Is There Really Such a Thing As "Improper" English?

Great Debates
1

Is there really such a thing as “improperly” used English? Oh, I know it is simply called “Nonstandard” or “Substandard” English now. But either word is still a pejorative term. The funny thing is, when I was a child I used to be more of a purist about this matter. It would make me angry to hear English used in a way the “Establishment” said was wrong. But now I don’t know. It all seems to be really a class thing to me. Here are some other points I have to make that I think are worth considering:

1. THE ONLY RULE A LANGUAGE SHOULD HAVE IS TO BE UNDERSTOOD BY ALL PARTIES CONCERNED. Of course, for this reason I do agree that the person shouldn’t use words or phrases that he knows his audience probably won’t understand.
2. Newscasters and other people in the media use nonstandard English all the time. They get away with it because their well-respected (and probably also because no one cares). I used to hear a local newscaster named Bill Bonds use “kid” in place of “child” frequently.
3. “Standard” English is so rarely used–“colloquial” English usually prevails–it sounds a little wierd sometimes. Example: “It is I!” is correct. But most people would say, “It is me”.
4. English has no copyright on it–it belongs to the people! In England English is called “Received Standard” because it is thought to be approved by the monarch (hence the expression “the queen’s English”). But last that I heard, we had separated from England.
And finally, 5. English is so much a product of human culture, sometimes it defies being structured by some book or scholar. After all, words that were considered substandard once sometimes are used so much, they have to be considered part of mainstream English. People just get used to them. (People thought Noah Webster was crazy for preferring “the King of England**'s** crown” over “the King**'s** of England crown”. But now…)

And on that final note, I was wondering. When will “disrespect” make it into mainstream English in its verb form? Presently mainstream English has no one word that means that. Do any journalists read this message board? Would you like to introduce into to the mainstream by using it this way?

This debate as I have it here is by no means complete. But it is my opinion. Thank you for taking the time to read it.
:slight_smile:

2

Every English speaker uses the language in his/her own way… linguisticians would say that each has his/her own idiolect of English.

“Standard” English is a (partly theoretical) construct which allows the maximum level of communication between speakers of English idiolects… hopefully. It’s defined by usage, and it changes over time, but at any given point in time it’s definable - you can look at an utterance and decide whether or not it’s Standard English. (In theory. In practice, there can be a lot of debate over borderline cases. And has been, on this board.)

There is no regulatory authority for Standard English.

Hmm. So far I’d agree with Jim B.. In the interests of getting a proper argument going, I’ll say that there are plenty of words that mean “disrespect-as-a-verb” in English - two minutes with a thesaurus gave me denigrate, malign, asperse, calumniate, defame, libel, scandalize, slander, tear down, traduce, and vilify. Using “disrespect” as a verb is, to my mind, a sign of either laziness or an inadequate familiarity with the rich and expressive existing vocabulary of English. So there.

3

I agree with you. Even as a proof reader, it is annoying to work with people who use English that has been outmoded for years. At the same time, when speaking with others for whom English is a foreign language, well, here take a look:

“Observing wildlife living for life, I’d like to live my life with heart and soul.”
It’s grammatically correct, but also strange. That’s because the writer doesn’t speak the same English we do. If the listener understands, hey, that’s good enough. In technical situations, it’s very important to be precise, because a misinterpretation could mean trouble.

Anyone have any ideas about how I’d go about changing that quoted line up there?

4

This is actually something we talked about before the board crash, in an ebonics thread. I’d say that there’s “proper” English for certain situations If I’m talking to a group of political scientists, I’d speak differently than if I were addressing Congress, or talking to my friends. That’s mainly a matter of convention, though.

5

You know, this is probably the most common GD theme not involving sex, politics, or religion.

Let me make a few observations:

[li] Grammar as a discipline is merely the scientific study of how the users of a language manipulate it to convey meaning. If all verbs are unchangeable and require adverbial constructions to convey the meanings carried by tense, number, etc. (“I see you yesterday, I not see you today, but Gaudere see you today, and I see you again tomorrow”), then that is not “ungrammatical” but a simple statement of how the people speaking that language use it in everyday dialogue. It was this that caused the “Ebonics” dustup – because those who theorized that “proper English” is not a consensual standard of usage not shared by all who communicate using English words but rather a prescribed standard of propriety in its use objected to the idea that one might use the vernacular black urban dialect called Ebonics to more effectively teach those who use it, and to train its speakers to operate in areas where “proper English” is the norm.[/li]
That said, descriptively there is a “proper English” usage standard, or actually several of them, closely related, which define the proper usage in, say, formal business correspondence, academic writing, and speech in formal occasions. It customarily avoids subject pronoun/verb contractions, requires that nouns, participles, and verbs referring to sexual or excretory functions be chosen from the technical rather than the vulgar vocabulary if circumstances require their use in description, and so on. Until recently, it required the predicate nominative pronouns after forms of “to be” but a bit more freedom in opting for nominative or objective forms is now accepted.

