[kenberg]

barmar, on 2012-September-06, 08:59, said:

I wish people would lighten up. There's an enormous difference between spoken language and written language. Unless you're reading a prepared speech, spoken language is very informal, produced on the fly without much time to review the precise words. Whether "and" should be followed by "me" or "I" in a particular context is a relatively complex rule -- if you're speaking quickly it's easy to slip up, and some people just have a simple default for everything.

In addition, most of these "rules" are pretty arbitrary. The rule about not splitting infinitives is one of the most notorious. It supposedly comes from the Latin origin of English, in which infinitives were single words, and hence unsplittable. Some grammar nazis decided that even though English doesn't share this form of the infinitive, the sentence structure it implies should still be enforced. Never mind that practically everyone finds "to boldly go" more mellifluous than "to go boldly" or "boldly to go". That's because it's consistent with another rule: adjectives and adverbs normally immediately precede the word they're modifying, so putting it after or inserting "to" between them makes it more awkward sounding.

I'm about 2/3 through a very good book: "Thinking Fast and Slow". It's mostly about how we make decisions, but the psychological and neurological underpinnings also explain why on-the-fly utterances are not likely to obey strict rules and why it generally doesn't cause communication problems.

I think I agree with this. I am (almost) always in favor of lightening up and my own errors, grammatical and otherwise, would fill a large book. In my original post I took "if you ask Ann and I" from a presumably prepared and presumably proofread speech on a presumably important occasion. The construction violated rules that I learned early in childhood. I found this stunning. The responses have been vary interesting, and I now make the (partial) concession that at least some people in high places can and do make some sort of argument that the construction is correct. That's as far as I go with the concession, "ask Ann and I" still sounds barbaric to me. I was perfectly serious in asking for the general principle that governs this choice of "I". For example, should I ask Ann and he over for dinner? The cited Wikipedia article seemed to be saying "high class people do it, so it's ok". Maybe I will try this defense the next time I get a speeding ticket.

[barmar]

blackshoe, on 2012-September-06, 09:46, said:

Not that arbitrary. If "it's" is both the contracted form of "it is" and the possessive form, the only way to tell the difference is from context. Granted one can usually do that, the rule obviates the need. Aside from that, for those of us who learned the proper way seeing "it's" when the possessive is meant is really annoying.

I think one can practically always disambiguate from context -- I have a hard time coming up with a sentence where both can apply in the same place. We do it all the time when speaking -- only Victor Borge pronounces the apostrophe.

How about the rule for the possessive form of words that end in "s"? The way I learned it, you just add an apostrophe if the word is plural, but if it's a singular word that ends in "s" you add apostrophe and "s". But this latter part seems to be universally ignored -- I can't recall the last time I saw "s's" in any publication.

[barmar]

kenberg, on 2012-September-07, 08:59, said:

I think I agree with this. I am (almost) always in favor of lightening up and my own errors, grammatical and otherwise, would fill a large book. In my original post I took "if you ask Ann and I" from a presumably prepared and presumably proofread speech on a presumably important occasion.

I wonder if they did it internally. Mitt has been criticized for being stiff and not relating well to the common folk. Perhaps using a formally incorrect phrase like this makes him seem more relatable.

It also makes the speech seem less rehearsed. Consider how well Clinton was received this week when he extemporized during his speech; while there was some joking about how long the speech went on, there was not as much complaining about what he said.

[mycroft]

barmar, on 2012-September-07, 09:25, said:

How about the rule for the possessive form of words that end in "s"? The way I learned it, you just add an apostrophe if the word is plural, but if it's a singular word that ends in "s" you add apostrophe and "s". But this latter part seems to be universally ignored -- I can't recall the last time I saw "s's" in any publication.

Mons's Goblin Raiders?

Seriously, though I see s's rather than s' more often than I would expect (unfortunately, less often than I see 's. A bit of a problem, especially when discussing Christian religion. Jesu's typographers wept). I think most people however are attempting to rewrite their sentences so that that form of the possessive isn't used, avoiding the "which is right - they all look ugly" problem).

