Australians can't speak English

"The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words. If you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use the words."
--From How to Build A Universe That Won’t Fall Apart in Two Days by Philip K. Dick

Australians can’t speak English

I was brought up to speak English correctly. I could never understand why people spoke poorly. If I could speak well, then why the bloody hell can’t others? This question has vexed me all my life and now I want to explode my desperation onto paper and see if I can rouse the apathy and twist it until it rages …



I began this work many years ago and gave up in frustration. But the agony of listening to morons purporting to be English speakers inspired me to start again; this time my invective shall be explicitly interwoven into my denunciation of the sad fact that our English grammar and spelling have collapsed.

Where are the standards that governed the way we speak?

Don’t answer that! It doesn’t matter two pips about the whys and wherefores of whom is to blame. It is simply a fact of life that any idiot with a squeaky voice and a nice hairdo can walk into any radio or television station and get a job as a speaker of English.

This work is not about other languages. It is about English. It is not an attempt to push the grammar cart back to the Fifties. It is a logical attempt to drive home to imbeciles in the media that whatever nonsense they write, say or spit is heard by a modicum of intelligent people who know how to discern whether or not that which is spake is actually what is meant to be spake.

I read a headline in the SMH that told us readers that Australian troops would be ‘bought’ back home. I wrote to the now unworthy newspaper and asked if they implied some form of ‘pay back’ or ‘buy back’. You hear it every day in the media that something is bought rather than brought, as if the ‘r’ is irrelevant as long as the meaning implied is inferred.

Whoa! Step back from that minefield, sergeant! There are many who cannot differentiate between infer and imply and I think we’ll tackle that one later in the book.

Gareth Evans explained patiently to his audience that what was important was what was implied rather than what was said. That explanation was apt as far as the media were concerned. For decades the media have scorned pedantry and have gone the way of the progressives of the seventies, ignoring grammar and spelling as anachronisms of a dinosaur age.

I wish not to seek explanations for this behaviour. Suffice it is that I express my derision for those persons upon whom, somehow, the onus for our language has been entrusted.

I once called myself the Apostle of Apostrophe as I retaliated against the upsurge in miss-placed apostrophes. There they were, everywhere! None could write a plural without its becoming possessive, as if six boys could possibly become six boy’s.

My original title for the copious amount of venom I wrote about stupid pronunciation and arrogant mis-use of syntax was ‘In Arresting Leah Nuff’. I chose this title after an agonising hour or so of listening to Michael Lynagh commentating on a particular game of Rugby. Eventually I turned off the sound and watched the game with the radio blaring from another room.

Talking of sporting commentators is a bit of a paradox since we have no idea of whether they’re sporting or not. These sport commentators bring to the ears a marvellous concoction of sounds. I can imagine them sometimes, away from the game, in a situation far from sport, and their idiosyncrasies persistent in their speech as they conduct their persuasive gambits with their partners, business colleagues, or people they confront during their daily excursions through life. How do their friends handle the speech patterns? Does Jana Wendt pause after each prepositional ‘to’ while speaking to her children?

Speaking of the word ‘to’ … what a mess Australians have made of this little preposition. Formerly known as the directional preposition because it let the sentence have direction, a form of space that carried from one position to another, a vectorial impulse that connected the speaker to the listener, the word ‘to’ was not the most important in the sentence. The word ‘to’ merely conveyed a sense of direction between the subject and the object, as in ‘the boy went to the shop’. In this sentence the two nouns have relevance because of the verb ‘went’; the preposition ‘to’ is almost superfluous as the sentence really means ‘boy went shop’.

So why do we emphasise the least important word in the sentence? Because the speech people demanded that their pupils eradicate the ‘um’ factor from their speech and the way to do this was to emphasise the prepositions and the articles such as ‘a’ and ‘the’. In this way the articles assumed such prolonged emphasis that the simple ‘uh’ sound turned into the turgid ‘ay’ sound. A plate of cheese suddenly became ‘ay plate of cheese’.

But even this anomaly couldn’t get off the ground without the ums and ahs that it was supposed to eradicate. We began to watch Australians gum out awful sounds such as ‘ay uh’ and ‘ay um’ and the extremely vile ‘ayah’, as in ‘ there was aya …pause…goat in the paddock.

Oaklahoma Ch 9 news 6Mar04

Trialling a new test… ABC News Sophie Scott 10 Mar 04

Rooves
The poor old Aussie roof undergoes lexicological surgery when in company of other roofs. But no wonder; many of the other oofs take on a chemical change when pluralised … they become ooves. But not the roof; it remains an oof. You hear journalists with serious intonations tell us of how the cyclone tore off dozens of rooves from houses. They mean roofs!

Integral
The accent is on the first syllable: IN tegral. But the Yanks have persuaded us to shove the accent onto the second syllable: in TEG ral.

