# Descriptivists: When does an "error" become "nonstandard usage" become "alternative"?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/descriptivists-when-does-an-error-become-nonstandard-usage-become-alternative/499063
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [June 8, 2009, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/descriptivists-when-does-an-error-become-nonstandard-usage-become-alternative/499063 "2009-06-08T02:58:55Z")
**Posts on this page:** 12
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)
#### Post date: [June 10, 2009, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/descriptivists-when-does-an-error-become-nonstandard-usage-become-alternative/499063/21 "2009-06-10T00:22:45Z")
> [@Alex\_Dubinsky](#):
>
> Maybe I’ve been mistaken, but I’ve always thought, “this may do that” was a realistic probability of, say, 5-20%, while “this might do that” was a more remote possibility of, eg, 1-5%. Not sure why, but that was always my impression of what the words meant.
Certainly not my impression. I don’t think most people who use these words have any intention of suggesting an actual range of probability.
> [@](#):
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> I’ve been advocating this all along, and our discource would be infinitely better for it.
My point is that casual speech doesn’t require any such precision, so it just wouldn’t happen. There’s “definitely yes,” “definitely no,” and a whole imprecise mass in the middle. Human communication isn’t science. We don’t have to speak in statistically precise, and we usually don’t, and it seems to me there’s no support for capturing ordinary words with customarily imprecise meanings.
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### Author:  [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)
#### Post date: [June 10, 2009, 7:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/descriptivists-when-does-an-error-become-nonstandard-usage-become-alternative/499063/22 "2009-06-10T07:24:59Z")
> [@](#):
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> **acsenray** : I have never understood there to be any difference in shall/will…
It’s a matter of intentions. Consider the differences in the meanings of these two sets of sentences:
1. Nobody will help me! I shall drown!
2. Nobody shall help me! I will drown!
One of them is the desperate cry of someone who realizes that no one is coming to rescue her or him from drowning. The other is the final statement of someone determined to take his or her own life by drowning. Can you “hear” the difference?
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### Author:  [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)
#### Post date: [June 10, 2009, 7:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/descriptivists-when-does-an-error-become-nonstandard-usage-become-alternative/499063/23 "2009-06-10T07:55:33Z")
**Exapno Mapcase** , your post is beautiful! I wish I could begin to think that clearly again, but to be able to write it – oh my! Are you a teacher?
> [@](#):
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> The rule of thumb I’ve often stated here is that a usage is standard when it is commonly adopted by good writers, good writers defined as the general class of working newspaper, magazine, book and other print writers that the public reads.
I agree. I _do not_ include in that group those who write captions for television. (Personal irritant)
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> **acsenray** : One possible objective standard is that a native speaker of a language is incapable of error, at least in the spoken form of the language.
I guess that would depend on what you mean by error. This statement was overheard in my father’s store in West Tennessee many years ago. An old man was referring to his wife:
> [@](#):
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> She ain’t pretty she ain’t but she good she are.
That is not a standard West Tennessee dialect, but I had no trouble understanding the meaning of his sentence. But to say that it is error free? If it had been “error free,” there would have been no poetry.
There are plenty of kids these days that speak in a street dialect and they understand each other just fine. They may be error free. I will never know. It is not formal English.
ee cummings broke many rules with his poetry. But I suspect that he knew the rules very well before he ever broke the first one.
There were plenty of times when I was teaching that I could set aside the rules of grammar and allow for dialect and the creative juices to run a little wild. But I didn’t let my students kid themselves into thinking that “anything goes.”
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### Author:  [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)
#### Post date: [June 10, 2009, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/descriptivists-when-does-an-error-become-nonstandard-usage-become-alternative/499063/24 "2009-06-10T16:26:20Z")
> [@Zoe](#):
>
> It’s a matter of intentions. Consider the differences in the meanings of these two sets of sentences:
>
> 1. Nobody will help me! I shall drown!
>
> 2. Nobody shall help me! I will drown!
>
> One of them is the desperate cry of someone who realizes that no one is coming to rescue her or him from drowning. The other is the final statement of someone determined to take his or her own life by drowning. Can you “hear” the difference?
Of course I can’t “hear” the difference. This distinction doesn’t exist in modern standard English, if it ever did. I see absolutely no reason to follow this rubric.
> [@Zoe](#):
>
> That is not a standard West Tennessee dialect, but I had no trouble understanding the meaning of his sentence. But to say that it is error free? If it had been “error free,” there would have been no poetry.
This statement makes no sense. Poetry and error have nothing to do with each other. He was clearly using a syntax that is standard in his dialect. Your personal aesthetics might label it “poetic” but that has nothing to do with whether there are any errors.
> [@](#):
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> ee cummings broke many rules with his poetry. But I suspect that he knew the rules very well before he ever broke the first one.
