Second post of my first ever blog.  A little late in the evening on Tuesday night.  I'm hoping to learn to be on top of my work in a more efficient manor.  This week I was supposed to read these different articles 3 in total and post about 5 major points that I read.  I apologize in advance if I am not responding correctly.

First major point comes from after reading A Brief History of English.  In all honesty I got only one message the whole way through.  English is a constantly breathing and changing life force much like any living organism.  Since the origins of the Language it has been as diverse as the people who probably spoke it.  Like many Americans today the heritage is a complicated blend of many different nationalities into one.  Appropriate then Americans speak English.

The second essay Good English and Bad, covers the idea of grammar.  More specifically English grammar based on Latin rules.  Therefore the rules of Latin do not always fit the rules of English because the syntax and construction of sentences, words and phrases do not mix.  I understand the point the author is trying to make but the only response I have is, for lack of more professional sounding words, no duh. Latin rules would only work for Latin and because in the aforementioned essay we learned that English is not based solely on Latin why do we not look at grammatical structures of other languages such as French or German to simplify our complicated grammar rules.


Another good point Bill Bryson makes in the essay is the "who says" point.  He notes there are no official guardians allowing certain usages of words.  By this point in my blog I am sure I've made several grammatical errors I just have not caught them yet or maybe its just because I am ignorant to them.  The point however is not their existences but their enforcement.  The rules of proper grammar seem to correlate with whoever the major literary factors are and their opinions at the time rather than a single entity. Which in turn keeps the rules of grammar constantly changing just as the English language does.

"That so cray," or "She cray cray" is the newest term my kids seems to be throwing around (note by kids I mean my residents on my floor.  I call them my kids).  Slang terms are addressed in Paul Dickson's essay "it Ain't No Big Thing.  There is a point made that slang is needed in language and particularly in American language there are over 35,000 words.  Without slang there would be no distinguishes between the proper language and the improper.  At the same time grammatical slicks will fight the use of slang because it is informal and improper.  At the same time it can define a specific culture or region without itself being defined.


For my last point of the night will be addressing Dickson's points about slang today.  Previously slang was born out of conflict, but with today's new age in technology slang travels incredibly fast through technology and especially television.  He points out two different yet simple keys when creating new slang.  One is reaching a number of people and the second key is those people hearing what is being said.  On TV or through social media tools i.e. Facebook, millions of impressionable minds can be reached in seconds.  All someone needs now is a line.  Just one simple line to stick in the heads of millions of people and carried into causal conversation from then out.  May I suggest the example of Charlie Sheen's "Winning" one liner.  


I think by this point I have exhausted more than my fair share of your time so I bid the goodnight and sweet dreams.