Simply said, there is a “right” way of expressing oneself in any given context, and in casual social interaction that will be the vernacular of your particular subculture, whether yuppie suburban, black inner city, Southern rural black or white, or whatever, while in other contexts involving academe or commerce the “right” way will be the formal English taught in schools.

Anything else is avoiding objective description of how we as a community use English in favor of subjective opinion of what ought to be done – my usage of “right” above was not a judgment call on propriety but rather the objective fact that one’s word choices vary according to the particular social venue one is operating in at the moment.

6

Ah, my favorite GD subject. :smiley:

While there is certainly language that is improper for a particular situation, language that is improper in the sense of not being true language is virtually nonexistent. It is limited primarily to small children just learning to speak, non-fluent speakers of a second language, and people suffering from brain injuries or disorders that impair their language abilities.

7

I’ll take a shot at that later, but I wanted to ask something else of you (and anyone else, if they are willing!).

For me, English is a “foreign” language in the sense that it is not my first language. Even then, of course, there are languages that are decidedly more “foreign” to me – ask anyone who’s been treated to a dose of my French…:slight_smile:

But I love the language – it lends itself to what to me are very beautiful and yet precise sentences, much more so than my native German.

Yet it appears my English tends to be a bit on the Victorian side, especially in letters and the like…so I think it might fit the bill for your “outmoded for years” comment. I’ll give you a peek at what I mean (this from a letter I sent out yesterday to an English-speaking friend of mine):

Outmoded? Improper?

8

It seems to me that language is just a tool for communicating thoughts and ideas. If I am able to use language of any sort and communicate what I intended to, then the rest doesn’t matter. I could use a flat piece of metal to bang in a nail, but a hammer would probably be better. Still, if I get the picture hung properly from the nail, then the result is the same so who cares?

I have a strange sort of life in the sense that I move in many circles. I have worked at banks for nearly 7 years now where proper grammar is so important that they higher proofers. My language on the phone is expected to be clear and “proper”. Then I go hang out with my friends (actors and musicians mostly) - we virtually have our own language. We’ve got in jokes and a way of speaking to each other that comes largely from pop culture. I state a line from an episode of “Cheers” and I am not just saying what I said, I am referencing the context (like Jesus did: “My god my god why have you forsaken me”). Then I go out at night and spin at a hip-hop club and I pull out my urban slang hardcore. Then I come here (where the “proper” use of language is expected) and I try hard to keep my language up to the standard (not always succeeding: there, their, and they’re for example). I go home for Christmas (Kentucky) and fall into a southern drawl like the rest of my dad’s family.

I don’t think that any of these forms of speech are more valid than any other. I have learned from my friends, from this board, from my work, and from hip-hop heads. I have found intelligent and interesting people who speak in many different ways, and I find that relating to what they are saying is much more rewarding than worrying about whether they are gramatically correct or not. Language is an art not a science. It can be used creatively and make a person laugh, cry, or go into a rage. I’ll use it any damn way I please. In a way it’s like turntablism. They just used to be record players until people used them creatively, and now they are instruments capable of whole new original and artistic works.

That said, I think a person is better off learning “proper” grammar, and then conciously choosing to ignore those rules as a matter of style, as opposed to never paying them any mind at all. When I want to communicate with someone I’ll examine the situation and pick the best way to do it. If I can relate to them in a way that sounds right to their ears, then we can move past semantics and into content - that’s when interesting things start happening.

So the more dialects I can relate to, the more tools in my shed, and the better equipped I am to relate and network with people. So I’ll big up da’ dope lingo wit da heads, I’ll behave in a courteous and polite manner in the corporate environment, I’ll be like “Chaka…when the walls fell” with my boys, y’all know I’m a good ol’ boy when I’m in Pikeville, and I’ll still ponder the great questions of our time right here on this board. Versatility is the key in my book, not a nun-like strictness in the enforcement of language.

I also hate diagraming sentences.

DaLovin’ Dj

9

Originally posted by TheSnack

I won’t say improper. It might be outmoded, but anyone who sends me letters like that is my friend for life! :smiley:

Originally posted by kuroashi

I’m not sure how much license you’re being given, but:

“My lifetime observing animal behavior in the wild has left me with the desire to live my own life with all my heart and soul.”

Pardon my purple. :o

10

I would argue that it’s ENTIRELY theoretical. Like music theory, so-called rules of grammar were undoubtedly invented after the fact.

I agree, but I’d also like to add: what’s wrong with simply using the word “not”, or “doesn’t”? It’s not correct to say my car is un-yellow, and I’m happy to keep it that way.

I think the o.p. has a good point in that picky little rules should not be so important as long as the meaning is clear. But I think it IS a problem when someone simply cannot express an idea clearly. I think the internet is bringing out a generation of people who perhaps would not otherwise express themselves in writing very often, and it’s really illuminating some glaring deficiencies. When you read an entire post and have no idea what the person was talking about, you know something’s wrong.

I like it - just don’t ask me to diagram it.:eek:

I used to tease a German exchange student aquaintance in college by “having the verb at the end of the sentence putting”. She didn’t generally seem too amused by it.

