Well, he puts it on the end of every post. Is it really that much of a stretch?
Pinker’s book is excellent. Enjoy.
Oh, I apologize for leaving that last post unsigned. It must have you all scratching your heads in bafflement over who posted it.
- Roy
Perhaps. The point is that polished clear writing is, yes, writing that adheres to SAE. It is pragmatic, but it’s not “correct”. I’ve also known teachers who want their students’ papers to be polished and clean no matter what dialect they write in, from some apalacian dialects to black english and so on.
Contra: maybe we’ve reached a point where we’ll have to agree to disagree… but words do change meaning based on the statement they’re in.
“He fell, literally, 10,000 feet to his death.” Meaning: the actual number was 10,000.
“If you don’t clean your room, I will literally tan your hide 'til it’s red enough to serve as a stop sign.” Meaning: I am not actually going to do that.
And, The Language Instinct is a wonderful book. IIRC there’s an entire chapter devoted specifically to presciptive grammar and its uses and limitations. I’d look it up now, but it’s with the rest of my textbooks. Blarg.
It might actually be neat to open a GD thread based on the book once you’ve read it. Seems a better forum than CS.
He signs his name. To me it is a nice touch. Think of it as a signature. And don’t assume that everyone reads what you read.
Or the Pit, for that matter.
Of course, that’d be a great forum to put it in… you asshole!
Bullshit. Either you are being willfully stupid with the comment about grammatically correct French, or you (and the person calling me an idiot) clearly are not understanding my point here. With the obvious exception of slips of the tongue and mental farts, which do of course happen, it is extremely unlikely for a native speaker to construct an ungrammatical sentence unless they try. And you have to try pretty hard. It is considerably harder to speak ungrammatically than it is to speak grammatically - we follow the rules of grammar without thinking. It takes some serious effort for me to think of a sentence, like, um… “The door shut blue garage is”. The grammatical alternative that I was shooting for, “The blue garage door is shut,” comes much more naturally.
It may be that we’re talking past each other with our definitions of “grammar.” I am using the linguistic definition. Grammar is the internal set of rules that all speakers of any language have that tells them how to construct and decode words and sentences. A sentence that doesn’t conform to these internal rules is ungrammatical, and we know that it’s ungrammatical because it just feels wrong. Native speakers of a language simply don’t construct sentences that are ungrammatical! If we’re going to pick nits, native speakers don’t construct sentences that are ungrammatical within their particular dialect. This is a safe generalization to make, because as I said, it holds true with the exception of occasional brain farts or slips (which are an interesting linguistic topic all their own).
The cries of prescriptivists are pointless, foolish, and studies have shown, occasionally harmful. English is not in any danger! Language is a remarkably precise tool, especially given its flexibility. Conventions of spelling and style are useful for written communication, both for clarity and aesthetics, but most prescriptive rules are useless at best. Apply them to your writing if you must (and to a certain degree, I agree that we must), but when it comes to the speakers, just shut up and let them speak! The concern about trying to avoid changes that “hurt the language” is particularly rich. A language simply cannot be “hurt,” or degenerate, or any of that nonsense. Even if it could, what magic crystal ball are you looking into that tells what changes are bad and which are good? Such judgements are purely prejudicial and superstitious. Some greatly derided linguistic changes, like the AAVE ‘be’ add useful functionality to the language. Oh, but they’re wrong. Whiskey tango foxtrot? On top of all of that, efforts such as yours accomplish absolutely nothing whatsoever. The French have been trying for years to officially regulate language usage, but these rules have had zero effect on the way that people actually speak. Save your breath, and save us all a headache.
It’s a pretty much universal truism that, if there’s a rule against something, people do it. Examples?’ Ain’t’, double negatives, split infinitives (a breathtakingly stupid rule even in writing), etc. NONE of these perfectly grammatical habits interfere with understanding in the least. What about rules that we don’t have? Why don’t we have a rule against using “that” in this sentence: “Who do you think that will attack France first?” I’ll tell you why! Because no native speaker of English needs to be told that this sentence is wrong! No native speaker will ever make this mistake. On the other hand, there are rules against double negatives and using the word “ain’t.” Why do these rules exist? Because native speakers use double negatives and “ain’t” all the damn time! And because people do this all the time, they are not ungrammatical! Prescriptive rules are almost always exclusionary - they tell us what NOT to do. This is stupid - we don’t need these rules because we already know what not to do. And no one had to teach us those rules. We simply do not commit real errors in speech. Language doesn’t need your help! Go away!
