Word: englishness
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Standard English will play an even more important role in the post-industrial society when Americans will trade not tangible goods but information. Words, not engines, will drive our economy. Many industrial workers will need retraining in standard English before they join the ranks of the information economy...
...global economic ties bring the world closer together, the international role of English will be increasingly more significant. With so many of our trading partners speaking English as a second language, standard English may soon be more common in foreign business capitals than in the United States. Americans have the luxury of speaking the universal language from birth, but we are rapidly sacrificing our birthright on the altar of slang...
...prided themselves on the almost universal use of proper grammar. There were no discernible differences in patois between rich and poor. Unlike their British cousins who developed the language, Americans did not have to look to the upper crust for guidance on the proper use of the King's English. We have traditionally had to look no farther than our neighbors. Now, if we ask to see our neighbor, his son might reply, "I don't know where...
...nation has always celebrated diversity and flexibility, but language demands conformity and rigidity. Just as the schools teach weights and measures or dollars and cents, they must do a better job of teaching standard English. Let's not shortchange our children--or jeopardize America's future...
...years later, in 1638, an English minister willed half of his savings and his library of about 400 books to this school of about a dozen students. The minister's name was John Harvard, and the rest is history...