What does this have to do with the subject at hand? Poets and other language artists play with the language to create artistic effect. To some extent you might say they are creating new dialects. But it has nothing to do with “error” as a concept and it has nothing to do with “error” in naturally occurring dialects.
(And, by the way, the poet wrote his own name as E. E. Cummings.)
There were plenty of times when I was teaching that I could set aside the rules of grammar and allow for dialect and the creative juices to run a little wild. But I didn’t let my students kid themselves into thinking that “anything goes.”
[/QUOTE]
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### Author:  [@Alex\_Dubinsky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alex_Dubinsky)
#### Post date: [June 11, 2009, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/descriptivists-when-does-an-error-become-nonstandard-usage-become-alternative/499063/25 "2009-06-11T03:17:55Z")
Ascenray’s just being difficult. First he claims we have no need for subtlety inbetween “yes”, “no,” and “maybe,” then he doesn’t see the difference between “i’m gonna drown” and “i’ll go drown,” and finally he doesn’t understand how a native speaker can be understood and still be in error, particularly when he knowingly makes the errors on purpose. Ignore him.
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### Author:  [@Alex\_Dubinsky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alex_Dubinsky)
#### Post date: [June 11, 2009, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/descriptivists-when-does-an-error-become-nonstandard-usage-become-alternative/499063/26 "2009-06-11T03:32:06Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#):
>
> The rule of thumb I’ve often stated here is that a usage is standard when it is commonly adopted by good writers, good writers defined as the general class of working newspaper, magazine, book and other print writers that the public reads.
>
> This therefore accounts for ain’t and irregardless being still considered non-standard, despite decades of occurrence. It allows new usages to move into the language with a fair rapidity while keeping most faddish slang out.
The third sentence contradicts the second. By your own admission, “ain’t” is not a “fad.” Nevertheless, I can see the merits of the “pro writer” standard. Namely, writers will use new usages if they are _useful_. Hence, they’re not reluctant to adopt words like ‘proactive’ or ‘reactionary’.
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### Author:  [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)
#### Post date: [June 11, 2009, 12:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/descriptivists-when-does-an-error-become-nonstandard-usage-become-alternative/499063/27 "2009-06-11T12:33:24Z")
> [@Alex\_Dubinsky](#):
>
> First he claims we have no need for subtlety inbetween “yes”, “no,” and “maybe,”
This is a rather serious mischaracterization of what I’ve said.
You’ve proposed a rubric, namely:
> [@](#):
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> (will) \> (probably will) \> (may) \> (might) \> (might possibly)
– that as far as I can tell, is unsupported by actual usage. I’ve been speaking English all my life at several level of formality and in a couple different locations, and I don’t see how anyone would interpret these words with this level of precision. There’s absolutely no support for the proposition that when a native English speaker says “may” that he or she intends that the following action is more likely that if he or she had used “might.”
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> then he doesn’t see the difference between “i’m gonna drown” and “i’ll go drown,”
Again, this is a mischaracterization.
I said that I see no difference between
> [@](#):
>
> 1. Nobody will help me! I shall drown!
>
> 2. Nobody shall help me! I will drown!
No native English speaker that I have interacted with personally would understand the distinction being proposed here. I suspect that this is an obsolete distinction, one that exists in some non-American dialects, or one – like many other “usage rules” – was invented from whole cloth by some language busybody.
> [@](#):
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> and finally he doesn’t understand how a native speaker can be understood and still be in error, particularly when he knowingly makes the errors on purpose.
**Alex** , the OP asked about descriptivism. I suggest you reread Post No. 7 and the further refinement of the proposition by **Dr. Drake**.
And **Zoe** ’s tale from West Tennessee offers data on usage, but offers nothing on “intentional error.”
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### Author:  [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)
#### Post date: [June 11, 2009, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/descriptivists-when-does-an-error-become-nonstandard-usage-become-alternative/499063/28 "2009-06-11T17:00:08Z")
> [@acsenray](#):
>
> I said that I see no difference between
>
> > [@](#):
> >
> > :
> >
> > 1. Nobody will help me! I shall drown!
> >
> > 2. Nobody shall help me! I will drown!
>
> No native English speaker that I have interacted with personally would understand the distinction being proposed here. I suspect that this is an obsolete distinction, one that exists in some non-American dialects, or one – like many other “usage rules” – was invented from whole cloth by some language busybody.
Except that words don’t live in some free function space. They live only in context.
The contexts of English are multifold. Here in print and in the context of this thread, the two sentences are clearly distinct and have separate meanings. You say that these meanings may not be heard in ordinary spoken English and you’re probably right. But even in spoken English many levels of discourse can be found and the perceptions and understanding of listeners will vary greatly.
In written English context is even more important since it lacks the visual cues and stress emphases that make up so much of spoken language. Speakers can be established as paying attention to such nuances. Or they could simply be British, a culture that has preserved this particular nuance to a far greater extent than Americans. Or the writer could set up a scene in which this more formal usage is being used as the emphasis itself to tell the listener what the intended action is.
