Beautiful. Let me just note that the journal article cited dates to January, 1950; one can draw their own conclusions about which direction things have moved in since then. (Of course, further, more modern cites would be nice, too, if anyone should happen to find some)
Let me also note, with some amusement, the line from the article “Every educated person retains some memory of how a teacher inflicted some small humiliation upon him in his efforts to eradicate the use of can I? in favor of may I?.” right after its discussion of the expression “Can I be excused from this class?” (no doubt to use the bathroom…). Some things never change, eh?
[But they should: more than six decades of this charade? Sheesh…]
I had tried looking around there too; I didn’t have any direct memory of such a discussion, but it seemed like the sort of thing that could easily have come up at some point. However, the best I got was some slightly related discussion of “may” and “might” (here and here, if anyone is interested).
Yes, except there is no infinitive that is split in the title. The “to” belongs to “have” in the verbal phrase “have to”, and not to the “correct,” which is a bare infinitive. Add to that the fact that split infinitives are not grammatically incorrect anyway, and you’re up to speed.
Christ on a pogo stick, who knew my post would cause such a fit.
In my Midwest-for-generations family, “Can I” denotes ability and “May I” denotes permission. It’s that simple. I don’t give a rat ass whether it’s antiquated, passe, idiotic or whatever.
As with the little / liddle and library / liberry, while it is common and acceptable to say liddle and liberry, they grate on my ears. Way back in the dark ages (college) my linguistics professor would cover her ears when we mispronounced words. Those are the two that stayed with me.
Dark ages indeed. A linguistics professor shouldn’t correct pronounciation, they should go “Huh, you pronounce it that way? Interesting…” A linguist studies how people talk, they do not dictate how people talk.
I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone in my part of the Midwest pronounce “little” with a clear “t,” unless they’re trying to mimic some faux-posh British accent.
Precisely. It’s one of the sounds that distinguishes American speech from British, and even then I’m not sure all British accents exhibit it.
I did misread MissTake’s post and missed that she notes it’s common and acceptable, just not to her. I think that’s odd, but everyone’s got their quirks.
I gather that the voicing/flapping-induced merger of intervocalic /t/ and /d/ occurs in Canadian, Australian, and New Zealand accents too, though perhaps more categorically in North American accents than others. At any rate, you’d really have to go out of your way to find someone distinguishing “little” and “liddle” in the U.S.
I grew up in West Texas, but I think now I do pronounce the hard T. Having so many Brit and Aussie friends has affected my pronunciation to some extent, but even back then, I knew someone from Denton, and she found it interesting that I pronounced the T as a hard T. She said people from there did not.
Actually, it wasn’t until the 19th and early 20th centuries that some grammarians got a bee in their bonnet about split infinitives. Even the Fowlers and Strunk & White, some of the most influential forces of late 19th century and early 20th century grammar texts, both dismissed the idea of stigmatizing all split infinitives.
And, just to make it clear: as opposed to, say, permissive “can” as discussed before, split infinitives have been part of English since time immemorial. From long before the start of the grumbling about the construction and continuously up to today, they have been perfectly grammatical.
I’m sorry that your linguistics professor rudely tried to make you replace your correct pronunciation (in the case of ‘liddle’), with one that is not used by any US dialect (‘little’ with a hard ‘t’).
Please note that just because it is spelled with a ‘t’, doesn’t make other pronunciations “mispronunciations.” If I really need to point out that many English words aren’t pronounced as they are spelled, then you need to take a real linguistics class.
It may be illustrative to note that just about no American actor playing a contemporary American role on TV or in the movies will be heard pronouncing “little” in a way which contrasts with “liddle”, regardless of whether they’re playing an average Joe or a highly educated person or anything else.
(Perhaps we should use examples which are made purely out of real words, like “metal” and “medal” (and “mettle” and “meddle”), or, “petal” and “pedal”. Are those not homophonous pairs for you, MissTake?)
Just to throw another voice in here, I don’t mind being sloppy with pronouncing “little” as “liddle.” I do it all the time, because there’s nothing to confuse it with. I do, however, pronounce “metal” and “medal” differently.
To respond directly to the OP, it really doesn’t bother me much when people correct me, as long as they don’t do it in a condescending manner. What really bothers me is when people (may I coin a phrase here?) “incorrect” me–telling me that something is wrong when it isn’t.
Example. I wrote a primer some years back, and a number of people told me that I was pronouncing it wrong when I said “PRIM-mer” instead of “PRY-mer.” My pronunciation is not only acceptable, it’s the preferred pronunciation according to every American dictionary I own. I’ve been corrected when I’ve said pronounced “err” as it’s spelled (most Americans–if they know the word at all–pronounce it like “air” or the first syllable of “error”).
You may speak as you wish. If you want to go with pronunciations or spellings that are used by a variety of the folks you hang out with, do it. Even if they disagree with dictionaries. But don’t try to tell me I have to speak like you do.
