@jayles - interesting about 'trainings'.

As to the people who need to use English at work, to repeat, a foreign language (or two or three) is seen as a normal part of a person's education here, as it used to be in 19th century England. For certain (usually quite high-paying) jobs you need a knowledge of English, yes. But for the vast majority of jobs, of course, English isn't a requirement at all.

As I've said before, this is common all over Europe; It's nothing to do with imperialism, whatever broomhead is might mean. It's the only way Europe can work, as an entity, as an economic area. I'm not necessarily talking about English, but some common language is needed, and German companies in the post-war rebuilding more or less decided this should be English. As I keep saying, Poles are an outward-looking nation, not like the little-Englanders who seem to be gaining so much ground at home.

In any case I doubt very many have to speak English all day or even most of the day. Most of those I teach use Polish most of the time and use English to communicate with non-Polish colleagues, either here or most often in other countries, most of whom are also not native-speakers. There is absolutely no question of their L1 being sidelined and I've seen absolutely no evidence of what you are talking about.

Sorry, but I think you're talking about a non-problem, and from a very British perspective.

Back on topic - vattafairefoote made a very good point right at the beginning of this discussion, which I think porsche rather unreasonably dismissed - the comparison with British "orientate".

"conversate" started off, of course, as a back formation from "conversation" (the sort of thing foreign learners often do, for example, it would be quite reasonable to assume that the verb associated with "determination" was "determinate", when in fact it is "determine".

But some British have done exactly the same thing with "orientate", which Online Etymology lists as being "1849, back-formation from orientation. Related: Orientated; orientating."

All the main British dictionaries list "orientate" as a British variant of "orient", without any warning comments, although its use is admittedly much less that "orient". Its negative form "disorientated" is even more popular. In the Third edition of Fowler's, Burchill, while himself preferring the shorter version writes "... but the saving is not great. And one can have no fundamental quarrel with anyone who decides to use the longer of the two words".

What I do find surprising is that Ngram shows the use of "conversate" rising in parallel in British books (although at a considerably lower level), but if you click on the links, they seem to be mainly American.

To do a side by side comparison of British and American usage, enter into Ngram Viewer: conversate:eng_us_2012,conversate:eng_gb_2012

One interesting point is that there's a little peak at the end of the 19th century, and clicking on the link brings up some Black American dialect, presumably written by whites:

"I don't want to conversate wif she. She don't unnerstan' me. She has no culchaw. She jest nuffin' but an old rabbit wif no soul above shinin' shirt collars. My wife has got to have culchaw. She don't even know grammar." (Donahoe's magazine 1894) NB
apparently "culchaw" = culture

'Lor bress you, massah, dis no place to conversate !" cried the poor negro' (The lone grave of the Shenandoah - Donn Piat 1888)

"She took advantage of my youf, so she did. I doesn't care to conversate with she." (Time 1886)

So we at least know that it's been around in Black American English for some time.

The earliest example I can find is from 1872, from 'Half an hour with a good author, by himself' (A. Matthison). But I imagine it is being used here humorously.

"Mrs Golightly, this honourable court declares you decidedly impugned, nay, attainted, and condemned of treasonous practices against the truth. Conversate no more "

And here's another presumably humorous one, with not merely one, but two back-formations, from the Canadian Textile Journal of 1921 - "... they will arbitrate, negotiate, conversate, meditate, mediate, cogitate, argumentate and expostulate in setting forth their desires ..."

The earliest mention seems to be from 1762, by James Buchanan in an essay in The Monthly Review - "The British Grammar: Or, An Essay, in Four Parts, Towards Speaking and Writing the English Language Grammatically and Inditing Elegantly". But unfortunately I can find no searchable version on the web to see what he says.

@jayles (2) - sorry, I misunderstood your earlier comment about Standard English. I thought you were complaining about it coming under pressure, whereas you were simply stating a fact. Your point about International English is an interesting one.

At one of my earlier classes, I asked the students what their work involved, and amongst other things, they said that they co-operated with people in other departments. My initial reaction was "Well, I would hope you would", thinking of native-speaker uses like "She's not very co-operative". But of course in international business English, it simply means "work together".

I'm quite surprised at DW, as Germans are pretty good at using English 'in its native state', so I did a site search for 'informations' at DW. In the first five pages, only three were in English (most were in French).

