I’m not exactly the biggest stickler for only using the “correct” definition of a word. I’ll admit that I use nauseous to mean nauseated all the time, even though I know it’s “wrong.” But I try to avoid it in formal writing.
On the other hand, I seem to be one of the few remaining people on earth who still says “I shall” instead of “I will” (at least some of the time), and one of a minority that cares about the distinction between “who” and “whom.”
At any rate, my question is, can’t the majority ever just be wrong about what a word means? Or if 51% of the population all make the same mistake, totally because of their own ignorance of a words correct meaning, do we just have to declare them correct? If so, should the same rule hold for all rules of grammar? I mean, if most people understand that the phrase “I ain’t no idiot” means “I am not an idiot”, do we have to declare this correct too? And if it’s correct, should high school English teachers give full credit when sentences like that appear in a formal essay? Surely at some point we have to draw the line, and say “I don’t care how many people say that, it’s just wrong.” Don’t we? And if we do, where is that line?
I am totally against this type of degeneration of the English language; if it becomes so that majority tend to use such terrible grammar it does not make it any more acceptable, it merely says to me that society is in regression.
I am totally against this type of degeneration of the English language; if it is that the majority tend to use such terrible grammar it does not make it any more acceptable, it merely says to me that society is in regression.
I know I may use the wrong word/s at times, but I am always willing to learn and expand my capacity for the English language. I know I annoy many people when I correct their grammar (I have been called OED before), but it was only due to my mother doing the same to me that I began to learn the correct way to speak.
Of course people lapse into colloquialisms and slang when around their friends, but I do no think that this should overlap into formal conversations and writing.
If we accept that once the majority use/understand a certain term or phrase it becomes a rational part of our language, then who knows where this will take us. With the example of “I ain’t no idiot”: do we really want to sound like complete morons?
There are so many weird and wonderful words to be found that ARE in the dictionary that it is unnecessary to make up more; only once we have explored the true limits of our language can we justify changing it.
I actually have a question to add to my rant… I would like to know how speakers of other languages feel about this kind of situation and if people speak other languages as badly as they speak English?
Whilst I’m sad to see the odd word go, “correct grammar” is mere convention and word meanings are determined by use. Whingeing about the collapse of English is one of its few constants.
Two I’m sad to see pretty much eliminated from use in effective communication are fulsome and disinterested.
…think it is okay for people to say “you was” instead of “you were” or “ain’t” instead of “aren’t”? For one it makes it so much harder for anyone to learn the language when the rules are abandoned.
The rules are not abandoned, they are just conventions that change over time. Young people will have no trouble learning them. Older folk will feel confused and left out, as has ever been their lot. Note that the OED dubs itself “The definitive record of the English language”, not as the authority on the language.
As for your examples:
*The first reference to ain’t from the OED is from 1778. Authors cited as using the word include Dickens and Trollope. Mencken noted in 1919 that it “is already tolerably respectable in the first person” (emphasis added)
*The conjugation of “to be” is already about as complicated as it can get. The fact that the conventional forms readily come to your mind doesn’t make them right, logical or simple. “You was” is just another arbitrary step on English’s joyously arbitrary road.
Nice points, but the main thing that gets to me is that I never hear anyone who strikes me as having a brain using this type of language… Surely this means that it is being created by those who do not even have a grasp of English to start with?
That doesn’t make it okay. I hear it said—not that you’re saying it—that language needs to change; however I have never heard the point actually argued.
My concern is that language is our connection to past and future. We are so frequently told that such-and-so is a wonderful, insightful author, for example, but most people will find said author to be inaccessable because the language is so foreign. Today’s greatest thinkers will be lost to future generations in the same way that past thinkers are lost to most people today. That seems to be a great tragedy that we should avoid by sticking strictly to language and amending it as needed rather than by convenience.
It’s not a lowest-common-demoninator (sp?) thing, it is the fact that allowing it to change mutes us to future generations, just as it has muted previous generations.
I aggravate The Teenaged Terror constantly when she is telling us something and I hear:
“…and so Sarah goes, ‘Well, I did.’ and then James goes, ‘No!’”
