Is the English language being "dumbed down", and if so, why?

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Whilst a concern amongst some persons, but there be more important things to worry about.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

I've even gotten used to university administrators referring to the mentor/mentee relationship.

Mentee?  Really?!

Yes.  Really.  One of the flaws of those who seek to inflict erudite English upon the rest of us is a weird insistence upon keeping certain words from being fully naturalized.  Granted, given its origin, mentee is a rank backformation, but if may ment you on this subject, I think doing so is a good thing.  If only we did the same thing with spellings.  Our insistence on keeping imported spellings knocks my spine out of alignment enough to make me want to see a kiropractor. Is that a good enough example of what I mean, or do I need to show you a fotograf?

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

I've even gotten used to university administrators referring to the mentor/mentee relationship.

Mentee?  Really?!

Yes.  Really.  One of the flaws of those who seek to inflict erudite English upon the rest of us is a weird insistence upon keeping certain words from being fully naturalized.  Granted, given its origin, mentee is a rank backformation, but if may ment you on this subject, I think doing so is a good thing.  If only we did the same thing with spellings.  Our insistence on keeping imported spellings knocks my spine out of alignment enough to make me want to see a kiropractor. Is that a good enough example of what I mean, or do I need to show you a fotograf?

Now, I'm not exactly a linguistics purist, but that just makes me want to throw up.

Can I encourage your purging by suggesting that an instance of menting could be called a mento?

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

What richness the language already possesses without us having to make up silly words like "poop" (and "mentee").

  In that meaning "poop" is attested as far back to the mid 18th century and is believed to derive from the Middle English verb "poupen" meaning to make a toot when then got related to making farts and then the non-gaseous byproducts associated with that noise.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

And a far more logical spelling system than what we have now.

Ðat iz trū, but ðat iz bēkuz ðār wuz nō sistem, sō evrāþīŋ had tū bī speld fonetiklī.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

And a far more logical spelling system than what we have now.

Ðat iz trū, but ðat iz bēkuz ðār wuz nō sistem, sō evrāþīŋ had tū bī speld fonetiklī.

Wič wœd bé (ænd wuz) muč beter ðæn wut wé hav now.

If we consistently used k for /k/ then there would be no need to accent c for /tʃ/.  Conversely, we still need an orthographic distinction between w and wh since there are still dialects for which there is a distinction between them.  Indeed, the multiplicity of dialects is the biggest obstacle to a meaningful reform of English orthography.  Save for letter combinations such as  'ph' and 'ps' which we retain to keep the etymological link to words imported from Greek, practically all other simplification would eliminate a spelling distinction still useful in some dialect.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Ernest is treating the vowel sound in "because" the same way.  Maybe it's a South Carolina thing, so it's forgivable, but he is also ignoring many syllables, for example in the last word of his post, which properly has five, he shows only four.

Yup.  In my accent, the 'au' in because and cause is pronounced as a monophthong and not as a diphthong.  Similarly, I drop the useless -al- infix from many words.  'Phonetic' is already an adjective.  It doesn't need an -al added before adding the adverb suffix -ly.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

This was on Public Radio, which we assume is staffed by eggheads and grammar Nazis.  Moreover, I'm starting to hear this omission of conjunctions frequently.  Is it correct?  Is it evolution?

Evolution, and it's noticeable.

The reasons for it are perfectly understandable.  First off, English is a largely caseless language (retaining them only in pronouns), so there is no need to use a conjunction to mediate the use of cases in the dependent clause.  Secondly, context alone is usually sufficient to enable the recipient of the sentence to determine which is the dependent clause.  In the given example, "The arson suspect was also an Elvis impersonator." is clearly the object of the verb reports as from context one can easily determine that ""Haywood Jablomi reports the arson suspect" is not a dependent clause serving as the subject of the verb 'was'. Reportage is not human and thus cannot have been an Elvis impersonator.

Now in the case where context cannot determine whether NP V NP V NP should be conjugated (NP V NP) V NP or NP V (NP V NP), then a conjunction is required, but the only reason to require it when context alone would be sufficient would be to ensure that a difference in the context understood by the producer of the sentence and that understood by the recipient does not lead to ambiguity.  (Ambiguity could arise if the producer is unaware of a context the recipient might infer, or if the recipient does not have sufficient contextual knowledge to resolve the structural ambiguity via context.)  Given the target recipients (snooty NPR listeners) there was no reasonable chance of ambiguity arising in this case.

Wait wait...  I had an idea. If instead of an Elvis impersonator, the suspect had been a Kasell impersonator doing voicemail announcements for a living, then perhaps there might have been a chance of ambiguity. Perhaps the meaning would have been that the reportage would be done in the style of Carl Kasell?  The idea of Elvis Presley as a news reporter is an intriguing idea, tho.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

"relative pronoun" or conjunction?


The bread I ate was stale.

The bread that I ate was stale.


optional?  necessary?  depends upon whether any ambiguity could arise?

If it depends upon possible ambiguity, since the first sentence is unambiguous.  Is this your point?

The word 'that' can be used as a relative pronoun as in your example, but in the NPR example it would be a conjunction if it had been included.  Except when functioning as the subject of the dependent clause, dropping of the relative pronoun is acceptable in all but the most formal modes of English.  'That' is mandatory in "I ate bread that was stale." altho why not simply say "I ate stale bread."?

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

altho

I bet you also like the Drive Thru window.

Yes.  The gh digraph is a gost which serves no useful purpose in any of the major English dialects.  Its tenacity despite it being one of the lowest hanging fruits on the simplified spelling tree is enough to make one sie.  Only 'ph' is lower hanging, and people still laf to see it replaced with 'f', It's as if there is a ingrained fisical resistance to simplifying spelling, tho I suspect it is sykological in nature.  (Changes such as nature -> nachur are too ambitious to try for now.)

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

'Close' happens to be one of those adjectives where the '-ly' suffix to make it an adverb is optional, especially when used with the verb 'follow', so that's a stylistic quibble, not a grammatical one.  If you prefer a morphological distinction between adjectives and adverbs, then clear you would prefer closely.  The ALL CAPS were likely used to improve legibility rather than indicate shouting.

However, the lack of a question mark is a clear error. Indeed, it appears that the error has been spotted and corrected since I found it for sale with the correct punctuation.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Preamble 2.0

We, the people of the United States, will do the following. We will improve the union. We will establish justice.  We will ensure domestic peace. We will provide for the common defense. We will promote the common well-being. We will secure the benefits of liberty for ourselves and those who come after us. In order to achieve these tasks, we wrote and enacted this Constitution for the United States of America.