From Brendan O’Neill, writing in Spiked:
When people doll up declining linguistic standards as ‘cultural diversity’, they’re really making a virtue out of dumbness, turning illiteracy into just a variant form of literacy. Some say we shouldn’t look down our noses at the urban patois now spoken by British youth, especially black youth and ‘chavs’, nor sneer at the ‘variant spelling’ and ‘academic differences’ such patois allegedly gives rise to. But this is doubly insulting. It is insulting to assume that young people, especially poor young people, are incapable of mastering standard language, of conquering English and all its glorious complications, and so instead must be allowed to write ‘potatoe’ instead of ‘potato’. The real driving force here is the education establishment’s unwillingness to uphold standards, and its utter lack of faith in the academic capabilities of youth. The elite’s low expectations of the young are dressed up as ‘celebrating linguistic diversity’.
[I would add that, in the U.S. at least, the "unwillingness to uphold standards" is in large part a defensive crouch in the face of lawsuits, demonstrations and screams of raaaciiism from various agitators.]
The reason civilizations developed organized language in the first place was so that everyone could communicate easily and efficiently. That dependable communication in turn helps knit together a functioning society. Without it, chaos ensues.
(Image Credit: The Rut)
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