Finally, I will address Bricker’s question. He’s completely right. We should batten down the hatches and preserve the meaning of ‘literally’ because - you never know! - it could save somebody’s life. :rolleyes: :wally
Let’s assume it is the second case. Whose fault is it? Why did I not understand you?
Oh, dear. How do languages without formal education and official standards manage? This line of reasoning is so obviously fallacious that I hardly need rebut it, but if you examine the history of English - including the years under French rule when it was relegated only to unofficial circumstances and obviously had no standard form - you can see that it’s survived much worse than the word “literally” being used figuratively. Or look at any number of other languages. Cantonese doesn’t benefit from a standard form - have the Cantonese been reduced to pointing and loud grunts to communicate? (Wait, that might be a bad example. :))
I’d say so. These prescriptivist rants always involve this absurd notion that people are simply incapable of interpreting the context of a word. Language is full of ambiguities - those who study it are descriptivists partly because a serious study of language makes it clear how arbitrary and how ambiguous language is. We have not only the natural capacity to interpret strings of words that could be analyzed as ambiguous, but we also have sociolinguistic methods of resolving it when there are ambiguities in a bit of communication. If one particular usage - one that’s existed for a long time and ain’t going away - could, under very rare circumstances, create ambiguity, well, it hardly makes a difference when you consider how constantly and easily we deal with ambiguity in communication.
I sometimes think that prescriptivists operate under some fantasy that if only they could clean up the language enough, we could speak in sentences that were absolutely, utterly clear - and that this would magically solve some great social problem. But back in reality, we got much bigger troubles than the occasional ambiguous sentence - and true cases in which a hyperbolic use of “literally” makes meaning unclear are relatively rare. Human language is ambiguous. It will always be that way - that is an inherent aspect of it. There’s no way to fix that, and there’s no great problem that would be solved if we somehow managed to. Using some arbitrary rule about only using “literally” literally, or not ending sentences with prepositions, or starting relative clauses with “that” (or is it “which”? I can never remember) as a shibboleth to decide that a speaker is ignorant is such a shallow and pointless activity that I have come to believe it reflects a subconscious need to simply make oneself “better” than others.
Swahili is a goddamn natural language, and this is the second goddamn time I’ve seen someone claim otherwise on these very boards this week. Knock it the fuck off, or I will hunt you down and cram the contents of my linguistics bookshelf in every bodily orifice I can find. 
Some of those dictionaries are really big, and would not feel nice wedged into your nostrils.
(It was used far outside its original home as a trade language, but that’s not to say it’s artificial any more than any other language used by foreigners.)
By the way Ex, if I remember correctly (I’m not going to search through my post historyright now) you were pissed off at me for something or another another that seemed rather trivial to me at the time. At the very least, for the life of me, I can’t really remember what it was or what our interactions have been in the past, but I do remember you were somewhat pissed off. So I’d like to extend an olive branch, as this is just a message board after all. Unless, of course, you’d like to continue feuding. In which case I’m gettin’ me a banjo and a dog named Skeet.
You were being a dick and insulting me for no apparent reason when I casually pointed out that people were maybe taking a pit thread too seriously. You became personally insulting with very little cause. I have no desire to fight with you, but I think you revealed your character at that time, and I just plain don’t like that character. It’s not a matter of making up after an argument - I just don’t like you now.
I just want to empisize one other salient point.
I know some of you apparentely put a lot of stock into this ivory tower masterbation of descriptisim. But really, what real world value does it hold? Uh, you really think with some crazy theory of language such as yours, mathmatics, biochemistry, zoology, physics, et al would have even advanced past flinging shit at trees?
Probably not, because it is the apparently soft sciences like linguistics (your branch in specific), that have no real world value, and the only place for them is message boards like this, or in some snooty professors syllybus at a “prestigous” university.
If your theory ever took hold, it would definately be the end of trying to teach complicated subjects that require rigidly defined words and concepts.
But then again, that high up in the ivory tower, it is hard to tell what is really happening in the world.
Looking back at my tracker now I see that all I did was point out that you were presenting yourself as The Voice of Reason and casting around blanket generalizations, and you responded by calling me an asswipe after which point I did indeed personally insult you. So, ah well. I’ll play some dueling banjos for you later. Right now Skeet wants to go outside.
Funny, a prescriptivist might know that there’s no ‘e’ in masturbation. Yea, verily, I invoke the Wrath of Gaudere!
