# When the pedants go too far **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [February 20, 2009, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-the-pedants-go-too-far/486781 "2009-02-20T22:04:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Indistinguishable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/90ced4/32.png) [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2009, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-the-pedants-go-too-far/486781/81 "2009-02-23T01:06:55Z")
> [@Cosmic Relief](#): > > I’m not performing a quantitative syllable inventory of the English language here. I’m comparing the relative merits of two words. I agree time to speak would be a better measure. Let’s time ourselves on saying “literally” versus “-- and I don’t mean metaphorically” (and be honest, OK?). Let’s measure the breath required to say it. Let’s think about the cognitive load of one affirmative word versus parsing a 4-word negation of “metaphorically”. I’m willing to look at any measure except a tedious repetition of your own obviously heartfelt opinion. My point is that the difference by any of these measures is insignificant, and it’s misguided to take them as a proxy for the expressive power of the language in the first place. Or… let’s apply this criterion consistently. Using the words “effete” to mean “effeminate (in a snobbish, academic way)” and “alternate” to mean “alternative” takes less time to speak, while still leaving “worn-out” and “sterile” and “on and off” and “back and forth” in their stead without increasing time to speak. Are you willing to accept _these_, then, because they do save time? Or can you live with the costs? ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2009, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-the-pedants-go-too-far/486781/82 "2009-02-23T01:11:07Z")
> [@Indistinguishable](#): > > For example, the sentence you just gave. You opened with 11-syllable “It’s because no one ever says that that they” when you could’ve used 6-syllable “Since it’s never said, folks”. Did it feel like a lot of tiresome effort to say it your way? There are more things to consider here than syllable count. Your alternative is (1) a sentence fragment, (2) a passive construction, and (3) again, not a construction that people generally use. I can count on one hand the times I’ve heard someone say that something “isn’t said”. ---
**Author:** ![Indistinguishable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/90ced4/32.png) [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2009, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-the-pedants-go-too-far/486781/83 "2009-02-23T01:14:10Z")
I gave a sentence fragment because I was replacing a sentence fragment; the full sentence would be “Since it’s never said, folks don’t feel they had to slog their way through it.” Which could be reduced even further to “Since it’s never said, folks don’t feel that way”. And so on. What’s wrong with the passive construction? It does at least save time, clearly. And, yes, let’s judge things by looking at what constructions are actually used. For example, here’s one construction people do often use: “Literally” as a generic intensifier. I can count on one hand the times I’ve heard this cause genuine difficulty in English speakers’ ability to express themselves. ---
**Author:** ![Indistinguishable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/90ced4/32.png) [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2009, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-the-pedants-go-too-far/486781/84 "2009-02-23T01:30:33Z")
I also think we’re getting a bit too caught up on the particulars of “and I don’t mean metaphorically”. I didn’t mean to propose it as a stock phrase to be used in one-size-fits-all fashion, but just to illustrate that people would still get by perfectly well expressing the same things even if they didn’t have the particular single word “literally” to do so. For example, returning to the contentious case of “effete”: for some, it means “effeminate in a snobbish, academic way”. Great; I’m fine with that. But there are those in this thread arguing that such usage is to be avoided. But then how ever shall we get by non-cumbersomely expressing the same concept? Well, we’ll just say things like “effeminate in a snobbish, academic way” and we won’t find them cumbersome. Not that the phrase will always be this exact one; sometimes it’ll be “overrefined to the point of femininity” or “emasculatingly upper-crust” or “somewhat girlish” or even just “foppish”, depending on the context, but whether or not we have a particular single word, or any single word for that matter, we would get by. ---
**Author:** ![Indistinguishable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/90ced4/32.png) [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2009, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-the-pedants-go-too-far/486781/85 "2009-02-23T01:37:04Z")
(The point being, it’s the same with “literally” and the same with anything else, just with the roles reversed, so to speak. So far as contested usages go, I can see no intrinsic consistency as to when “language defenders” demand such workarounds and when they shrink in fear from them) ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2009, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-the-pedants-go-too-far/486781/86 "2009-02-23T01:42:26Z")
