Val Dumond

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America the Bee-you-tee-full
by Val Dumond
©2007

The little boy who found a way to fly to Phoenix from Sea-Tac without buying a ticket has been regarded in different ways by different people. Seems there are (at least) two kinds of people: those who follow "the rules" blindly and those who make up their own. The boy's mother thought him "creative." The airlines thought him a criminal. Bloggers around the world threw in their two-cents worth in a variety of ways. On the continuum that includes both extremes, there also is a middle ground that describes people in proportion to the number of rules they follow and the frequency they break them.

Which are you?

Would you find a way to fly somewhere special in the way the boy did, if you had to? If you wanted to? Or would you dutifully buy a ticket on credit and spend years paying for it?

Do you find rules in everything you do? Flying? Religion? Politics? Family life? Work? (and you-name-it)?

If a rule doesn't agree with your needs/wants, do you find a way around it?

The reason I bring this up is that there are many who believe everything around them is guided by rules. At the extremes are those who do so in order to avoid making decisions. "After all, if there is a rule to follow, I don't have to think about it."

Then there are those who feel more secure with rules to tell them what to do. "I know that rules are made by people who I can trust to guide me." While they may think about "other ways to do something," they might feel in free-fall if they don't follow the rules.

Most languages have sets of rules. Some, such as French, are controlled by a committees of academics who fix grammar and pronunciation rules. This follows for most other languages: Spanish, Italian, Latin, Welsh, Greek, Arabic (a variety of forms), Chinese (Mandarin and Cantonese), Japanese, Filipino, and on and on. Although very few go so far as to have language committees, most have grammar books that haven't been changed in decades.

Somewhere in there are rules for English. Ah, but let's look more closely. There is Canadian English (eh!) and Australian English and Irish English and Scottish English. AND, there is American English. If you're paying attention, you may understand that in the U.S. we speak our own brand of English. Why? Because, like many of those other countries, we fought a war to get away from England! Duh!

Back in the 17th and 18th centuries, our ancestors (at least the ancestors of some of us) invaded the northern hemisphere and brought with them some of the habits, holidays, culture, food, music and... language of their native lands - starting with England. When the Pilgrims / Colonists decided to go it alone after 1776, they chose to weave their own ways. They gave up tea, took up coffee, and threw out a bunch of "u's" from words such as colour, honour, favour, reversed the "r" and "e" in words such as theatre, centre, and so on. They also changed a lot of those thingees that look like an "f" into an "s" and they changed the "s" to a "z" in other words. What they didn't, or couldn't, change were the many words brought to England from other countries. Coffee, for instance, came from Turkey (spelled "qahveh") through Italy (spelled "caffé") via Germany (spelled "kaffee").

Fast forward through a couple more centuries and notice how many people from other countries around the world arrived on the shores of what became the United States of America - or "America," to some. (Don't overlook the fact that Mexicans, Brazilians, Peruvians, Canadians, Venezuelans, and others, also live in America and therefore may consider themselves "Americans.") Every nationality that has arrived on America's shores has brought its own culture, food, holidays, music, and language - and added it to the rich mix that makes living in this country so stimulating.

Imagine American life without classical Italian and Austrian opera, or Irish, German, Russian, or French folk dance? Jewish Hanukkah, Irish St. Patrick's Day, Mexican Cinco de Mayo? Tacos, pita bread, gyros, curry, salsa, rumba, waltz, and all the other daily activities Americans enjoy without leaving the country?

A note here about dictionaries. Take time to peruse the latest American Heritage Dictionary and Webster's latest version too. Notice some of the differences in how words are treated. Also notice word origins and count the number of countries, tribes, cultures, races, and groups that have shared their words with Americans.

If somebody somewhere didn't break "the rules", people today wouldn't be driving cars, cooking with electricity, communicating via ether, or probably even existing. Breaking rules means change, and change is what humans need to grow.

So, go out and break a rule today. [WARNING: As with most "rules" there are exceptions. Do not feel too "creative" around police officers or others holding a gun on you.]

The purpose of this subject on a website devoted to communication, is to suggest to writers that they keep a style manual - keep track of preferences in language usage. What do you want to capitalize? How do you spell some of those "foreign" words ("foreign" being an ethnocentric and biased word)? Where do you like to place commas? Just as with your computer and its Preferences, a writer needs to make decisions and be consistent with the way words are used.

If you traverse bookstores, take a look at the style manuals for sale. You may find one that you agree with wholeheartedly. Buy it! Otherwise, get a sense of the things that are up for decisions, make your own choices, and write your own style manual. Go ahead - do it your way!

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