So I notice this article about actor Emma Thompson:
Emma Thompson says youngsters’ poor language drive her ‘insane’
And I think: Uh-oh. We may have found the precise moment at which Emma Thompson turned ‘old’. Because there’s no better marker of advanced age than when you start complaining about the language use of younger people.
“We have to reinvest, I think, in the idea of articulacy as a form of personal human freedom and power. I went to give a talk at my old school and the girls were all doing their ‘likes’ and ‘innits?’ and ‘it ain’ts’, which drives me insane. I told them, just don’t do it. Because it makes you sound stupid and you’re not stupid,” the Telegraph quoted her as telling Radio Times.
Sounds like another prescriptivist rant.
But then, because she’s a smart person, she says something smart.
“There is the necessity to have two languages – one that you use with your mates and the other that you need in any official capacity. Or you’re going to sound like a knob,” she added.
Ah, now that puts things in a different light. We can command different styles of talking, and we can switch depending on who we’re talking to. And I myself worry when a young person either doesn’t know how to use a higher register or doesn’t know when to switch into one. So that’s quite on.
But Emma Thompson is still being an old fart because
1) she’s annoyed, so everyone else has to change?
2) complaining about language is something old farts do.
5 October 2010 at 3:46 pm
I'm a teenager and I appreciated Emma's comments. I too am annoyed by the "dumbing-down" and enervation even of our every day language. Does that make me old? Emma is a person interested in clear and powerful communication, which is lessened through constant repetition of filler words such as "like". Her advice to young people is entirely true and useful.
5 October 2010 at 4:43 pm
Is language plural in Commonwealth English? Just wondering.
6 October 2010 at 4:08 am
We all have different registers that we use in different situations. And that was the good bit of Thompson's message — she recognised that there are different varieties of speaking, and if you pick the wrong one, yes, you will seem a bit of a knob.
The problem comes when we look at one register as inherently 'correct' and 'unambiguous' and the others as 'debased' and 'inarticulate'. They're not. There's nothing wrong with speaking colloquially with friends, complete with 'like'.