Humour in the English Language

Humour: the Development of Modern Language

When I was at school – several lifetimes ago, it seems – correct English was the language spoken over the air by BBC announcers; it was the language to which we all aspired and which we were taught to speak and to use on a daily basis. It was known as ‘Standard English’ in those days, and was often a pleasure to hear. It was not quite the same as ‘Rada’ English with its terribly rounded vowels a la Audrey Hepburn, or English as spoken by the Royal Family who managed to make ‘house’ sound like ‘hice’, or ‘May husband and Ay’!! It was a good solid language, free of dialect and mispronunciation, and seemed to roll off the tongue with a good deal of ease.

I have lived in South Africa for many years and have, at times, cringed at the way the language can be mutilated, and also, sometimes have been forced to chuckle at the words and phrases used which are peculiar to this part of the world.

However, since 1994 and the advent of Democracy, Standard English has steadily bitten the dust as radio announcers have become monthly darker and darker skinned; it has now virtually been completely replaced by what is known as ‘Afro-glish’ and, to my absolute horror, when the language was being discussed on the radio some weeks ago, certain mispronunciations which are quite murderous have now been accepted as Standard South African English. I will give you some examples:

1) The verb: DETERMINE (de-TER-min) has now been more or less totally replaced with a new form: DE-TER-MINE (with the accent principally on the last syllable); I presume that this new word is intended to convey a process by which termites are removed from mines, and therefore has little or nothing to do with the original word!

2) Two nights ago I actually heard on one of our many many talk programmes the word CAPPABLE. This, of course, was intended to be CAPABLE, but once again, appears to mean something which is able to be capped, or a person who could wear a cap, given the chance!

3) CIRCUMSTANCE (surcumSTANCE) has long been a problem over the airwaves and has been almost totally replaced by ‘cirCUMstance’. It don’t think a suitable translation of this would be accepted on the site!

4) AGREEMENT, as in ‘an agreement between the parties was reached’ has long been pronounced as ‘AGriment’ and I can only conclude that this new word refers to a kind of mint which can be cultivated for re-sale.

5) A simple word like PEOPLE (peepul) has been replaced almost totally by PIPPUL, meaning a collection of persons, but sounding quite otherwise!

6) PEACE has become PISS, giving rise to some very interesting, and often hilarious visions – i.e. ‘the PISS process is well on track’ – meaning, I suppose, that the various delegates held some sort of unspeakable competition around the negotiating table! Or, the concert was in aid of world PISS; does one assume that the delegates were all drenched, then?

7) It has long been the habit in this country to plant an H in the middle of a word where there was intended to be none, or to actually sound an H which should be aspirant.

8) Finally, the word VEHICLE has universally become ‘veHIcle’, and I really am not at all sure what that is supposed to convey! (Pardon the pun!)

The overweaning irony of the situation is that there are many people in this country who can speak perfectly good English but who are now cast aside in favour of affirmative action. The anomaly of the situation, however, is that while those who really struggle with English are allowed to mutilate it on a daily basis on our official broadcaster, we are not permitted the same leniency with languages such as Zulu and Xhosa, which are always correctly spoken because the announcer is always drawn from the relevant linguistic group.

Try this for size: ‘He was dimmed cappable of reaching an aggrimunt because sirCUMstances led to the successful conclushin of the piss process and would de-terMINE its outcome accordingly’.

If it weren’t tragic, and very annoying, it would actually be funny!