English is pure? Do you know how many languages its borrowed from? English is about as pure as Anna Nichole Smith.

French, Gaelic, Latin, Greek, everyone's had a turn with your "pure" language.

If even the various parts of England have different dialects of the language, then where precisely is the definitive pure English language spoken?

By the BBC. I do believe that all of the BBC's main newsreaders are still given language training to speak English without any form of local accent.



You forgot the Germans and the Scandinavians. Just like a pedigree dog is somewhere down the line a newt.

English may be a mongrel... but that just makes American the bastard child of a mongrel, does it not?

And the spanish.

But ha! you admit that London has rats!

Except that if by your definition British English is a mongrel but still its own language, then American English is also a mongrel, and still its own language. Its said that a language is a dialect with an army and a navy.. I'd say that America is big enough to qualify as something bigger than a dialect, simply because American English has its own dialects. Once a 'dialect' branches into other dialects, then it gets upgraded to a language.

Cited above here. Again, English is maintained closer to the original form on this side of the ocean. Given that you have twice insisted that deviations constitute a dialect, you just shot yourself in the foot.

Dictionary.com is frequently wrong.

It should not be used as a reference in any sort of linguistic argument.

Quote is not strictly a noun. You may use it as one all you like, Xavius, and you can justify it to yourself as one of those mistakes that everyone makes so it's ok... but ultimately you'll just look like a fool.

It used to be known as RP (amusingly enough), meaning received pronunciation. It's slightly dated as an idea now, except among purists or snobs.

Pulled out my Merriam-Webster. It agrees. Quote is a noun with three definitions, one of which is the punctuation mark, one of which is something that is quoted.

EDIT: You lose. The Oxford English Dictionary agrees with me, according to a tertiary source.
See a "purist" get the beatdown here. Even your own lesser dialect's greatest resource acknowledges quote as a noun synonymous to quotation.

I hardly think it's about winning and losing. Or about right or wrong.

Take for example, split infinitives. There's absolutely nothing wrong with them whatsoever in my book - they make more sense, in fact since they more often follow the natural iambic rhythms of the language. But the intellectual majority regards them as wrong, so woe betide you if you use them.

Same goes for quote as a noun. Sorry, but it does. On any issue like this one, the arguments are endless, but what it comes down to is that if intelligent people think it's wrong and regard it as an elephant trap, then you'll look silly for using it.

BBBBZZZZTTTT

Error 14: Appealing_to_Authority_You_Have_Lost

That's argumentum ad populum, not appeal to authority. You have meta-lost.

Not quite, he used the qualifier of the intelligent people, which is very different.

We should discuss what the "intellectual majority" is. Typically, those with a proper respect for academia bow to the most certified or peer-reviewed opinions in a field. In American English, that'd be the writers of Merriam-Webster. In British English, that'd be the writers of the OED. Now, there are those who acknowledge controversy and take a side, like the status of Pluto or the philosophic validity of a strictly material universe. Then, there are those who, for who knows what reason, make up arbitrary distinctions based on faulty premises in a field that is not their own. You're diving headlong into the latter.

The analogies to chess bore me... I prefer fencing.



PARRY, RIPOSTE: Not true. I draw attention again to Portugese. More Brazilians speak Brazilian Portugese than Portugese people speak Portugese. However, Brazilian Portugese is STILL a dialect, not a language in itself.



CIRCULAR PARRY: Wikipedia is mainly contributed to by Americans. Racial bias, anyone?

RIPOSTE: Considering the recent scandal after one of Wikipedia's most trusted contributors turned out to be lying about having a PhD and being a college student, where can there be any assurance anything written therein can be deemed as true?



Mature...


Ah, the joys of debate. Especially with such worthy opponents. I await your replies.

This is a canned answer, not an educated one.

SIDESTEP: Wikipedia has said, for the entire duration of its popularity, that original research has no place on Wikipedia, only reasonably peer-reviewed sources. Is it perfect? No. Does the standard exist? Yes. Are sources documented? Yes.

Ready for it?

LUNGE: The primary source for that article is British.

IGNORE THE LUNGE AS IT BECOMES APPARENT IT IS A FEINT: After re-reading that article, it doesn't actually seem to support your point.

LOW GUARD: I await your explanation...

Side note: American and British English are much closer to each other than the varieties of Portuguese spoken in Brazil and Portugal.

Not a side note: The 'international' English most of the world learns as a lingua franca is American, not British.

Why? Given the points I was trying to make, it seemed a perfectly rational way to make them.

Because I hate the fact that "appeal to authority" is considered a logical fallacy, and so I point it out anytime its used in a logical manner.

Same with slipperly slope, but atleast that one has some merit.