Our catch phrase is on its way.
Dear Fellow Earthlings,
For many years zoologists just could not figure out why so many wild animals refuse to reproduce in captivity. Was it the food? The narrow confines? What was going on? It now appears that captivity itself is enough to squelch the libidos of a great many animals, be they tigers, pandas, or Japanese crested ibises. Animals are living souls, vibrant, and intrinsically independent... English is similar to tigers, pandas, and Japanese crested ibises in that it is vibrant and intrinsically independent. Despite the efforts of some people to say that merely shaping one's lips the right way or using the proper pacing or rhythm will create English out of nothing, English (the proud language of Horatio Nelson, John Wayne, Margaret Thatcher, William Shakespeare, and Martin Luther King) cannot merely be analyzed, vivisected, re-analyzed, labeled, and canned!! Trying to do so will only make the vivisectionist the object of ridicule if not downright censure! Just as we have to cease thinking of our fellow living creatures as cute and anlike, readily amenable to becoming manga cuties, so too must we avoid plasticizing and pidginizing English -- or trying to make it more amenable to computerization. Just as we should give plants and animals the space they need to flourish (and in doing so, to contribute to the overall health of our Earth's total ecosystem) -- so too should we accept English (and all other languages) for what they are and not for what we want them to be. Technological devices such as digital recorders and oscilloscopes can be beneficial in recording, exhibiting, and preserving language data. They cannot replace, however, the good old flesh and blood that constitutes the stuff of real English. So-called 'virtual English' (in reality, 'artificial English') has no more of a right to replace real, native like English than does a hologram of a tiger have the right to replace a flesh-and-blood, muscle-and-bone, real tiger. As you practice your Jingles, by all means "Get physical." Enjoy the feeling of being alive and real, not dead and canned!
Steve Walker
Earthsaver and Jingles Creator
© 2013 Steve Walker, The Jingles-The Japan Foundation for English Pronunciation, Summit Enterprises.