Saturday, December 19, 2020

You know, the Mathers, father and son, Increase and Cotton, visited London in the 1680's or '90's, about the time, or a little after, that the English were having a Glorious Revolution--and had a good time.

They were not looked down upon, nor thought ignorant or uncouth Americans, by sophisticated  Londoner's of the day. Far from it. In fact, being certified graduates of Harvard Divinity School, and being themselves, in that sense, Divines, the Mathers were welcomed, and entreated to preach (the blood sport of Restoration England) in the finest high-church, Anglican-rite churches in town. Which they did, and did not disgrace themselves. And nobody said, "You talk funny," or "You sound like Americans." Because everybody who spoke English in those days  talked like Harvard Divinity School graduates.

Of dialectal differences, or devolution, of course ¿who can judge? But, Sweetie, you've lost tenses, and modalities, and the nice hesitancy of the subjunctive--as well as having bereft yourself of too, too many past participles. Global Pidgin is what you've become...Lingua Franca. Which, I would think, a language, which so intransigently insists on being true to its own quirky Norse/Saxon/Celtic self, were not really well apt to grow into, and maybe never could, or would.

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