# I pit "service" as a verb **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [January 17, 2014, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-service-as-a-verb/679072 "2014-01-17T16:38:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![lance\_strongarm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/87869e/32.png) [@lance\_strongarm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lance_strongarm)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2014, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-service-as-a-verb/679072/61 "2014-01-22T21:18:50Z")
> [@Inner\_Stickler](#): > > That is not an opinion borne out by the evidence. There are many examples in the various corpora of a child saying something like “eated”, being corrected and continuing to go on saying “eated”. Huh? You’re saying children never learn to speak proper SE? Of course they do. > [@](#): > > edit: television and other media have not been demonstrated to have a marked influence on a person’s speech. It’s consistently parents and peers that influence speech patterns. Whatever. Go have kids and listen to them talk and you’ll hear them say things you never taught them that you have to correct, wherever they may have come from. Man, I’d love it if you had kids and had to grit your teeth and tell them there’s a wrong way to say or use words. I’d love to watch that. ---
**Author:** ![drewtwo99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d07c76/32.png) [@drewtwo99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewtwo99)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2014, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-service-as-a-verb/679072/62 "2014-01-23T02:50:18Z")
As a data processor who processes data for a living, I laugh at those of you who feel process shouldn’t be a verb. There’s no other way to easily describe what we do, other than processing the data. We analyze, report, correct, massage, manipulate, etc. We process. ---
**Author:** ![lance\_strongarm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/87869e/32.png) [@lance\_strongarm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lance_strongarm)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2014, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-service-as-a-verb/679072/63 "2014-01-23T17:16:02Z")
> [@drewtwo99](#): > > As a data processor who processes data for a living, I laugh at those of you who feel process shouldn’t be a verb. There’s no other way to easily describe what we do, other than processing the data. We analyze, report, correct, massage, manipulate, etc. We process. I think the correct term for your job is “tax evader.” 😃 ---
**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:** [January 23, 2014, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-service-as-a-verb/679072/64 "2014-01-23T17:22:45Z")
> [@lance\_strongarm](#): > > Huh? > > You’re saying children never learn to speak proper SE? Of course they do. I don’t know that there’s anyone whose default dialect is SE but kids learn to speak grammatically correctly for their geographical and socio-economic position when their brains are ready. Outside corrections as from a parent do not hurry this process along. > [@](#): > > Man, I’d love it if you had kids and had to grit your teeth and tell them there’s a wrong way to say or use words. I’d love to watch that. The only wrong way to use or say a word is to use it when no one else but you knows what it means. Other than that there’s no wrong words, just inappropriate situations. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2014, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-service-as-a-verb/679072/65 "2014-01-23T19:24:19Z")
> [@PlainJain](#): > > I just love dumbasses that think language is static. Language changes and evolves. All of your pedantic inspired whining won’t stop it. Personally, I’m more amused by the dumbasses that think the natural evolution of language automatically represents some kind of sacred inviolable progress that should never inspire any negative reaction in anybody. Yes, honey, language change over time is natural. I get that. Doesn’t mean folks aren’t allowed to complain about certain aspects of it they happen not to like. Human dislike of and resistance to particular changes in language is a **natural part of the process of language evolution as a whole** , and always has been. So shut up with your prescriptivist whining about how it’s somehow “wrong” or “dumb” for anyone to object to any change in linguistic usage. **True** descriptivists recognize that the natural evolution of language is a complex interactive process that intrinsically embraces **resistance** to changes as well as **adoption** of changes. ---
**Author:** ![lance\_strongarm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/87869e/32.png) [@lance\_strongarm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lance_strongarm)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2014, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-service-as-a-verb/679072/66 "2014-01-23T19:33:23Z")
> [@Inner\_Stickler](#): > > I don’t know that there’s anyone whose default dialect is SE but kids learn to speak grammatically correctly for their geographical and socio-economic position when their brains are ready. Outside corrections as from a parent do not hurry this process along. Like hell. This is simply false. > [@](#): > > The only wrong way to use or say a word is to use it when no one else but you knows what it means. Other than that there’s no wrong words, just inappropriate situations. Yeah yeah yeah, tell that to a 5-year-old who just asked you how to spell “cat” and see how it works, Professor English. And see how it works out when your kid has an English test too. Don’t sit there and tell me you don’t follow rules of language. Of course you do. If you want to call them “appropriateness guidelines” to make you feel better about it, fine. ---
