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Most folk who bother with the bylore at all would ayeswear that the English tung is in a bad way, but it is thought overall that we cannot by willful deed do anything about it. Our kithdom is rotten and our tung — so the ''argument'' runs — must share in the overall downfall. It follows that any struggle against the mishandling of speech is soppy yoretrothenness, like ''preferring'' candles over wirelight or horsewains over windwains. Underneath this lies the half-aware belief that speech is a wild growth and not a tool which we shape for our own ends.
 
Most folk who bother with the bylore at all would ayeswear that the English tung is in a bad way, but it is thought overall that we cannot by willful deed do anything about it. Our kithdom is rotten and our tung — so the ''argument'' runs — must share in the overall downfall. It follows that any struggle against the mishandling of speech is soppy yoretrothenness, like ''preferring'' candles over wirelight or horsewains over windwains. Underneath this lies the half-aware belief that speech is a wild growth and not a tool which we shape for our own ends.
  +
   
 
Now, it is clear that the downslide of a tung must sooner or later have rikely and geldly wherefores: it is not owing only to the input of this or that lone writer. But a therefore can become a wherefore, strengthening again the first wherefore and bringing forth the same therefore in a bolder way, and so on without end. A man may take to drink for he feels himself to be an underwinner, and then underwin all the more wholly because he drinks. It is rather the same thing that is happening to the English tung. It becomes ugly and unaright for our thoughts are silly, but the slovenliness of our tung makes it easier for us to have silly thoughts. The nub is that the ''process'' is ''reversible''. Nowa English, inso written English, is full of bad wonts which spread by aping and which can be forgone if one is willing to take the needed bother. If one gets rid of these wonts one can think more clearly, and to think clearly is a needed first step toward rikely growth anew: so that the fight against bad English is not whimsy and is not only the worry of underling writers. I will come back to this shortly, and I hope that by that time the meaning of what I have said here will have become clearer. Meanwhile, here are five ''specimens'' of the english tung as it is now wontfully written.
 
Now, it is clear that the downslide of a tung must sooner or later have rikely and geldly wherefores: it is not owing only to the input of this or that lone writer. But a therefore can become a wherefore, strengthening again the first wherefore and bringing forth the same therefore in a bolder way, and so on without end. A man may take to drink for he feels himself to be an underwinner, and then underwin all the more wholly because he drinks. It is rather the same thing that is happening to the English tung. It becomes ugly and unaright for our thoughts are silly, but the slovenliness of our tung makes it easier for us to have silly thoughts. The nub is that the ''process'' is ''reversible''. Nowa English, inso written English, is full of bad wonts which spread by aping and which can be forgone if one is willing to take the needed bother. If one gets rid of these wonts one can think more clearly, and to think clearly is a needed first step toward rikely growth anew: so that the fight against bad English is not whimsy and is not only the worry of underling writers. I will come back to this shortly, and I hope that by that time the meaning of what I have said here will have become clearer. Meanwhile, here are five ''specimens'' of the english tung as it is now wontfully written.
  +
   
 
These five writparts have not been picked out for that they are mighty namely bad -- I could have repeated far worse if I had chosen -- but for that they show sundry of the mindly ''vices'' from which we now ''suffer''. They are a little below the middle, but are fairly good ''examples''. I ''number'' them so that I can ''refer'' back to them when needed:
 
These five writparts have not been picked out for that they are mighty namely bad -- I could have repeated far worse if I had chosen -- but for that they show sundry of the mindly ''vices'' from which we now ''suffer''. They are a little below the middle, but are fairly good ''examples''. I ''number'' them so that I can ''refer'' back to them when needed:
  +
   
 
1. I am not, indeed, sure whether it is not true to say that the Milton who once seemed not unlike a seventeenth-century Shelley had not become, out of an experience ever more bitter in each year, more alien [sic] to the founder of that Jesuit sect which nothing could induce him to tolerate.
 
1. I am not, indeed, sure whether it is not true to say that the Milton who once seemed not unlike a seventeenth-century Shelley had not become, out of an experience ever more bitter in each year, more alien [sic] to the founder of that Jesuit sect which nothing could induce him to tolerate.
  +
   
 
''Professor'' Harold Laski
 
''Professor'' Harold Laski
 
(''Essay'' in Freedom of Expression )
 
(''Essay'' in Freedom of Expression )
  +
   
 
2. Above all, we cannot play ducks and drakes with a native battery of idioms which prescribes egregious collocations of vocables as the Basic put up with for tolerate , or put at a loss for bewilder .
 
