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I would really like to see someone come up with a standard English, like the Academie Francaise or the Caighdeán have for their respective languages. I'm not a prescriptivist, but i think having a canonical standard people can choose to adhere to is always a good thing.

For what it's worth, in my experience "whom" is fine to use for indirect objects (a la dative) but not direct. But having these distinctions doesn't do a whole lot for clarity, as the move away from proper case distinction in modern German shows.



> I would really like to see someone come up with a standard English

I think that would be easier if you everyone agreed who'd set the default:

- the most (Indian English)

- the most powerful (the US) or

- the closest to the root (the British)


British isn't actually the closest to the root, American English is actually far more conservative then British English, for instance the dropping of Rs seen most places besides American English is actually an innovation.


A hypothetical "Académie anglais" would be about vocabulary and spelling, not pronunciation. Even the French aren't bothered by the existence of accents.


>I'm not a prescriptivist, but i think having a canonical standard people can choose to adhere to is always a good thing.

Could you elaborate on this? What problems does it actually solve?


You’re just handing over unearned power and status to whoever happens to speak the dialect you’re formalizing around.




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