**Author:** ![lance\_strongarm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/87869e/32.png) [@lance\_strongarm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lance_strongarm)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2014, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-service-as-a-verb/679072/67 "2014-01-23T19:34:39Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > Personally, I’m more amused by the dumbasses that think the natural evolution of language automatically represents some kind of sacred inviolable progress that should never inspire any negative reaction in anybody. > > Yes, honey, language change over time is natural. I get that. Doesn’t mean folks aren’t allowed to complain about certain aspects of it they happen not to like. Human dislike of and resistance to particular changes in language is a **natural part of the process of language evolution as a whole** , and always has been. > > So shut up with your prescriptivist whining about how it’s somehow “wrong” or “dumb” for anyone to object to any change in linguistic usage. **True** descriptivists recognize that the natural evolution of language is a complex interactive process that intrinsically embraces **resistance** to changes as well as **adoption** of changes. Bravo! ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2014, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-service-as-a-verb/679072/68 "2014-01-23T20:08:49Z")
> [@lance strongarm](#): > > > [@Inner Stickler](#): > > > > I don’t know that there’s anyone whose default dialect is SE but kids learn to speak grammatically correctly for their geographical and socio-economic position when their brains are ready. Outside corrections as from a parent do not hurry this process along. > > Like hell. > > This is simply false. I suppose it depends on how we’re defining “this process”. Do we mean that children can respond to parental reinforcement of normative language “rules” in the short term by changing their usage to imitate the parent’s usage? Yes, of course they can. Or do we mean that parental reinforcement of normative rules doesn’t fundamentally accelerate children’s linguistic development in the **long** term? That is, the child’s ability to spontaneously and reliably follow accepted grammatical patterns in speech without direct prompting or correction of errors doesn’t emerge until the child’s brain has reached a certain stage, no matter how much prompting or correcting they receive before that? I don’t know enough about early childhood cognitive development to say one way or the other, but it certainly wouldn’t surprise me if that were true. But what I think is the important point here is that irrespective of whether or not parental reinforcement of language “rules” speeds up children’s learning of language, **such reinforcement of “rules” is nonetheless natural among human language users**. It’s got nothing to do with being a pedant or old-fashioned or insufficiently “hip” to modern linguistic theory. It is a natural human response among speakers of all languages to feel a negative reaction to uses of language that violate linguistic patterns we’re familiar with. (Among other things, that’s why so-called “broken” speech or non-standard grammar on the part of non-native “foreign” speakers has so consistently been regarded as humorous. Our gut reaction is that this person is doing something “wrong”, and that tension resolves itself by perceiving the “error” as comic.) ---
**Author:** ![Taber](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ac91a4/32.png) [@Taber](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Taber)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2014, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-service-as-a-verb/679072/69 "2014-01-23T20:15:11Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > Personally, I’m more amused by the dumbasses that think the natural evolution of language automatically represents some kind of sacred inviolable progress that should never inspire any negative reaction in anybody. > > Yes, honey, language change over time is natural. I get that. Doesn’t mean folks aren’t allowed to complain about certain aspects of it they happen not to like. Human dislike of and resistance to particular changes in language is a **natural part of the process of language evolution as a whole** , and always has been. > > So shut up with your prescriptivist whining about how it’s somehow “wrong” or “dumb” for anyone to object to any change in linguistic usage. **True** descriptivists recognize that the natural evolution of language is a complex interactive process that intrinsically embraces **resistance** to changes as well as **adoption** of changes. The OP of these types of threads almost never say that they don’t like the direction language is changing in. If they did, then this would be a good defense for them. Instead, they attempt to declare the usage they dislike as being “wrong” by some imagined standard\*. \*There are standards where language use can be wrong, such as if it is gibberish or gives unintended messages, but the OP of these types of threads almost never use this standard, except maybe in the “literally” case. ---
**Author:** ![lance\_strongarm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/87869e/32.png) [@lance\_strongarm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lance_strongarm)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2014, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-service-as-a-verb/679072/70 "2014-01-23T20:20:50Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > It’s got nothing to do with being a pedant or old-fashioned or insufficiently “hip” to modern linguistic theory. It is a natural human response among speakers of all languages to feel a negative reaction to uses of language that violate linguistic patterns we’re familiar with. That’s when we get into the “Standard” part of Standard English. A child has the same process of becoming familiar with linguistic patterns, and many are non-standard, thereby not learning SE to its fullest. So there’s always a tension. When my kid comes home and says something wrong, I mean, non-standard, because she made it up or heard it from another kid, I correct her. I do this because she is better off knowing SE along with non-standard English, not because I hate non-standard English (I don’t.) Eventually, she will