Dialogue: Language police constantly looking to have the last word

One city newspaper has a couple of columnists who regularly attack the rampant illiteracy eroding New Zealand's educational and moral fibre.

You know the sort of thing. Inability to use its/it's, there/their, to/too correctly. Spelling that offers rhythm/rythmn/rythum. American abominations such as lite/thru/kleen.

The columnists round up the usual offenders: American television, video games, lazy parents, antediluvian and trendy-lefty teachers. They have not yet reached the imaginative heights of a spokesman for Pauline Hanson's One Nation party, who blamed it all on Asian immigrants.

Two things intrigue me about these condemnations. One is the intellectual flexibility which can call teachers both antediluvian and trendy lefties. The other is the blend of glee and moral zeal the writers show.

The glee is something we have all felt. Yes, it's shocking to read a menu listing "vegetrain" dishes and "deserts complimented by liqeurs." But doesn't it make you feel smugly pleased that you know better?

The moral zeal seems marginally ludicrous. I agree that an inability to distinguish between comprise/compose, uninterested/disinterested, replace/substitute heralds the imminent collapse of society. But can't we live with it?

The trouble is, of course, that it's change. And all columnists feel threatened by change - unless they are under 30, when they fret that things are not changing enough.

Historical linguistics show that language is always altering, just like fashion, art and culture. Grammar and spelling are essentially protean and fluid.

Attempts to prevent language change are lost causes. The Italians tried to legislate against such evolution. The French also imposed language-freezing rules. Both failed. (Can you imagine anything French doing what it's told? Look at their rugby backline.)

Okay, it's dreadful to see someone write "Aprylle showres" - except that is how Chaucer did spell it. And what brought us from Chaucer to our present spelling? Fashion, pronunciation, trial and error, personal preferences, ignorance.

Yes, the same factors that operate now. Presumably 14th to 19th century columnists also fulminated against them.

I know rules are about preventing chaos. They are also about power, so they are usually imposed by those over a certain age.

You cannot help noticing that the grammar and spelling to which these columnists and others object are usually that of the young. The illiterate, deprived, antediluvian, trendy, teacher-suffering young.

Here's a scary thought. Black English vernacular (BEV), the English spoken by American blacks, is now recognised as a distinct language. What if youth culture claims its own, officially separate language? They could call it Young Users Patois (YUP), and nobody could legitimately attack its spelling and syntax.

Disturbingly, some of the spelling that so offends older guardians is a more accurate rendering of current pronunciation than conventional forms. Think of "envirment." Or "govmernt," which carries the bonus of that evocative second-syllable slur.

Experiments and errors help to move language. Some of them are disastrous. Some are fortuitous. I enjoy the lurch of perspective that comes from realising "assizes" means Aussies. And how marvellous to have it confirmed that most transtasman types should be up before a judge.

Condemnation of spelling and grammar lapses is often an aesthetic judgment - and, therefore, a subjective one. My taste good, your taste bad.

I also hate "lite" and "nite," and I shudder in anticipation of "nitelite." I wince when Wanda the air hostess says we are stopping outside of the terminal and some people are continuing on to Wellington.

I wince at her redundancy and her rhythms. After all, they are different rhythms from mine. I also snarl at the clunkiness of "real windy," but I know that others like its snap and speed.

Other ages, other tastes. All part of the incessant interplay between tradition and experiment.

I am not saying that near enough is good enough but that mutations sometimes advance a species. And that out of a lot of silly mistakes and posturing, great results may come. A bit of colour, as opposed to the black and white (and grey) of rules.

Can't we chuckle as well as chafe at reading that someone has deported this life? Especially if he is one of those assizes.

Similarly, I envy a friend whose restaurant bill ("non-vegetrain") told him he had been "serviced by Rayleen."

And who can possibly condemn apparent illiteracy when it means you are told that the Pauline Hanson spokesman of my opening paragraphs actually came from the One Notion party?

As one of my wife's seventh formers wrote, I reset my case.

* David Hill is a Taranaki writer.