Hi everyone,
this thread is cool. Yeah, it's cool because I was just thinking of that "updating" and I thought it would be funny. Americans receive updates from England:
Grammar Geek is at her computer, and sees a pop up, "Your database is pretty old, your vocabulary may not be up-to-date." Oh my, she says, and clicks on "update it now"... done! "Thank you for upgrading your English! You got a new word: aubergine."Now, I would say that it's British people who are somehow upgrading thier English... This would be more likely:
Nona the Brit is at her PC, she's upgrading her English... "Thank you for upgrading your English from the new Hollywood database. You got a new word: dude."Hahahah, funny.
![Stick out tongue [:P]](/emoticons/emotion-4.gif)
Seriously now, I think it's not possible to control a language. Languages evolve, change, merge and die. If there was only a variety of English, don't you think it would be a dull language? It would be simple to learn and it would be understood everywhere, yes, but that would be dull. The only thing I hope is that English varieties won't diverge too much, to the point they will actually be separate languages. I don't think that will happen, mainly because of the Internet, Hollywood and mass-media in general. But if the Americas had been discovered 5000 years ago (thousands of years without media, heh), I believe American English and British English would now be two completely different languages.
That's all.