Should I give up trying? (From Bucks Free Press)

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The perfect wife and mother, Rebecca runs a home, a village magazine and is working on her novel. She does not visit the gym or jog but is in amazingly good shape. She enjoys photography, playing the piano and arguing with the TV. She lives in Amersham with her husband and youngest child (aged nine). Her eldest, now 26, lives and works in Buckinghamshire.

English as a Foreign Language

9:50am Monday 22nd March 2010

By Rebecca »

English is my mother tongue. But listening to the radio and TV recently has me agog at the language’s twists and turns.

My last visit to Tesco confirmed one of two theories of mine. Either:
a) Graphic designers are being given free reign over labels or

b) No one knows anything any more.

What was it that caused me such distress? Scott’s Porage oats. It doesn’t take much to have my hair roots feeling prickly with rage and my eyes bulging in disbelief – no wonder I’m a solitary creature.

I buy porridge and it’s been porridge since I was a girl. Is 'porage' more French – seems we’re meant to hail anything vaguely French here? Or is it – as I suspect – some new way of catching the consumer’s eye?

”Incidentally when I typed in ‘Scott’s porage oats’, even my search engine, tactfully asked me, ‘Did you mean Scott’s porridge oats?’”

‘Oh look Gavin, porage. Must be what the French have for breakfast. Shall we try it?’

Incidentally when I typed in ‘Scott’s porage oats’, even my search engine, tactfully asked me, ‘Did you mean Scott’s porridge oats?’

The worst of it is it’s everywhere. Sadly I listen to Magic 105.4 a lot. There’s a newsreader on during the day who I think with many other broadcasters has invented a speech defect. Every hour, on the hour she says she’s in the 'Magic Newsshroom'.

This isn’t a slur on anyone with speech difficulties. This is a slur on pretentious new enunciation and tricks to make listeners sit up and listen; after all they’ve tried everything else.

There are new accents on TV which aren’t regional but cross-border even cross continent and I can’t understand a thing.

There’s a chap on CBBC who appears in between programmes who at the beginning of the year said, ‘Goodbye two ffousanannine’. He’s vaguely Scottish (perhaps he's eaten too much porage – ah, no one thought there’d be side effects) but I think he’s worked hard on something new which no one can identify. A bit cockney? A bit interesting? No, just wholly irritating.

Then there are chefs. Oh, lord TV chefs. If it’s not Nigella Lawson flashing her teeth while cooking (can you please stop doing that Nigella?) it’s Jamie Oliver grabbing a dish for his kiwi and spinach timbale or whatever saying, ‘Now we’re just gonna plate it up’.

Or there’s the rest of them talking about frying the onions off. Off? Off what? You fry food and serve it up on a plate. ‘Plate’ isn’t a verb.

“Is it really people’s inability to speak/spell properly or the new subliminal tricks to get us to notice things? I think the latter.”

I can cope with regional accents though I remember once being in Wakefield, Yorkshire and having to call a taxi. Whatever the chap on the other end of the phone asked me, I couldn’t tell even after asking him to repeat it three times. He was becoming offended and out of shame, I hung up and went by bus I think. I saw that as my failing.

I can stand curious dialects and colourful expressions and the language evolving gradually but I cannot tolerate trends and fads and invented language. Shakespeare did it, you’ll argue. I argue that he was unique.

We still use his innovations five hundred years on. What isn’t happening today is society adopting these new idiotic language landfills. No one seems to be using the same ones: everyone's creating their own and not sharing them. There should be rules. Reduce, re-use, re-cycle the language.

Is it really people’s inability to speak/spell properly or the new subliminal tricks to get us to notice things? I think the latter.

I think of the prevalent lisps in the 17th century and the sort of warped young people’s take on funk-speak as epitomised by Catherin Tate. Today it’s America. We can think of nothing better. I’m disappointed.

Going back to the 'porage' – some interesting comments appear on a related site. Apparently 'porage' isn’t new. The OED cites usage going back five hundred years. It’s still intolerable. Faddy.

Unless we go the whole hog and introduce all other olde spellings. (‘My howse hath a hole in the rooffe...’ or ‘His wife is an oat shorte of a bowle of porage...’) Some intellectual is welcome to correct my poor olde English: I only learned the new type.

“If this is another symptom of dumbing down, it’s working”

Two more things before I go. Not everybody’s as good as they think they are. So when I ask, ‘How are you?’ DO NOT respond, ‘I’m good.’ I may break out in a rash of horrendous angry boils or something; or worse cast a spell of boils on you ‘good’ people. Unless you are a truly good person. Then again is that the sort of thing you'd drop into a casual conversation?

So someone might ask me, 'Have you seen the new tops in Primark?' and I'd answer, 'I have everything I need. I'm solvent and live off my savings.' Something like that anyway.

Secondly, there’s an overuse of the word 'absolutely’. It doesn’t mean ‘yes’. People are using it all over the flipping place. ‘So you enjoyed your trip?’ ‘Absolutely.’ ‘Will you be going back?’ ‘Absolutely’. ‘Have you enough money for a bottle of ginger beer?’ ‘Absolutely.’

Can we please call an end to attention-grabbing trends and just make ourselves understood? If this is another symptom of dumbing down, it’s working: it makes me feel dumb and other people sound it. One nation divided by a once splendid language.

The worst of it is that it's catching. You end up copying (human nature I think). My parting thought? ‘Two ffousananten’s gonna be absolulutely a newsshworthy yeeaauurrr...’

Comments(48)

motco says...
10:26am Mon 22 Mar 10

I generally agree with you Rebecca although 'porage' was the spelling on Scott's boxes even when I was a child - a while back I must say. What I find annoying is weather forecasters trying to be Jack-the Lads (or laddettes) and becoming 'personalities' at the expense of audibility and intelligibility, and (mainly) the female ones pronouncing long 'O' as in 'tube' as if it were a long 'E' - 'cheebe'. They sound as if they have an inane grin on their faces all the time. Even the traffic announcers speak of 'The Old Kent Rade'. Is it a result of seeing too many Australian soaps in their youth, I wonder?