Thanks, Patty O’ and Bosstone for your explanations regarding moving dates up or back. Makes sense to me. And, yes, how observant of you about my global sense of perspective.
In fact, Bosstone, you sound like a Myers-Briggs enthusiast.
Since I’ve wedged my posts into a conversation here, I’ll comment on that as well. That’s the idea that there is a time and place for more than one type of usage. Improper use of the language, or to be generous, popularly accepted use of the languange is less grating to my ear in less formal surroundings. Or perhaps for humor’s sake.
In fact it has served me well in my job life to be able to speak more than one style of English. When I was a young English major my English was very proper and it could actually be a social hindrance.
Of course. And no descriptivist would insist that it be okay to say something like “What up mothafucka!” to your boss, just because it technically “means the same” as “Hello sir.” The concept of social registers constantly gets mistakenly assumed to be an objective assessment of language, such that someone speaking on a “lower” register than what you personally find acceptable is somehow speaking “worse” English. The proper use of register is essential socially, and there’s no denying that.
My biggest peeve is one that not a lot of people seem to share. I really dislike it when the words woman or women are used as a modifier in a place where an english speaker would be loathe to use man or men. The phrase “men nurses” sounds unbelievably wrong to me yet many people have no difficulty saying “women CEO’s” or “women speakers” or "even “women posters” of which I saw a few days ago in a thread where a poster was commenting on dopers and said something to the effect of “male posters do X but women posters do Y.” I have no idea why so many people have this fear of female but once someone mentioned it to me, I couldn’t help noticing it everywhere.
A dialect by the way is a variation of language based on geography like a texas drawl or a minnesotan accent. A register is a variant based on more of a social class/standing rubric. It’s the difference in my speech when talking to a roommate vs. a professor. Just so we’re all on the same page terminologywise.
Speaking of which, I have an anti-peeve for the word “lect”. I really like it, for reasons I am unable to put a finger on and which aren’t anything other than my own personal aesthetic preferences. I guess it’s something about how it recalls the familiar word “dialect” while freeing one from the technical constraint that a dialect should be geographically based; it’s both really useful and, uh… uh… awesome?
(I can easily imagine others hating the same word, for being, in their eyes, an ugly back-formation)
I dunno about everyone else, but while I was indeed a “Grammar Nazi” at one point, I eventually got tired of it and realized that not everyone spoke the way I do and as long as they get their points across, there’s really no harm and therefore no foul.
And that’s when I started lightening up and lampooning the things that bothered me by using them myself. I never speak of la-hoy-ya, but rather la-jol-la. Why? 'Cuz it’s a riot! It’s fun! One of my favorites is the word “irregardless”. Sometimes I even use it as a logon name. It’s all good. And if not, then it’s my bad.
It struck me as particularly awesome the other day when I heard the Black Eyed Peas song “My Humps”, and realized that she’d taken 4 words and contracted them to 3 letters. “I am going to” became “I’ma”.
I admit that there are still a few things that bother me. I cringe with noo-kew-lur, and I despise “hella”, but I really don’t bother to correct people anymore – why should my problem be theirs?
One of my favorite xkcd’s is this one. I’m often amused when Grammar Nazis get their stuff wrong.
And I especially believe that someone learning the language should be given a wide berth. I once attempted some French in a French-speaking room (I know English and Spanish), and while there was confusion (I butchered it HARD), they treated me very nicely and it’s one of the better experiences I’ve had with foreign languages. I can imagine that if they’d shut me down it might have changed a lot of my outlook.
It’s not really poetic license; “I’ma” with “a” as a future marker (via the grammaticization of “going to”) is a well-studied linguistic phenomenon common to certain lects of English; it’s hardly an ad hoc deviation from the norms of the singer’s speech requiring justification in terms of the artistic purpose and constraints it serves.
Misuses I’ve observed recently around here include “palette” for “palate” (the reverse also occurs) and “free reign” for “free rein.”
“Free reign” should properly mean something like dominion, unchecked authority, a very different concept than free rein, which means the subject (originally a horse) is still under control, but is allowed to do as he pleases for the moment.
It’s called sarcasm, caballero. The rolleyes is much overused around here, often by those who are stumped for a valid argument and consider the rolleyes an adequate substitute. (It isn’t. Seriously.)
In this thread you’ve been tossing out a number of idiosyncratic a priori assumptions that aren’t referenced to any systematic set of linguistic data. You haven’t defined what “close” means in terms of phonetics. Are we playing linguistic poker and you don’t want to show your hand? OK, so I’ll offer a scientific definition.
Compare the phonetic transcriptions of the three pronunciations. Tally up the phonological features shared in common by the various pairs of pronunciations, and subtract the total phonological differences. I presume you’re conversant with IPA, being a language maven and all.
A. ˈmɛksɪkoʊ
B. ˈmexiko
C. meːˈʃiʔkaʔ
A compared to B: 3 phonemes in common, /m k o/, plus the stress, and count one point for vowel lengths being the same in both: 5 total. A contains 5 phonemes not found in B, /ɛ k s ɪ ʊ/. B contains 2 phonemes not found in A: /e i/.