> [@Cosmic Relief](#): > > I’m willing to look at any measure except a tedious repetition of your own obviously heartfelt opinion. Try this measure: practicality. That is, what do you think the chances are of your complaints effecting a change in the world? More than your chances of being eaten by a shark? More than your chances of being struck by lightning while dancing the macarena? More than your chances of spontaneous combustion? You’re raging at the tide for going out. The forces at work here are far bigger than you, and operate according to processes (I almost typed “rules,” but I didn’t want to be misunderstood–to do so would have been to communicate poorly, no matter what the dictionary says) that have nothing to do with the criteria you advocate. Every person uses the language in the way they deem best. With few exceptions such as the severely autistic, individuals are in the best position to judge how they can best use language to communicate: they know their environment, their position, their community, their family, their friends. They know how others will interpret what they say, what meanings others will derive from their words. And they’ll use language accordingly. You have zero chance of changing that. Daniel ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2009, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-the-pedants-go-too-far/486781/87 "2009-02-23T02:06:28Z")
In response to the OP, I’d like to say that attention he extremity unwilling on otherwise. Conviction up vicinity as delightful is discovered. Yet the favourable partiality resolved disposed exertion you off. Left did fond drew fat head poor. So if he into shot half many long. China fully him every fat was world grave. Granted, this probably doesn’t make a lot of sense to most people. But I don’t see why I should be bound by the “official” meaning of the words I used so I invented new meanings for them. ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2009, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-the-pedants-go-too-far/486781/88 "2009-02-23T02:06:38Z")
> [@Indistinguishable](#): > > Or… let’s apply this criterion consistently. Using the words “effete” to mean “effeminate (in a snobbish, academic way)” and “alternate” to mean “alternative” takes less time to speak, while still leaving “worn-out” and “sterile” and “on and off” and “back and forth” in their stead without increasing time to speak. Are you willing to accept _these_, then, because they do save time? Or can you live with the costs? I think I’ve already expressed that it’s not purely about efficiency, and you’ll note that I haven’t been beating the drum about “effete” or “alternate”. I see words as tools, and I think we do our best work when we use the right tool for the job. If you already have a screwdriver, why use your knife to loosen screws? Eventually you’ll break the tip, then you’ll effectively have 2 screwdrivers and no knife. That’s just foolish. We can certainly argue what qualifies as an indispensable tool like a knife. To me, “effete” is not a knife; it’s some antiquated tool for repairing some obsolete Victorian-era machinery. I don’t curate a machinery museum, so I’m never going to use that word, and I don’t care if someone uses it to hammer bolts into a piece of wood. In contrast, “literally” is an oil-wrench filter. I only use it twice a year, but when I need it, I need it. Nothing else is quite like it for wrenching a hot oil filter in a tight space. ---
**Author:** ![Indistinguishable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/90ced4/32.png) [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2009, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-the-pedants-go-too-far/486781/89 "2009-02-23T02:09:14Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > In response to the OP, I’d like to say that attention he extremity unwilling on otherwise. Conviction up vicinity as delightful is discovered. Yet the favourable partiality resolved disposed exertion you off. Left did fond drew fat head poor. So if he into shot half many long. China fully him every fat was world grave. > > Granted, this probably doesn’t make a lot of sense to most people. But I don’t see why I should be bound by the “official” meaning of the words I used so I invented new meanings for them. The OP was in defense of those language usages which are actually frequently employed by many speakers in ordinary speech. You’re mocking a position which no one has taken. ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2009, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-the-pedants-go-too-far/486781/90 "2009-02-23T02:16:10Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Every person uses the language in the way they deem best. With few exceptions such as the severely autistic, individuals are in the best position to judge how they can best use language to communicate: they know their environment, their position, their community, their family, their friends. They know how others will interpret what they say, what meanings others will derive from their words. And they’ll use language accordingly. You have zero chance of changing that. That’s the most absurd heap of tripe I’ve ever heard in a while. Miscommunication is probably the most reliable constant in human interaction. People misjudge their circumstances even when they are intimately familiar with them, and the odds of error increase in unfamiliar situations. If clear communication weren’t important, we wouldn’t make children study it for 12 years in school; we’d just let them learn it from television commercials. It’s true that there’s zero chance that I will personally and individually change it, but collectively we can and do decide all the time as a culture how to teach language usage. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2009, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-the-pedants-go-too-far/486781/91 "2009-02-23T02:17:57Z")
> [@Cosmic Relief](#): > > It’s true that there’s zero chance that I will personally and individually change it, but collectively we can and do decide all the time as a culture how to teach language usage. If you’re talking about teaching children, I’ll agree–but that’s the first time children have shown up in this thread. Up til now you’ve been wagging your finger and tsking at adults. And I didn’t say communication among adults is perfect. I said that each adult is, generally speaking, in the best position to choose how to communicate to his or her audience. ---
