A Request for Clarification

[Nostra]

I saw someone say the English language was being bastardised and molested in unethical ways, so I thought I'd quote this thing from an article I read yesterday.

Purists everywhere would be up in arms about any changes made to the holy ghost of the English language, which is kind of naff because anyone who has read Chaucer's Canterbury Tales will see that English has already changed a hell of lot from its purer forms. In fact I think English was originally a Germanic language with more complex grammatical structures. There were masculine, feminine and neutral nouns, for example, but the aristocracy spoke French and the clergy spoke Latin and English was primarily the language of the proles. Being course and uneducated they dispensed with many of the grammatical complexities in favour of a free flowing and expressive language. They also made rules that never quite stuck in all cases, like “i” before “e” except after “c” when pronounced “ee”.

So why would anyone bang on about keeping the English language pure today when it's already been butchered, buggered and bastardised by our medieval forebears? If the purist argument was drawn to its logical conclusion we would all go back to speaking like middle English fellows, whose verbal tweaks would make this sort of thing sound positively post-modern:

Personally I think this guy is rite, and soon weill all rite more liek this, jah?

To be a little on-topic; Sharlock might have said a "light" curseword, been asked to stop and then done so again, even though he apologizes it doesn't really negate the fact that he completely ignored someone's wishes, which at least I perceive as rather disrespectful and is probably the reason he was suspended for, not the cursing.

Personally I rarely curse while speaking English, but speaking Swedish I don't spare a single sentence without a curse, except around parents and some people I care if they are offended or not, but that might just be how I was brought up.

Also; link to that article!
http://blogs.news.com.au/news/splat/ind ... h_spelling

Edit: Did I come late for this party? Whoops!