Saddam
You may wonder why I’m bothering about pronunciation of this coot’s name. I suppose it’s because the Iraqi elicited such extreme reactions among us all that our perception of him determined to a large extent our pronunciation of his name.
George Bush called him SA d’m. some others called him Sah DAHM.

Croats
Even the Croats are calling themselves Croatians as the tide of Australianisation with its American undercurrent washes all before it.

Serbs
Same said for the poor Serbs.

I guess
This useless phrase was ushered into Australia via the Media. No doubt about this one. It’s one of my main pillars of antagonism toward how we Aussies now speak. You had the likes of Mike Gibson and Ian Chappell with their ears hooked to America relaying this absurdity to the gullible Aussie listening public. It’s a catchy thing to say, to imitate the Yanks in their movies where I guess is uttered every eleven sentences on average. And that average includes those few who never have need to waste their words with ponderous pompous meaningless words.
To [for all prepositions]

Less fewer
This simple and logical rule has long been discarded by the less discerning of us. Less relates to quantity, such as volume or weight, while few relates to numbers, as in people, things that can be counted and not weighed or measured with a tape.
For example: There are fewer boys in the house; there is less salt in the water.
It is absurd to say that there are less people here today than yesterday. There are fewer people … etc.

More safe
Comparative and superlative adjectives are a contentious lot. It’s hard to set rules for words that sound ludicrous when ‘est’ is attached. It became so quaint that the added qualifiers more and most became required addenda. But lately, again because of American influence, the comparatives and superlatives have acquired tendencies that if continued will further reduce the colour and interest of a galaxy vocabulary.

Wait up
We Aussies certainly didn’t invent this cutey. We simply yelled: WAIT! No direction was needed. Whether up or down or inside out, it mattered not. We demanded that someone heed our plea to wait.

Listen up why not list ten up
Listen up … our kids gobbled this one up in buckets. While we satisfied our isolated Australian vocab with the simple ‘lissen’, the Yank proclivity for prepositions just had to whack on the ‘up’ word …Listen up! While I’m on this anomaly I want to briefly enquire why it is that we Aussies don’t say Liss ten. I mean, the nation is being swamped with the second ugliest word in the Aussie lexicon, off ten; so why not liss ten?

Statters status
Status [the state of one’s being] has shifted ground for statters. Why? Have you ever heard a Yank say status without saying statters or stattus? Oh we do know how to imitate, we Aussies.

Loss of aux verb

A thee
The development of the Australian lexicon owes quite a bit to the laconic nature of Australians. We muttered our words a lot as if the uttering used up more energy than was required. Thus a book was merely a book and vocalising its existence was not a world-shattering event. We would thus say ‘uh book’ and that was it. Now if you notice the way the Yanks yak you will see that they stretch their mouths and draw their voices from somewhere below their throats. You hear the women, especially West Coast women, rasping words through tight throats and muscles brittle along the neck. And they make speech a theatrical event. The Yank woman gears up to say something, tightens her throat, and in order to communicate her perception of the existence of the book emits a sound that is slightly animal, slightly witch-like: Air yeeeeee book …the ‘uh’ has been elongated into an ‘air-yeeee’ for some god-forsaken reason. And Aussie women, typically, are emulating this tight-throated almost warlike noise while replacing the soft gentle almost invisible sound of the unimportant discreet indefinite article.

Often soften
Ongoing
Outcome
Apartheid
Schedule sked dual
Growen grown

Papp pew ah Papua
We were a colonial force in PNG once. We’re still a major force in PNG. It is our nearest neighbour; closer than Kiwiland or Indonesia, and if we want to niggle a bit, even closer than Tassie [hahaha]. But for want of a reason, some of us cannot yet pronounce its name. Listen to Alex Downer will you, or Ray Warren of Nine’s Sport, if you want to know how Not to say Papua New Guinea.
It’s simple, Alex! Listen to how THEY say THEIR name and merely do your level best to copy that sound. After all, the majority of us know how to say PUP WAH NEW GINI. Not PAPP YOU ARE …

Different to [from than]
Take the number ten. Subtract two. The difference is eight. Why? Because I took two FROM ten and I was left with eight. Eight is the DIFFERENCE. There is a logical connection between difference and from. If I wish to add a number I add it TO another number to obtain a SUM. The SUM of numbers is when you add them TO one another. There is a logical connection between sum and to. There is no logical connection between difference and to. Therefore it is absurd to continually allude to differences to instead of differences from.


Present time, particular point in time
… and sundry variations of trying to identify portions of the limitless linear time continuum. We were lucky. Our isolated Australian suburban vocabulary had to be satisfied with the humble but concise word ‘now’.

