It depends on which fields.
Phonetics, neurolinguistics and computational linguistics are definitely “hard” sciences. So are typology and syntax on the whole, although some of their concepts are occasionally a bit fuzzy.
Yes.
Your paraphrase projects tons and is not an accurate summary in the least.
I’ll build on what LHOD stated, hopefully not misrepresenting it.
Sometimes dialects employed and other stylistic usages quite akin to fashion choices, or food preferences. I can be annoyed by others’ choices without being intolerant of them, or condescending to them, so long as I don’t say anything out loud to them. I can think that certain style choices are appropriate or inappropriate for a particular venue, without being intolerant (such as a man wearing shorts and a ripped T to a black tie wedding).
Stating that she is “a grammatically conscientious person” does NOT say that others are careless, or wrong, or even that she is necessarily “correct” in comparison. She knows very well that those who are not using capital letters and apostrophes are making conscious decisions of style, decisions that she finds irritating, like some may find the decision to wear black socks and sandals annoying, or how some may internally cringe if they see someone eating pastrami with mayo on white bread. Those who find black socks with sandals annoying and who internally cringe with when seeing that sandwich choice are entitled to their opinions about those decisions. Thinking that either combination is ugly, and or disgusting is a valid opinion, and there is nothing wrong with having those opinions. Heck even publicly expressing opinions about clothing styles and food preferences, and how you think some are ugly, and some disgusting, is okay to do. Neither is forbidding the person from making that choice or even acting in any way that makes them feel embarrassed for having made that choice.
Individual differences about whether or not a particular venue is appropriate for no caps no apostrophes degree of casualness, are no different than having differing opinions about what outfit is correct to wear to a specific event. We may not agree on whether or not it is formal. The norms are arbitrary. We can disagree about what they are. They change across time and location. The norms should include respect for cultural diversity. The latter is manners. But having differences of opinion is not intolerance or disparaging others.
OTOH expressing that any opinion differing from yours is only due to ignorance, that is clear disparaging of others and is clear intolerance.
I really think you’re misreading her sense of humor and not getting how she’s self-deprecating, but I’m also not invested in arguing that point.
FWIW the point of including the context was to encourage @wolfpup so identify with the self-deprecation of the urge to correct, and to similarly develop means to keep the urge in check.
Fair enough. But I also appreciate and agree with this earlier remark that you directed to @Riemann. It seems richly ironic that a self-appointed defender of language errors and non-prestige dialects should himself be so arrogantly judgmental of those who (like this woman, and like myself) have a more formal view of language. A bit of humility all around might be helpful.
I will however reinforce the importance of respecting cultural diversity, and the other basic simple manners bit of trying to make others feel comfortable and welcome, even if they eat their pastrami on white bread with mayo.(Which I am judgmental about!)
And encourage you to appreciate that the venues you think require relative formalwear language may be more casual after all. No one should insult your wearing a suit and tie, or preferring that look, but the flip flops crowd is not wrong either.
I feel a wee bit guilty. I am a prescriptivist in my heart and head. Even though I understand I shouldn’t be.
I seldom correct grammar, and I don’t claim that I’m an expert or use perfect grammar at all times. However, there are two specific things that make me crazy. My sil uses “brung”. I know with many/most? verbs this would be appropriate. When I hear it though it makes me shudder. My grand kids are now starting to use it. I do correct them. I have worked many food service jobs over the years, and the phrase “unthawed” is just plumb awful.
I know I shouldn’t have a problem with this. I understand what people mean when they say these things, and there are other prescriptive “mistakes” that bother me, but those two? Ugh.
(Sorry. Couldn’t resist.)
To the experts here - is there study of how different forms of usage compete?
My first WAG was to think of the memetics analogy to genetics but on further thought I’m more suspicious that there are different dynamics at play with tipping points where a variation goes from being considered incorrect (or acceptable in very casual circumstance or non-standard dialect) to “correct in most circumstances”. Or is there no consistent pattern to change?
I’ve tried to find the answer myself and found this, ‘section 5, Language Change”, if anyone else is curious:
The section is a bit too long to quote. My takeaway for my question is that there is a sweet spot for change … on the one hand exposure spread out over time is more effective than massed exposure, but on the other hand exposure to the variant needs to occur more frequently than to the original to lead to broad acceptance, with effectiveness of spread heterogeneously distributed among social groups based on social relatedness, status, and magnitude of high or low context connectivity. The article does not state such, but I can easily imagine that there are mathematical formulae that spell it out.
Not sure if anyone else who does not already understand this stuff finds that interesting or not, but personally I do.
I respect the Joffrey Ballet for their use of gravity. I respect Wallace Stevens for his use of grammar. “You have a blue guitar, you do not play things as they are.”
True. Hypercorrections don’t do nobody no favors. Hypercorrection is a sort of rogue splinter off of prescriptivism that escaped from its handlers into the wild.
