English Grammar in the classical sense (from its Anglo-Saxon, French, Greek and Latin roots) is no longer taught in British schools. A reduced sub-set of grammar taught in the Fifties and Sixties Grammar Schools is now offered in a diluted mixture of phonetics and colloquial or regional English.

This undermines the older methods which taught that we do not write as we speak in order to communicate clearly with others.

Moreover, commercial media, along with the rise of text-speak and internet fora now popularise slang-English, reinforcing the view that correct grammar is 'elitist' and is therefore to be deprecated. This view of 'elitism' was strong enough to bring about the collapse of the Grammar School structure in Britain, its last gasp was in the early 1960's: Grammar schools were 'divisive.'

Written English grammar is further eroded by internationalism; the adding of an E to 'whiskey', and the use of the singular 'forum' when referring to plural 'fora' for instance. This erodes the spoken language of the younger culture and becomes normative as people transfer into adult-hood where it appears in written form. Nouns become verbs; '(Google it'), ordering meals in restaurants become statements of solipsism: ('I'll have a steak') instead of requests ('May I have a steak?'), and so on.

This de-formalising of grammar is erosive; taken to extremes it bcms txt-spk, with a resulting loss of the ability of vocabulary to carry full meaning through commonly understood structures of grammar and syntax.

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'Third Party' refers to a person or persons who were/are not a direct part of the transaction or relationship, it is used ambiguously in the BBC report in an unthinking colloquially-popular sense, which, in the written word, generally serves only to reduce understanding and vocabulary. News-speak though, aims to communicate swiftly in few words. It often produces howlers: 'Stolen picture found by tree.'

Does the dilution of written language and grammar matter? If you ask for a 'whiskey', you are asking for an American or Irish drink, if you want a Scotch, you want a 'whisky'. This may be important to some, as American visitors to Scotland may wish to note, and Scots visitors to Tennessee may wish to explore.

You're welcome. Don't let me give the impression that 'internationalism' is a negative quality; vocabulary - as distinct from grammar, is usually extended by international contact.

I like 'another person' locked him in the luggage bag, which is what the BBC reporter wrote halfway down the column. The coroner's inquiry is being sucked into unreasonable depths in which nonsense is being treated with undue respect.


Lawrence