Hmm. What really is proper English nowadays? Is it the language spoken in England? If so, which part of England? Is it the language spoken by the most people, across the greatest area? If yes, then it must surely be that spoken in the USA.
That said, I have always considered the English I speak to be ‘proper’, and am often amused by how Americans ‘mangle’ the language. “Why is Dafyd waffling about this?” you might ask. Well, I came across this snippet on Bob’s blog about his trip to the Grand Canyon:
Our first stop was next door to Treasure Island to pick up Paul and Melanie, who were visiting Vegas from the UK. These guys were around our age and were a total blast. It was just plain fun to listen to their various phrases that they used in comparison to ours (UK Dafyd [that's me, by the way] can back me up on this). People don’t wait in line, they “queue up”. You don’t have a chocolate for desert; you have a “chocolate for your pudding”. But even though we came from slightly different cultures, they were both very quick witted folks and we had a good time with them.
Point 1: no, I don’t have a chocolate for desert. The Sahara and Mojave are deserts. I have chocolate for dessert. Sorry. Just me nitpicking. As usual. Ignore me.
Point 2: I would argue, and always have done, that Americans have “different phrases to ours”, and not the other way round.
And point 3: “they were both very quick witted folks” – that’s us Brits all over. Except those you see reading newspapers called, for example, the Sun, the Mirror, the Daily Mail.
Reading this through, I realise that I come across slightly anti-American. That is absolutely not my intention. What I wanted to suggest was how different our viewpoints are. And also to ask the question about how we can really define “English” now that more non-Brits speak it than Brits.



As you may know, I’m a huge fan of
But to every cloud there is a silver lining. Or, in this case, a golden lining. Alton Towers has officialy announced that they are building a new roller coaster for the 2005 season. Codenamed RITA (don’t ask), it will be a launched roller coaster with a loop and heartline-roll – basically, you get blasted out of the station at 65mph, get flipped over a couple of times, get off, and do it again. The actual specifications of the ride are top secret, but from what people on Towers Times have found out, this seems a fairly good assumption. Alton Towers have launched a promotional website,