Evolution Of Language....

[EcclesCake]

.....is it a moot point?

[Zacs-Master]

Bred for shooting here too Stewey. Just one example
http://www.bettwshall.com/game-farm/
To be honest, round here, they're very common and are almost treated as vermin and so shooting on the local Landowners estate is very popular.

[humbersloop]

^^sandy, there's none of that mularky with a decent rasher sandwich

[Peter Pedant]

not that moot

it certainly changes - and there are drivers to change

but evolution means survival of the fittest -or have I read too much into the q. ? even on that point -it should predominate because of the billion-speaker level - english, spanith, mandarin and arabic,
English is the easiest.

[stewey]

Of course English is easiest, Peter, especially if you already have a head start.

[shoota]

///but evolution means survival of the fittest ///

Your pedantry fails you Peter: the principal of .survival of the fittest' may contribute to evolution but that is not what the word means.

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/evolution

[jeffa]

He's right, though - "Basic English" contains only 850 words.

English is one of the easiest languages in the world to speak at a basic level, yet one of the most difficult to speak fluently. If you have studied any other language, this will become obvious to you very quickly. Unlike every other European language, English has no gender of noun, no informal and formal second person, its verbs are with only a few exceptions totally straightforward.

Yesterday I go[i to London.
Today I [i]go[i] to London.
Tomorrow I [i]go[i] to London.

This would be unthinkable in lots of languages.

Yet, there are some aspects of English which are (almost) impenetrable to learners, specifically our phrasal verbs.

Almost as soon as the batsman had [i]run out[i] onto the field, he was [i]run out[i] for a duck, his luck having completely [i]run out].

[jeffa]

Shoota, you are correct, and you'd be amazed at how many people think that "survival of the fittest" was coined by Charles Darwin and have not the slightest knowledge of Herbert Spencer.

[Hypognosis]

..and those of us who watch too many David Attenborough programs have come to learn that it it doesn't matter how 'fit' the wildebeest is, because the lion is going to pick off its shorter-legged, slower running calf.

Then again, watching some film sequences, the target selection gives all the appearance of being random or opportunistic. Perhaps 'survival of the luckiest' would be more apt?


p.s.
I always wanted to know whether it was "moot point" or "mute point". Moot just means "meeting place" but, if you take this to mean a 'meeting place for the tribe' then it's exactly the place where you'd expect talking points to be raised. Somewhere along the line, the useage has changed to be 'an issue not worthy of a response' and 'mute point' fits that sense better. (but no dictionary will back me up on that point, I expect)