While Googling, I found this site with words and phrases they think should be "removed from the Queens English for MisUse, Overuse, and General Uselessness." What do you think?

I agree it's more a question of misuse (or overuse)rather than any particular vice of the word or phrase itself.

Surreal, for example, is a perfectly good word when used appropriately.

Kind of a funny little article.

I've never understood why some folks had to start calling "students" "learners" all the sudden. What is wrong with being called a "student"?

At work yesterday we were discussing how to label our new book display for the upcoming month. Should it be "Black History Month" or "African-American History Month"? I said it's a matter of being historically correct (the former) or politically correct.

Then we all had a good chuckle over what one of our staff did when sorting out the copier paper (which had previously been a mess) into different trays. One set of trays is now labelled "paper of color".

Sigh. Am I the onliest person to find it strange that a Midwestern university would call it the Queen's English?

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I've never understood why some folks had to start calling "students" "learners" all the sudden. What is wrong with being called a "student"?

The reason for this change was said to be that it changed the emphasis from what was being done by the trainer or teacher, to what was being achieved by the learner.

For this reason the training world has moved to stating what will be the "training outcomes" (that is, what will be done by the trainer)to the "learning outcomes" (that which will be experienced by the learner.

A slight shift of emphasis, I agree, but one I actually agree with. After all, it's not what the trainer does that matters, it's what happens to the learner at the end of the process that's the real criterion.

So, to take the original point, it's not what students do that matters; it's what they learn.

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Sigh. Am I the onliest person to find it strange that a Midwestern university would call it the Queen's English?

Nope. I had the same thought, precisely, though I was waiting for others to weigh in. Queen's English, indeed!

Would you prefer The Bronx English?

I've never particularly liked 'The Queen's English' as an expression either, partially because I have anti-Monarchy leanings (not to "let's put 'em against a wall and shoot' em" degree though!), but mostly because I think the language belongs to the people in general, not to any one person.

Well, it really doesn't have anything to do with the Queen, though does it? I mean, the Queen is hardly a linguist. I could see them calling it OED English, or something similar. I hadn't heard it called "Queen's English" before.

Arizona??? We are not amused.

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strange that a Midwestern university would call it the Queen's English?

Research reveals here, "It was during a New Year's party 30 years ago when [sic] LSSU Public Relations Director Bill Rabe and some colleagues cooked up a whimsical idea to banish overused words and phrases."

What would you expect from a drunken PR man?

Perhaps they were trying for an "ironic" effect. By using an overworked cliché like "the Queen's English" they are guilty of the very crime they are railing against. Although, for obvious reasons, it's not (normally) used in the USA, the phrase has definitely become a cliché here.

I hadn't heard it called "Queen's English" before.

I've hear the (insert monarchical gender-specific term here)'s English, and, in fact, I own Fowler's The King's English. It's just an example of the received standard being the speech of an assumed better speaker. About QE2 not being a linguist, she doesn't even have a college degree. Her son, Chucky, being the first royal to go to university and get his bit of parchment.

I remember hearing the phrase "the king's English" used when I was in high school, but it was used in a facetious or satirical way. I don't remember hearing it for a long time. Other phrases we used in a similar fashion were "according to Hoyle," and "the Marquis of Queensbury Rules" (though it should be "Marquess of Queensbury Rules, according to Wikipedia).

Tinman

The Marquess of Queensbury who wrote the boxing rules was the father of Oscar Wilde's lover, and the man who left his famous calling card with the misspelling "For Oscar Wilde posing as a Somdomite." It was as a result of Wilde's libel case against the Marquess, that he ended up in Reading Gaol for two years of hard labour, before leaving England to live abroad in France and Italy.

zmjezhd, since reading your post, I've been contemplating the definitions of "linguist," and I can't see that being considered such requires that one hold a degree, any more than holding a degree (in English, for example) necessarily makes one a linguist.

Well, I have never worked professionally as a linguist, academically or in the business world, so I don't usually describe myself as a linguist. I'm quick to say that I studied (comparative-historical) linguistics as an undergraduate, and that I read extensively on lnguistic subjects, but that doesn't really make me a linguist. For that I'd say a doctorate in linguistics and working as a professor or linguistic consultant is necessary. There are two common and conflicting definitions of a linguist: one is a person who speaks many languages, (i.e., someone I would call a polyglot) and the other somebody who studied and practices linguistics, the scientific study of language. That being said, I still wouldn't call HM Queen Elizabeth II a linguist. Nor her son, HRH Charles, Prince of Wales. While I am sure that there are linguists without degrees, I doubt that there are very many. Just being interesting in language and words is not enough. Most grammar mavens know very little about the history and accumulated knowledge of the past 200 or so of linguistics as a modern academic subject. (NB: no disrespect of linguists or the British Royal Family intended.)

While I agree with Zmj that, to me, a linguist should probably have a doctoral degree...though I consider Zmj to be an amateur linguist. The Queen? Not so much!

I don't see how you can require a linguist to have a doctorate. A Masters and a full-time job which is linguistic based is certainly enough qualification, although that would be rather on the high end.