2. Above all, we cannot play ducks and drakes with a native battery of idioms which prescribes egregious collocations of vocables as the Basic put up with for tolerate , or put at a loss for bewilder .
  +
   
 
''Professor'' Lancelot Hogben (Interglossia )
 
''Professor'' Lancelot Hogben (Interglossia )
  +
   
 
3. On the one side we have the free personality: by definition it is not neurotic, for it has neither conflict nor dream. Its desires, such as they are, are transparent, for they are just what institutional approval keeps in the forefront of consciousness; another institutional pattern would alter their number and intensity; there is little in them that is natural, irreducible, or culturally dangerous. But on the other side ,the social bond itself is nothing but the mutual reflection of these self-secure integrities. Recall the definition of love. Is not this the very picture of a small academic? Where is there a place in this hall of mirrors for either personality or fraternity?
 
3. On the one side we have the free personality: by definition it is not neurotic, for it has neither conflict nor dream. Its desires, such as they are, are transparent, for they are just what institutional approval keeps in the forefront of consciousness; another institutional pattern would alter their number and intensity; there is little in them that is natural, irreducible, or culturally dangerous. But on the other side ,the social bond itself is nothing but the mutual reflection of these self-secure integrities. Recall the definition of love. Is not this the very picture of a small academic? Where is there a place in this hall of mirrors for either personality or fraternity?
  +
   
 
''Essay'' on mindlore in Politics (New York )
 
''Essay'' on mindlore in Politics (New York )
  +
   
 
4. All the "best people" from the gentlemen's clubs, and all the frantic fascist captains, united in common hatred of Socialism and bestial horror at the rising tide of the mass revolutionary movement, have turned to acts of provocation, to foul incendiarism, to medieval legends of poisoned wells, to legalize their own destruction of proletarian organizations, and rouse the agitated petty-bourgeoise to chauvinistic fervor on behalf of the fight against the revolutionary way out of the crisis.
 
4. All the "best people" from the gentlemen's clubs, and all the frantic fascist captains, united in common hatred of Socialism and bestial horror at the rising tide of the mass revolutionary movement, have turned to acts of provocation, to foul incendiarism, to medieval legends of poisoned wells, to legalize their own destruction of proletarian organizations, and rouse the agitated petty-bourgeoise to chauvinistic fervor on behalf of the fight against the revolutionary way out of the crisis.
  +
   
 
''Communist'' ''pamphlet''
 
''Communist'' ''pamphlet''
  +
   
 
5. If a new spirit is to be infused into this old country, there is one thorny and contentious reform which must be tackled, and that is the humanization and galvanization of the B.B.C. Timidity here will bespeak canker and atrophy of the soul. The heart of Britain may be sound and of strong beat, for instance, but the British lion's roar at present is like that of Bottom in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream -- as gentle as any sucking dove. A virile new Britain cannot continue indefinitely to be traduced in the eyes or rather ears, of the world by the effete languors of Langham Place, brazenly masquerading as "standard English." When the Voice of Britain is heard at nine o'clock, better far and infinitely less ludicrous to hear aitches honestly dropped than the present priggish, inflated, inhibited, school-ma'amish arch braying of blameless bashful mewing maidens!
 
5. If a new spirit is to be infused into this old country, there is one thorny and contentious reform which must be tackled, and that is the humanization and galvanization of the B.B.C. Timidity here will bespeak canker and atrophy of the soul. The heart of Britain may be sound and of strong beat, for instance, but the British lion's roar at present is like that of Bottom in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream -- as gentle as any sucking dove. A virile new Britain cannot continue indefinitely to be traduced in the eyes or rather ears, of the world by the effete languors of Langham Place, brazenly masquerading as "standard English." When the Voice of Britain is heard at nine o'clock, better far and infinitely less ludicrous to hear aitches honestly dropped than the present priggish, inflated, inhibited, school-ma'amish arch braying of blameless bashful mewing maidens!
  +
   
