What Are You Talking About?

Specifically during the past election, I would get forwarded insanely childish and partisan propaganda chain letters. One thing that I noticed on a few of them was the signature of the original author, furiously pointing out the clear, obvious injustice of having to press 1 for English. This is Amurca, durnit! Speak English! Which, at the same time, made me think of the quote, don't know by who, that says Great Britain and the US are two nations divided by a common language. I could make other references, such as uproars over Ebonics, use of the word "dude," or the great-great grandson of Francis Scott Key getting mad that the National Anthem was sang in Spanish. You get the gist.

But I was reading a blog today which had this little tidbit:

‘‘Physitions teache that there ben thre kindes of spirites,’’ wrote Bartholomew Traheron in his 1543 translation of a text on surgery, ‘‘animal, vital, and naturall. The animal spirite hath his seate in the brayne called animal, bycause it is the first instrument of the soule, which the Latins call animam.’’

Do you know how many of those words are, right as I type this, being underlined in red for their incorrect spelling? Given all the old texts we have access to (and that, in the case of English, a language that is not the oldest in the book) how in the world does someone defend their own language as being correct? A math equation, sure, I can understand someone sticking to that, but pronunciation and spelling? They're just a play on words. How can someone be so stuck as to believe that the rest of the world speaks incorrectly? Especially since they will most likely claim they're defending history and tradition, two things that language is infamous for making a mockery of. Even further, if this person believes that their way of speaking is the correct one, why aren't they using it better?

I really found the word "bycause" interesting because (ha!) it makes so much more sense than the word just in front of my parenthetical laughter. Why did something happen? By cause of... But to say something happen be cause of... makes no sense. Yet that's how it is. Lazy tongues, bad ears, and ethnocentrism have shaped language far, far more than any grammar books. The latter of those three has shaped culture far more than anything else period. Just ask the Aztecs.

We should revamp Ellis Island, we don't ask for enough. Gimme accents, slangs, slurring contractions and action. If someone doesn't speak your language, how do you know they're wrong?