Reith Lectures 1996: The Language Web

This article is about the English spoken language, and how Jean Aitchison is ashamed to let foreigners hear it. Aitchison blames the people on the radio and television calling them 'idiots' and describing them as 'dregs of humanity'.

English is a major world language, and linguists state that 'no part of language is ever deformed or bad', which contradicts to the statements being made by Aitchison. In the 18th century, it was said that there was no "correct" way of speaking English and all languages have their own "rules". But as in English we usually place the verb inside a sentence, in Welsh the verb comes first, and in Turkish it comes last, without these genuine rules, communication would break down.

People who tend to miss words out of their sentences, are labelled as being 'lazy' but the only true lazy speech is 'drunken speech', this was proved by a University in Texas.