You’re misrepresenting Chomsky’s theory. It doesn’t make claims about grammatical correctness the way you said it does, and it has nothing to say on orthographic correctness. What it does say is that “Me like sammich” and “Flights of angels sing thee sweetly to thy rest” both draw upon people’s innate ability to encode/express and decode/understand sounds that are structured according to underlying rules; however divergent are the structures put into play, they’re connected at the subsurface root. This isn’t a description of “correctness” as the word is commonly understood, any more than describing how electron orbitals determine an element’s periodic properties is a description of “correctness.”
Is it though? Unless you include the prescriptivism of preferring ones own dialect, (which I think would also be out in the wild) I’d think hypercorrection has existed as long as there have been elites of any sort with a different dialect than some of their subjects. Though there are of course some forms of hypercorrection that requires standardized spelling and everyone learning to read and write, some only require your boss and your priest to use a different dialect than you.
I wonder, at some point does hypercorrection migrate into dialect? I was talking with someone a couple of days ago who did the “Dave was talking to Nicole and I”, and every time he did, I noticed–but it’s so common a hypercorrection that it feels more like a bit of dialect to me, like bourgeonics is getting dialects of its own.
Like when Wavy Gravy writes,
“NOBODY FOR PRESIDENT: IF NOBODY WINS, NOBODY LOSES”
I did that as hyperbolically as possible specially for the posters in this thread, hoping that you would get the in-joke.
Apparently not.
This isn’t an after-the-fact justification, either. I wrote it with glee (a proprietary software that automatically turns all prose into snark).
The question of which new forms in language succeed and why is quite close to the question of what makes stuff on the internet go viral. My impression is that while people have found similarities after the fact (a popular bullet point summary of several studies) by studying viral artifacts, they’ve made no progress into predicting what of all the possibilities will go viral in the future.
In that way, it is indeed similar to genetics, which constantly produces small mutations. Predicting which are favorable, harmful, or neutral is futile. A set of future conditions must all come together for the mutation to have noticeable effects. Separation of breeding populations seems to be a major factor in genetics, and that has a parallel in separation of speaking populations in languages, which consistently breed dialects, some of which will sufficiently diverge to form distinct languages.
Determining those conditions are difficult at the population level. I don’t think any cases of individual words can be traced through their histories to find a tipping point. If you wanted to try looking for that I’d suggest histories of slang. Lots of people study the evolution and spread of slang terms, so a question like why “cool” has lasted so long and “rad” didn’t might be a chapter somewhere.
I’m baffled by how you could possibly make such a bizarre interpretation of what I said. For reference, here it is again:
I think it’s pretty clear that I’m acknowledging, not disputing, the prevailing view that humans have an innate instinct for language. Chomsky’s universal grammar is a specific model of language acquisition, which has been disputed by some in favour of alternative models, but there is no serious dispute about the existence of what Pinker has called “the language instinct” that underlies all of them.
The point I was making was that this well-established fact does not obviate the value of learning to speak and write in conformance with standard English, and that even as strong a descriptivist as Pinker has made the case for the value of writing well.
Your are correct in your “apparently not” assessment, but be that as it may, the responses are of note.
Posters did not read even your as hyperbolic as possible post as classist or excluding or demeaning of them for having made an error that you pointed out with faux outrage. There was instead some shared fun with language. It is in fact a neat thing that there are five vowels in a row!
As the question on the spread and competition of new forms - my interest is less predicting which variants take off than the dynamics of it. Memes, let alone genes, I suspect have different dynamics. I also think that the changes can sometimes happen quickly: singular “they” has quickly become a standard variant preferred in some circumstances. We are experiencing its tipping point in real time. (And the fact that we perceive tipping points in and of itself implies a different dynamic of spread than gene spread.)
Anyway. I submit a rephrasing of the OP with its note of newscaster language usage.
Is there a place for explicit recognition that certain language forms and styles (inclusive of grammar usage, spelling, and word choices) are more appropriate for specific venues than others are, or is doing such classism in all cases and to be avoided as it will be elitist, or condescending, or exclusionary and othering, by its very nature? IOW it is prescriptivist and prescriptivism is bad.
Specific to newscasting - are all dialect choices equally as valid of selections for a news anchor? Does “anything go”? (Not necessarily implying that “bouginonics” - if I spelled that right - is the only appropriate dialect choice.)
Yes! Exactly! Noting odd quirks of the language is fun!
So is correcting Ed Zotti when he makes stupid mistakes!
https://www.straightdope.com/21341899/what-english-word-has-five-consecutive-vowels
Is it a local or a national newscaster? Because the answer will vary accordingly.
I believe there is a close analogy with the perceived accent (or perceived lack thereof) of the newscaster. I once read somewhere that US national newscasters are specifically chosen for their “neutral” accent, to the extent that in some American regions they sound “Canadian”. And in fact it’s no coincidence that quite a few US news anchors were, in fact, Canadian, among them notables like Peter Jennings, Morley Safer, Robert MacNeil, John Roberts, and many others.
In the same way I think you’ll find that national news anchors generally speak standard English, and for the same reason. I would argue that this gets back to my point about standardization, but I’m not about to get into another mud fight about whether this should instead be characterized as speaking a “prestige” dialect on national TV.