Because in my experience, very few people with bachelors or masters degrees in linguistics work as professional linguists. Your experience may be different from mine. Almost all linguistics jobs (academic and otherwise) that I've seen advertised have required a PhD in linguistics. Actually, now that I think of it, I know one linguist, at Stanford / CSLI, who has only a BA in linguistics. He's worked at Xerox PARC for years in NLP. But he is rather the exception.

My point is only that going by these definitions, it is not necessary to have a degree to be considered a linguist:
lin·guist
n.
A person who speaks several languages fluently.
A specialist in linguistics.
n 1: a specialist in linguistics 2: a person who speaks more than one language [syn: polyglot]
I only wish to point out for your consideration that surely there have been/are people who have made it their life's avocation, if not vocation, to make scientific studies of languages, and that not all of them have held/hold degrees.

I've decided that I was wrong in demanding a PhD as one of the criteria for being considered a linguist. I withdraw this criterion. I still don't think that the Queen of England qualifies as a linguist, but if you want to that's fine with me.

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Originally posted by zmjezhd:
Sigh. Am I the onliest person to find it strange that a Midwestern university would call it the Queen's English?

I am sorry, but most correspondents are missing the point. Describing what is technically 'received ' or 'standard' English usage is not the meaning of linguist. The first of the better known books by the great Fowler brothers was entitled 'The King's English' but nowhere makes the claim that the then King was master or exemplar of the language. In modern England, Queen's English more often refers to the mode of speech or alleged lack of dialect; it is also attributively called 'Oxford English'.
Queen Elizabeth 2nd actually speaks with commendable clarity, absence of local dialects or accents, and her use of language is generally impeccable.
As you may guess, I am a pro-monarchist, and find the traditional term [I]Queen's English[/ .I] acceptable, accurate, and harmless

Pearce

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the Queen's English?

Actually she's not. Our royal family is part German (the house of Saxe Coburg, from memory). And, of course, her hsuband is Greek.

Having said which, I think they do a very difficult job pretty well and I have no complaints. And, after all, we none of us can choose our antecedents, not even the Queen.

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I've decided that I was wrong in demanding a PhD as one of the criteria for being considered a linguist. I withdraw this criterion. I still don't think that the Queen of England qualifies as a linguist, but if you want to that's fine with me.

It's like any Joe Blow calling himself a nutritionist. Usually the particular disciplines or professions make it clear who can be called what, but apparently that's not so with linguists. I tend to think of a linguist as having a PhD and teaching or writing about linguistics at a university. However, if the linguistics departments in universities say they consider other credentials as qualifying them as linguists, then it's fine with me. It just needs to be decided by the particular discipline, and not by some Joe Blow who has read "How to Increase Your Vocabulary in Two Hours" and then calls himself a linguist.

It also seems that in the UK translators and foreign language instructors call themselves linguists, whereas in the States they're called translators and foreign language instructors. I was thinking more along the lines of somebody calling themselves a physicist if they had a degree in physics and worked as a golf caddy. As for the Duke of Edinburgh, Philip was a Greek subject, but he used to be a scion of the Danish Royal Family and ethnically is more German, Danish, and Russian than Greek. Philip is also a descendent of Queen Victoria. The name Mountbatten is a translation of the original family name of Battenburg. It was changed during the First World War. This was around the same time that the Royal family became The House of Windsor, rather than of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha as it had been since Albert married Victoria. Today it is Mountbattten-Windsor.

Like a few of my compatriots I have quite contradictory views of the Royal Family. I essentially believe it to be a thing of the past having no place in a proper democracy, the basic belief that one family should be supported financially to a huge sum over the rest of the population purely based on outdated historical reasons is essentially wrong in my view.
On the other hand I think the Queen hasn't done a bad job and the horror of the thought of President Blair is enough to keep me (just!) in favour of the Monarchy for the moment.
And I have to admit that I would hate the RAF and RN to be just the British Air Force and the British Navy and I would hate the regiments of the British Army to be just numbers! It says something of history that the RAF and RN refers to the British ones and that there is no need to insert British in there somewhere unlike say, the Royal Netherlands Air Force or the Royal Norwegian Air Force. So at the moment I'm in favour more for the monarchy than against, but still against the Civil List- I think they can manage on what they've got and the junior Royals can bloody well get out there and work!

Surely one can be pro-monarchist and still see that the Queen of England is not a linguist. Or have I missed something?

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So at the moment I'm in favour more for the monarchy than against, but still against the Civil List- I think they can manage on what they've got and the junior Royals can bloody well get out there and work!

I haven't checked the exact figures but the Civil List works out at less than a quid a year for each of us. I'll pay your share for the next ten years if you're that fussed ;-)

As for working - I reckon the Royals (even the junior ones) work pretty damned hard - even though we might not always appreciate it. After all, how many miles did we travel last week to attend offical events and how many hours of public speaking did we do?

It's an obeservable fact that everyone seems to believe that someone else's job if easier/better paid/more prestigious than their own. Few who hold that belief take the trouble to check the facts, it seems to me.