Amglish In, Like, Ten Easy Lessons_ A Celebration of the New World Lingo - Arthur E. Rowse [34]
DOMINANT GENES
American English has increasingly dominated almost everything in the international spectrum, including communications, science, research, business, sports, navigation, technology, travel, and journalism.
Another big factor in spreading the language has been the British and American governments in their roles as presenters of news—as well as indirect propaganda—to the rest of the world. As the war ended, the British Council was created presumably to promote English around the world. Or was it to offset the spread of American English? That’s what Paul Z. Jambor, a teacher of English as a foreign language, says was the main reason. He calls it an example of English language imperialism.7
Other examples of what might be called indirect language imperialism have been the American institutions known as Radio Free Europe (RFE), Radio Liberty (RL), and Voice of America (VOA). By selecting and editing news items and choosing interviewees, the United States cannot avoid the propaganda charge, but at least it is not the crude, overt kind. RFE/RL, which started in 1950, claims to reach twenty-one countries in twenty-eight languages. VOA, which was born in 1942, claims a daily audience of 125 million.
Since 1959, VOA has also offered a free course called Special English, which strips the formal language down to 1,500 words. By clicking on various icons on the VOA website, people can learn how to order coffee at three language skill levels, while instructors of English as a second language (ESL) can get free workbooks and other teaching aids.
LANGUAGE CONVEYORS
Nothing can spread English like English itself. Today’s international flood of English words essentially began with the electric telegraph invented by Paul Julius Reuter, a German, in the mid-1800s and the first transatlantic radio transmission by Italy’s Guglielmo Marconi in 1901. Reuter built a news service, later headquartered in London, that scored its first scoop with news of Abraham Lincoln’s assassination in 1863.
British and American entrepreneurs eventually turned these foreign inventions into the international communications monster that we all recognize today. The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), today’s largest broadcaster, began in 1922. American broadcasters soon jumped into the business, but none has come close to the international reach of the BBC as a disseminator of news.
Telecasting the news is even more American English–oriented. CNN, based in Atlanta, was the first news network to broadcast worldwide by satellite, followed by BBC and Sky News, a News Corp operation. Other worldwide networks with English newscasts include France 24; Al Jazeera (Arabic), Deutsche Welle (German), TRT (Turkish), RT (Russian), and TV Globo (Portuguese).
British and American companies have also dominated the print form. Their combined efforts have resulted in blanketing the world with news and commentary. Today’s big news organs include the London dailies, the British Economist weekly magazine, the Wall Street Journal and the International Herald Tribune, which is owned by the New York Times and printed in Paris. The Journal, the most widely circulated newspaper in the United States with more than 2 million daily buyers, also has Asian and European editions.
AD WORDS THAT WENT AWRY
The Leo Network, an international ad agency, collects language mistakes that big companies make when they advertise worldwide. The boo-boos include:
A Braniff airline ad suggesting “Fly in leather [seats],” only to discover later that the word in Spanish for leather meant “Fly naked.”
Clairol advertising a curling iron called “Mist Stick,” only to find out that the first word is slang in German for manure. Yet “Mist Stick” has an unmistakable sound.
Coca-Cola advertising in China with the word Ke-Kou-Ke-La, then discovering that the word means “bite the wax tadpole” or a “female horse stuffed with wax.”
Chevy