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Welsh, for example. I cannot understand a single word those people say.
Or Scottish. Remember those guys from the coalition who wandered from Iraq into Iran a few years ago and were held as spies? Well, the guy in charge was a Scotsman, and the story is that when the Iranians were trying to interrogate them, in English, they became so frustrated trying to understand him that they went to the second in command, who I think was an American, and asked if they could speak to him instead.
Or Scottish. Remember those guys from the coalition who wandered from Iraq into Iran a few years ago and were held as spies? Well, the guy in charge was a Scotsman, and the story is that when the Iranians were trying to interrogate them, in English, they became so frustrated trying to understand him that they went to the second in command, who I think was an American, and asked if they could speak to him instead.
This is pretty much what my case is. A language's purpose is to be understood. There has to be some standard that is adhered to for that to happen. It cannot be a fuzzy mishmash of standards, but one.
This is pretty much what my case is. A language's purpose is to be understood. There has to be some standard that is adhered to for that to happen. It cannot be a fuzzy mishmash of standards, but one.
There is for certain purposes; for example, I mentioned earlier that usually for employment you want to speak in what is considered a more "proper" version, but language just doesn't work that way. A Scotman's dialect is what it is what it is what is, and even if you went in and took all the little Scottish babies and forced them to grow up speaking Oxford English because Scotland is part of the UK and the Queen wants everyone to speak like her, eventually the language will change. It's the nature of language. But that Scotsman isn't doing anything wrong. Everyone where HE comes from understands him perfectly well, because they all speak the same way he does. If YOU go to Scotland, no one is going to be able to understand YOU, because you aren't speaking their standard.
There is no one "right" way to speak English. If there were, the US, the UK, Australia, Uganda, Kenya, and other English-speaking countries would all sound the same. Language just doesn't work that way.
One of MY pet peeves is that so many people in the US use a short "i" where they should use a short "e". The main example of this is "pin" and "pen". It amazes me and makes me grind my teeth that so many people pronounce those two words THE EXACT SAME WAY. The robotic voice on my work phone does it, too: "Inter your passcode." I even hear this from anchorpeople on the news, people who ostensibly had some kind of training in diction: "More to come on the TIN O'CLOCK news." These people aren't going to change their mispronounciation for ME, and I know that. I have to tune my ear to understand what they mean, and that's pretty much the key. If we listen, we certainly can understand one another.
It is not possible to enforce one overreaching way of speaking a language.
Why don't you actually take your eyes off that book and speak to a Southerner. Born in Missouri, live in Texas and I say nucular. Just like I heard most of the people in my life say the word. Y'all really need to stop calling potential Democrat voters dumb. I don't call people who say cah, instead of car, dumb.
If the word 'the' is directly in front of a word beginning with a vowel, it is pronounced 'thee'.
Thuh banana.
Thee apple.
Thuh car.
Thee automobile.
Who's "we"?
I don't. I - and many others I know - say "thee car". And I live in Tennessee (although you'd never know it from my accent. I've been confused as a... Northerner ) Not to be facetious, but is your explanation in the dictionary anywhere? And, to be honest, I've heard it both ways. Sooo, who's right?
Or can it be that - possibly, just maybe - there isn't one precise and definite pronunciation of every English word?
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) Not to be facetious, but is your explanation in the dictionary anywhere? And, to be honest, I've heard it both ways. Sooo, who's right? 
