More and better Englishes
Setting standards when there is no Standard
I don’t think there’s anything more embarrassing than to be corrected on a correction. Sometimes it happens in real time in the classroom, but sometimes it happens elsewhere, under odder circumstances.
For years I’d corrected Russian students who spoke about how they “sneaked” an extra cookie or cup of tea from their parents as children, insisting that the past participle was “snuck.” It sounded like they were, en masse, overgeneralizing that “-ed” meant “past.”
I didn’t think twice about it since I’d never once heard “sneaked” in my American-English-speaking life.
One day, though, while bouncing around YouTube, I stumbled upon a clip of the actress Jennifer Garner scolding Conan O’Brien for saying “snuck,” saying he should have known better since he was a Harvard graduate. Minutes later, O’Brien brought out a thick red dictionary and proved that “snuck” was in fact the valid third form of “to sneak.”
Well, actually, he proved that it was a valid form.
You see, “sneaked” was first and is still considered, on paper, standard.
“Snuck” arose in 19th century America and has been gaining ground around the world ever since, even in the UK.
These two dialects are perfectly valid and, arguably, both world languages at this point. Even Cambridge itself states that there’s no such thing as Standard English , so being a stickler for “correctness” where ambiguity is the rule wastes teachers’ and learners’ time.
That got me thinking about another obvious “error”: “more better.”
How can I correct students who say this while knowing full well that this film exists:
Obviously, when you’ve got some facility with a language and a playful or creative streak, you can say to hell with the rules in order to produce more interesting, funny, or evocative sentences.
As a lifelong American English-speaker, I can understand and appreciate such innovations, and I would hazard that this is true for most people in most cultures and contexts.
In fact, even Russian speakers of English with a high level of proficiency seem to insist on pronouncing “OK” as if it were a mighty tree rather than two syllables expressing assent. I stopped trying to correct this once I realized it was deliberate.
Still, how does one draw the line between “errors” born out of a creative spirit and errors born out of misunderstanding?
The answer, as it is for many EFL problems, is to simply talk, read, and listen more so that learners gain an appreciation for where they can bend the language to their own purposes while conveying their intended meaning intact.