be able to navigate all this and understand that the rules are social and arbitrary and there’s no authority setting them. But she’s only a kid - she needs to know the “right” way to spell “cat,” not a lecture on post-modernist views of linguistic determinism or whatever. First you learn the rules, then you learn that you can break some of them and how to do that well. ---
**Author:** ![lance\_strongarm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/87869e/32.png) [@lance\_strongarm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lance_strongarm)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2014, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-service-as-a-verb/679072/71 "2014-01-23T20:22:51Z")
> [@Taber](#): > > The OP of these types of threads almost never say that they don’t like the direction language is changing in. If they did, then this would be a good defense for them. Instead, they attempt to declare the usage they dislike as being “wrong” by some imagined standard\*. > > \*There are standards where language use can be wrong, such as if it is gibberish or gives unintended messages, but the OP of these types of threads almost never use this standard, except maybe in the “literally” case. Did I use the word “wrong?” No. The standards are not imaginary though. They are entirely real. What you are trying to say is that they can change, and there is not central authority. But don’t pretend there are no standards. Without standards, there’s no language. ---
**Author:** ![lance\_strongarm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/87869e/32.png) [@lance\_strongarm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lance_strongarm)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2014, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-service-as-a-verb/679072/72 "2014-01-23T20:35:02Z")
By the way, anyone who doesn’t like my opinions can go service himself. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Taber](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ac91a4/32.png) [@Taber](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Taber)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2014, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-service-as-a-verb/679072/73 "2014-01-23T20:37:38Z")
> [@lance\_strongarm](#): > > Did I use the word “wrong?” > > No. > > The standards are not imaginary though. They are entirely real. What you are trying to say is that they can change, and there is not central authority. But don’t pretend there are no standards. Without standards, there’s no language. [QUOTE=Taber] \*There are standards where language use can be wrong, such as if it is gibberish or gives unintended messages, but the OP of these types of threads almost never use this standard, except maybe in the “literally” case. [/quote] Well As to your first part, > [@lance strongarm](#): > > Excuse me, subway system operators and the like, but “service” is a noun, not a verb. reads like a statement of fact, though I’ll grant that’s a somewhat uncharitable reading. ---
**Author:** ![lance\_strongarm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/87869e/32.png) [@lance\_strongarm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lance_strongarm)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2014, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-service-as-a-verb/679072/74 "2014-01-23T20:59:03Z")
> [@Taber](#): > > Well > > As to your first part, > > reads like a statement of fact, though I’ll grant that’s a somewhat uncharitable reading. I often state my opinions as fact. It’s because I’m used to be right so often. But if you want to be so technical, you should have written, “IN MY OPINION your statement reads like a statement of fact.” Right? ---
**Author:** ![Cheshire\_Human](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/5f8ce5/32.png) [@Cheshire\_Human](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheshire_Human)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2014, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-service-as-a-verb/679072/75 "2014-01-23T22:20:11Z")
> [@lance\_strongarm](#): > > Bravo! Let me guess. You’re going for the ‘definitional case’ for the _word_ ‘asshole’. It’s _OK_ to be an asshole, but, nevertheless, you’re still an asshole. And the rest of us will _still_ consider you an asshole… Hi, asshole! :waves: ---
**Author:** ![lance\_strongarm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/87869e/32.png) [@lance\_strongarm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lance_strongarm)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2014, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-service-as-a-verb/679072/76 "2014-01-25T00:24:55Z")
> [@Cheshire\_Human](#): > > Hi, asshole! :waves: Hi! (I automatically say hi back when I hear that, since I’m so used to hearing it). ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2014, 5:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-service-as-a-verb/679072/77 "2014-01-26T05:21:31Z")
Well, **lance** , it looks like you are SOL, no one seems willing to _tow_ the line on this one. ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2014, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-service-as-a-verb/679072/78 "2014-01-26T14:08:06Z")
> [@Inner\_Stickler](#): > > The only wrong way to use or say a word is to use it when no one else but you knows what it means. Other than that there’s no wrong words, just inappropriate situations. This makes me vertical so hacksawing that I just want to platypus some obstreperous with a juicily. Literally. ---
**Author:** ![lance\_strongarm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/87869e/32.png) [@lance\_strongarm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lance_strongarm)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2014, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-service-as-a-verb/679072/79 "2014-01-26T18:08:51Z")
> [@For You](#): > > Well, **lance** , it looks like you are SOL, no one seems willing to _tow_ the line on this one. That makes my tows curl up. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-service-as-a-verb/679072.md?page=3)