Ahem.
But, those who put ‘faith’ in this model are those who’ve actually done the research. In many cases putting in thousands of man-hours and reviewing and transcribing hour upon hour upon hour of informants’ taped conversations. I’d wager that it’s a little more than masturbation.
Off the top of my head? Programming AI.
Soft sciences? How exactly do you define ‘soft science’? Is it “that which I do not understand or agree with?” Because I think you’re rather ignorant if you claim that linguistics does not engage in as rigerous collection and analysis of data as does physics of chemistry.
Ah… damn those effete intellectuals!
Gotcha.
No, it wouldn’t, as they’d still rely on context. Time dialations, differing intertial systems, etc… all require thinking and language which is, above all, flexible and situationally dependent.
“Those egghead intellectuals up in their ivory tower, they’re so damn divorced from the real world! Why, they actually think that there’s no such thing as Absolute Direction. How stupid! If everybody thought that, people would be falling down stairs all the time. And did you hear what those lunatics are also saying? They say that all matter is merely probability and observation informs measurement. How nuts is that? Let’s see any of them try to walk through a wall based on its ‘probability’ of not being there. Har har har.”
:dubious: I don’t know. If you have a point to make, make it. I suggested that we were using different definitions of what it means to be grammatical. What’s your suggestion?
My last post WAS a bit over the top on the “frothing at the mouth” scale, and I apologize. I can get worked up pretty easily. Let me state my position clearly:
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There is a genuine use for prescriptive rules around spelling and writing style in written communication. However, most of the rules that we are taught are not helpful for clear, eloquent writing. The most effective way to teach clear writing is to teach how to write clearly. It’s a bit circular, but it’s true. Proper use of vocabulary is also important, of course, but is heavily dependant upon the situation. It bothers me most when people are trying to use big, fancy words, but get it wrong - an “I don’t that word means what you think it means” kind of situation. I just can’t get excited about people using “literally,” as an intensifer. They’ve literally been doing it for a hundred years.
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I am not out to destroy prescriptivism, only to point out that it needs to be applied with far more gentleness and judgement. People’s instincts about language are generally on-target - as another poster said, humans are really, really good at using language. Focus on clarity and articulate communication, and the rest will follow. The power of language is pretty incredible. People don’t need to be taught how to use it. We already know. People simply need to be taught how to use it well. Prescriptivism is not a component for this.
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The fact that use defines grammaticality is a bit circular, and it can get tricky. Someone - I forget who - asked where you draw an unambiguous line between correct and incorrect usage. The simple truth is that such a line often does not exist. Some rules, like the one that tells us that “Who do you think that will attack France first?” are unambiguous. Other matters are a lot less clear. I say “Do you want to come with?” all the time. So do plenty of other people. On the other hand, that same sentence will give another native English speaker the quaking horrors. Similarly, a speaker of African-American Vernacular English might say “Tony be late,” and her friends would all nod and agree that Tony is a lazy slug who’s lucky to have a job. But if I hadn’t previously encountered the AAVE “be,” I would be left scratching my head and saying “Well, that can’t be right…” I tailor my writing and to a much lesser extent, my speech to my audience to avoid misunderstanding. I don’t need to do this very much with speech. Prescriptivists act as though people are unable to use environmental cues, context, situation, tone of voice, body language and other cues to determine the actual meaning of supposedly ambiguous words. The fact is that we use all of these factors and more to determine meaning with an incredible degree of precision. Once again - humans are GOOD at language. Prescriptivism assumes that we are not.
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When you get right down to it, prescriptivism accomplishes little, and especially little of any value. The alleged goal of prescriptive rules - to preserve standardized forms of grammar - is laughably futile. It’s a waste of time even to try. Why bother? Further, judging which changes are “good or bad,” for a language is entirely prejudicial. There is no objective basis on which to call some changes hurtful and some helpful. Such judgements and prescriptive rules enshrining them have historically been highly classist. As I said in my previous post - language doesn’t need your help! It’s doing fine on its own.
That’s about all I can think of right now. Cheers.
Actually, the concept of descriptivism is quite a natural fit within science. You see, the very idea is that the rational way to understand language is to observe it, rather than focussing on passing judgment on it. To explore zoology the way you describe would be as if Jane Goodall went to live with the chimps and was shocked and appalled at their grooming habits and loose sexual mores, and tried her damnedest to get them to stop. If we conducted science with the attitude that our goal was to enforce proper behavior, it would prevent advancement at all. The very foundation of science is open - and hopefully impartial - observation. The other alternative is trying our best to make our observations fit into a preconceived idea, as with the increasingly complex and ridiculous models of the solar system that developed as astronomy revealed the weaknesses of the geocentric model.
