Me? I worry less about words, and instead miss the clarity that the use of the subjunctive and other proper use of tenses would provide.
Okay, I do perfectly understand such utterances as, “If I was young again,” but it’s still grating to hear.
I also don’t like the trend of writing phonetically. Sure, we may sloppily say, “I’m gonna kill you,” but we should continue to write it as, “I’m going to kill you.”
But (leading with a conjunction), life goes on, and I will soon have forgotten these minor annoyances in favor of better things.
Somewhat ironically, the two converging words I am not happy about are “alternate” and “alternative”.
To alternate is to be “first one, then the other, and back again, etc.”
An alternative is “the second choice.”
I understand that they are pronouncing “alternate” differently (sometimes) in order for it to have a different meaning, but there’s no need to give it a second meaning when there is already an almost exactly similar word that has that meaning.
I got in a long argument about this on the SDMB a few years ago, and their argument went round in circles, basically coming down to “it’s fine for me to use it, so there”.
Sure, sure, but they weren’t comparable viewpoints.
On the side of reason, objectivity, eloquence and the preservation of civilzation:
“Please stop using this word this way because I really don’t like it.”
On the side of ignorance, illiteracy and barbarism:
“It’s fine for me to use it, so there.”
Considering the many words that raised hackles of prescriptivists, but which are unobjectionable today, it’s amusing that they’re still insisting that a general usage is wrong.
From Ambrose Bierce in 1909, these are all wrong:
“The price of admission is one dollar.”
“I am afraid it will rain.”
“I anticipate trouble.”
“I was anxious to go.”
“The goods were sold at auction.”
“By displaying a light the skipper avoided a collision.”
“I knew it was night, because it was dark.”
“He has no business to go there.”
“A man by the name of Brown.”
“Climb down”
“A coat of paint.”
“Railroad depot.”
“He was put in jail.”
“You are mistaken.”
“Is that so?”
“The United States is for peace.”
“We have been to church.”
So, ultimately, the odds are that you will end up like Bierce.
I get where you’re coming from, but I’m a “gonna” guy (depending on the context, of course). Would you oppose using “gonna” in writing dialogue?
Again, though, this is a straw man. I am all for new words like “squee” being added to the lexicon, or for older words to take on new senses to fill a need (“text”, for instance). What bothers me is when a word, that was the *only *word in the language (at least the only widely known) to convey a certain meaning, is transformed into a synonym for a more general category word, and it leaves the language with no specific word for that concept. There’s nothing positive there, only negative. And I really can’t see how that’s even subjective. Who benefits?
Huh, interesting. That one faded away before I got on the scene, it would seem.
But you responded to a quote of “begging the question”. I’ve certainly heard your usage in the context of “Which begs the question as to whether we should have even entered this market…”. But in the form “begging the question”, as in “You’re begging the question”, I’ve only ever seen it used as an accusation of someone using a kind of circular reasoning by making the conclusion part of the premise.
This is a transparent instance of the misguided “language in decay” trope so beloved of all prescriptivists.
Can you provide some evidence to support your assertion? Give some examples of when the English language has evolved in a manner that left people unable to differentiate between useful concepts.
Do you believe that it is now more difficult to express oneself clearly in English than it was in the past? If not, then why on earth would you suppose that English would now spontaneously evolve in a manner that left people unable to communicate clearly?
I give up with you, Riemann. You just spew straw men all day long, along with loaded questions, and don’t seem to listen to anything I say. I have said repeatedly that I don’t think the English language is “in decay”, and in fact that on balance it is getting better and better overall.
OTOH, who is hurt by it? People understand the meaning. If there’s a need for a precise definition for the word (and most of the time, there isn’t), people will cope.
And most of my examples were exactly what you were talking about. Bierce made the same complaint about “admission” instead of “admittance,” for instance: “admission” meant to him “to be allowed in,” where “admittance” meant “to pay to be allowed in.” So he’s was making the same complaint you are.
In other examples, he condemned “The débris of battle lay around them” because “around” implied they lay in the circle. Using it in that context lost that meaning, but we’ve managed not to be confused by it in the past century.
What will happen is this: some of the new usages will die out and some will become standard. You can no more pick and choose than King Canute could have told the tides to stop.
That’s interesting–I didn’t realize that. But saying that about one case hardly shows that this was true of “most” of your examples.
Aaaand you’re right back to the straw man.
But this isn’t true. Tides are not groups of social creatures. They do not respond to persuasion in any way. People’s use of language is different. For example: when I was growing up, saying “that’s gay”, as a synonym for “that’s lame” or “that sucks”, was commonplace. Now I have the sense that it has become much less common. Was that really just through the natural ebb and flow of language evolution? Or was it perhaps influenced by scoldings of this sort?
Now, I’m admittedly not as influential as Hillary Duff; but if that’s our standard, none of us un-famous people should ever try to make any argument about anything (politics for instance). But we still do, without that being dismissed as “King Canute”. Because we might have a very small influence; and if enough of us take up the mantle, and it’s a close thing (right on the edge of tilting one way or another), we might actually effect change (or prevent a change).
ETA: Note that this is quite different from the straw man version of prescriptivism (though there are admittedly many such people IRL) where people simply sniff that “the dictionary says X is correct” and expect that to carry the day. I am *campaigning *for something, and it will ultimately be decided by the majority (at least, by the majority of the literati), and I understand that.
You never addressed one of my comments. It seems to me that you are always campaigning for the status quo.
If you feel language is improved by having as many narrowly-defined words as possible to allow us to differentiate between similar ideas, then there are many words that might currently be defined too broadly. Perhaps the language would be improved by subdividing broadly-defined words into two or more separate words. Inventing wholly new words and hoping they catch might be too ambitious, but in some cases of historic convergence, as in some of the Ambrose Bierce examples above, we could revert to the prior distinct vocabulary and semantics. Are their any instances where you would advocate reversion to the vocabulary and semantics of an earlier era in order to facilitate differentiation of meaning?