bombastic english

Educated non-European non-native English speakers want to speak more sophisticated English, but sometimes it becomes bombastic when in front of native or European English speakers, as they try to sound more adult and prevent being talked down to like a child.

Does speaking more sophisticated English make one assimilated? But at the same time, doesn’t consciously rejecting assimilation at all times make one equally trapped in it? English is like a toothbrush. Everyone uses it. You can scrub dog shit off your sole, but you can also prolong the joy of chewing on steaks. There is no correct way to use it, but if you don’t use it, you’re a fool.

“Seeking above all in literature to formulate a message that is their very own, …they scorn the artifice which for them, whose intellectual education has been almost exclusively [English], would represent recourse to a language they could only use as a second language they have learned.” 

Black Skin, White Masks, Michel Leiris via Frantz Fanon translated by Richard Philcox

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