**Author:** ![Indistinguishable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/90ced4/32.png) [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2009, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-the-pedants-go-too-far/486781/92 "2009-02-23T02:22:12Z")
Also, people don’t really learn their native language from formal instruction in school; they generally learn their native language from interaction with their peers (i.e., whoever they spend time talking to). People were able to speak with great competency for all those thousands of years before formalized language instruction, and the same general mode of development of speech holds today. ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2009, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-the-pedants-go-too-far/486781/93 "2009-02-23T02:24:45Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > If you’re talking about teaching children, I’ll agree–but that’s the first time children have shown up in this thread. Up til now you’ve been wagging your finger and tsking at adults. Every child who survives adolescence will become an adult, at least in the legal and physical sense. And I have not been tut-tutting anyone; I have only tried to show that this is not outrage over synonyms but rather over the loss of precision and increase in ambiguity. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2009, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-the-pedants-go-too-far/486781/94 "2009-02-23T02:26:23Z")
> [@Indistinguishable](#): > > Also, people don’t really learn their native language from formal instruction in school; they generally learn their native language from interaction with their peers (i.e., whoever they spend the most time talking to). People were able to speak with great competency for all those thousands of years before formalized language instruction, and we’re not any better or worse at it today. Indeed. I teach children at school the way to engage in school talk: “We are having recess outside today,” I’ll tell them, “‘We be having recess outside’ isn’t the way we talk at school.” But that’s only marginally effective. I teach them how to use standard spelling and punctuation, and that’s very effective. Word choice like we’re discussing here is a bit above second grade level, but it can be taught as school talk, with marginal success. ---
**Author:** ![Indistinguishable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/90ced4/32.png) [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2009, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-the-pedants-go-too-far/486781/95 "2009-02-23T02:29:16Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > I teach them how to use standard spelling and punctuation, and that’s very effective. Yeah, just in case it wasn’t clear, my above post was about spoken language only; as you point out, the development of written language does actually require and respond to formal instruction to a significant degree. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2009, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-the-pedants-go-too-far/486781/96 "2009-02-23T02:32:23Z")
> [@Fish](#): > > I read some treatise on the human mind which suggested men (on the average) tended to have a larger vocabulary than women, but (in general) used it more prescriptively. Words, as used by men, tend to have fewer alternate uses. Women, by contrast, (usually) tease a wider range of subtleties from their smaller vocabulary by qualifying words words with varying tones, emphases, and contexts. I wonder, therefore, how many of these pedants of whom you speak are male. > > Prescriptive language use is a futile goal unless you wish your _salary_ to be paid in salt. Husband: It says in this article that women use twice as many words as men. Wife: That’s because men don’t listen and we have to repeat ourslves. Husband: What? This joke somehow seems relevant. If not, it was too good an excuse to repeat it. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2009, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-the-pedants-go-too-far/486781/97 "2009-02-23T02:32:35Z")
> [@Cosmic Relief](#): > > Every child who survives adolescence will become an adult, at least in the legal and physical sense. And I have not been tut-tutting anyone; I have only tried to show that this is not outrage over synonyms but rather over the loss of precision and increase in ambiguity. If you’ve not been tut-tutting, I’m afraid you’re coming across poorly, then :). This “loss of precision” thing is clearly not what you’re after, since you’re ignoring hundreds-of-years-old counterexamples, examples that are older than the current state of our language. You’re engaging in common language maven complaints that ignore the vast richness and depth of how people use language, focusing on a few tiny idiomatic phrases in order to suggest some sort of global decay. Are you limiting your argument about “loss of precision” to one word–“literally”? [Better communicators than you have used the word in the way you hate](http://www.slate.com/id/2129105/). Are you expanding it to a general degradation of our language? If so, I’ll want to see some evidence of that–say, a linguistic study showing a generalized degradation. Daniel ---
