I don’t think I’m dismissing “balance”. What I’m saying is that, even aside from career choices that demand competent literacy, like being a scientist who publishes papers or a lawyer who prepares legal filings, there is an endless list of tasks and events in everyday life for which language skills are an important asset – job applications, cover letters, letters of complaint or dispute to corporate executives or government officials, many university applications, any sort of court appearance for any reason or appearance before any sort of decision-making committee of any kind, whether providing written submissions or oral arguments – the list could go on forever. And the ability to communicate well in competent English is a major asset in all of those situations.
There’s also the interesting aspect of the way that language and cognitive skills are almost inextricably intertwined. I can’t say what the relevance of this is in the general case, but I’m inclined to speculate that strong language skills are not just correlated, but causally related, to logical thinking skills. IOW, language competency may help us to think more clearly.
A letter that is written in grammatically correct formal English is usually also going to be well structured, to the point, and no longer than necessary. A letter that seems to consist of a lot of pointless meandering with no clear or persuasive message is also the one that is likely to be full of grammatical and spelling errors. I think there’s a real correlation in the former with a tendency to be logical and methodical, and in the latter with a tendency to be careless and disrespectful of the reader. Which letter do you think would be more effective at achieving the writer’s goal?
I converse regularly on line with a Hungarian whose English is excellent. He’s asked me to correct his English so he can learn. Sometimes he asks why and I have to answer. I’m not sure, but it sounds completely wrong. Then I have to go look up the grammar to explain it to myself and him.
Wow! That’s such a completely wrong and needlessly hostile misinterpretation of what I’ve been saying in this thread that it boggles the mind. We may not agree on the utility of formal standard English for many people, and that’s fine. Disagreements on language are as old as language itself. But your contemptuous accusations based on what you think I meant are not fine. Wouldn’t it be more productive to just ask for clarification? At this point, though, having poisoned the well, don’t bother.
This is pure straw, though. Nobody is dismissing the value of strong writing skills. Nobody is arguing against knowing how to suit your speech to your audience. And certainly, nobody is arguing against educating people in formal English grammar.
My reading mileage varies. I often see grammatically correct prose that is verbose and never getting to a clear point, and informal communications, full of sentence fragments, that are straight to the meat with no fat.
You said “sloppy colloquialisms” and the word “ain’t” need defending. That’s a bit over the top, no? They’re not “wrong.” In formal contexts, yeah, it’s not gonna get it done, but otherwise it’s fine.
Had “ain’t” been part of the prestige dialect you learned in school, you would be defending it over “isn’t.”
You’re tying yourself in knots trying to find some reason why standard written English is superior to colloquial English in some intrinsic way
I may not agree with everything Wolfpup has posted here, but my read of their posts does not agree with yours at all. I disagree.
A good point is made- I write for FRPG games, book reviews, and also wrote for US Treasury Desk manuals- the style I used was different in each case. Same as my style here.
But- OTOH, using the US Treasury style- carefully correct but also dry, somewhat technical and stilted- would do poorly for games.
You display lack of understanding when you refer to “linguists who defend sloppy colloquialisms“. Linguists don’t “defend” language, they describe it. Colloquialisms are not “sloppy”, they are informal. Perhaps you were writing colloquially instead of precisely?
Interestingly, the OED gives two meanings for “invaluable”, the usual one (“of surpassing or transcendent worth or merit; priceless, inestimable”), and an almost opposite meaning: “without value, valueless”). It has quotes for the second meaning from as recently as 1865.
Dismissive terms like “classicist” and “elites” in reference to language styles are not some fantasy invented by me. I see it all the time. More to the point, though, I’m not suggesting some vast conspiracy to promote illiteracy. I’m just saying that it exists, and it’s widespread. Just look at the wasteland of social media for evidence. I’m not talking about colloquialisms or the quirks of informal language, I’m talking about marginal illiteracy.