One of them included a link to 'patient informations' (in German). One was a reference to "Schengen Informations-System 2" (the official EU version is singular). However, these are by far outnumbered by references to the singular "information". I imagine what you were talking about was spoken references, and not necessarily by DW staff. It looks as though when they're being more careful (i.e. in print) they overwhelmingly use the singular.

But more interestingly perhaps, one of them quoted a curator from the British Library - "What's interesting is that non-native speakers, like the Germans, accept changes that native speakers wouldn't accept. Such as plurals that don't really exist, like 'informations.' "

The other one I notice a lot is "trainings", and there's a bit of a problem here, as quite a lot of American websites, such as The National Association of Community Health Centers and The New York Peace Center (both on the first page of a Google search for "trainings") refer to trainings in the plural. Perhaps it's like accommodation, which seems to be countable in AmE.

On these occasions I always point out (as do the course books) that these are uncountable for native speakers, but don't make a big issue of it. But in fact most of my students want to speak native-speaker English rather than some international hybrid, anyway. Certainly, when I speak French, I want to speak real French.

http://www.dw.de/london-exhibit-explains-evolution-of-english/a-14851210

As regards where you draw the line for Standard English, as far as native speakers are concerned, I think that has to to with acceptability to the majority of educated speakers. The (sometimes unfairly seen as conservative) American Heritage Dictionary has an interesting system of reader panels, and some of their results get published.

@jayles (1) - the truth is that either multinationals 'sweep' in or you have unemployment. Poland is the only country in Europe to have seen continuous growth for the last ten years, so I don't think anybody's complaining too much about that (although they are worried about the high unemployment).

The kind of jobs in Poland that demand English are for well-educated people, who are likely to have a good knowledge of English already, as most of this generation will have been learning it since they started school. Unlike in Britain, a foreign language is considered a basic part of your education here, and many of my students learn two or more. And unlike Britain (disgracefully, in my opinion) a foreign language is compulsory for the Matura exams, which are necessary for university entrance, and in some universities, a foreign language is compulsory, I believe.

I must say, I find this idea of a foreign language being "forced" on you to be a very Anglo-Saxon one. Did you feel maths was "forced" on you? In most of Europe a foreign language is considered to be just as much a part of somebody's education as maths.

What's more, Poles love travel and are very open to other cultures. Poland, for example, is in the top 5 for both sending and receiving universities for the Erasmus programme , sending more students than the UK, even though it is only two-thirds the size. Poland has five universities in the Erasmus top 40. The UK has one!

You must have noticed how much pleasure students have when they start to be able to express themselves in another language, or understand foreign texts. I certainly do when speaking French or reading in Spanish.

@HS - 'If you are happy with rubbish like "conversate", "would of". "hone in on", etc creeping into the language then so be it.' - Sorry HS, but I expect better of you than this sort of condescending non-argument.

"I, for one, fail to see how such things can in any way improve communication." That was completely twisting what I said. Never have I advocated using any of these expressions. But if somebody says one of these, does it in any way impede communication. My favourite EFL grammar writer, Michael Swan, has pointed out that errors foreign learners typically make, like forgetting third person S, using past simple instead of present perfect or forgetting articles have virtually no affect on comprehensibility. He's much more worried about utterances like "Please, where is the station?" (too abrupt).

There are many things in life I'm not happy with, some of which I can do something about, some of which I can't. As a teacher of English, it is of course a high priority for me that my students speak natural, acceptable English; that is an area I can do something about. And if I was teaching native speakers it would be the same. But I'm not, and no, I'm not going to get hot and bothered just because someone makes a silly mistake.

Let's look at your examples. No Academy is going to stop this sort of thing, but wiser (but not necessarily stricter, more traditional) education methods might help. No foreign learner would make first mistake of "would of" as they learn grammar as a system of how language works, not a stupid list of rules such as always using "whom" when it refers to the object. If native-speakers were given the same approach to grammar, possibly less (OK, fewer - another stupid rule) people would make this mistake. As for "conversate", if, as it seems, it has become a part of a certain dialect, then teaching that dialect is appropriate in certain circumstances, while Standard English is more appropriate in others, seems to me to be a more constructive approach. As for "hone in on" instead of 'home in on", this is the sort of error starting from mishearing that has been happening for centuries. Until the age of 19, I was convinced there was a a verb "to misle" as I'd read "misled" so often but had never heard it (I've read that that's quite common). But do these mistakes really harm anyone?

