# Grammar question... Is proper english doomed? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [March 23, 2015, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-question-is-proper-english-doomed/715754 "2015-03-23T02:27:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![escaped](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/848f3c/32.png) [@escaped](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/escaped)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2015, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-question-is-proper-english-doomed/715754/41 "2015-03-24T01:13:38Z")
Thanks to text messages they are unfortunately,😕 ---
**Author:** ![Don\_t\_Panic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/don_t_panic/32/398_2.png) [@Don\_t\_Panic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_t_Panic)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2015, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-question-is-proper-english-doomed/715754/42 "2015-03-24T03:32:14Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > I often say that English evolved for 888 years to a state of perfection and has been going downhill ever since. (888 years is the interval between 1066 and 1954, the year I finished HS.) Right. The opinions about language change most often seem to range from “harmful” to “harmless”. For the future speakers of English, though, the language change happening today will be seen as actively beneficial, as it leads to \*their \*version of “proper” English. So I’ll take the position of the future anglophones, and go beyond saying that language change is something not to worry about. I’m saying it’s good for you. Or at least for your children and grandchildren. Won’t someone think of our children and grandchildren? ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2015, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-question-is-proper-english-doomed/715754/43 "2015-03-24T03:59:13Z")
There are what are known as “prestige dialects”. If you speak a prestige dialect, people think you’re a member of a prestige class. If you’re interested in having people believe you’re a member of a prestige class, then by all means make an effort to speak according to the rules of your adopted dialect, and become embarrassed if you ever make a mistake and speak naturally, because then you’ll be revealed as a fraud. Of course, my natural dialect really is “neutral west-coast American”, so I can be complacent. The thought of affecting a different dialect just so people don’t look down on me seems silly and pretentious, but if they really were looking down on me all the time maybe I’d see the value of affecting the prestige dialect. ---
**Author:** ![MrsTime](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d26b3c/32.png) [@MrsTime](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrsTime)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2015, 5:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-question-is-proper-english-doomed/715754/44 "2015-03-24T05:10:30Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Given that the role is self-appointed, sure. Everyone else meanwhile is saying, “There’s no storm, that’s just the sun rising, and you can’t shout it back down, and why would you want to?” > > Well, I am a teacher, and I do teach grammar. But honestly, I spend more time teaching proper research skills. Why, just today I had to tell a kid that whatever he assumed was true about Greece wasn’t true, even if he was “really confident in [his] guess.” What you “must assume” is pretty meaningless if you don’t have evidence to back it up. > > I suppose back in your day, teachers didn’t really fuss with research skills, huh? I was remembering the teachers my own children had. Still not impressed. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2015, 8:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-question-is-proper-english-doomed/715754/45 "2015-03-24T08:44:22Z")
In language, like a lot of things, change is going to happen whether you want it to or not. You cannot be a pure prescriptivist. All you can do is try to save what is useful and good. Just like with anything else that is changing. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2015, 1:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-question-is-proper-english-doomed/715754/46 "2015-03-24T13:28:51Z")
> [@MrsTime](#): > > I was remembering the teachers my own children had. Still not impressed. Do you believe your experiences with your children’s teachers are universal? ---
**Author:** ![Inner\_Stickler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inner_stickler/32/318_2.png) [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2015, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-question-is-proper-english-doomed/715754/47 "2015-03-24T13:35:49Z")
I can say that had MrsTime’s first post been part of an assignment handed into my high school english teacher, (this would have been around 2005) it would have been marked at least twice for errors so even if the rest of it were perfect, it’d still be handed back without a grade for correction and resubmission with a lateness penalty. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2015, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-question-is-proper-english-doomed/715754/48 "2015-03-24T13:43:13Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > There are what are known as “prestige dialects”. If you speak a prestige dialect, people think you’re a member of a prestige class. If you’re interested in having people believe you’re a member of a prestige class, then by all means make an effort to speak according to the rules of your adopted dialect, and become embarrassed if you ever make a mistake and speak naturally, because then you’ll be revealed as a fraud. > > Of course, my natural dialect really is “neutral west-coast American”, so I can be complacent. The thought of affecting a different dialect just so people don’t look down on me seems silly and pretentious, but if they really were looking down on me all the time maybe I’d see the value of affecting the prestige dialect. What you are talking about is called “code switching”, and many people who grow up in non-prestige dialect areas do it naturally. Hell, most all of us code-switch to an extent, in that we speak one way around our friends and another way if we’re giving a talk or interviewing for a job, or maybe just in meetings at work. Also, keep in mind that we Americans have very few actual dialect areas in our country. Compared to the UK, where there are actual dialectical differences making mutual understanding next to impossible (I’m thinking of the traditional Yorkshire dialect, for example, and that’s not even getting into, for example, Scotland). Even just living on the West Coast of the US, I often explain to my friends who grew up here that they just can’t appreciate how it is on the East Coast-- every time you travel ~150 miles north or south, the accent changes. But still, they are accents and it’s not like someone in South Carolina can’t understand someone from Boston. ---
