Sunday, February 26, 2006

People insufficiently well read, insufficiently educated or lacking in intelligence, avoid Standard English to escape the controls which language imposes. For me though and ideally, the goal is always for speaker, writer to exercise control rather than the Standards of the language.

The Standard controls when the writer or speaker barely knows the language, but when the user knows the language well, it is the user who is in control and is not subjugated.

Language we write and speak, in our case English, must do what we want it to do rather than our having to do what it wants us to do.

English is my tool, my instrument. I am wielding it, as at present. When one has, through use, education and reading, overcome the language which is either his or that language with which he is confronted, English in our case, it is no longer the master. Instead the user is master of language, of English.

When such a one writes or speaks, he writes or speaks, not in Standard English, not with some generic tongue, instead the language written, spoken is his very own, as is what I have written here.

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