World of Weird Al Yankovic

OK, folks, now here comes quite controversial topic that is, however, not for everyone, since most of you Al fans are native English speakers, and therefore might find it uninteresting. Nevertheless, those who are fond in grammar or spelling, may find something for them. Now, let the topic start.

At the beginning of my Al fandom, I was sort of familiar with English language. Since our University's Philological faculty supplies very high level of teaching foreign languages, English was the first on the list, since it is definitely the modern world's favorite. If you want to get some job or just chat with foreigners - learn English. Thought I.
But then, luckily, I started being heavily involved into Al's music, and I was absolutely speechless for the first time. I never thought that the language that is now starting to be Esperanto-like is so REACH, FULL of words and POWERFUL to express thoughts!
Please don't get me wrong, I know that sounds ridiculous, but please imagine today's situation. People who can speak English are not necessarily British or American, and they often just don't get the idea that they use about 15% of the whole vocabulary. Thus, people who are native speakers usually (I said usually!) use 50% or 65%. Friends, let me say that Al is supposed to be the only musical performer who uses about 85% of the English vocabulary. And he's a great representative of clear, qualified, and right American English, at its best.
Needless to say, he improved my English somewhere even better than my University professors. If you look for my previous messages, you'll find terrible, unexplainable mistakes, mistakes that look pretty obvious to me today. And, I couldn't even count those great phrases&proverbs he uses in his songs! Especially those who are heavily connected with American history&events - "yes, Virginia" and others; not to mention just single words like "swoon", "shriek", and "sauerkraut", I still go crazy when I see them.

So, got any story how Al improved your English? I'd love to read about it! And the reason why I put it in the International section is, I'd love to hear WHiZZi's and RWDW's stories about the whole thing, since we three are supposed to be the only non-English speakers here. Oh, and our French friends, of course.
OE's among the first ones who invited!! Discuss!

SEVA.

I may be a native Anglophone, but that doesn't mean my vocabulary and linguistic skills haven't drastically improved due to my listening to Al's music. I know I didn't have the extreme affinity for sesquipedalian terminology that I have today prior to discovering Al; he's given me a new raison d'être.

The Sporkman @ May 26 2004, 06:03 AM wrote: I know I didn't have the extreme affinity for sesquipedalian terminology that I have today prior to discovering Al.

See what I mean? Even now, your sentence makes me go to BabelFish.


SEVA.

Yes, also as a native English-speaker, I believe Al has improved my language skills. But in my case it's more from his interviews than from his lyrics. He'll often throw in a word or two that I'll have to look up -- like interstitial, for example.

Ah yes... I love Al's use of our language...

@Seva , I always try to improve my bad English , surely AL's music plays a part in it , but also other things ( 2 English Depeche Mode Forum/fora , one's is the official one and the other is a Dutch one , where most of the written words are in english , but it has also a section which contains topics in different languages ( also Russian Depeche Mode ( dutch version )).

Also my work in an American Company , Dutch plant helps my English , reading all those American Newsletters etc.

I use a dictionary for words that I haven't heard before , mostly the non common ones.

Surely reading all my brothers' books could help , btw they are all SF books in English , but I hate to read books and I wasn't happy on school when I had to do "bookreports" or what you call them ( telling in front of the class what the book is about in about 10-15 mins. >:S , and espescially when you're not the speaking kind , more a listener )

Thanks for the DM link RWDW! Although I wasn't happy again with the Cyrillic coding... When oh when will they start to respect our language?!
It's a shame that you don't like books. Sometimes they help, hehe. But, I always hated to make "bookreports" in University too, especially on Bulgarian lessons, when our teacher forced us to report 1 page of a book per 1 minute (!!!).

Anyway, it wasn't a pure coincidence whne I asked you and WHiZZi to tell about how Al improved your English. I've read somewhere in the Net that English is a second language for the most part of Dutch folks. Is that true? And if yes, has Al improved it more?

SEVA.

The languages we can choose from in the Netherlands are : English , French , German , Greek and Latin ( and Dutch )

The higher the education , more languages come avaiable.

Low : Dutch , English , German

Mid : + French

High : Greek / Latin

Some schools even teach other language like Turkish / Arabic or other

I'll have to dig into it to be sure of what I wrote here above ( I'm at work now )and specify you more on Dutch schoolsystem.

I have to say, I think you guys do really well with your English. The only language I know besides my own is Spanish, and that is limited. And when you make mistakes, it doesn't matter much, because you're still understandable. I like your variations, they add color to plain old American English.

I'm impressed with many of the people who learn to speak English. Case in point, I have a teammate on my baseball team that only spoke Spanish. Now he's learned a lot of English, probably more English than I know Italian (which is the foreign language I'm taking).

Incredible job. Again, kudos to those who have learned English, one of the toughest languages to master (it's level 5/5 in language difficulty).