**Author:** ![Barkis\_is\_Willin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a183cd/32.png) [@Barkis\_is\_Willin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Barkis_is_Willin)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2015, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-question-is-proper-english-doomed/715754/49 "2015-03-24T13:55:14Z")
I get that English has evolved and will continue to do so. But is there a line that shall not be crossed? Or do the goalposts just keep getting wider and wider in the name of language evolution? The OP’s example was: “Have you ever got bit?” For the record, I don’t like it, either. What if she said: “Did you ever got bit?” Are we still ok with that? Furthermore, is it even worth having English class in school? People will learn the language by observing and communicating every day. If a person can just use whatever grammar they darn well please and call it evolution, why bother learning the “proper” language? ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2015, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-question-is-proper-english-doomed/715754/50 "2015-03-24T14:44:38Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > All you can do is try to save what is useful and good. What you call useful and good, I might call an unnecessary waste of energy. ---
**Author:** ![Anne\_Neville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Anne\_Neville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anne_Neville)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2015, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-question-is-proper-english-doomed/715754/51 "2015-03-24T15:36:17Z")
English, including its grammar, will change. That’s what languages do, at least non-dead languages. Latin grammar doesn’t change, for example, because there are no native speakers of Latin any more. People will not use the same grammar in informal spoken English as they do in formal written English. This is probably also true of all non-dead languages, and probably always has been. English has different dialects, as do all languages, and as all languages always have. There are several versions of English that call themselves “standard English”. People use dialects and slang as markers of class and culture. They always have. Not everybody wants to project the same class and culture markers in every situation, and not everybody is going to want to project the same class and culture markers that you do. Your class and culture are not something that every speaker of English aspires to. There are grammar rules that have been imposed on English from other languages (particularly Latin) that don’t always make sense in English. “Don’t split infinitives” would be an example. In French, which is descended from Latin, you can’t split an infinitive. It’s a single word. An infinitive in English is two words. You can split it, and it doesn’t change the meaning of most sentences to a native speaker when you do, so people do it. ---
**Author:** ![MrsTime](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d26b3c/32.png) [@MrsTime](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrsTime)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2015, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-question-is-proper-english-doomed/715754/52 "2015-03-24T15:58:55Z")
> [@Inner\_Stickler](#): > > I can say that had MrsTime’s first post been part of an assignment handed into my high school english teacher, (this would have been around 2005) it would have been marked at least twice for errors so even if the rest of it were perfect, it’d still be handed back without a grade for correction and resubmission with a lateness penalty. So correct it already. > [@](#): > > Do you believe your experiences with your children’s teachers are universal? Since they attended several schools with many teachers in both Canada and the US, I have to assume that, yes the experiences were almost universal. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2015, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-question-is-proper-english-doomed/715754/53 "2015-03-24T16:02:46Z")
> [@MrsTime](#): > > So correct it already. But surely you want to correct it yourself, to demonstrate your own proficiency? Isn’t that what this thread is about, after all? ---
**Author:** ![Inner\_Stickler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inner_stickler/32/318_2.png) [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2015, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-question-is-proper-english-doomed/715754/54 "2015-03-24T16:12:05Z")
> [@Barkis\_is\_Willin](#): > > Furthermore, is it even worth having English class in school? People will learn the language by observing and communicating every day. If a person can just use whatever grammar they darn well please and call it evolution, why bother learning the “proper” language? People will learn the language used by the people around them but they will have fewer opportunities to develop other registers and codeswitching. Unless you intend to also dismantle most of society’s institutional requirements, eliminating english classes will result in a bias in the workforce towards people whose native idiolects most nearly match the Standard English schools have traditionally taught to. Descriptivists do not generally argue in favor of dismantling traditional grammar instruction. They simply advocate a more nuanced view of the role and usage of language as well as avoiding some common mistaken views such as that AAVE is ‘broken’ or ‘degenerate’ English, rather than a dialect in its own right with rules as developed as its cousin SAE. It is kinder as well as more correct to teach children that their familial and peer dialects are simply one way of speaking and just as different occasions call for different outfits, so too can they call for different registers or dialects. > [@Anne\_Neville](#): > > There are grammar rules that have been imposed on English from other languages (particularly Latin) that don’t always make sense in English. “Don’t split infinitives” would be an example. In French, which is descended from Latin, you can’t split an infinitive. It’s a single word. An infinitive in English is two words. You can split it, and it doesn’t change the meaning of most sentences to a native speaker when you do, so people do it. Note that english has to-infinitives and bare infinitives and the bare infinitives are physically incapable of being split as well. Or at least, I’d like to meet the person who could split the infinitive in “He made them do it.” > [@MrsTime](#): > > So correct it already. My point is not that you speak or write incorrectly, but that even those of us who pride ourselves on our literacy, write and say things that others regard as incorrect. But I’ll give you one for free. My high school english teacher would not abide ending lists with etcetera. Either you have more examples, in which case you should share as they can only bolster your argument, or you have enough to make your point in which case you may terminate the list. But etcetera, to him, meant the writer had no more ideas but wished to pretend as though they had. ---
