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Flying across Australia last night I began to wonder what I would write for the blog. Two ideas came to mind, one concerning change and the other regarding magic.
In Doreen’s recent blog we read about the demise of the English language and how the Queen’s English Society has announced it will close. This got me thinking about ‘change’ and why the English Language is in trouble.
If I think back to the 1970’s when my eldest two children were at primary school, homework with incorrect spelling was sent back without the customary corrections in red pen. As a new mum I approached the school and was told that to ‘red pen’ a child’s work would cause unnecessary suffering to the child’s self esteem. As for writing the correctly spelled word three times at the bottom of the page, positively Palaeolithic!
Nonsense I thought and hence became the spelling police. Incorrect spelling was pointed out and correct spelling was learnt. Games of spelling were played around the table and in the car. Many books were read. The end result being that the kids, (all six) are great spellers.
So when did this change happen and why? Why did some academic decide that spelling had become irrelevant? My husband works for a large multi-national and tells me, not infrequently, that many job applicants are overlooked as they cannot spell properly. In addition, it seems they cannot copy the name of the company correctly even when having the advertisement in front of them.
Change in technology has brought us computers with spell checkers and mobile phones with predictive text facilities so even more reason to forget about spelling.
Will the Queens English Society be replaced by another body that monitors text speak and defines for example, LOL.
‘Of course I know what it means,’ I said, blissfully unaware I was about to be the source of never- ending mirth.
‘Lots of love, of course,’ all the while thinking my children would be proud of me being part of their brave new world! Picking themselves up from the floor, the youngest three announced in unison that it meant, ‘Laugh Out Loud.’
So will the Queens’s English go the way of (Olde) English and technology take over?
My second idea was to write about magic.
Magic it seems was spelt differently in merry old England.
According to Google, magic was spelt Magick in 1651.
Magic when used as an adjective [attributive] means, ‘very effective in producing the desired results: confidence is the magic ingredient needed to spark recovery.’
It would be nice to think that with the aid of a little magic, by writing with confidence and spelling correctly, we could bring about a recovery and maintain the Queen’s English. However, just as Olde English succumbed to the Queen’s English, I fear today’s English will surrender to the new ‘modern’ English.
LOL – I think not!
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