In all seriousness, you’re right. The issue is that obvious, simple language mistakes (not typos, but things like outrageously inapt eggcorns) bother me so much. I don’t know why, maybe it’s because I’ve always been taught to be conscious of how I write and tend to feel that others should do the same, as a courtesy to their readers if nothing else.
Of course I make mistakes myself, all the time. We all do. But I put some effort into trying to avoid them.
You seem to be saying that in my categorization of the sources of usage errors, these fall into the category of “carelessness” rather than “ignorance”. Is that really much better? Would these people not be eliminated by Steven Pinker’s anecdotal tech executive I cited previously, the one who had no tolerance for job applications riddled with grammar and spelling errors?
It most certainly is. It also certainly is a distinct issue from the state of the language itself. Conflating them just siderails the conversation. There are many things which can and should be done to improve public schools and encourage parents to take part in their children’s education, but not one of them has to do with eggcorns.
Those who live by the historical reference die by the historical reference. Gruntled was used as a quip in Franklin Pierce Adam’s newspaper column in 1924. F.P.A.'s column was the home for theater wits and the Algonquin crowd. Wodehouse spent most of the 1920s writing plays in New York. I can’t prove he read that particular column but F.P.A. was a must. And others used the word in the interim.
Even pretending that the line was original to Wodehouse, supporting an assertion that modern English is somehow lacking by quoting a line from anyone in 1938 is beyond bizarre, but that pales by comparison to the assertion that one can criticize all American usage of language by cherrypicking lines from the finest wordsmiths. That’s as perverse as criticizing the modern obesity crisis by contrasting ordinary kids to Jim Thorpe.
I’ve asked you before, but I’ll try once more. Instead of a blanket indictment, could you provide cites of actual bad usage in context so that we can see who is writing it and for what audience? That’s the only way to judge any usage, but a hundred posts in we completely lack any solid evidence of your claims.
Merriam-Webster dates the first use of “gruntled,” as a back-formation from “disgruntled,” to 1904. So it was at least a forty year old joke when Wodehouse used it.
Settle down. I said I didn’t like one joke.
But yeah, I am at a little bit of a loss on what metric to use when comparing three witty things written by PG Wodehouse, versus wolfpup’s idea of what a stupid person sounds like.
Thank you (sincerely) for the interesting historical reference (I’m quite familiar with Wodehouse’s background but wasn’t aware that the joke predated his use; still, he’s credited with popularizing it). But I’m not sure where you’re going with this. If he copied that particular quip, his reputation as one of the finest writers of the 20th century surely isn’t based on being a plagiarist?
It sure would be, if I had ever actually made such a claim. But I did not. My argument is that there are great writers, lesser writers, and writers who are so bad that they are practically illiterate, and that the distinctions are quite objectively obvious.
Where did I “criticize all American usage of language”? I criticized common misuses, and explained why it personally bothers me so much.
I don’t remember you asking this before, but I’m not doubting that you did. But I really don’t know what you’re getting at here. Are you saying that we haven’t had some really, really badly written posts right here on this board, including barely comprehensible walls of text lacking either paragraphs or the most rudimentary punctuation? I looked for some examples but the ones that come to mind are by posters who were very quickly banned, and the posts cornfielded. But surely I don’t really have to convince you that there are folks around, living apparently reasonably normal lives, who can’t string words together into a coherent sentence?
Are you familiar with the concept of “disingenuous”? I’m sure you are.
No, I’m not thinking of James Joyce’s experimental stream-of-consciousness modernism. That’s an example of what I referred to earlier as being deliberately contrived for literary purposes. I’m thinking more of the many illiterate walls of text that we’ve had around here that are now cornfielded and the illustrious authors banned. Or the one I mocked over here. The original link goes nowhere because that was also cornfielded. I don’t remember if it was a wall-o-text, but I do remember that the writer was a fucking moron. Come on, Miller, are you suggesting that we don’t have occasional illiterates coming to this board, or that their illiteracy is just a subjective matter of style?
Illiteracy’s got nothin to do with it. There are people who can’t read and write who can turn a beautiful phrase; and there are people who can read and write (for example, every fool on this messageboard) who aren’t as talented with language.
You show your hand when your repeated touchstone for clever language is a 19th-century British descendant of the aristocracy. I’ve not once seen you cite Zora Neal Hurston, or Sandra Cisneros, or Jay-Z, or Toni Morrison, or anyone who’s not a white dude from wealth; and you keep going back to the same old aristocrat.