[rwbarton]

kenberg, on 2012-September-07, 08:59, said:

For example, should I ask Ann and he over for dinner? The cited Wikipedia article seemed to be saying "high class people do it, so it's ok".

I think you have gotten slightly the wrong sense from that paragraph. It's more like "high class people do it, so Standard English speakers do it". Most linguists are interested in studying what native speakers of a language actually say, not what teachers of that language teach their students to say. If a linguist proposes a rule like "pronouns are marked for case, and in the phrase 'X and Y', X and Y have the same case as the phrase as a whole", but then a native English speaker says "ask Ann and he over for dinner", then as far as a linguist is concerned, the rule is wrong, not the speaker.

And different people (or the same person at different times) may differ on whether a certain sentence is valid. "ask Ann and he over for dinner" sounds bad to me too. That is just a difference between our idiolects and others'. A single set of grammatical rules will normally not describe the speech of every native speaker simultaneously.

[blackshoe]

There/their/they're.

[semeai]

barmar, on 2012-September-07, 09:25, said:

How about the rule for the possessive form of words that end in "s"? The way I learned it, you just add an apostrophe if the word is plural, but if it's a singular word that ends in "s" you add apostrophe and "s". But this latter part seems to be universally ignored -- I can't recall the last time I saw "s's" in any publication

Not many names end in s, so perhaps you just don't come across them that often.

mycroft, on 2012-September-07, 09:57, said:

Seriously, though I see s's rather than s' more often than I would expect (unfortunately, less often than I see 's. A bit of a problem, especially when discussing Christian religion. Jesu's typographers wept). I think most people however are attempting to rewrite their sentences so that that form of the possessive isn't used, avoiding the "which is right - they all look ugly" problem).

If you look to publications such as Time Magazine and The Telegraph, you find the preferred spelling.

[kenberg]

rwbarton, on 2012-September-07, 12:48, said:

I think you have gotten slightly the wrong sense from that paragraph. It's more like "high class people do it, so Standard English speakers do it". Most linguists are interested in studying what native speakers of a language actually say, not what teachers of that language teach their students to say. If a linguist proposes a rule like "pronouns are marked for case, and in the phrase 'X and Y', X and Y have the same case as the phrase as a whole", but then a native English speaker says "ask Ann and he over for dinner", then as far as a linguist is concerned, the rule is wrong, not the speaker.

And different people (or the same person at different times) may differ on whether a certain sentence is valid. "ask Ann and he over for dinner" sounds bad to me too. That is just a difference between our idiolects and others'. A single set of grammatical rules will normally not describe the speech of every native speaker simultaneously.

Let me channel 'enry 'iggins. The moment an Englishman speaks he makes some other Englishman despise him.

Suppose a lad wants to move up in society. The fact is, or I think the fact is, the climb will be much easier if he learns to speak correctly. How to do this? Apparently, if we accept the above, not by studying a text in proper English. He can't move up in society until he learn to speak correctly and he can't learn to speak "correctly" except by hanging out with the upper classes since "correctly" has nothing to do with what is written in texts.

But I suppose that's the way of the world. As I mentioned earlier, in my early adolescence I took up double negatives and obscenity to fit in. All depends on which clique you are trying to crash, I suppose.

Popeye had it right: I yam what I yam. Him and me are doin' real good.

[dwar0123]

kenberg, on 2012-September-07, 13:40, said:

How to do this? Apparently, if we accept the above, not by studying a text in proper English. He can't move up in society until he learn to speak correctly and he can't learn to speak "correctly" except by hanging out with the upper classes since "correctly" has nothing to do with what is written in texts.

The people writing the texts understand their market and base their texts on the clique people are trying to join. So while the linguist will defer to how people actually speak, the texts still often have it correct.

