Devaluation of the American Language--Sad

The language that one learns in his/her youth is that which is "correct"--mainly, as that is what one speaks/writes. As time passes dimwits, idolaters, innovators and linguists bugger-up one's cherished mode of oral/written communication.



Being born in the '30's, raised in the 40's and Tertiaried in the 50's I had a fine grasp of American english (Mrs York, my 9th grade english teacher made sure of that). Though raised in the South, my pronunciation of most words couldn't be faulted. In the 60's, I departed the land of the grand old flag for the land of koalas, kangaroos, billabongs, and Foster's.



With my egress, unfortunately the preservation of 'proper' pronunciation and usage of American english hit the skids and redneckazation surged to the fore. One may ask, 'what do you mean'?

I respond--in the late 1940's, after the war, truck transport became important in the recovery and expansion of the economy and the semi-trailer, a relatively rare vehicle, became a dominant form of the transport of goods--the drivers of which were 'good ole boys', who were damned good truckers; however, their form of the spoken word left much to be desired.

Many were of the rural persuasion where the three R's were of low priority. I reckon that when posed with a newish word in the written form, many letters were pronounced in their basic form, particularly vowels. When presented with the word 'semi-trailer', out of ignorance, the letter i
in semi, was, unfortunately, pronounced semEYE-trailer instead of the then existing semEE-trailer. This subsequently was shortened to "I drive a semEYE" (part of a convoy no doubt).

Compounding this tragedy, essentially all words beginning with semi have been bastardised i.e.
semEYE-circle, semEYE-colon. The disease has spread, so that the prefix quasi has become quAsEYE and multi to multEYE. AARRGH!!! and pitui.

As if the above was not enough, There is the word with a cotton field/inarticulate sportscaster pronunciation, D-fence which once was defence. Just think of that arm of U.S. Government, the D-partment of D-fence. Deity save us all.

Have a nice day, already.

AC