message, making it incredibly obscure if rearranged. But, with all credit going to an uncivilised modern influence, the youth manages to create a total dog’s breakfast. It starts off with the improper use of words such as “was”, incorrectly replacing “were”, a similar story with “snoggin” replacing “kissing” and “lookin fit as, man” replacing “rather attractive”, not to mention the word “yeah”, unnecessarily reinforcing inanimate facts. Secondly and most crucially, is the reference to Markus’ new girlfriend as “a piece of meat”. How dare the modern influence allow for such ignorance and disrespect towards the opposite sex! This is what I mean by devolution, referring to a woman as meat, like a prize, a catch, a form of sustenance, it is just beyond me. From this piece, we can not only see how sentence structure has changed, but also how the etiquette and social standards of today have altered as well.

With this in mind, it is paramount that we protect the Queen’s English for the social progress of society!