Of course, over time, speakers and the texts they learned from become dated

[rwbarton]

Another note of clarification. I'm not 100% sure but I think that "Standard English" here means English broadly as it is spoken by native English speakers in the Commonwealth and in the US, as opposed to say "Ebonics" (a politically incorrect term, but I assume most Americans here know what it means, and I imagine the British can supply their own examples of regional or class-based non-Standard varieties of English). It does not mean the kind of English you find in a textbook as opposed to the kind of English you find in the essays of those who are getting bad grades in English class. The latter concept might be called "standard English".

Consider that pair at the club who "doesn't play reverses". If they still play 5-card majors, 15-17 NT, 2/1 which is forcing and invitational but not game forcing, and a strong 2♣ opening, and most importantly if they themselves say they play "Standard American", then a "bridge linguist" might say something like "their status as players of Standard American is clear". They just don't play it very well—they don't play "standard Standard American".

[kenberg]

Would it be correct to say a linguist, or a linguist of the school from the wiki articles, is primarily interested in studying and analyzing language as it is used in various social classes? Perhaps he regards the question of proper usage as either of lesser interest or even as a meaningless question? Pursuing the bridge analogy, a bridgologist could study such things as the prevalence of Bergen raises at different levels of competition, without necessarily taking a position on the value of this approach.

[barmar]

kenberg, on 2012-September-07, 21:13, said:

Would it be correct to say a linguist, or a linguist of the school from the wiki articles, is primarily interested in studying and analyzing language as it is used in various social classes? Perhaps he regards the question of proper usage as either of lesser interest or even as a meaningless question? Pursuing the bridge analogy, a bridgologist could study such things as the prevalence of Bergen raises at different levels of competition, without necessarily taking a position on the value of this approach.

I think that's exactly right. Most linguists recognize that the rules of language are, for the most part, arbitrary -- there is no inherent right and wrong.

Language actually serves two purposes. Its primary purpose, of course, is to communicate the thoughts of the speaker/author. As long as the speaker or writer is understood, this is accomplished. If someone says "I don't want no vegetables", we all understand that he means "I don't want ANY vegetables", so there's no problem.

However, it also serves as a marker of group membership, much like style of dress and hair style, and these groups are often societal classes. But while you can easily put a bum in a new suit and comb his hair, it's much harder to get him to speak differently from his normal style (despite Henry Higgins's claim). The phrasing "I don't want no" is associated with a class of society that's typically poorly educated, so anyone speaking like this will automatically be assumed to be ignorant. Even members of the groups recognize this -- if they hear a politician talking in their vernacular, they're likely to think he's pandering to them, since they know that politicians normally don't speak like this. See Shibboleth for a biblical example of this.

So I guess it's my egalitarian nature that causes me to be more tolerant of common failures to use "proper" English. I don't think we should automatically pigeonhole people like this.

[helene_t]

kenberg, on 2012-September-07, 21:13, said:

Would it be correct to say a linguist, or a linguist of the school from the wiki articles, is primarily interested in studying and analyzing language as it is used in various social classes? Perhaps he regards the question of proper usage as either of lesser interest or even as a meaningless question? Pursuing the bridge analogy, a bridgologist could study such things as the prevalence of Bergen raises at different levels of competition, without necessarily taking a position on the value of this approach.

"Correct" language use is basically defined by politicians and standardization comitees. Scholars stay out of it.

Yet you will sometimes hear linguists talk about "correct" language use. I think hypercorrections and slip-of-the-tongues, as well as the random mistakes made by young children and foreigners, are likely to be considered "incorrect" by scholars.

If I mishear a word and therefore reproduce it inaccurately, I would call it a mistake. If I hear a peer using a word in a non-standard way and then reproduce it when talking to him, it has become a part of the language I use when communicating with that peer, so it is no longer a mistake, just a (very) local variant.

[gwnn]

BTW English is one of the languages with the least amount of grammar (nouns have lost cases, gender, OK you have irregular verbs but that is about it). This gives me mixed feelings: on the one hand, it's kind of lame that people manage to break the few rules there are (and they're not thankful that there aren't 10x more rules). On the other hand, it's kind of lame that grammar purists are fighting for the few remaining rules (forgetting that there used to be 10x more rules, but people broke most of them so often that now those rules are obsolete and there has been no cataclysm as of yet).