There is no one English just as there is no one correct English. Words and usages and meanings and pronunciations exist that are not universal. Actually, this is every word and usage and meaning and pronunciation in the English language. That’s quite the exception.
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### Author:  [@Alex\_Dubinsky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alex_Dubinsky)
#### Post date: [June 11, 2009, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/descriptivists-when-does-an-error-become-nonstandard-usage-become-alternative/499063/29 "2009-06-11T17:24:47Z")
> [@acsenray](#):
>
> This is a rather serious mischaracterization of what I’ve said.
That’s exactly what you said.
[QUOTE=acsenray]
My point is that casual speech **doesn’t require any such precision** , so it just wouldn’t happen. There’s “definitely yes,” “definitely no,” and a whole imprecise mass in the middle.
[/QUOTE]
You said we don’t need anything beside “yes,” “no,” and “maybe.”
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### Author:  [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)
#### Post date: [June 11, 2009, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/descriptivists-when-does-an-error-become-nonstandard-usage-become-alternative/499063/30 "2009-06-11T17:31:33Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#):
>
> Except that words don’t live in some free function space. They live only in context.
You’re lecturing a descriptivist on context, **Exapno**?
**Zoe** hasn’t offered any context for this distinction. She’s offered up an old canard that I have never seen in any other context but this particular pedagogical joke.
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> Here in print and in the context of this thread, the two sentences are clearly distinct and have separate meanings. You say that these meanings may not be heard in ordinary spoken English and you’re probably right
Indeed, these meanings, so far have I can tell, have absolutely no currency outside this specific bit of persiflage. However, it was implied that this distinction has some kind of validity in English that’s actually used in society, not just in schoolmarm humor English.
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> Or they could simply be British, a culture that has preserved this particular nuance to a far greater extent than Americans.
I can believe that British English might include some nuances and distinctions that don’t exist in American English, and vice versa. What I have never been shown is actual evidence that even British English speakers perceive and use such a distinction except when they’re making fun of Irish English.
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### Author:  [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)
#### Post date: [June 11, 2009, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/descriptivists-when-does-an-error-become-nonstandard-usage-become-alternative/499063/31 "2009-06-11T22:56:21Z")
**acsenray** , the difference between _will_ and _shall_ is the same difference as between _would_ and _should_.
I would go to the bank, but I can’t. (I want to.)
I should go to the bank, but I won’t. (I need to.)
I will go to the bank, because I want to. (I want to.)
I shall go to the bank, because I have to. (I need to.)
Of course, American English has tended to make “shall” obsolete, and substitute “will” for both meanings.
In more structured uses (like legal situations), shall serves to distinguish things that are required.
Will is a description (this is what happens), shall is a proscription (this is what must happen).
**Alex\_Dubinsky** , you’re a bit unfairly characterizing what **acsenray** has said. You are paraphrasing his remarks with what are to your ears semantic equivalents, but those semantic equivalents are not shared by **acsenray**. The you are ridiculing **acsenray** for your paraphrase of the remarks rather than what **acsenray** means.
**Alex\_Dubinsky** said:
> [@](#):
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> You said we don’t need anything beside “yes,” “no,” and “maybe.”
Cite where. That’s not what was said.
What was intended was that your list of probability is too finely parsed and too specific in intent. People may mean different values of maybe, but they are not necessarily consistent in word choice to convey that level of probability. They might in one context use “might” to suggest something desirable but difficult, and in another case use “might” to indicate something very unlikely.
> [@](#):
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> then he doesn’t see the difference between “i’m gonna drown” and “i’ll go drown,”
Again, a mischaracterization. **acsenray** is saying he doesn’t equate “will” with “gonna” vs “shall” with “'ll go”. He agrees there is a semantic difference in your paraphrases, but he doesn’t relate that semantic difference to the words “will” vs “shall”.
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### Author:  [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)
#### Post date: [June 12, 2009, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/descriptivists-when-does-an-error-become-nonstandard-usage-become-alternative/499063/32 "2009-06-12T20:29:22Z")
The idea of any “standard” status is inherently prescriptive, so it would be difficult to say when a descriptivist believes a usage evolves from “wrong” to “alternative” or “standard”. What many here seem to misunderstand about descriptive grammar is that for the linguist it is a tool for attempting to understand the structure of language. By this definition, all linguists are descriptivists, as they are not interested in telling people how they should speak. On the other hand, just agreeing that any utterance sufficiently clear to be understood correctly by listeners is automatically correct does not suffice for them. A linguist would want to know _why_ “less” instead of “fewer” sounds so horrible to some people, at least to the point of determining to what extent it has been deliberately taught and drilled in as opposed to learned naturally through one’s exposure to the language.
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