I recently had a discussion with my daughter. She studies English and it 
was about English as lingua franca. I said that if on a conference the 
language is 'English' that means that an international dialect is 
spoken, not any official version of it.
That leads to at least two points where we slightly disagreed then, 
(perhaps we are more in agreement here now)
- Also native speakers have learn to speak it. I have heard talks that 
were almost incomprehensible because the speaker liberally used the 
expressions and sport metaphors he also used at the dinner table.
- If a way of expression is commonly used that is not correct from a 
linguistic point of view, you don't have to start a campaign to correct 
that error. On the contrary, if you think it is wrong you are the one 
that is wrong. Perhaps not a good example but one that I remember: a 
Dutch politician talked about 'golden showers' to express how expensive 
the bathrooms in a new European headquarters were. Some people ridiculed 
him saying: what a fool he is for not knowing that golden showers mean 
something else (if you don't know what, stay ignorant). My POV: what a 
fool that commentator is for not knowing that in international English 
that expression does not exist, he is confusing 'international English' 
with 'standard English'.

I think that the main points where international English differs from 
standard English are:
- there is no literature and no history. You can e.g. not refer to 
Shakespeare as a common background.
- slang does not exist in international English. If every expression 
that has a different meaning somewhere in the English spoken world id 
forbideed, there is not much to say anymore.
- Never use words expressions that force people to use a dictionary. I 
should probably have not used 'lingua franca' above and the use of 
'liberally' was also questionable.
- Jargon, smileys, and common abbreviations are allowed in international 
communication. ASAP and IMHO are recognized by all. OTOH one should not 
use 'on the gripping hand'.
- It is not just dumbing down, I think that sentences can be longer in 
international English. Especially if the speaker/writer is German, Dutch 
or from any other nation that allows full page sentences.

Any opinions?

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