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Commentary: Brought to you by the letter ‘R’

Posted by news | Filed under Commentary, Exclude

I’m a little in love with the English language.  I love its intricacies and idiosyncrasies that always seem to keep us guessing or present a new way of saying something just when you’ve think you’ve figured it out.  It’s a language that has evolved from so many others; we have words that originate from Latin, French, Italian and even German.  All very respectable languages that give our English a hint of sophistication, however, there is a movement creeping in that threatens to downgrade the intelligence we show when we use the language properly.  

It is the elimination of the letter R in some words.  First example, Toronto Mayor Rob Ford said earlier this week that he was not in favour of closing “liberrys” I’m sure he meant libraries and perhaps the effects of a 20 hour meeting were getting to him, but it got me thinking about other words where dropping the R just gives me the chills February and temperature to name a few.  Then there are other words that mispronounced drive me nuts — axed instead of asked and pacific instead of specific.  The thing is these mispronunciations are becoming acceptable along with all the new language of social media. 

I suppose there needs to be some evolution of language after all, we don’t speak with thee’s and thou’s anymore, however, without correction I feel we’re not doing our intelligence any justice.

To me it’s elementary … I’m Sandra Watson.

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Permalink | September 23rd, 2011

One Response to “Commentary: Brought to you by the letter ‘R’”

  1. Julie Says:
    November 9th, 2012 at 10:24 pm

    Maybe you should stop over pronouncing words. You sound like you have nothing better to do then judge others. Some people have problems with saying words. For example, my daughter is in speech therapy so she can learn to speak any words at all. She is only 2 and a half years old right now, but you have me worried that when she starts school and can’t speak just right yet that maybe one of your proper speaking children might make fun of her. You are rude. Who are you to correct people? I have read this web site and I have come across some of your errors. How about you try writing without spell check to see how well you actually do. To you it’s elementary? Are you smarter then everyone else? I bet this comment won’t make it onto the website.

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