Total of 5 similarities to 6 differences for a score of -1.
A compared to C: 2 phonemes in common, /m k/. A contains 6 phonemes not found in C: /ɛ k s ɪ o ʊ/. C contains 6 sounds not found in A: /e ʃ i ʔ a ʔ/ plus a difference in vowel length and a different placement of stress, making 8 differences in all.
Total of 2 similarities to 8 differences for a score of -6.
B compared to C: 4 phonemes in common, /m e i k/. A contains two phonemes not found in C, /x o/, plus a difference in vowel length and a different placement of stress, making 4 differences there. C contains 4 sounds not found in A: /ʃ ʔ a ʔ/, plus the length and stress differences: 6 in all.
Total of 4 similarities to 10 differences for a score of -6.
You asserted that the English pronunciation (A) was closer than Modern Spanish (B) to the Nahuatl pronunciation (C). I said neither the English nor Spanish pronunciation is closer to the Nahuatl. You speak of facts. OK. Here are the facts:
English compared to Spanish: -2.
English compared to Nahuatl: -6.
Spanish compared to Nahuatl: -6.
So both the Spanish and English pronunciations are equally “far” away from the Nahuatl one. And both are much closer to each other than either is to Nahuatl. This proves you wrong and me right. If you don’t understand phonology, I suggest you don’t get snarky about it with someone who does. Thank you for playing.
I would be wary of assigning too much significance to this particular method of assigning numerical values to phonetic similarity. I wouldn’t say that it indisputably demonstrates the degree to which different pronunciations are similar, since I think such similarity is an inherently semi-subjective judgement (one could, after all, always quibble with the particular weights for particular factors you chose). To make such a categorical judgement in this case would be to fall into the same behavior you are reacting against, I think. Rather, I would say that this simply shows that one might not want to maintain that the English pronunciation is indisputably objectively closer to the Nahuatl pronunciation than is the modern Spanish pronunciation.
I missed the part where it was established that there was some value in the english pronunciation of Mexico being closer to the Nahuatl pronunciation than the spanish? Can we dial down the vitriol and get back to what is important? Which is sharing our irrational but hard to shake linguistic hangups.
Here’s another one of mine. “This is true.” I dunno about anyone else but I know several people who when they want to express agreement with something someone else has said, will say “This is true.” And it bothers me because I have this hangup where this is for things of mine and that is for things of yours. If I say something that you agree with, the proper response should be “That is true.” and not “This” because I said it not you. But this is a distinction that I realize no one care about but me.
I imagine you don’t think there is, and I agree with you.
Your hangup is funny to me, because I’ve never thought of it like that but I can imagine how you would. Not that I am prone to the expression myself, but the way I suppose I might think of it, and which you might choose to adopt yourself if you would like to train yourself to be rid of the hangup, is as the speaker viewing the proposition in question as having been introduced into a shared communal space, on the table next to all of you, so to speak, where either party in the conversation is permitted to treat the object as proximate to themself. Or perhaps a portion of it has been doled out to everyone. Any viewpoint where a statement is no longer just in the original announcer’s hands once it’s been announced, but has suddenly been shared with all present.
But here’s the thing. It goes beyond what Tethered Kite says (though he/she is to be commended for introducing an important point that’s being skated around here). It’s more than just a social hindrance; it can be a practical hindrance if you have any aspirations beyond a minimum-wage job for the rest of your life.
We can debate the wrong or right of this, but the reality of it is undeniable. If you know how to speak/write in only ONE social register and use it for ALL of your speech at all times, you face a troubled future.
To use an example that grates on me – I have no problem if the girl at the window of the fast-food place says “Mom, can I borrow 75 cent?” But when she reaches through the window to me and says “Your change is 75 cent,” it bugs me to no end.
No, my change is 75 cents. No amount of politically correct gyrating can change the fact that if you have more than one penny, you have cents, not cent. You form the plural of most words by adding an “s.”
People can talk in informal situations however they choose. But they should also know how to talk (and write) in situations that call for a more formally accepted command of the language. My fear is that increasing numbers are incapable of this.
I really do look askance at many of the lax views given here, which seem to add up to “As long as some people talk that way, then it’s OK across the board.”
By way of just one example, this goes for “reelator.” I recall a few years ago when the National Realtors Association produced TV and radio spots specifically emphasizing the proper pronunciation. Kudos to them for doing so.
And when the increasing numbers are large enough, they will decide what situations call for formal language and what sort of language constitutes formal. No one is saying that 75 cent would be appropriate for a business presentation or some other professional piece of work. What I, at least, am saying is that there is not enough societal pressure in a food service job to stamp out such slanginess. Maybe she is doomed to work fast food for the rest of her life because she leaves off the plural S. Or maybe she gets a nice white collar job down the line working for someone who doesn’t care if she says 75 cent as long as she writes 75 cents. Or maybe 75 cent catches on and like fish or sheep, cent becomes both a singular and a plural. At any rate, I doubt a few exchanges with the cashier at McDonald’s really gives you enough data to make any speculation about her language capacities.