As I said before, generations have been complaining about the 'bastardisation of the language', but somehow English always seems to survive. What I'm a bit more concerned about is the devaluation of words like "abomination" and "bastardisation" to refer to simple mistakes. Does "would of" really cause you "loathing and revulsion". Do you think we can really use the same word (abomination) to describe a simple mistake and what's going on in places like Syria?

And let's get things in perspective. Be honest, how many times have you come across any of these mistakes in the last six months (I don't count comments on YouTube - I'd probably agree with you there; they're beyond the pale), and in particular in educated writing?

The British National Corpus has 551 instances of "would have done" and only 25 of "would of done". But most of them seem to be transcriptions from spoken language, where the "of" is the transcriber's interpretation.The BNC has 64 instances of "home in on" but only one of "hone in on", 266 for "converse" and two for "conversate" (both spoken). It's hardly the end of the world!

http://bnc.bl.uk/saraWeb.php?qy=would+of+done&mysubmit=Go

Finally, one incident earlier this year reminds us that there is absolutely no connection between speaking "good English" and being a good person. Charles Ramsay, the man who helped the young women escape in Cleveland, apparently started his 911 call with “Yeah hey bro, hey, check this out” and he might well say "conversate" for all I know. But that has absolutely no bearing on his character. And the police were apparently impressed with how succinct and precise he was in the information he gave them, so as a communicator, he seems to have scored full marks.

@jayles (2) - Are you writing for the Daily Mail now? This is just scaremongering, on a topic you've hinted at before.

The number of Chinese by ethnicity in Glasgow is about 5,000 (less than one percent of the population), and the total non-white population 10%. My experience in Edinburgh is that, while some first-generation Asians have difficulties with English, their children, born and bred there, speak pure Edinburgh.

I accept that in some areas, there have been large concentrations, and when this is combined with high levels of unemployment or poverty, this can lead to problems. I'm thinking of some northern towns which attracted a lot of Bangladeshis to work in the factories, many of which then closed in the Thatcher era, leaving high unemployment.

But let's get things into perspective. This is from 2007 - "Children of Chinese origin have outperformed every other British group in English by the age of 11", and second came Indians. White 'natives' could only manage third place.

And why shouldn't Standard English open up a bit, after all it isn't even the mother tongue of most British white children. It's a language we can all use in common, but is is it so terrible if a few dialect expression creep in? In British English 'he was sat' is an idiomatic expression (which I rather like) which is increasingly heard on Radio Four, for example. Personally, I welcome this sort of catholicity (surprised that didn't get red-lined, but apparently it's a word alright). We're all used to hearing dialect in drama and comedy shows. Why shouldn't a little of it seep into more serious areas. There is nothing superior about Standard English, apart from its status. It was just the regional dialect (East Midlands) that got lucky, being in the right place at the right time.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/chinese-pupils-eclipse-all-other-ethnic-groups-in-english-tests-436560.html

@jayles (1) - "How would you feel if you had English forced on you if you were Polish or Gujarati?" - I don't quite see what bearing this has with anything I said, but here goes.

The only language the Poles I know ever had forced on them was Russian, and as it happens, the Poles are enthusiastic and successful learners of English, as the latest results from the English First Survey show (9th position). Poland is the only country in Europe to have seen constant economic growth for the last ten years, and without an openness to foreign investment, where a knowledge of English plays a every important part, this would have been much more difficult.

"Poland and Hungary have made tremendous progress in learning English. These new English skills are an important step towards building the knowledge economies they aspire to have." English First

What's more up to two million Poles have migrated in search of jobs, a lot of them to Britain and Ireland. Everywhere here you see bilingual kindergartens, and virtually everybody learns English at school. The Poles I know see it as an opening to opportunity, not a millstone. It's not like Welsh-speakers or Gaelic-speakers having English forced on them as the only language that could be spoken in the school, as used to happen in the past.

As for Gujarati, it is only spoken in a relatively small part of India, and by less that 5% of the population, so if they want to speak to somebody from another part of the country, either one of them has to be bilingual or they need to have a common language.The official language of India is Hindi, with English as the 'second language of the union'. Roughly 400,000 speak Hindi as their native language, and officially just over 200,000 Indian English. This compares with 74,000 for the next biggest (Telugu) and a mere 46,000 for Gujarati. As with the Poles, English is used as a matter of convenience.

For both these groups, speaking English brings advantages, but not at the expense of their own languages. Where are these Poles or speakers of Gujarati who have English forced on them?

