Here's another great Americanism: "I enjoy it as far as smoking it and do it as much as I can ...' . It seems that much of America's language has been relegated to the square bracket (ie. 'imagine that I am completing this sentence but actually I am too darn lazy to do it and have not enough respect for the listener to speak properly'). Again, CNN, The American Network are villains here. The way their reporters speak is really shocking, given that the medium of television is all about communication. So what we have here should be 'I enjoy it as far as smoking GOES and do it as much as I can ...'. It seems that now it is the fashion to drop the 'goes' and it IS a matter of laziness. Americans are by far the laziest speakers in the world (and I thought Aussies were bad) and will short-cut sentences whenever possible, even if that means that the inherent meaning is lost. That's why I rail against 'momentarily' (used instead of 'in a moment' ) as a throw to break. It just isn't exchangeable. It doesn't mean the same thing!
Spoken English will be important as the number of English-speaking nations grows. It has taken over from French as the language of commerce now and if it isn't seem to be communicating, remember that the Chinese will be only too happy to ditch English and move Mandarin into its place. And think what that will do to the Rap industry! Im mean, the words of Fiddy Cent and Eminem will no longer make sense. Whoops, my mistake. They only marginally make sense as it is.