**Author:** ![Barkis\_is\_Willin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a183cd/32.png) [@Barkis\_is\_Willin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Barkis_is_Willin)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2015, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-question-is-proper-english-doomed/715754/55 "2015-03-24T16:33:58Z")
Won’t code-switching eventually become unnecessary? ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2015, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-question-is-proper-english-doomed/715754/56 "2015-03-24T16:41:13Z")
> [@Barkis\_is\_Willin](#): > > Won’t code-switching eventually become unnecessary? Why would it? Code switching has been around for a long time, and will continue to be around because people absolutely love to judge other people for their accents/diction/grammar/vocabulary and will not stop doing it any time soon. ---
**Author:** ![Inner\_Stickler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inner_stickler/32/318_2.png) [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2015, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-question-is-proper-english-doomed/715754/57 "2015-03-24T16:48:15Z")
> [@Barkis\_is\_Willin](#): > > Won’t code-switching eventually become unnecessary? I am unsure what you mean here. As long as people are fluent in multiple language varieties, people will be code-switching and the human population is orders of magnitude too large for only one or a few language varieties to exist to the exclusion of all others. ---
**Author:** ![Anne\_Neville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Anne\_Neville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anne_Neville)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2015, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-question-is-proper-english-doomed/715754/58 "2015-03-24T17:05:20Z")
> [@Barkis\_is\_Willin](#): > > Won’t code-switching eventually become unnecessary? Not as long as people want to project different images in different situations. Would you talk the same way in a job interview as you would in a casual conversation with your friends? If you’re a member of a minority culture, there are times when you’re going to want to sound more like a member of that culture (unless you’re totally ashamed of being a member of that culture), and other times when you’re going to want to sound more like everybody else. It would not be a good thing if minority cultures all went away (many of them have way better food than standard American food, for one thing), or if nobody were proud of being a member of a minority culture. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2015, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-question-is-proper-english-doomed/715754/59 "2015-03-24T17:22:12Z")
> [@Stink Fish Pot](#): > > I am currently watching a documentary on Pivot, called “Plastic Paradise: The Great Pacific Garbage Patch”, directed by (and I assume starring) Angela Sun. > > She is walking on a beach on Midway Atoll with a 12-year old kid, when she says to him… > > “ **Have you ever got bit?** ” > > Seriously. > > Now, I will admit that I do not have an English degree. However, even I know (at least I thought I knew) this is mangled english… > > People should try to communicate properly … \*Did you understand her? \* Seems so. Thus it _was_ “proper English”. English does not have any National Board of Correctness in Grammar and Spelling, correctness is defining by _usage_ and by whatever guide your employer requires. And, it’s quite possible she dumbed down her phasing for the 12 yo child, who I think was a local. ---
**Author:** ![zweisamkeit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zweisamkeit/32/4360_2.png) [@zweisamkeit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zweisamkeit)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2015, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-question-is-proper-english-doomed/715754/60 "2015-03-24T19:33:11Z")
PBS had a fantastic series called [Do You Speak American?](http://www.pbs.org/speak/), which has a [companion book](http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?isbn=0156032880&clickid=wgXyRGRYKwnTU3JyX0wos3MWUkVRH%3ARl105e1M0&cm_mmc=aff-_-ir-_-64613-_-77798&afn_sr=impact) that is a good read. It’s aimed at non-experts but not overly simplified. The website has _tons_ of great information, articles, and suggested reading to learn more. [This description of descriptivism and prescriptivism](http://www.pbs.org/speak/speech/correct/prescriptivism/) is a good overview of the two “parties” of linguistics; it’d perhaps be more accurate to think of the two as ends of a range and most people lie somewhere between. This article, [The Truth About Change](http://www.pbs.org/speak/ahead/change/change/), debunks the notion that language change is inherently bad and describes how and where these changes originate: > [@](#): > > Change is one of the inevitable facts in the life of any language. The only language not in a perpetual state of flux is a dead language. Language itself provides the seeds of change, and social circumstances provide fertile ground for their growth and spread. Yet the truth about language change may be different from the popular conception. People often assume that change begins with the upper class, modeling language for other social groups to follow. **In fact, most language change starts subtly and unconsciously among middle-class speakers and spreads to other classes** — and women often lead the way. > > Pressure to change comes both from within language itself and from its role in society. **Because language is a highly patterned code for communication, people collectively pressure it to change in ways that _preserve its patterning or enhance its communicative efficiency_.** (More on this later.) At the same time, we use language as a social behavior, to solidify or separate different social groups. and further down is the influence of (subconscious) classism: > [@](#): > > On the other side of language innovation lies resistance. Even when certain changes seem natural and reasonable,\*\* they are resisted by socially dominant classes who want to avoid being affiliated with subordinate groups\*\* that have already adopted these changes. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-question-is-proper-english-doomed/715754.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-question-is-proper-english-doomed/715754.md?page=4)