Only dead languages don’t change

IS it open season on vernacular grammar, what with the Cambridgeshire Good Grammar Company’s blast against the abandonment of apostrophes and Martyn Scargill’s tirade about Franglais (Yorkshire Post, January 25)? Don’t these pedants ever wonder, “Why don’t we still speak Anglo-Saxon?” Or, “Why do we have cafés rather than good old coffee houses?”

Only dead languages don’t change and a language that isn’t changing is decaying. Even French and Spanish keep changing in spite of the efforts of their Academies.

Unlike the complaints regarding redundant accents and apostrophes, I hear no moans about “you” being used in the singular in place of the more “correct” “Thou”.

Does that mean that Barnsley is the last bastion of correct English grammar; “Tha knows”?

From: ME Wright, Grove Road, Harrogate.

LONG-DEAD dons must be rising up in incandescent rage at the latest news from Cambridge (Yorkshire Post, January 25).

The council there is to remove apostrophes from street names in order “to avoid confusing emergency services”.

Due to poor teaching, some find placing these helpful markers difficult, but properly used, how do they cause confusion?

I’ve checked a few Harrogate street signs and so far, all’s well. However, thanks to Kathy Salaman, I’ll start carrying a marker pen with me, just in case.

Should the matter end up in court, surely a defence of “protecting the English language from further vandalism” would stand a reasonable chance?

From: Ross Taggart, Eaglescliffe, Stockton-on-Tees.

GIVEN the amazing richness of our amazing language, I never fail to be amazed at the amazing paucity of descriptive vocabulary possessed by an amazingly large proportion of our population (Andrew Vine, Yorkshire Post, January 21). A single adjective now appears known. It has at least replaced, to an amazing extent, the ubiquitous “wow!” and (even worse) “oh my God!”.

I suppose we should be grateful for small mercies.

From: RM Pearson, Norton, Doncaster.

FIRSTLY, thank you for publishing my letter regarding the misuse of our language (Yorkshire Post, January 4).

Secondly, I am so pleased that at least two people share my views and concern, Mr B Sheridan and Mr C Taylor.

Perhaps a line can be drawn under this subject now as other readers, who are not so pedantic, would like a change of subject.

From: Michael Ross, Weeton Lane, Dunkeswick, North Yorkshire.

IN your front page report (Yorkshire Post, January 27), your reporter used the words “it was almost exactly 19 years to the day” with regard to the incident at Goole FC and Eric Cantona’s kung-fu kick at Crystal Palace.

Something or someone cannot be “almost exactly”. It or they are either “almost” or “exactly”.

Why we hate
all politicians

From: Nick Martinek, Briarlyn Road, Huddersfield.

IT is not apathy that is causing the decline in voting but disgust, and even hatred, of our political establishment. And although Tom Richmond (Yorkshire Post, January 25) is right to dismiss David Blunkett’s self-serving diagnosis of apathy, he is incorrect to lay the entire blame on the admittedly poor calibre of MPs.

Our country is in a mess. The incompetence, greed and dishonesty of so many MPs is one factor, but we are now surrounded by an establishment of the glossily-privileged who move seamlessly between councils, big business, the NHS, Parliament, banks, quangos and the EU.

Their common purpose appears to be to support each other in getting stinking rich, usually by chiselling from the taxpayer, while shirking responsibility for the shambles they cause. In doing so, they deprive the rest of us of any real power over our own lives whilst trying to entice us with a rainbow of gaudy wheezes.

This is not democracy, it is corporatism: a ghastly pottage of money, power and corruption at our expense.

No wonder people have given up voting, there is little point. The only remedy is for the people to recover control of our own country. And that is only possible when we recover control of our own country from the EU.

From: David W Wright, Uppleby, Easingwold, North Yorkshire.

THE Comment column (Yorkshire Post, January 23) which castigates the behaviour by MPs at Prime Minister’s Question Time rightly labels their pantomime activities which is further enhancing the contempt by the public of their elected representatives.

Coupled with this worrying situation is the recent activities of the unelected House of Lords who are trying hard to wreck the backbench Bill to have a referendum on the vital issue of the in or out question of our continued membership of the EU.

The calibre of both our elected representatives is questionable as well as the undemocratic constitution of the House of Lords which surely must be reformed and be made wholly electable and not abused by successive government to bolster their support by awarded meaningless and unwarranted peerages which are now archaic – as well as being costly through the expenses and running costs for this second Pantomime Chamber.

Meanwhile the antics of the Lib Dems members Lord Rennard and Mike Hancock further debase the credibility not only of the Lib Dems and their leader Nick Clegg, but must raise the question of the future of the party.

The sooner we get a general election the better, hopefully, for the nation but as Tom Richmond has pointed out (Yorkshire Post, January 25), there is an over-riding problem of general apathy to overcome because of the poor calibre of MPs.

From: Philip Smith, New Walk, Beverley.

THE unelected, unaccountable and unrepresentative House of Lords has caused a setback to the law proposing a referendum over the UK’s EU membership.

It seems 650 MPs and over 800 peers can’t even work out between them what the question should be.

The Lords tabled 70 amendments and there was a vote after two-and-a-half hours of impassioned and angry debate. What a bunch of time-wasters.

There is now a danger that the Bill may not survive and we will not get the vote we were promised – in 2017. Unbelievable!

All the question needs to ask is: Do you wish the UK to stay in the EU or leave the EU?

No wonder so many people are running into the arms of Ukip. I may well join them.