YP Letters: Standing up for the Queen's English in all its glory

Should the BBC and other media organisations do more to uphold the use of the English language?

AS a pedant, and proud of it, I was delighted to read the letters (The Yorkshire Post, August 26) supporting Neil McNicholas’s column on the degeneration of the English language.

Keith Jowett suggests setting up an apostrophe preservation society, but he will be pleased to know that the Apostrophe Protection Society was created several years ago by John Richards of Boston, Lincolnshire, so I hope that the society is still keeping tabs on its misuse.

Among the infelicities which pepper the press these days was one particular howler in the The Magazine which accompanied The Yorkshire Post on the same day as these letters were published. In the article about The Full Monty, Daniel Dylan Wray wrote: “Carlyle’s Gaz finds himself stood on top of a sinking car.”

No he does not. He finds himself standing on top of a sinking car. What might be acceptable in conversation in certain parts of the country is not acceptable in writing.

My fellow pedants might care to join me by becoming members of the Queen’s English Society.

From: John Jewitt, Ilkley.

WITH reference to the letter from Keith Jowett, in which he calls for pedants to set up an organisation to preserve the apostrophe, may I refer him to the Apostrophe Preservation Society.

From: ME Wright, Harrogate.

“STANDARDS of English in decline” (The Yorkshire Post, August 26). A-Levels in French and German involve an oral exam; why not English?

This could include listening to, amongst other programmes, recorded BBC newscasts and identifying the number of times the indefinite article is mispronounced as “ai”.

It’s sometimes difficult to avoid splitting an infinitive; but I often wonder if The Yorkshire Post has a rule which makes this compulsory.

This debate is not about universal RP or “talking posh”. It is about learning the rules and then having fun with our wonderful language.

I continue to be dismayed by the fact that so many of our European cousins speak our language better than many of us.

Above all, this is about speaking English, not mindlessly adopting American celebrity-speak. It requires that we shun like the plague “hi guys”; “have a nice day” et al.

Many find this difficult; so I can ask only that you excuse me and others like me, if we appear to vomit.