[phil_20686]

semeai, on 2012-September-07, 13:07, said:

Not many names end in s, so perhaps you just don't come across them that often.

My last name is Stephens, so it comes up a lot for me.

[barmar]

gwnn, on 2012-September-10, 02:44, said:

On the other hand, it's kind of lame that grammar purists are fighting for the few remaining rules (forgetting that there used to be 10x more rules, but people broke most of them so often that now those rules are obsolete and there has been no cataclysm as of yet).

Maybe these people just have a need to feel relevant. As long as they can perceive rules they'll fight for them, because that's what they do.

The fact that language change (virtually always in the direction of simplifying rules) is the norm doesn't discourage them. As far as they're concerned, that was the failure of people preceding them, it shouldn't stop them from trying. Few people who tilt at windmills realize that they're doing so.

Probably the most interesting thing about the direction of language evolution is that it implies that when humans first created language, they gave it an enormous number of rules. Why did the early humans feel the need for all those cases, genders, etc.? They somehow went from ape-like grunting to dozens of Latin declensions, and we've been simplifying it ever since.

[dwar0123]

barmar, on 2012-September-10, 10:01, said:

The fact that language change (virtually always in the direction of simplifying rules) is the norm doesn't discourage them. As far as they're concerned, that was the failure of people preceding them, it shouldn't stop them from trying. Few people who tilt at windmills realize that they're doing so.

Probably the most interesting thing about the direction of language evolution is that it implies that when humans first created language, they gave it an enormous number of rules. Why did the early humans feel the need for all those cases, genders, etc.? They somehow went from ape-like grunting to dozens of Latin declensions, and we've been simplifying it ever since.

There are probably lots of reason why Latin has so many rules, some dealing with it originally being developed by an insular group of people who eventually came to rule most of the known world and used their language as a form of control. You will write/speak Latin and you will do it properly or you will not get far in the Roman world.

This is compounded by the fact that most(all) of our record of Latin is written and from leading authors. I would wager that much of the common folk spoke with far less rigor then Cicero wrote with. The language was then distilled for a thousand years through the Catholic church, an organization that loves rules, while the descendent languages spoken by the common people went in all kinds of different directions.

Take into consideration modern globalization, where numerous dialect differences become so intermixed that maintaining any one set of rules becomes impossible, compounded by the irreverent nature of the modern entertainment and you get the steady breakdown of rules.

[barmar]

Latin is not the only ancient language with so many rules. I think all the Indo-European languages have similar levels of complexity.

You're correct that written language tends to demonstrate more of the complexities than spoken language. No matter what the language, speakers will take shortcuts, abbreviate, etc. The fact that spoken language doesn't leave artifacts results in a number of paradoxes in liguistic history. When looking at the history of English, it looks like there was a sudden, dramatic shift from Old English to Middle English (I hope I'm getting this right, it's from memory of a book I read 6-9 months ago). What actually happened was that the language was changing incrementally due to migration of people from Nordic countries to England, and their languages were mixing into English, but it took centuries before significant texts were WRITTEN in this language, and by this time many changes had taken place, so it seemed like they all happened at once.

While globalization may be accelerating the rate of language change, it has been going on for millenia at a pretty decent clip. I think there's a well known quote from someone like Cicero deriding the younger generation for their bastardization of the language.

[semeai]

I'd guess that language evolution has been slower this past century, due to radio and TV broadcasts.

[dwar0123]

Three additional points I think are worth making.

Writing is now so cheap and easy that it is far closer to speaking in the amount of effort people put into it. When paper was expensive and what you wrote would take weeks if not years to reach the intended audience, it would be natural to take a lot more care in writing it.

We may not see the forest for the trees, I wouldn't be surprised if there are new rules being written into our language that we are oblivious to because they operate on a level we are not conscious of. Seeing a rule being violated is much more obvious then seeing a new rule being obeyed.

Woman's suffrage is a good example of the previous, many rules are being discarded to make language gender neutral, but it is also creating new rules.