Hi, Anton!  Recently you wrote in a message to Ardith Hinton:

AH>  I think Alexander knows I wouldn't recommend using
AH>  "ain't" or "wanna" on a grade twelve English exam... but
AH>  he's read widely enough to be aware of their existence.

AS>  He probably is, but I found his usage somehow out-of-place
AS>  in our discussion.  It jarred my ear.  Of course, that
AS>  feeling was entirely subjective, but I couldn't help it.


          Understood.  It's not the way folks generally write here.  However, I
 would like to think I've helped create an atmosphere in which they feel free
to test emerging skills & within reason to lighten up the tone when the
discussion of grammar or whatever is a bit abstruse for some members of the
audience.  ;-)



AS>  When the snobbish Pat Boone (an English major) was recording
AS>  a watered-down cover of Domino's "Ain't that a shame" he
AK>  tried actually to sing "Isn't it a shame" but the sound
AK>  engineer dissuaded him.


          Interesting.  I didn't pay much attention to him until recently, when
 Dallas & I saw a movie of JOURNEY TO THE CENTRE OF THE EARTH in which he
looked quite handsome wearing a Scottish kilt... [chuckle].

          I agree with you & the sound engineer that the dialect used in a song
 cannot... in most cases... be improved upon or translated into standard
English without losing something.  IMHO the choice of dialect has more to do
with time, place, and/or style than with the colour of a person's skin. 
Another example I noticed in a folk song book was what the writers or their
editors did with "Let My People Go".  AFAIK this song originated with slaves in
 the southeastern USA, most but not all of whom were black.  If they rhymed
"lost" with "across 't", a pronunciation used in some parts of northern
England, I can relate.  But I roll my eyes when singers etc. don't notice xxx
was meant to rhyme with yyy....  :-)



AH>  I also note with interest that our neighbours to the
AH>  south tend to shorten the spelling of words like
AH>  "cheque" and "neighbour", in an apparent attempt to
AH>  simplify the language.

AS>  Rather, it is to make those words native to English
AS>  instead of keeping them immigrants.


          I understand why they'd prefer to do things their own way.  We didn't
 have a serious Canadian dictionary until the 1970's.  Meanwhile, the
university here in Vancouver accepted both the OED & WEBSTER'S COLLEGIATE.  I
soon learned that if you wanted to know which spelling was [esp. UK] and which
was [esp. US] the latter would include this information whereas the OED
politely ignored what was happening in the colonies & ex-colonies.  Canadians
like to do things their my own way as well.  Sometimes we lean toward British
spellings, sometimes not. But I appreciate knowing which is which before making
 a final decision....  :-)



AS>  See, for example, paragraph I (The Naturalization of
AS>  Foreign Words) in the third tract by the Society for
AS>  Pure English:

AS>  http://www.gutenberg.org/files/12390/12390-h/...


          Hmm.  I reckon Smith does have a point there.  OTOH he was commenting
 on the way folks in the UK used the language in 1920, when certain accent
marks which had hitherto been chiefly abandoned were reinstated by the sort of
people who enjoy bragging about how much $$$ their daughter's music lessons
cost.  The use of accent marks in English has more generally continued to
decline....  :-)




--- timEd/386 1.10.y2k+
 * Origin: Wits' End, Vancouver CANADA (1:153/716)