On Thu, 05 Mar 2009 09:18:48 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

Bob Mannix wrote:

Regioanl accents and vocabulary OTOH are one of the things that make the
nation interesting. Vive la difference! (as the continentals might say... or
is it "le"?).

Agreed, that 'standard English' might be a moving target, but that is
not an argument for no standards at all.

The advantage to a 'standard' is that everyone can learn it, but it does
need to be adequate for all puposes - think Times rather than Sun. With too
many and extreme examples there's a risk of incomprehensibility amongst the
majority.

ISTR that, possibly in the '70s, there was a requirement to be able to
speak English to be considered for the Indian cricket team; it would have
been possible to have around 20 languages in 1 team - and none of them
understood by any other team in Test cricket.
--
Peter.
You don't understand Newton's Third Law of Motion?
It's not rocket science, you know.