Yesterday, my wife used the word "humble" to me. She pronounced it "umble." Bill Day, the pulpit minister at my church, also pronounces the word this way. It occurs to me how much I HATE the word when it is pronounced that way. The pronounciation seems to be a very um-humble way to pronounce it. A very British way to pronounce it.
And that's why I hate it, not that I have any problems with the British per se. I just don't want to be them. In fact, I lectured my wife about using the pronounciation telling her, "you are not British, you are an American. Talk like an American." (Notice I didn't say "speak like an American.")
You see, it's time for us to be as proud of our unique language as we are patriotic about our unique history. I heard an interview with Don DeLillo on the radio program "Bookworm" in which he expressed his surprise and delight when he recieved a manuscript of the French translation of his novel "Underworld." He noticed that the copywrite page contained the line, "translated from the American." He noted "Not 'from the English' but 'from the American'," I thought to myself, yes, why shouldn't an American novel be translated from American? Why shouldn't the American language get credit for Hemingway, Steinbeck, Vonnegut, Faulkner, Chabon, Russo, Eugenides, and DeLillo?
Our's in an AMERICAN language, rich in its own idioms and culturally enriched paranomasia. Our language has its own grammar, it's own spelling. It's own use of the sacred and the profane. It's "color" not "colour." Not "bloody" but "goddamn." (For you folks that do your British impressions by using the word "bloody" contantly, take note of the American transliteration and think about what you're saying.)
And remember history. After being conquered by French Normans, the kings in England spoke only French for 300 years. The language survived only because the commoners refused to speak French. They wanted their own language... because it was their own national identity. It was Shakespeare and Chaucer. Our identity is Tennesse Williams and John Updike.
We are an American nation. Celebrate your American language. (Note: It isn't "One should celebrate one's language.)
4 comments:
Anonymous said...
'Sup, dog? Fo shizzle you is rizzle. John here. You're right. Elitists, who are embarrassed at their Americanism and in fact hate America and everything it stands for, try to make said Americanism, or at least try to give it some cultural cred, which it doesn't need, by feigning British. Look at John Kerry when he spoke out before Congress against Viet Nam. He didn't sound Bostonian, which is bad enough as it is, but he sounded like some gay guy imitating William F. Buckley, imitating Thurston Howell the Third. I guess this is to be expected, as anti-war protesters generally are an effeminite, cowardly group, but it showed his true colors even better than his "I was an altar-boy" comment.
-John
Oops. Removed this comment once due to the hideous number of typos. As I was saying...
THis is by nature a literary conversation. I don't see it as a political issue, so no one else is to bring up John Kerry or George Bush (though there may be some political capital to be had in protecting the language as part of a national identity.)
John is right, however, in saying that it is an issue of cultural credibility. For some reason, the American mind thinks that all things civilized belong in a British accent.
In American films, American actors use British accents to play Ancient Greeks, Modern Germans, Russians and pretty much anything foriegn. But my real bugga-boo is that all things classical are done in a British accent, as if Shakespeare had written the Iliad in England rather than Homer in Greece.
I myself am not immune. You should have heard me play "Faust" in college. My German doctor from the middle ages had a very modern and very bad psuedo-Bristish accent. That may have been my worst acting performance ever, and there were many bad ones! What's wrong with using our own accents to portray classical characters? Why do we as a people have a hard time recognizing our own literary greatness?
You're right. I used a pseudo-Brit accent myself when I portrayed the prophet Isaiah recently. It was good enough to fool a guy who had spent time in South Africa, though. I noticed in the movie Swing Kids, that the Gestapo and the more established members of German society all had British accents, while the rabble, that being the Swing Heils themselves, spoke distinctly American. As Emil (Noah Wylie), and Thomas, (Christian Bale), became more absorbed in the Hitler Jugend mindset, their accents became more British. Wylie's especially, was horrendous; worse even than Keanu Reevs' in Dracula. Even Peter, (Robert Sean Leonard), when he was "just following orders", used a British accent. Not sure if this was intentional, perhaps to show that the "real" Germans weren't pretentious efetes while the Nazis and those who went along with them were, or what, but it did make for some interesting sounding dialogue.
-- John
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