By the way, a simple spell checker wouldn't catch 'hone in on' or 'would of', nor 'it's' instead of 'its', nor 'you're' instead of 'your', etc, although a grammar checker might. Google Drive is based on contextual language, and is often quite good at spotting these things.

I meant enriched, of course, not enrichened. What an abomination!

@HS - for at least five hundred years some people have been complaining that English is going to the dogs, and surprise, surprise, it has simply gone from strength to strength.

Where you see "chaos, the linguistic equivalent to/of a horse designed by a committee.", I see a language which is probably only beaten by Spanish and Arabic when it comes to the number of countries where it is spoken as the first or as an official language. I see a language which probably has a larger vocabulary than any other; a language which is the de facto lingua franca for much of the world. A language that has spawned one of the greatest literary traditions in the world, and arguably the greatest playwright. I see a language enrichened not only by its different national flavours, but by the diverse dialects that are spoken within those countries (and that includes AAVE). I see a language where very often it's the 'aberrations' that make it so fascinating. In other words, I see something to celebrate.

'Aberrations' and 'abominations' are in the eye of the beholder, and what is an aberration to you (for example, different to) might be absolutely standard or unobjectionable to others. Many of the 'rules' that have determined that certain words or constructions are 'incorrect' often turn out to simply have been one grammarian's whim.

The primary function of language, the reason it evolved, is to help us communicate, not to satisfy purists of one type or another. All the rest, poetry, beautifully crafted prose etc, is a happy by-product. If you don't like certain words, the answer is easy - don't use them, but don't worry too much about what other people say - to twist an old saying - words aren't sticks and stones, they can't hurt anybody.

Yes, school students need to be advised that if they want to get ahead, they'll need to learn to use Standard English, but not in a way that is derogatory towards their own dialect. Standard or 'proper' English is only superior to other dialects in one way - it has more status. But that doesn't make it intrinsically better.

As for mechanisms, we have style guides and usage guides galore, but what English doesn't need is any controlling body. The nearest we have to an authority is the OED, but quite rightly this an authority that individuals themselves choose to accept; it's not forced on us. There's an interesting article about it at the FT:

'I ask Proffitt (the new editor) whether he laments the disappearance of such distinctions (for example - disinterested / uninterested). He laughs: “No, I can’t lament language change – it keeps me in work. The OED has always maintained a purely descriptive line, it doesn’t legislate against categories of vocabulary.' And quite right too.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/dfdfba02-4c70-11e3-958f-00144feabdc0.html

But if you're that bothered, you could always join The Queen's English Society.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen%27s_English_Society

@providencejim - Ah! The vagaries of Google Books. I've just had a quick check through the links I gave, and I they are all verifiable (showing the actual examples) except for A Giant's Strength. I think this is to do with the different ways Google Books show books, depending, I imagine, on the permissions they get. Incidentally, I don't think it makes any difference whether the domain is .pl or .com.

There are, I think, four types of view - full view, preview, snippet view and no preview. The first two have full search facilities, where not only do they show the quote highlighted, but where you can open up the pages. All the examples I gave are 'previews' (and so verifiable) except for A Giant's Strength, which is in 'snippet view', where it seems to be pot luck whether the quote shows or not. I admit I took Google's figures at face value here, but there seems to be no way to check. In no preview, there is no search facility at all.

I take it you're talking about Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury. There are a couple of preview versions here, but something odd is indeed happening. Normally if you put your search term in quotation marks, it will only come up with the exact phrase, as in all the preview versions of Upton Sinclair's works.

I've just entered "he told about" (in quotation marks) into Google Books Search, and checked all ten results on the first page. All all of them show only the complete phrase, not all instances of the individual words (although with one of them you have to tweak it a bit).

But for some reason this is not happening with the Faulkner; I have no idea why. If you enter "he told about" faulkner, however, the fourth entry is a Faulkner Reader, and if you click on that, there are three verifiable examples of "he told about":

"This is how he told about it seven weeks later"
"And now he told about that"
"He told it; they told him it was Saturday again and paid him and he told about it"

Thanks for the tip; I'll have to investigate Faulkner more.

Some of the strange things that happen seems to depend on how the invisible digital text (not the photographic one you see) is treated. For example I've been doing quite a lot of research into 18th century books, where the letter *s* is often represented by what looks like an *f*. Sometimes these are interpreted in the digital text as an *s*, sometimes by an *f*, presumably depending on who made the transcription. It is this underlying digital text that seems to be used for the search facility, so when I can't find *sound* for example, I've got used to trying *found*, just in case.