Quote:
Originally Posted by SWTXBelle
There is indeed a dialect known by various titles, but you can think of it as Network Standard English.
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Perhaps the most interesting class I took in college was a dialects class. I remember the professor making the point the first day that there is no such thing as a single "correct" English dialect -- that whatever was expected and understood where you were was "correct," and whatever wasn't was "incorrect." An example: where I grew up, "pin" and "pen" were pronounced the same way (pin). If one were to say "pehn" when needing something with which to write, one might get an "excuse me," or a comeback of "look who's puttin' on airs." (If there was any chance of confusion as to whether one was referring to a pin or a pen, the later was called an "inkpen."
)
As for Network Standard English, in Britain it's called Received English.
Quote:
Originally Posted by cheerfulgreek
Like Beowulf for example. In it's original Old English language, it's like wtf?
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Well, when Beowulf was written, no one knew that William the Conqueror and his fellow Normans would invade England and make French the language of the court. Mix good old Germanic Old English with old French and you get Chaucer's Middle English.
That's what makes it almost futile to try and predict how English will change. It will change based on variables we can't really predict.
Oh, and Dunkin' Donuts' doughnuts are just plain awful.
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