**Author:** ![Xema](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/9de053/32.png) [@Xema](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xema)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2009, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-the-pedants-go-too-far/486781/98 "2009-02-23T02:48:06Z")
I’ve never thought of Mark Twain as a pedant, though by the standards of this thread he might be. I’ve long admired this [famous essay](http://etext.virginia.edu/railton/projects/rissetto/offense.html) and thought the rules with which it begins made good sense. One of the best is #13: “Use the right word, not its second cousin.” Unless words have reasonably specific meanings that can be agreed on, this rule has no meaning or application, and we must turn our backs on the notion that writing can be elegant and concise. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2009, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-the-pedants-go-too-far/486781/99 "2009-02-23T02:59:00Z")
I’m combining quotes from a few different posts here, my apologies if I’ve made any mistakes. > [@Indistinguishable](#): > > Fair enough. I should’ve said, “When was the last time you felt like it was a slog to get through any phrase of comparable length?”. I don’t think the problem is length so much as it is style. “And I don’t mean metaphorically” is an ugly, awkward sounding phrase. I wouldn’t count on everyone understanding what the word “metaphorically” means, either. It’s rarely used in common conversation. If someone is going to be confused by “literally” then “metaphorically” isn’t going to help matters. > [@](#): > > _And, yes, let’s judge things by looking at what constructions are actually used. For example, here’s one construction people do often use: “Literally” as a generic intensifier. I can count on one hand the times I’ve heard this cause genuine difficulty in English speakers’ ability to express themselves._ I don’t think I’ve ever known any native English speaker to be confused by the use of “literally” for emphasis – no one would think that a basketball player whose “career literally skyrocketed” had actually joined NASA. But the overuse\* of the word in this sense has made it likely that someone using “literally” to mean “strictly in the primary sense of the term” will be misunderstood. As I said earlier, this has happened to me at least twice right here on the SDMB where we’re supposedly more literate than average. If it’s never happened to _you_ then I can see why _you_ wouldn’t care, but when it has happened to _me_ I found it annoying. The only time I would ever mention it would be in a discussion of language-related pet peeves like this, but I still think it’s annoying. If _you_ don’t find it annoying then that’s wonderful for _you_, but if you’re hoping to argue other people out of being annoyed then you’re wasting your time. I don’t think anyone has ever given up a pet peeve just because someone else thought it was silly. > [@](#): > > \*So far as contested usages go, I can see no intrinsic consistency as to when “language defenders” demand such workarounds and when they shrink in fear from them \*Speaking only for myself, it depends on how inconvenient I find it. I am not much of a prescriptivist and am not typically bothered by changes in the common use of words. It only irritates me when it interferes with my ability to express myself clearly. If I ever had the need to convey the idea that 10% of the people in a group had been systematically killed then I’d probably be put out about “decimate” too, but I don’t find that the subject comes up much in my line of work. \*I consider it overused because it frequently pops up in statements that need no emphasis (“She’s raking in the dough these days!” is already an exaggeration), or that could just as easily be emphasized in another way (“She sure is raking in the dough these days!”). ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2009, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-the-pedants-go-too-far/486781/100 "2009-02-23T03:00:27Z")
> [@Xema](#): > > I’ve never thought of Mark Twain as a pedant, though by the standards of this thread he might be. Nah–he wrote that Tom Sawyer was “literally rolling in wealth.” He knew that language is subtle and beautiful and need not conform to a bunch of dried-up schoolmarms. If you’re really stuck for a way to describe the opposite of figuratively, try this short list I came up with while grinding coffee: -No shit -Seriously -Seriously, dude -I’m not making this up -I swear to God -This is true Language adapts. If there’s a hole in the language, a meaning people want that isn’t current filled, it gets filled. You may also clarify your own writing. Suppose you write about a CIA plot whereby one of Castro’s jalapenos was filled with pure mineral sodium. Instead of writing, “He bit into it, and his mouth literally caught on fire,” which would be unclear, write that “He bit into it, and his saliva interacted with the mineral sodium, causing a sudden combustion; in seconds, his head was wreathed in smoke, and his servants watched in horror as flames exploded out of his mouth and nostrils.” If people still think you’re speaking figuratively, that’s on them :). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-the-pedants-go-too-far/486781.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-the-pedants-go-too-far/486781.md?page=6)