Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Number 1 - They think they own the "English" language

In the first attack by Mr Grasse he claims that we, as a nation never use one word when two or three will do, he then goes on to outline three examples, these are:-
"Way Out" for "Exit"
"Water Closet" for "Bathroom" and
"Kill Your Speed" for "55".
Firstly "Way Out" means just that, if seen on a sign it means that this is the way out, however, "Exit" was originally a stage direction, meaning that someone was to leave the stage, therefore it is grammatically incorrect to use it in the meaning that "this is the way out".
Secondly "Water Closet" is not used in Britain any more, in fact it hasn't been used for well over fifty years (about the same amount of time that "Powder Room" ceased to be used in America) and even then it was shortened to "W.C.". In fact "Water Closet" means a toilet whereas "Bathroom" means a room with a bath, the correct (and most used) word is "Toilet" which is two letters shorter than "Bathroom" therefore it is more shortened than the American version.
The third - "Kill Your Speed" is actually an advertising campaign to try and stop people speeding in built up areas where there could be children, the full slogan is "Kill Your Speed Not A Child" when it comes to signs for speed limits we have "30" which applies to most built up areas "60" which applies to single carriageways and "70" which applies to dual carriageways and motorways (more information can be found here)

Mr Grasse then goes on to say that the roots of the English language comes from Germany and Mesopotamia, on this point he is almost correct, but then you can trace any language back to other countries and cultures, in fact if you look at the origins of the word colour (or color in America) it comes from old Latin via French, the fact that in England the spelling has changed since we first colonised America (color is the old English way of spelling it) shows that as a nation we have evolved, what does that say about America?

Lastly Mr Grasse states that the word genocide did not come into common usage until after the second world war, and that somehow it's because of some hatred of Germany that we now use it, which is - surprise surprise - incorrect, the word actually comes from Polish-born U.S. jurist Raphael Lemkin in his work "Axis Rule in Occupied Europe" from 1944. It was used in reference to Nazi extermination of Jews and literally means "killing a tribe" from Greek - genos "race, kind" and cide from Latin cida "cutter, killer, slayer". The proper formation should actually be genticide.

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