Here are some facts. Several international organizations, including the OECD, have established a scale of literacy levels that define reading comprehension and writing skills. For reference, Level 3 is considered to be literary proficiency and is the expected standard of a high school graduate. Level 1 is the ability to read a road sign. According to the US National Center for Education Statistics, in 2023, 28% of adults scored at or below Level 1, 29% at Level 2, and 44% at Level 3 or above. Anything below Level 3 is considered “partially illiterate”. That’s about 57% of American adults. Cite..
So it’s not surprising that about 50% of American adults cannot read a book written at an eighth grade level.
You’re confusing the science of linguistics with the personal proclivities of its individual practitioners. Individual linguists can and do frequently defend ungrammatical language, with various degrees of persuasiveness, sometimes arguing that some of these formulations are perfectly consistent with the rules of grammar. Steven Pinker, for instance, wrote a famous essay in The New Republic called “Grammar Puss” in which he does just that, while heaping scorn on what he calls “language mavens”. The linguist John McWhorter wrote a whole book about it, Words on the Move: Why English Won’t - and Can’t - Sit Still (Like, Literally). While the title sounds like it’s an objective analysis of how and why language changes, much of it is a spirited (and very unpersuasive) defense of common solecisms.
As for “sloppy colloquialisms”, you misunderstand me. I’m not saying colloquialisms are necessarily sloppy and demanding that everyone speak the King’s English in internet chat rooms. I’m just saying that some of them are, because they thoughtlessly arise from mishearing or lack of comprehension or some other mistake, or they’re, like, deliberate quirks of language that, like, serve no purpose. (I once listened to a radio interview on some scientific topic with an obviously intelligent young post-grad who could not utter a single sentence that wasn’t peppered with about half a dozen "like"s).
They’re called “contranyms” in case anyone is interested in exploring them. I used one the other day: “cleave,” to mean to “hold fast to” as opposed to “to split, divide.”As a kid, I hated “raise/raze,” which is fine in print, but spoken often confused me until I learned how they are most often used in context, like you usually “raise a barn,” not “raze a barn,” but if you hear “raze a building,” it’s not likely “raise” (though it could be.) Stupid imperfect imperfect English language. And there’s tabling motions on this and that side of the pond.
I disagree “literally” is used as a contranym. It is not used to mean “figuratively.” That would deflate the whole point of using it. It is used as a hyperbolic exaggeration. It is used in a figurative manner, but not to mean “figuratively” itself.
Honestly it seems more like conflating language usage you don’t like for illiteracy.
Usages like “I could care less”, “literally”, and “few usages [you] happen to personally dislike” are not a cause of illiteracy.
I could consider the argument that lower literacy, less reading of actual books, leads to poorer writing skills, if that was the argument you wanted to make. You will likely find wide support here supporting literacy education initiatives.
Language usage I don’t like is indeed quite a different issue from the objective facts on widespread illiteracy that I cited. But don’t you think it’s likely that the two are related, at least to some extent?
I would sure hope so, since it’s self-evident. If 50% of Americans can’t read a book written at a Grade 8 level, and 56% or 57% (depending what numbers you use) are below Level 3 literary proficiency, I leave it to you to imagine how well they write.
The posts you write often seem focused on your personal dislike for linguistic constructions that you don’t use. It’s not always explicit, but it’s noticeable. Maybe we’re misreading you, but you proclaim your passion for precise language usage. You’d be a lot more convincing if you didn’t let your distain color your discussion about language.
I agree with you. My only objection to its so-called “figurative” use is that its an abuse of its role in introducing expressive metaphors. When it’s used as a general intensifier, it’s just noise.
Incidentally, McWhorter’s book that I mentioned previously tries to defend the metaphorical use of “literally” by talking about how the English language is full of contranyms. This is one of many things that he gets wrong in the book, IMHO. I agree with you that it’s not a contranym.
I often see grammatically correct prose that is verbose and never getting to a clear point, and informal communications, full of sentence fragments, that are straight to the meat with no fat.