11

One aspect of communication that struck me when reading this thread was… drumroll implied terms !!
It hit me acutely when noting Steve’s judgement of ‘laziness’ for using the term of disrespect. The ‘synonyms’ offered are loaded articulations of the generalized concept of ‘disrespect’. Specialization to this degree (like knowing 30 names for ‘snow’ and expecting everyone else to) is not a very efficient use of language IMO. It is quite clear that using the term disrespect commands greater articulation as to the exact nature of its use.
Disrespect is something to be proven either beforehand or explained after its use. Disrespect is something that seeks validation within its context of use, otherwise the term takes on monumentally meaningless proportions! Using the term disrespect is a philosophy; an articulation of your frameing for social value and judgement that implies/seeks the axioms to which it the user is utilizing. Those synonyms help articulate specified axiomic scenarios; but still do a miserable job to the extent that the word disrespect is a fairly vaccuous term. Those synonyms as mentioned earlier, also require a degree of specialization (shortcutting language) that seeks to divide social aspects rather than bring them together. Not everone has to know the specific argument for ‘malign’ to describe malignment in the context of disrespect.

-Justhink

12

To my mind, words are tools. They’re used to get ideas from my head into someone else’s. The more tools I happen to have on hand, the better my chances of having exactly the right one for the job - in this case, picking the word that has exactly the right nuances of meaning that I want to convey. Obviously, this is dependent on the social context of the utterance - but that’s not an argument for having a limited vocabulary.

Using a small range of vocabulary doesn’t prevent you from communicating, of course, but, unless you have a high degree of commonality with your interlocutors… errr… unless you and the people you’re talking to have a lot in common… they’re going to have to do more of the work, trying to figure out exactly what you mean. (It’s hard to communicate exactly, if you only express yourself in approximately the right terms…)

To me, the quintessence of this is the recurring “y’know what I mean?” that you hear in interviews with really dim celebrities… it says, in effect, “Hey, listener, put yourself into my position and work out what I’m trying to say, so that I, the speaker, don’t have to”. (To which, I think, the only valid answer is “No thanks, it’s not worth the effort.”)

Of course, if “disrespect” as a verb conveys the exact shade of meaning that you want, by all means go for it. I have no objection to the English language changing, though, for practical reasons, I would prefer it if it didn’t change too quickly for me to keep up…

13

Points taken; though I’d still be compelled to rebutt with another observation. I think the problem with using a smaller vocabulary is short-term memory retention and processing speed. The problem IMO is not that the term can/cannot be precisely artiulated. It can be. Computer programmers working in binary know this very well. The issue seems to be that most people can only hold so many ‘recursive calls’ before all the cards come crashing down and they begin forgetting some of the order of operations or the actual content. By hard-coding vast stores of binary into larger and larger symbols (bases); high level symbols provide advantages for those who cannot hold a 100 page sentence in their heads. I would tend to argue that a 100 page sentence will be more transparent for those who can process loads that large in short-term memory, than a condenced symbol which vaguely describes the detail and process of the axioms. People who can comprehend meta-symbols on the binary level are going to be smarter (not dumber) than those who cannot. If a person capable of communicating on that level speaks on that level to anyone in the general population; law of averages assumes that about 99.99999… blah, blah% of the population will consider them thick headed and stupid; unpractical and completely oblivious.
Just the people such an intelligence is seeking to weed out on its quest for a peer…

This metaphor can be extended in a more non-judgemental sense by exchanging ‘intelligence’ with ‘brain species’; and like seeking like through the nature of their recursive calls and symbol droppings. It is certainly easier to make friends in the general public using vague terms like ‘disrespect’; because of the deification potentials of its non-transparency.

-Justhink

14

Points taken; though I’d still be compelled to rebutt with another observation. I think the problem with using a smaller vocabulary is short-term memory retention and processing speed. The problem IMO is not that the term can/cannot be precisely artiulated. It can be. Computer programmers working in binary know this very well. The issue seems to be that most people can only hold so many ‘recursive calls’ before all the cards come crashing down and they begin forgetting some of the order of operations or the actual content. By hard-coding vast stores of binary into larger and larger symbols (bases); high level symbols provide advantages for those who cannot hold a 100 page sentence in their heads. I would tend to argue that a 100 page sentence will be more transparent for those who can process loads that large in short-term memory, than a condenced symbol which vaguely describes the detail and process of the axioms. People who can comprehend meta-symbols on the binary level are going to be smarter (not dumber) than those who cannot. If a person capable of communicating on that level speaks on that level to anyone in the general population; law of averages assumes that about 99.99999… blah, blah% of the population will consider them thick headed and stupid; unpractical and completely oblivious.
Just the people such an intelligence is seeking to weed out on its quest for a peer…

This metaphor can be extended in a more non-judgemental sense by exchanging ‘intelligence’ with ‘brain species’; and like seeking like through the nature of their recursive calls and symbol droppings. It is certainly easier to make friends in the general public using vague terms like ‘disrespect’; because of the deification potentials of its non-transparency.

-Justhink