Is it possible for everybody to write in high standard English?

1. 73

   jainismusposted 11 years ago

   Is it possible for everybody to write in high standard English?
   
   Is it possible for everybody to write in high standard English? Especially for whom English is not his/her first language?

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2. 0

   Ghaelachposted 11 years ago

   In one word "NO"
   Because there are so many variations of the English language, and very few can speak the language correctly. Even English people themselves have a problem because of dialect and nationality. A lot of the time an English man is not an English man, if you see what I mean. My feeling are that very few can or do speak a high standard of English.
   LOL Ghaelach

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3. 60

   NornsMercyposted 11 years ago

   English is my first and only language, yet I would never call it "high-standard". I type differently than I talk (or else there'd be a bunch of "ain't",  "y'all're" and caveman grunts in my hubs...), and English can even vary from neighborhood to neighborhood!
   
   I think all the different versions are awesome. I wouldn't want everyone to write in high-standard English or else I wouldn't understand a word of it.

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4. 94

   MizBejabbersposted 11 years ago

   Technically, I'm not sure what you are calling "high standard English" because I am an American, but I would be prone to say no. The King's English went out in the USA a couple of hundred years ago. We have such a mix of other languages, accents, dialects, etc., and it comes through in our writing. We do have a form that we call "formal writing," which would include business letters and documents. The closest I come to using it is when I am doing legal editing. We editors must remove any slang or vernacular from the bills and acts that we edit and substitute a more formal equivalent. We are trying now to eliminate some of the Victorian stiffness from our laws and do away with antiquated phrasing. However, we can still eliminate this stiffness without our writing becoming casual. American English is a very fluid language, very changing, what's in style this year may be obsolete 20 years from now.
   In published English, there are different styles that professional writers use: newspaper (Associated Press), magazine, legal, medical, academic (which now seems to prefer the A.P.A. or American Psychological Association rather than the Chicago style, which is never incorrect to use) just to name some.

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5. 84

   Greensleeves Hubsposted 11 years ago

   It is clearly a problem for those who naturally speak another language, and a big dilemma as to what to do.
   
   I think one answer is to publish on a website in the writer's own language if one exists (one advantage of this is that there will be less competition for traffic. One could also write more freely and naturally in one's native language. The big disadvantage of course is that the potential global market is much smaller).
   
   If the desire is still to write in English - and I can understand why it may be - then a reasonable standard of English is required, but not necessarily perfection. As long as the article is readable and understandable, then the quality and value of the content should be more important than the exactly correct use of words.

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