You know the world of English… is a fun and exciting place to be… I'm so glad you could join me for another lesson.
Hi everybody, this is Misterduncan id England. How are you today? Are you OK?… I hope so! Are you happy?… I hope so! In today's lesson… we will take a glance at some examples of informal and some would say corrupted forms of English words and the language.
As we discussed in a previous lesson there are rules surrounding everything. Even the English language has its own set of rules. However it is possible to break these rules sometimes and in the case of English, these rules are broken quite often… when we use informal English. Let's look at some examples of informal English and the way it is spoken.
“I'm going out tonight”. “I'm gonna go out tonight”.
“I've got to get home soon”. “I gotta get home soon”.
You are not coming to my party”. “You ain't coming to my party”.
“You don't know me”. “You dunna know me”.
“I want to see you later”. “I wanna see you later”.
“I shan't be there”. “I shanna be there”.
“I can't go to your party”. “I canna go to your party”.
Often these changes are due to local accents or dialect and sometimes they are due to habit. As I said before in a previous lesson… the rules of English are quite flexible and clauses in both grammar and spelling are often changed.
With the growth in popularity of mobile phones and the internet… the English language has been gently tempered to fit in with these modern innovations. The speed that text or SMS messages have to be written means that some words have been abbreviated or shortened. For example… “You” becomes… “U”, “For” becomes… “4”, “Could” becomes… “cud”, “Tonight” becomes… “2nite”, “See” becomes… “C”, “At” becomes… “@”, “Dinner” becomes… “dnr”. So… we can now write on our mobiles phones… “Cud I c u 2nite 4 dnr @ 7”. “Could I see you tonight for dinner at 7?”.
Another good example of this change is the traditional use of capital letters at the beginning of sentences or nouns. These days it is common to see that capital letters are not used at either the start of a sentence… or as the first letter of a proper noun. You will see this often in commercial advertisements in magazines or even in movie and TV credits.
So clearly the English language can be altered and is constantly changing. Some people feel annoyed at this and firmly believe that the English language should not be touched or changed. However it is worth remembering that during its thousand year development the English language has undergone many drastic changes. Nowadays with new words appearing every year, it is fair to say that it will continue to alter just as the world around us is doing.
I hope you have enjoyed this lesson and will continue to have fun with English. This is Misterduncan in England saying I hope to see you again soon and I hope you can join me again for another lesson. Thanks for watching and bye bye for now.