Engrish or English?

Ahh, English. The native language of people hailing from America, Canada, Australia, England, and a score of other countries. It is also, for some freaky reason, the international language of choice by most of the world. It has become so important to be able to communicate in English in some countries that complete losers fresh out of college can get a job teaching it in some countries (even losers with HUGE noses and long, shitty blonde hair). Ha.

I also have “beautifying English” as one of my main objectives at my current job. While I have a lot of trouble turning sometimes horrible English into “beautiful” English, it also allows me to come across such gems as “cummarize”, which was a friend of mine’s attempt at typing “summarize”.

(Note: The word “cummarize” is hereby mine and mine alone. Nobody without written consent of me shall ever be able to use this word. It’s MINE MINE MINE!!! HAHAHA)

Back to the point.

I was wondering the other day about English and it’s applications. If there are more “broken” speakers of English in the world than native speakers, why is native English still so important? I know the textbook answer to this, however, I truly wonder why sometimes.

I have been laughing for years at sites like funny.engrish and others like it. I participated in a scavenger hunt where one of the objectives was to take pictures of “funny” English around town. I had to explain to a friend why the shirt we seen online that said “War is Homo” in pink letters was not appropriate. There are thousands of things you can find on the internet dedicated to “funny” English. I have been told by colleagues that they have an easier time understanding “broken” English than native English. It's almost uncanny that we as native speakers can hold so much sway over the more populated "broken" speakers.

So my question is this: When will native English stop being important in places where there aren’t natives? When will “funny” English be the standard of all standards when it comes to English. Will there be a time when all native speakers have to go to language schools to learn “broken” English? Does it matter?

I hope this elicits some comments because I am really interested in reading about people have to say about this.

Really I’m not. The only two reasons I made this blog post was to a) post something since I haven’t since last week and b) call out my dibs on the word “cummarize”. I apologize for the inconvenience of reading this post. You can disregard it. I never really thought most of the thoughts above. I just needed something to disguise my true purpose.

Sorry.

Haha… Cummarize.






Oh...and on a side note. Props to good ol' Doug for still having these OLD school pictures from our time in Chiba. See ya in a few months fucker.

This is me as a Japanese school girl. I think I looked more like Janis Joplin, but whatever, the elements are all there.

No, we're not drunk in this picture. Yes, we am.

The Japanese in this sign is absolutely priceless. If you can't read Japanese, here's a translation: Learn to read Japanese.

This is an ancient tradition in Japan where someone sits in the drunk chair and Doug shoves a broom in their face.