Trying to Standardize American English

 

            English had gotten the impulse it needed to dominate regions all throughout the world. The problem now was completely different. Although general English was spoken in many portions of the world, the dialects spoken were very different among them. The pronunciation was one of the main issues since inhabitants of a certain region would pronounce a world very differently than others. It is impressive to observe how this lack of regulation created ambiguity on which was the correct way to say a word or even to write it. From a prescriptivist point of view, this is terrible. Therefore, Mr. Webster decided to take the initiative to construct one of the first mediums to standardize English. The narrator says that “the dictionary was an attempt to straighten out idiomatic English pronunciation” (The Story of English). This attempted to solve the dialect issue and certainly helped to establish a “right way” of pronouncing words.

            However, there was still lots of diversity with regards to terms being used by people from different regions. For example, in the 1900s, the narrator depicts that “spending was so much a part of frontier life now that many Americans did not just say yes, they said you bet” (The Story of English). I was surprised to realize that all these new terms came from betting games such as poker. This slight difference did not seem too bad for me at first. But, think about all the differences that there are. When combining them, you nearly form other languages within the English language. I can relate to this, since I was taught the traditional usage of the English language. Therefore, when I go to cities in the Middle West region of the United States or to the deep south of the country, I can barely understand some of the terms they use and their pronunciation. I believe differences in a language are very important since they are what distinguish certain regions from one another and are part of their identity. Nevertheless, it is crucial to standardize the language and have an accurate and precise regulation of the language for those people who wish to learn the language and are not part of one of those regions.