Spotted saw seen
I hate to rely upon this old shibboleth but leopards and measles are spotted. Humans and animals see things with their eyes. To spot something is to mark it with a spot. A spot can also be a place. But when the past tense of a word melds into the realm of another, in other words, to acquire a distinct meaning from its present tense, then complications emerge along the delicate road of meaning.

Ay nuther
Another example of where the butterfly of etymological change has such chaotic and palpably absurd consequences.

Con stable [1475]
It has nothing to do with keeping conmen in stables. Yet it has, I suppose, in that the constable of police is charged with law and order maintenance. Constable of police [cop] is an old word, 12th century actually, which derived from the French ‘count of the stable’ or chief groom. Since then it has been pronounced ‘kun stubble’ until the Yanks got hold of it and true to their infantile method of training children to speak [ala Sesame Street].
It is NOT Kon stubble … it is Kun stubble.


Accomplish [1485]
The same argument applies to

Orientated oriented
do you wanna talk about it
I’ll be there for you
Serra moanie why not maonie for money
Candy date
Magnate magnet
Gotten
Snuck
Los vegas
Los Angelees
Too morrow
Too day
For tune
Terror tory
Occur rence
ATM machine
PIN number
At the end of the day
The bottom line
From left field
Touch down
Touch base
Kick off [to start]
Rock and hard place
Bought brought
Loan lend
Trialling testing trialling a test
Vulnerable
Mo mentum
Again against agen
Me and the boys
To my husband and I
Hung hanged
Rodeo
You gotta be happy with that
Ya gotta love it
Klu kl;ux klan
Struggle ling
Battle ling
gamble ling gambolling
soo perior
eye rahk
that’s right!
That’s exactly right
Portrait
Sunni sun eye
Mo mentum
Mo mento Pat Elsh Seven sport 8/4/06
Fatigued and tired
Up close and personal
These sort of
To – for – pause and emphasis
Teste moanie
This has to be one of my favourite
Hurry cane
Tactic tactics
Error era
Tay rahn
Formidable
Too close to call
The minister has the call
The parliament
Woo woo
Going on happening
Coming to conclusion ending
Sea change
Liserning
Listening
Excuse me? Say again?
It’s not rocket science
Hi five
Very authentic Movie Show SBS Megan 12/4/06
Quite unique
Panned out happened occurred
Soo dahm Saddam
soo perior
can we talk?
Haitch H
Guys blokes
Boot camp
Relocated moved
So …. Do you?
So… what is?between Eric and I
Gave to Eric and I
Me and Eric went to woods
Two best best two
Between among
Neither nor
Different from to
Farther further
Primate prime ate ape or priest
Kowasaki Kawasaki
He is seriously so …
We are so not having a party Home and Away Cassie 18/4/06
Hunker down bunker down
Hole up in
Fessed up…admitted
Worst nightmare
Ellec tricity
Come clean to reveal to admit
The parliament parliament
Inner rested interested
Assembly assembally
Diss tributed distributed
Autopsy post mortem
It was ay accident
Regular normal
Among between
Freferably prefer ably
National television
Tsunami soo narmy
Free mantle frerr mantle
Bought brought
Assessories accessories
Wake up call
Enviament
Magistret
Plebiscite plebisit
Marathon marath*n
Batter ries
Gotten
Con trove versy Ray Warren
Asbestoss
Amazon Amaz*n
Formidable Downer 26/5/06 E Timor
Militerry militry
On national television
Wander ful wonderful wanderworld
That’s right that’s exactly rightjog
Jakarta Yogyakarta
Slingshot shanghai catapault
Popcorn at movies
Flashlight torch
trialledf in the test Gardening Oz 3/6/06
Can I ask you a question?
Can we talk?
This program brought to you by
So …
Semettic semitic
Nearest you
This I will have you tomorrow [Today Tonight]
Yudey yono Yudhonyono
Wander wonder
Deffinately Einstein factor 2/7/06
Line ball decision
Spotted
Respiratory
Orientated ..oriented




I have returned to this subject again ….ooops! A GAYNE! I can hear Peter Sterling: ‘AGAYNE the ball has slipped out of his hands!’
The remarkable thing about listening to Ray Warren, Gus Gould, Peter Sterling and Andrew Voss on a Friday night is that the word ‘again’ changes pronunciation several times during the football match. AGAYNE becomes AGEN when dear Ray Warren stops listening to himself and speaks automatically, as if in spirited conversation with friends. He used to say AGEN all the time, until the influence of Sterlo …

What amazes me is that the sudden appearance of agayne seems to have been a home-grown something ..the Yanks generally say agen. It’s the Brits who are strongly into agayne … an Angloism that is shared by an eagerly gullible Australian protégé.

I have watched various television personalities change their pronunciation of many words. They who once said agen now say agayne and many seem to say it with a strange gusto. It has to be one of the ugliest words in the Aussie lexicon.