The English Academy

The QES should first tell us which Queen they're talking about. Queen of Papua New Guinea, Queen of Jamaica, Queen of New Zealand? Elizabeth II is Head of State in those and in 13 others and they all speak different varieties of the language.

I don't know much about the activities and the aims of the Queen's English Society. But at least in the interview I don't see much to criticize.

It starts off worryingly with references to local dialects and accents, and oddly describes Queen's English as the 'accent' chosen for SatNav. But aside from 'a criteria', all the errors subsequently referred to fall squarely within the realm of written English. Heterorthographic homophones are purely a problem of written English, and no one would make the error of dropping the l from 'public' when speaking.

'A criteria' excepted, there is little in the interview to suggest that Bernard Lamb is opposed to language change itself. He wants a common written standard shared by English speakers, which seems sensible enough. He also seems to want a spoken standard English for formal situations, which would basically mean advocating a diglossic situation for dialects that diverge greatly from the written standard. You may disagree with this, but it is not an especially reactionary viewpoint.

A language academy need not necessarily be ultra-conservative. The National Institute of the Korean Language has periodically revised the official spellings of certain words to reflect changes in pronunciation (e.g. gangnamkong became gangnangkong in a 1980s orthographic revision), with a cumulative effect that standard written Korean has changed more in the space of a few decades than written English has changed in the past couple of centuries. These adjustments keep the written language reasonably close to the spoken one as the latter evolves; what the Institute decides is when new forms are pervasive enough and representative enough of all the dialects to be accepted in standard usage. Some of the other things the Institute does like attempts at language purification are of questionable merit, but it also does worthwhile things like compiling linguistic corpi.

Now the real question: do we really need a language academy to promote good usage and orthography in English? English is already quite standardized, mainly due to dictionaries. Dictionary editors already play the role that a language academy might play for languages with a more recent history of standardization.

@jlawler: Linguists might not use the term 'grammar' for orthographical rules such as those involving punctuation, but for many non-specialists grammar includes punctuation.

The purpose of language is to communicate effectively. The existence of standard spellings and grammar rules are to help with this. Where such rules succeed, they should be welcomed and promoted and places where rules hinder effective communication, will be gotten rid of in the natural evolution of a language.

"We don't, of course, disagree at all with the notion that good English is important and should be striven for."

Does 'good English' mean (a variety of) standard English?

@jlawler
I don't know, burying censors in the road may be a very good idea indeed!

Oscar(1991)
Connie: Even in the old days he was known as an honest crook.
Dr. Thornton Poole: That's an oxymoron.
Connie: Gee, you shouldn't oughta said that, Doc.
Snaps: Yeah, leave Connie alone. He does the best he can.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102603/quotes

Is anyone else amused that a geneticist is leading the charge to preserve The Queen's English in amber?

If we had followed this logical trail historically, we'd all still be speaking some sort of Proto-English from AD 100 (with neologisms to account for Wii-inflicted injuries, of course).

Re QES not being elitist, well, methinks they dost protest too much...

Well, he seems to believe punctuation is part of grammar, which is disappointing at best. And the only substantive problems discussed in the interview are "a criteria", "buried censors in the road", and 'they omitted the “l” from “public”'. For this we need an Academy?

There are better uses for it, for instance http://www.umich.edu/~jlawler/aue/academy.html

Well, as long as I know where they stand and where you stand.