Who would that be? Wodehouse? Wodehouse (who was of the 20th century, not the 19th) was the product of a comfortable middle-class family with a distant minor aristocratic ancestry. Like his father, Wodehouse had to work for a living, and eventually found that his hobnobbing with actual aristocracy gave him a familiarity with them that allowed him to earn a living by satirizing and mocking them.
None of this has anything to do with the discussion at hand anyway since I’m just distinguishing good writing from bad writing. Wodehouse wrote beautifully and with elegant comedic wit about the aristocracy, but his writing was directed squarely at the common people, in their language.
“deliberately contrived for literary purposes” was a description, not a criticism. As I said earlier, good writers can skillfully flout the rules to achieve intended effects.
Your incorrect nitpick does a good job confirming what I’m saying. Despite all your attempts to defend your focus, you’re still only citing one 19th-century born white guy with aristocratic ancestors; and your attempt to show that it’s not about class is to say he “had to work for a living,” conveniently omitting that his daddy got him a job at a bank after sending him to boarding schools for most of his childhood. We’re hardly talking about the working class here.
Maybe if you could cite some folks who don’t speak the Queen’s English, some folks who don’t trace their lineage back to aristocrats (it’s less important how far the lineage is than that they traced it in the first place), some folks who aren’t White, some folks who are legit working class–maybe if you can start doing those things, your arguments will become a little more persuasive that you’re not just using “creative, well-written prose” as a classist shibboleth.
There’s a different standard, but it’s an active, dynamic standard, and it’s this: does the speaker/author achieve the intended effect with the intended reader/audience? That’s an objective standard, and it’s far better than your “Wodehouse was just GOOD and you know it!” attempt at an objective standard.
You are trying to make a case by comparing posters on message boards to the tiniest percent of professional writers who have lasting representations?
This line of argument is absurd. It represents a failure of rhetoric. Rhetoric has accrued multiple meanings over the centuries. One is “the art of making persuasive speeches.” Your argument does not persuade. Not comparing apples to apples is a sure sign of someone who does not have a case. So is the repetition of one point to the exclusion of all else. And so is the refusal to acknowledge any points made against one. Being able to present a well-reasoned line of reasoning is a hallmark of rhetoric and of formal writing. This is the opposite of well-reasoned. How ironic is it that an absurd argument can be made in formally constructed sentences, that language can be used “correctly” without persuading anyone, and that facts - or the lack of them - matter more than style.
You’re entitled to prefer any kind of writing you choose. However, your preferences do not constitute a case for or against any other type of writing or speaking. That is yet another meaning of rhetoric: “the undue use of exaggeration or display.” That English is in any way decaying is rhetoric, but in the worst possible sense.
No, I am not saying that at all. One can have excellent reading skill without having seen certain idioms in print and having instead misheard them. Perhaps you’d conclude that not having frequently read material containing the phrase “for all intents and purposes” marks someone as poorly read; it however does not mean that they are necessarily a poor reader. And the improper usage clearly sometimes catches on: you cannot rein in the usage of “reign in”; no matter how strait you wish to be about proper speech, “straight-laced” has become the more common spelling.
Hendrik Hertzberg came to mind because I’ve long respected him as a fine and thoughtful writer. I’ve been reading him for a long time, mostly as a contributor to the New Yorker (and now senior editor there). I never saw a need to investigate his background, and he just struck me as otherwise a perfectly ordinary fellow with no special associations with wealth, power, or social status, as indeed he is.
So he went to Harvard? Lots of people went to Harvard. He was a member of their literary society because he was literate. I’m not going to apologize or slink off in shame because the example I chose for a writer I respect turns out to be educated and to come from an educated family. That doesn’t make either him or me some sort of bigoted elitist. In the large scheme of things Hertzberg works for a living and budgets his money just like the rest of us. But I’m glad to have given you the opportunity to indulge in mockery and sarcasm.
The only argument I’m making in this context is against Miller’s accusation that the only difference between the two is that I criticize the former but approve of the latter; that the differences are entirely subjective. To wit:
Yeah, that’s pretty much just what I said: it’s okay when you like it, it’s not okay when you don’t.
Once again – and for perhaps the third time – I’m not persuaded that the language is decaying, only that it’s subject to misuse. It always has been and always will be. Some linguists like John McWhorter once argued that modern influences have, in fact, degraded the language, but he seems to have done a complete 180 on that and is now promoting some sort of avant-garde linguistic anarchy.
Few of us will hear themselves described as having classist or bigoted beliefs as anything other than a groundless insult. But many of our attitudes and preferences are implicitly (rather than explicitly) grounded in classism and bigotry nevertheless.