With increasing evidence of the Americanisation of Australia's way of life-especially in the workplace, health and education- the American impact on pronunciation of expressive French/Anglo words is becoming irksome.
Take the old , important position in local government,Town Clerk, the Clerk expressed under Queen's English as CLARK. But , on several occasions , on commercial TV and the ABC, which should know better , it has been heard pronounced the infuriating Yankee way, CLERK .
And , gnash, gnash, there is the oft heard offensive mouthing of ROUTE and ROUTED , which should be ROOT and ROOTED, but is increasingly heard as ROWT and ROWTED ! Australian politicians, academics and reporters are among the offenders who ought be boiled in oil or guillotined a la French for committing this verbal offence .
A minister in the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly was repeatedly heard say vital equipment from interstate bound for Darwin after a power station blew up was being ROWTED via a long way because of flooding. For this gross sin against the use of English, he was attacked by an angry Plover when he went outside onto the lawn . Three cheers for the patriotic Plover which was protecting its patch and the Mother Tongue .
In the current sitting of the House of Representatives , Immigration and Border Protection Minister, Peter Dutton, during a censure motion against him, was heard say he would not let refugees on Nauru use self harm as a ROWT to Australia .
A puzzling account of the heated censure debate , moved by the Greens and Tasmanian Independent Andrew Wilkie, failed because the ALP and Coalition voted against it , Labor's immigration spokesman Richard Marles quoted as saying Labor opposed the motion, due to its " over-egged language." What?