Or something like that. I always ask her, “Where did they go?” and I get a blank look and “Huh?” in return. I then explain to her that “go” does not mean “say”. It lasts for a day or two until she gets back around the airheads who think it does, and she’ll slip back into Slanglish.
And the classic “Me and Jennifer went to the mall.” just drives me up the wall. And I hear that from adults as well.
I get this a lot, from my students (I teach at least one Freshman English course a semester). Actually, I used to get it a lot, but now not so much. I think my students are less inquisitive than they used to be. Anyway, here’s my stock response:
I can’t justify standards for “correct” English grammar. Yes, you can make yourself understood by 99% of all speakers while using grammar that violates the rules
outlined at tedious length in your grammar handbook. But there are opportunities in almost everyone’s life --often spontaneously–when he or she can do himself or herself a lot of good by impressing the hell out of listeners by showing a mastery of English grammar. Those of you who don’t care to acquire this mastery, or anything like it, will be frustrated by your inability to cope with these opportunities. Most of you are hoping to get your foot in the door, and one useful tool for prying that door open is the ability to speak and write well using standard English grammar. There are other tools, and you’re free to pursue them, but this course is all about honing that one tool.
You can rail away at poor usage all you want, but you are vastly outnumbered. It is their language as well, and they will do what they want with it.
My advice is to try to understand others, because they are going to speak that way. If you actually cannot understand what they are saying, then begin to find out where their error may be. In return, try to lead by using the language properly. The English teacher is exempt from this advice; it is their job to correct us.
It’s bad, but it beats hell out of “The restructuring cost analysis was completed by myself and Jennifer”, not to mention “The cost analysis was assigned to Jennifer and I”.
I hate to say this but language is simply a collection of arbitrary rules. Saying one rule is correct and another is not is generally a matter of context. The closest thing to a litmus test is communication - if a person says something and the intended audience understands the message then the language worked.
Some things bother me more than others, but I’m pretty much 100% with hawthorne on this. Overspoken a bit, but: formal grammar is a parasitic afterthought on a living language. It does have its uses, and I do wish I were better with it, but not knowing it does not constitute not knowing English (or whatever language).
I do believe we should draw the line in whatever context we wish where it ccould be meaningfully enforced, such as term papers, periodicals (minus letters to the editor, etc), and so on. I have absolutely no problem with that. Outside those contexts, however, gentle correction is the normal application of a social, cultural, or subculture’s standard, and expressed irritation is, I think, outright arrogance.
A debating forum like GD is somewhere inbetween formality and informality. On one hand, you do have an audience that is broad enough that without a common reference point, many expressions could be misunderstood (whether or not one party thinks they are misapplied). On the other, there is only peer pressure to keep posters in line, and apart from soccer moms, peer pressure isn’t the biggest threat to normal adults posting on a message board. Gentle correction is the way, if you feel the mistake was indicative of a chronic error rather than a mental slip or typo. MHO.
Why not? How about all the money spent needlessly on legal fees because people who write contracts, ordinances, and laws are sloppy in their writing? How about the real possibility that your students are going to get seriously fucked over if they cannot write clearly. (Happened recently here when the guy who wrote our winery ordinance found himself getting royally fucked by me because he couldn’t write well.) Can your students read Shakespear? Guess what: All your students’ greatest thoughts are so much gobbelty-gook, just like Shakespear, because we aren’t respecting the rules that are set down.
I most object when words like “ironic,” and “literally,” and expressions like “begging the question” are rendered meaningless by misuse. Otherwise, I tend to be annoyed by poor word usage, but don’t make a big noise about it.
Or, “the proof is in the pudding,” as George Carlin said, “No, the rice and rasins are in the pudding, the proof of the pudding is in the eating.” Or other literary and scientific terms rendered obsolete by reductionalists bent on justifying their own lack in grammatical skills.
Oh, I’m with you. But they want to know why they can’t use “fucked over” in all contexts, and my explanation grants them that it may well be acceptable to use that phrase (and even more vulgar ones) in many contexts, and more every day, but that there still will be contexts that they don’t want to use it, yet they’ll be unable to judge which contexts those might be unless they bolster their command of standard English grammar and usage.
It’s just that I find that telling them that “Grammar is good” doesn’t do it, while telling them that “Some oddballs with a great deal of power are impressed with this grammar crap” tends to sink in.