The idea that linguistics ought to be focused on prescribing grammatical rules is the idea that it should be consigned to the dark ages. Just as it was necessary for astronomy to throw off the yoke of religious superstition* in order to come to a truer understanding of the cosmos, similar ideas must be given up in order to have any hope of understanding how science really works.
I don’t fault you for not understanding linguistics - very few people have any knowledge of even the most basic ideas in the science. However, your suggestion that descriptivism is a “branch” of linguistics is incorrect and hard to even understand. “Descriptivism” is the mindset that linguistics sets out to describe language use. It is not a school of linguistics - in fact, it is more fundamental to linguistics today than descent with modification is to biology.
Do you really think that one could make a “hard science” out of telling people how to speak and write? There’s value in teaching language, and grammar - but there’s nothing scientific whatsoever in it. How could teaching “good English” possibly constitute a hard science? I sense that you’re actually merely using “soft science” as an insult, but in this context, it simply does not make sense to do so. As physicist Wolfgang Pauli once said, “That’s not right; that’s not even wrong.”
Again, you use the word “theory” as though descriptivism was a concept - a set of ideas about how language works. While it entails certain ideas, it would be better to understand it as a method, or an approach. Descriptivism is simply the notion that language, to be studied, must be observed from a neutral point of view. This is, once again, central to every science; your impression that there is linguistics that is not descriptivist in its approach is simply false. There are no “prescriptive linguists” just as there are no zoologists who try to get bonobos to stop fucking each other. The idea is that it’s not a matter of right and wrong - the bonobos may be violating norms of human society, but the point is to understand their behavior, not to change it.
More insults grounded in an ignorance of the basics of linguistics. I do not fault you for your ignorance. It’s not your fault that our educational system does not even impart the most basic ideas of linguistics, even though in my view there would be great value in doing so. But it might serve you to try to engage in open dialogue and attempt to understand what it is that we linguists do, rather than simply insulting us because we’re not furthering your agenda.
I try not to get involved in these discussions anymore; I once said that explaining descriptivism to those hostile to it is like explaining evolution to a creationist. Evolution makes perfect sense, but to understand biology and the implications of Darwin’s Theory of Natural Selection requires a shift in thinking about the issue, and just as creationists tend to cling stubbornly to false ideas and ask questions and make statements that simply do not make sense, the gulf between prescriptivism and descriptivism seems to me so vast that it’s simply impossible to explain it to people who are hostile to the idea, even if at its core it’s a simple idea.
*I refer here to the unscientific ideas of the medieval Catholic Church that punished those who tried to openly and honestly understand the universe - I’m not trying to make any suggestion that science can only be conducted by the nonreligious.
I don’t know why you decided to bring up a completely unrelated past issue in the first place, but it’s plain that you did so with the intent of starting another fight. As I said, I don’t wish to fight with you.
Holy strawman fallacy, Batman! You’re right. There is no real-world value in discovering how language actually works. The far-reaching sociological, psychological and physiological implications are the products of a few deranged minds flinging poop from their (apparently brown) ivory tower balconies.
So… I offered an olive branch in order to start a fight?
I now see the problem, you’ve got some weird irrational prejudice about me that you filter my posts through, and even an attempt to bury the hatchet is seen as an attack on you.
Against such logic the Gods themselves contend in vain. Forget I offered.
I’m a little late to this fight, and I’m not linguist by any stretch of the imagination, but I have a question.
I’m hip to the idea that the usage of a word can change its meaning, so that what was once considered incorrect may become correct. But what happens when the new meaning implied by the ‘incorrect’ usage isn’t actually what’s intended by the speaker?
As an example, let’s say Joe is telling me a story where he says, “it scared me so much I literally jumped out of my shoes.” I might question whether he really means he jumped out of his shoes. His response is likely to be a sheepish, “no, I didn’t really jump out of my shoes.” In this case, he’s basically admitting that he’s not actually using the ‘new’ meaning of the word literally, he’s admitting that he’s incorrectly using the word.
Does this type of usage contribute to a new meaning becoming accepted? What if everyone who ever used this word this way did it as a mistake? Would we eventually say that so many people make this mistake, the word has a new meaning?