Who Cares About Standard Written English?
William Schmalz, FAIA, CSI,
Author, "The Architects Guide to Writing"; Principal at Perkins and Will
As the saying goes, we only get one shot at making a first impression, so how we present ourselves when meeting someone new, especially if that someone can affect our careers or our businesses, is important. Sometimes, maybe even often, that first impression is based on what we write—a letter, a proposal, a resume and cover letter, even an email. So how we present ourselves in writing is also important.
If you speak English [1], you probably speak—and write—several versions of it. You use one version of English with your family, another for personal emails, and maybe another when you’re texting. If English isn’t your native language, perhaps you speak some mixture of English and your native language at home. All these forms of English work fine in their contexts. But if you’re also (as I assume for the purpose of this essay) a professional who works in an English-speaking country, then when you get to work, you write in Standard Written English.
What is Standard Written English [2], and who decides what’s standard and what isn’t? I like what Patricia O’Connor says in her book Origins of the Specious: “People often ask me who decides what’s right. The answer is we all do. Everybody has a vote. The ‘rules’ are simply what educated speakers generally accept as right or wrong at a given time.”
As a user of English, and thus a “voter” in deciding what’s standard, how much influence can you, or any individual, have? Not much, since your vote is only one out of a billion. But what about the language experts who write the dictionaries, usage guides, and style manuals? Aren’t they deciding what’s right? For the most part, no. Although their votes count more than most others’, the writers of these books—even at their most opinionated—generally aren’t deciding what’s standard; they’re just describing what they perceive most educated writers of English agree is standard.
But don’t official arms of the U.S and U.K. governments exist to control the language? Again, the answer is no. Most governments do have official bodies (such as France’s L’Académie fran?ais and Spain’s Real Academia Espa?ola) to control (or at least try to control) their languages, but every attempt to establish such a body to control English has failed. English is an unruly critter that resists any kind of control [3].
English readily evolves to accommodate changing conditions, and what is standard now may not have been standard 20 years ago, or may not be standard 20 years from now. But Standard Written English is usually slower to accept such change. For example, most speakers (in the U.S., at least) will use the plural pronoun they to avoid saying the gender-specific singular pronouns he or she (or the clumsy he or she). Few people, other than the most change-resistant language sticklers, will be overly concerned when hearing, “Will everyone drive their own car to the site?” But seeing the singular everyone tied to the plural they in writing is still disturbing to a lot of people, so the singular they isn’t yet acceptable as Standard Written English [4].
Standard Written English does change, however. For example, not so long ago, if you were to use ask as a noun (What’s our ask?) or fun as an adjective (I had a fun time.), most of your readers would have thought it as rather peculiar. Nowadays, these usages are common [5]. For the language to change, someone has to be the first to use a nonstandard English usage, and enough people have to go along with this new usage to (eventually) make it standard. Should you be one of those out-in-front, bleeding-edge, risk-taking users of English? If you’re a recent graduate looking for a job, or an architect trying to win a project, probably not; you’re better off playing it safe.
So who cares about Standard Written English? We all do. If we’re teachers reading students’ essays, we care. If we’re employers reading resumes and cover letters from recent graduates, we care. If we’re clients reading architects’ proposals, we care. If we’re reading reports or white papers written by colleagues, we care. And if, while waiting for our luggage, we’re reading a sign in the San Francisco International Airport baggage claim area (see photo above), we care. As professionals, we expect, without thinking about it, to see Standard Written English under certain circumstances, and when we don’t, our respect for the writer is diminished. The quality of our writing may have no connection with our abilities in other areas, but it doesn’t matter. All that matters is that our readers think it does.
Standard Written English comes naturally to few of us. It’s probably not the version of English we learned growing up, became fluent in, and are still, even as adults, most comfortable using. We have to learn Standard Written English, first in school, then while practicing our professions. And we should never stop learning, because whether we are aware of it or not, we and most other professionals care.
Footnotes:
[1] And if you don’t, why are you reading this footnote?
[2] For one thing, it’s not one thing. Writing standards differ between American and British English. Australians and New Zealanders tend to follow British standards, while Canadians combine elements from British and American English.
