Hello, and today I'm going to talk about the difference between formal and informal English.
Now, it's very important to be able to distinguish between formal and informal English. Why? Well, if we are being too informal in circumstances which require more formality, well, we could get ourselves into trouble. And the other way around as well. If we are too formal with people who are expecting us to be much more informal, well, then we may sound a little bit pompous.
Listen to this,
"with reference to your email, which I recently received",
with reference to your email, which I recently received, and compare with
"re. your email that I just got"
re. your email that I just got. Now the first one, you may recognize as sounding more formal, and the second one more informal. Let's engage in a little analysis about why that is.
Now to do this, I think it's useful to learn a little bit about the history of the English language. So I'm going to take you back to 1066. That's nearly 1000 years ago, isn't it? 1066. Why, what happened? Well, the Normans who came from France, invaded Britain. And there was a big battle called the Battle of Hastings, which all English children learn about in school. It's important. Our history teacher used to tell us because it was the last time that the British Isles were invaded.
Well, apart from all that nationalism, there is also another reason why it was important. And I'm thinking about the linguistic reason, the language reason because the Normans brought French with them. And French became the official language in Britain. It was the language of Parliament. It was the language of the nobility, the kings and queens. And it was the language of authority. So we had two languages present in the UK. Well, it wasn't called the UK. In Britain, it was called then. We had two languages in Britain at the same time, French, spoken among the nobility, and Anglo Saxon. Anglo Saxon had its origins from somewhere in Central Europe. And it was made up of those Germanic languages. For example, like today's German.
So what happened was, we had a situation where there were two languages living side by side. So the French lived in a palace because they were the wealthy ones. And they had lovely furniture, tables and chairs. Now, if you think about those words, palace, table, chair, they are similar in French: palace - le palais; table - la table; chair - la chaise.
Now Meanwhile, the peasants - the peasants, the peasants are the people, the Anglo Saxons working on the land. They were the ones who were raising the cattle for the French nobility and growing crops for the French nobility. Well, they just lived in a simple house. And if you think about it, if you know any German, the word in German is also haus but it's spelt differently - HAUS. And they didn't have tables or chairs. They just sat on stools. Stool, now stool in English today STOOL is a very rudimentary chair with three legs and no back. We call that a stool. And interestingly, it comes from the word stuhl in German, which means chair.
So, other things that happened then were that as the Anglo Saxons were raising the cattle and raising the animals, the livestock for the French, we gave them Anglo Saxon names: sheep, cow, pig. But we couldn't afford to eat those animals ourselves. Oh no! The meat was prepared for the nobility to eat in their palaces. And sheep in French is mouton. And cow is le bouef* and pig is le porc.
So that's why today, we have different words for the meat of an animal than the name of the animal itself. So, mouton became mutton, which is the meat from a sheep and le bouef became beef, which is the meat from a cow. Le porc became pork, the meat from a pig.
So it's interesting, if you look at the English language, that we have this, well, sort of a 50-50 really - 50% French words, and 50% Anglo Saxon words. So you have words like liberty, which is from French, and the equivalent in Anglo Saxon freedom. Fraternity, which is French, and the English equivalent or the Anglo Saxon equivalent, which is brotherhood.
Now this situation went on for about 300 years of English and French living side by side. But of course, what happened, the languages became very much mixed. And 300 years later, the Chancellor under the king, Edward the third got up in Parliament, and for the first time ever, he spoke in English, but an English very different from the Anglo Saxon of before.
So what has happened then is that the French part of English, which comes from Latin, because most of the words in French derive from the Latin language, they are still here today, connected with well, more formal things. And the Anglo Saxon, well, that is often considered to be less formal, just like the peasants.
So I'm going to read you a couple of phrases. This one,
"what do you need?"
And let's compare that with,
"please let us know your requirements".
Now in the second one, which is more formal, notice we have Latin-based words: requirements.
"I'm sorry to tell you that..."
And the more formal version would be,
"we regret to advise you that..."
we regret to advise you that - there that we have regret and advise, which are Latin-based words. And therefore that sounds much more formal.
"I'm sorry for..."
well, that's pretty informal. Compare that with,
"please accept our apologies for..."
which is a lot more formal. So the final one,
"sorry, I can't make it"
and compare that with,
"I'm afraid I will not be able to attend."
I will not be able to attend. And I'll just finish this episode on that note; a lot of students come up to me after the class.
"Sorry, teacher next week, I will not be able to attend the class."
I say to them, that sounds too formal. I'm your English teacher, you know me, well, you should be speaking to me in a less formal tone. Something like,
"I can't make it next week" or,
"I can't come next week".
Notice that make and come are Anglo Saxon words. A lot of the verbs are usually monosyllabic: come, make. But the thing is that most speakers of Latin-based languages who are learning English, find it easier to use Latin-based words when they are talking in English. So I'll finish there for now. Until the next recording, bye for now.
*le bouef literally means bullock, which is a young, male cow and the ones that are usually turned into meat.
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