 
''Letter'' in Tribune
 
''Letter'' in Tribune

Revision as of 13:22, 31 August 2006

Rikecraft and the English Tung

1946

Un-Anglish draft at [1]

Most folk who bother with the bylore at all would ayeswear that the English tung is in a bad way, but it is thought overall that we cannot by willful deed do anything about it. Our kithdom is rotten and our tung — so the argument runs — must share in the overall downfall. It follows that any struggle against the mishandling of speech is soppy yoretrothenness, like preferring candles over wirelight or horsewains over windwains. Underneath this lies the half-aware belief that speech is a wild growth and not a tool which we shape for our own ends.


Now, it is clear that the downslide of a tung must sooner or later have rikely and geldly wherefores: it is not owing only to the input of this or that lone writer. But a therefore can become a wherefore, strengthening again the first wherefore and bringing forth the same therefore in a bolder way, and so on without end. A man may take to drink for he feels himself to be an underwinner, and then underwin all the more wholly because he drinks. It is rather the same thing that is happening to the English tung. It becomes ugly and unaright for our thoughts are silly, but the slovenliness of our tung makes it easier for us to have silly thoughts. The nub is that the process is reversible. Nowa English, inso written English, is full of bad wonts which spread by aping and which can be forgone if one is willing to take the needed bother. If one gets rid of these wonts one can think more clearly, and to think clearly is a needed first step toward rikely growth anew: so that the fight against bad English is not whimsy and is not only the worry of underling writers. I will come back to this shortly, and I hope that by that time the meaning of what I have said here will have become clearer. Meanwhile, here are five specimens of the english tung as it is now wontfully written.


These five writparts have not been picked out for that they are mighty namely bad -- I could have repeated far worse if I had chosen -- but for that they show sundry of the mindly vices from which we now suffer. They are a little below the middle, but are fairly good examples. I number them so that I can refer back to them when needed:


  1.  I am not, indeed, sure whether it is not true to say that the Milton who once seemed not unlike a seventeenth-century Shelley had not become, out of an experience ever more bitter in each year, more alien [sic] to the founder of that Jesuit sect which nothing could induce him to tolerate.


         Professor Harold Laski
         (Essay in Freedom of Expression )


  2. Above all, we cannot play ducks and drakes with a native battery of idioms which prescribes egregious collocations of vocables as the Basic put up with for tolerate , or put at a loss for bewilder .


         Professor Lancelot Hogben (Interglossia )


  3. On the one side we have the free personality: by definition it is not neurotic, for it has neither conflict nor dream. Its desires, such as they are, are transparent, for they are just what institutional approval keeps in the forefront of consciousness; another institutional pattern would alter their number and intensity; there is little in them that is natural, irreducible, or culturally dangerous. But on the other side ,the social bond itself is nothing but the mutual reflection of these self-secure integrities. Recall the definition of love. Is not this the very picture of a small academic? Where is there a place in this hall of mirrors for either personality or fraternity?


         Essay on mindlore in Politics (New York )


  4. All the "best people" from the gentlemen's clubs, and all the frantic fascist captains, united in common hatred of Socialism and bestial horror at the rising tide of the mass revolutionary movement, have turned to acts of provocation, to foul incendiarism, to medieval legends of poisoned wells, to legalize their own destruction of proletarian organizations, and rouse the agitated petty-bourgeoise to chauvinistic fervor on behalf of the fight against the revolutionary way out of the crisis.


         Communist pamphlet


  5. If a new spirit is to be infused into this old country, there is one thorny and contentious reform which must be tackled, and that is the humanization and galvanization of the B.B.C. Timidity here will bespeak canker and atrophy of the soul. The heart of Britain may be sound and of strong beat, for instance, but the British lion's roar at present is like that of Bottom in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream -- as gentle as any sucking dove. A virile new Britain cannot continue indefinitely to be traduced in the eyes or rather ears, of the world by the effete languors of Langham Place, brazenly masquerading as "standard English." When the Voice of Britain is heard at nine o'clock, better far and infinitely less ludicrous to hear aitches honestly dropped than the present priggish, inflated, inhibited, school-ma'amish arch braying of blameless bashful mewing maidens!


         Letter in Tribune