[3] There are at least three reasons for an official academy to control English being doomed to fail:
- Neither the U.S. nor the U.K. has adopted English as its official language (a circumstance I find quite pleasing, and one I hope will continue for a long time).
- The primary duty of language academies is to keep their languages “pure” from foreign influences (and these days, that usually means protecting them from unwanted Americanisms). However, English is already such a mongrel language, with its original Anglo-Saxon grammar and vocabulary significantly shaped over the past 1,500 years by contact with Norse, French Norman, Latin, French, and Spanish, and to a lesser extent by dozens of other languages, that the notion of an academy keeping it pure is meaningless.
- None of the academies for other languages have been successful in keeping those languages pure or unchanged. All living languages evolve naturally, and no government or any other official entity can stop that evolution. However, this doesn’t keep people from trying. As recently as 2010, the Queen’s English Society tried (and of course failed) to establish an academy to monitor British English.
[4] I expect this will change, but not as soon as some people would like. Singular they is probably at least a generation away from being acceptable in writing.
[5] Common, yes. Universally accepted, not yet. While I’m fine with the adjective fun (but not funner, as in I had a funner time than she did), I still cringe when hearing or seeing ask used as a noun. And don’t get me started on architect as a verb.
Like this article? Check out these other LinkedIn articles by this writer:
“The Bridge on the Mae Klong: When Structures Represent More than Themselves”: https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/bridge-mae-klong-when-structures-represent-more-than-schmalz-faia?trk=pulse_spock-articles
“Drunken Grammarians, Ancient Aliens, and the Wishful Mood of English”: https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/drunken-grammarians-ancient-aliens-wishful-mood-william-schmalz-faia?trk=pulse_spock-articles
“Eating the Food Our Food Eats”: https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/eating-food-our-eats-william-schmalz-faia?trk=pulse_spock-articles
“Facing the Blank Screen: Tricks to Avoid Writer’s Block”: https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/facing-blank-screen-tricks-avoid-writers-block-william-schmalz-faia?trk=pulse_spock-articles
“Finding Your Inner Editor, or How to Grow a Second Pair of Eyes”: https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/finding-your-inner-editor-how-grow-second-pair-eyes-schmalz-faia?trk=pulse_spock-articles
“The Football Field of Time”: https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/football-field-time-william-schmalz-faia?trk=pulse_spock-articles
“In Praise of Plain English”: https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/praise-plain-english-william-schmalz-faia?trk=pulse_spock-articles
“A Lesson from the Convention”: https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/lesson-from-convention-william-schmalz-faia?trk=pulse_spock-articles
“Pardon Me, But Do You Speak Jargon?”: https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/pardon-me-do-you-speak-jargon-william-schmalz-faia?trk=pulse_spock-articles
“Sergio Leone, Mies van der Rohe, and the Role of Follies in Film and Architecture”: https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/sergio-leone-mies-van-der-rohe-role-follies-film-schmalz-faia?trk=pulse_spock-articles
“The 65,000,029-Year-Old Dinosaur: Precision and Tolerances in the Construction World”: https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/65000029-year-old-dinosaur-precision-tolerances-world-schmalz-faia?trk=pulse_spock-articles
Retired Police Officer at Staffs Police
4 年I came across this in the Guardian newspaper today. Jacob Blake Sr is the father of Jacob Blake Jr, a 29-year-old Black man and father, who is in hospital in Kenosha, paralyzed from the waist down, after a white police officer fired seven shots at his back last Sunday. Ben Crump, a civil rights lawyer acting for the Blake family, condemned “two justice systems in America: one for white, one for Black”. Adjectives with capital letters is a new one for me.
Construction specifier at Larson & Darby Group, Rockford, Illinois
8 年Well said, Bill, but... I'm one of the change-resistant sticklers that can't stand "they" in place of "he" or "she". I confess I use it when speaking sometimes. But I'll go to elaborate lengths to avoid it in writing. I can't help it. My mother was a school teacher and my father was a lawyer. John O'Neil