An English-Speaking World
by Don L. F. Nilsen
and Alleen Pace Nilsen
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• “Standard English may be the standard
by which people’s language in Englishspeaking countries is measured, but
it’s important to recognize that it’s
simply one among many kinds of
English.”
(Smith & Wilhelm 48)
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Rhyming Slang
• When Jeff Wilhelm was in Tasmania, Australia, he
asked why Larry, the curriculum director was absent.
• He was told, “That old bag a fruit did the frog and
toad to Steak and Kidney!”
• In Australian rhyming slang
– Bag a fruit  man in the suit  boss
– Frog and toad  hit the road  took a trip
– Steak and Kidney  Sydney
– (Smith & Wilhelm 48)
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English, ESL or EFL is Spoken by about ½ of the People in the
World (about 2 Billion People) (McCrum 24/50)
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English as a Global Language
¾ of the world’s mail
½ of the world’s technical & scientific journals
½ of all newspapers
80 % of the information in computers
All international air pilots
All international sea captains
Many movies, songs, and much business
½ of European business deals
7 of the largest TV broadcasters (CBS, NBC, ABC, BBC, CBC, CNN, CSpan)
TV televangelism of Christianity
…are in the English language.
(McCrum 10)
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Varieties of Global English, each
with its Own Peculiar Flavor
• Deutschlish
• Franglish (la langue du Coca-Cola)
• Indian English
• Japlish (man-shon vs. mai-homu, basaburo, aisu-kurimu, maicom [my computer])
• Russlish
• Spanglish
(McCrum 10, 38-39)
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La Langue du Coca-Cola
• In France,
– hot money  capitaux fébariles
– Jumbo jet  gros porteur
– Fast food  prêt-à-manger
• In Quebec, Canada, Loi 101 :
– English billboards, posters and storefronts are
banned. Many students are not allowed to attend
English-language schools. (McCrum 39-40)
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Competing Global Languages
• Arabic
• Russian (before the breakup of the Soviet
Union in Eastern Europe)
• Mandarin Chinese
• Spanish
• French
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Education Act of 1870: RP
• Cockney (Cock’s Egg)
• RP (Received Pronunciation)
• Posh (Portside Out Starboard Home)
• (McCrum 13-21)
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World War II (McCrum 23)
• GI Bases in
England, Italy,
France, Germany
Black
Market
Blitz
Flak
• GI Language was
vivid, profane &
abbreviated:
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Nylons
Pin-Up
R&R
Snafu
Yank
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Pin-Ups and Yank Magazine
• Every issue of Yank Magazine featured a pinup to remind soldiers of the girls back home.
• A pin-up of Rita Hayworth is said to have
been taped to Fat Boy, the atomic bomb
dropped on Hiroshima in 1945.
• Compare this with the movie Dr. Strangelove:
How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love
the Bomb.
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Atomic-Bomb Words (McCrum 24)
Atomic Holocaust
Chain Reaction (cf.
Vonnegut’s “Ice Nine”)
Fallout
Fireball
Fission
Fusion
Mushroom Cloud
Test Site
(NOTE: The possibility
of nuclear proliferation
was one of the causes
of Postmodernism &
Deconstructionism)
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Coca-Colonialism (McCrum 24)
Budweiser
Coca Cola
Gillette
Kellogg’s Cornflakes
Kellogg’s Rice
Krispies
(“Snap Crackle and
Pop” has to be
translated into
various languages)
Kodak
Maxwell House Coffee
Schlitz
Lucky Strike
Marlboro
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Korean and Vietnam Wars (McCrum 25-26)
Korean:
Brainwashing
Chopper
(Helicopter)
Vietnam:
Defoliate
Domino
Theory
Escalation
Firefight
Friendly Fire
Hawks &
Doves
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Vietnam:
Moratorium
Napalm
Pacification
Search and
Destroy
The Silent
Majority (ct.
the Vocal
Minority)
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David Ofgor, Attaché to the US
Embassy in Phnom Penh:
• Talking to journalists:
• “You always write it’s bombing,
bombing, bombing. It’s not bombing.
It’s air support.” (McCrum 27)
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Regional Dialects (McCrum 2729)
Franklin D. Roosevelt (Eastern Money)
Harry Truman (Twangy Missouran)
Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon & Gerald Ford (American Midwest)
Lyndon Johnson (Southern)
Ronald Reagan & Dan Rather (Network Standard)
Kennedy Family (New England)
George W. Bush (Texas)
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Valley-Girl/Surfer-Dude:
Bitchin
Dude
For sure
Goady
Rad
To the max
Totally
Tubular
Gay Speech:
Gay
Out of the closet
Queer
Queen
Women’s Speech:
Ms.
Letter carrier
JOKE: Mannheim Germany
 Personheim
Gerpersony
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Silicon Valley Words (California) (McCrum 30)
Artificial Intelligence
CD (Compact Disk)
DVD (Digital Video
Disk)
Data Processing
Disk(ette)
Flash Drive
Hacker
Input
Interface
Jump Drive
Modem
On-Line
ROM (Read-Only
Memory)
Software, Hardware,
Wetware
Word Processor
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British vs. American Global
English
• bird, bobby, bonnet, boot, drawing pins, flat, lift, lorry, mate,
nappy, petrol, pram, sweets, torch, trunk call
• girl, cop, hood, trunk, thumb tacks, apartment, elevator, truck,
buddy, diaper, gas, stroller, candy, flashlight, long-distance call
• colour/color, theater/theatre, tyre/tire
• advertisement, laboratory, secretary
(McCrum 32)
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!Disadvantages of English as a Global
Language
• /š/  shoe, sugar, issue, mansion, mission, nation, suspicion,
ocean, conscious, chaperon, schist, fuchsia, pshaw (spelled 13
ways)
• <sh> <ch> <ph> <th> <gh>
• Full, reduced, zero grades of consonants
• Long, Short, -r, schwa, and zero grades of vowels
• 15 different vowel phonemes
• <c> <g> <q> <s> (/s/ /š/ /z/ /ž/) <x>
(McCrum 42)
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!!Advantages of English as a Global
Language
• Natural Gender, not Grammatical Gender
• Simplified Word Endings resulting in greater
flexibility (N  V, etc.)
• Teeming Vocabulary (80 % is not Anglo-Saxon) but
rather: Arabic, Celtic, Chinese, Dutch, French,
German, Hebrew, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Latin,
Scandinavian, Spanish, etc.
(McCrum 43)
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Works Cited
McCrum, Robert, William Cran, and Robert MacNeil.
The Story of English. New York, NY: Penguin, 1986.
(source of map citations)
McCrum, Robert, William Cran, and Robert MacNeil.
The Story of English: Third Revised Edition. New
York, NY: Penguin, 2003. (source of text citations)
Smith, Michael W., and Jeffrey D. Wilhelm. Getting It
Right: Fresh Approaches to Teaching Grammar,
Usage, and Correctness. New York, NY: Scholastic,
2007
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