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Within the hour after my column on English
pronunciation appeared in the online edition of The Manila Times
last July 12, I received an e-mail with this odd heading: “A gr8
accent alone isn’t gr8 English.” This, of course, is a playful
transliteration in SMS text of that column’s title, “A great
accent alone isn’t great English.” Here, I thought, was some
adolescent prankster out to engage me in some harmless wordplay, but
I had to dismiss that idea when the sender identified
himself/herself as an English-language lecturer from Auckland, New
Zealand, who now works in Hong Kong.
The message had this to say
verbatim:
“Hello there Jose,
“Thanks for your article
in The Manila Times.
“U r right of course. Getting
one’s pronunciation right isn’t the only requisite in mastering
the English languague. Knowing the the English grammar is one
of the fundamental keys in learning the language. Just like
playing a game of chess or tennis, one needs to know the rules and
so is in speaking English, one needs to know its rules to speak
well.
“However, there are 2
more requisites in mastering the language:
“1. to have an adequate range
of it vocabulary &^
“2. to know the spelling of the
words that one uses so that one may be abel to write it or recognise
it in a text.
“That’s all.”
Here’s my open reply to that
e-mail:
Dear J.,
I agree with your point that one
needs an adequate English vocabulary and must be good in spelling as
well to achieve mastery of the language. I realize, however, that
you must have found it odd that I didn’t cite the need for an
adequate English vocabulary in that column. My reason for that is
this: I feel that what an adequate vocabulary should be is a highly
debatable thing.
As I explained in my column a
year ago (“The wealth of our vocabulary,” July 9, 2007), I
believe that unless we are aspiring to become Spelling Bee or
Scrabble champions, we don’t really need to get to know, say, even
a fifth of the 615,000 English words authoritatively listed in the
Oxford English Dictionary. After all, some language experts say,
only about 200,000 of those words are in common usage, and all that
a typical native-English-speaking college graduate needs to be
functionally literate in English is about 20,000-25,000 words. I
suppose that the counterpart educated nonnative English speaker
probably could manage with even less.
Whatever the advisable figures,
however, I believe that we can actually get by with much fewer and
simpler words and yet become even more communicative. Indeed, unlike
some academics, we should avoid using strange or big words that only
befuddle our listeners or readers. What’s more important is
improving our ability to learn to adroitly tap the words that are
already inside the heads of our target audiences.
But as to good spelling, J., I
absolutely agree with you about its importance. In fact, when I was
still managing an English-language services company, I would
routinely throw into the trash any job application letter for editor
that contained one misspelled word too many—even if the applicant
had a summa cum laude or a Master’s or PhD to his or her name. To
me, misspellings are a mark of a careless and undisciplined mind.
With my best wishes,
Joe Carillo
To this reply, J. sent me the
following rejoinder:
“Hello there Jose, My apolgies
pls. I didn’t check my e-mail before I sent it out to you. You
must have realised the unforgivable mistakes in my last sentence:
‘to know the spelling of the words that one uses so that one may
be abel to write it or recognise it in a text.’ It should read:
‘ .... able to write them or recognise them in a text.’ Many
thanks!”
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