Amglish In, Like, Ten Easy Lessons_ A Celebration of the New World Lingo - Arthur E. Rowse [52]
In recent years, Asian and Latin American countries have caught the wave, boosting their masses up the economic ladder to the level of the West and adding billions of educated participants to an international audience that craves the new communication devices and the thrill of being constantly connected to the entire globe.
For better or worse, globalization has brought nations and their populations closer together through the buying and selling process. American business has led the way by hiring foreign workers, setting up branch plants abroad, and teaching workers how to communicate in American terms. Also working to connect people have been the immense problems associated with globalization.
The quill-and-inkhorn style of Adams and other colonials has given way to a digital universe that few could have predicted even two decades ago. The contrasts are so huge that they defy detailed description here. As George W. Bush once said, “The past is over.”1 Today is for instantaneous connections from person to person regardless of distance, language, age, or other factors.
THE FAULTY TOWER OF BABEL
The Babylonian cacophony that angered God in Genesis 11 has gone international. As people become more affluent, they tend to travel more and move their homes to distant places. At the same time, millions of less affluent people are now freer to flee from unwanted conditions or to seek work outside their native village or country.
The result is a greater mixture of populations and languages than ever. Just walk down a busy street in any major city, and you will hear not only a cacophony of formal and informal language but a mixture of foreign languages, often distant ones. Mexican-born author Ilan Stavans tells about his home in New York City way back in the 1980s: “I was enthralled by the clashing voices on a regular walk in the Upper West Side: English, Spanish, Yiddish, Hebrew . . . Arabic, French, Polish, Russian, Swahili and scores of other tongues.”2 He said there was a bagel bakery, a Korean grocer, and a newsstand at the corner of 110th and Broadway with periodicals in Chinese, Hebrew, and Spanish as well as English.
In only a few generations, the United States has moved from a largely monolingual country to one that is increasingly polyglot, starting with the major cities and moving to smaller communities. Americans, who have a reputation for not knowing any foreign languages, now are hearing them next door or down the street. Suddenly the world’s languages are coming to us as our own language is going to them.
The world of Stavans also helps illustrate the increasingly informal atmosphere within the nation’s borders, where many nationalities, races, ages, skin colors, and dialects intermingle haphazardly in search of common ground and understanding. Today’s casual lingo is a function of the growing informality of human affairs.
It’s the voice of shifting styles. Clothes are an example as they drift from formal and flowery to informal, even simple and sloppy—for men, from suits, shirts, and neckties to T-shirts and blue jeans, and for women, from dresses, skirts, and bras to pants and blouses sans bras, plus sneakers or flip-flops for shopping or moviegoing. In temperate zones, shorts are now chic all year long for many, despite occasional freezing weather.
Like words, clothes make statements. And their message today is that informality is in; get with it or get lost. Amglish is English in blue jeans.
MESSAGING AND NETWORKING
To keep current, in-people no longer merely telephone or e-mail; they message and network. They also Facebook if they are not already tweeting on Twitter or YouTubing. By mid-2010, Facebook had signed up member number 500 million. And who could guess which country is second to the United States in the number of participants? It’s not China, Russia, or India; it’s Indonesia.
Who could have predicted this verbal explosion? Facebook members can both friend and unfriend others with the click