Just goes to show
exactly how badly A-Level standards are slipping these days. I wonder how long it'll be before English splits into two seperate languages - Classic, spoken by those able to afford and education, and Common, spoken by everybody else (plus America)?
My guess would be within a century.
(
Kerrisis There's someone in my head, but it's not me., Sat 7 Feb 2009, 23:06,
Reply)
Psh!
Well someone didn't take A-Level statistics.
We merely know that she is taking A-level EngLang, not what grade she achieved in any past exams on the subject. Based on this evidence we can not assume that A-level standards are slipping, merely that the standards of her academic institute (assuming that she is studying and applying for the exams through one) is potentially low for accepting her despite her poor grasp of the English language or for not even vetting her whatsoever.
So nuuuurh!
(As for Classical and Vulgar; isn't Classical merely the dialect used by those who are established in the middle classes and vulgar the dialects of those who ain't? I consider old, extinct, dialects from such places as Yorkshire to be classical in that only those with a rich linguistic knowledge or history would speak them. Though, despite the contrariness of what I have just written, estuary english does suck balls and is steadily replacing other dialects around the UK and is often not just that dialect called upon in everyday conversation, but even in 'serious' correspondance such as letters to potential employers, etc. So as for your Classic vs. Common within a century thing (given that the class system continues to diminish) either everyone will accept the arguably ugly form and it will become the future English (such as Latin turning into French) or the language will split in two - the one people use in everyday life and the one you have to be educated to use (but not necessarily born into a certain class of society to use it, as that's more a shiboleth than classic vs. common, as was the case only 50 years ago*).
*Lets make all that a lot simpler: For there to be a differentiation between classical and vulgar English speakers of classical English would have to have a full everyday working understanding of vulgar English; otherwise the two are just different dialects for different groups - one speaking classical, the other vulgar.
(, Sat 7 Feb 2009, 23:37, Reply)