Log in

View Full Version : Grammar Nazi thread. Because we need one.



Pages : 1 [2] 3

mediocrity
08-07-2012, 10:21 PM
This is the most intelligent "argument" I've ever seen on SW.

Think!
08-07-2012, 10:27 PM
Here is one of my favorite books. A must read. ;D

papillonluvr
08-07-2012, 10:43 PM
Well, AGT, it seems that we are somewhat in agreement then. :)

However, being a 6-12th grade English teacher, I am bound by the "rules" made by those higher up in the education system than myself, and I have to abide by them or I'll lose my job.

However, some of the language "inventions" made by my students are just atrocious and I have to correct them because the writing is completely unintelligible.

caitlin1214
08-07-2012, 11:57 PM
Regarding whether or not to end a sentence in a preposition, I admit I'm completely lax when it comes to that. To avoid ending a sentence in a preposition involves doing verbal gymnastics, and I don't feel like doing that.


Also, although it's technically wrong, something like 'the thing the cat sleeps on' sounds a lot more natural to me than 'the thing on which the cat sleeps.'

Almost Jaded
08-08-2012, 12:06 AM
AGT - I would like to know what, in your opinion, constitutes bad writing. That would clarify quite a bit, at least for me, lol.

Think!
08-08-2012, 12:35 AM
Regarding whether or not to end a sentence in a preposition, I admit I'm completely lax when it comes to that. To avoid ending a sentence in a preposition involves doing verbal gymnastics, and I don't feel like doing that.

Sentences ending with a proposition drive me up the walls. The syntactical acrobatics required to make sentences stylistically pleasing to readers are well worth the time and effort.

All Good Things
08-08-2012, 01:44 AM
Also, although it's technically wrong, something like 'the thing the cat sleeps on' sounds a lot more natural to me than 'the thing on which the cat sleeps.'

It’s not wrong. It’s not technically wrong or even remotely wrong.

Trust your ear. Your ear is right.

This is something we linguists call “hypercorrection.” It’s when some bozo who wants to show off decides to apply to English a grammatical rule that applies to a different language, but not English. The real problem comes from teachers who at some point have studied Latin – where this rule does apply – and then then sort of retroactively imposed them on English, where it does not apply.

OK, briefly. The proscription on a sentence ending with a preposition comes from inflected languages like German, Russian, Finnish, Latin, etc. where the endings of the words change radically due to their grammatical role in the sentence as well as prepositional usage. As a Germanic language, English used to have these markers for many nouns, but being an outlaw crazy inbred fucked-up cousin that it is, it dropped them all (there are other reasons for this – English has several different linguistic family roots and evolutionary paths.) We hardly have any inflection now except with a few pronouns.

And writers in English have ended sentences with prepositions for centuries. Shakespeare did! The same is true with splitting infinitives.

So please, tell people who insist on this non-existent rule to go fuck themselves. They are not only being insufferable douches, they are grammatically wrong.


AGT - I would like to know what, in your opinion, constitutes bad writing. That would clarify quite a bit, at least for me, lol.

From a strictly linguistic viewpoint, any sentence that has meaning – any meaning – is valuable. If you’ve ever read a text written by a native speaker of Mandarin addressed to a native speaker of Arabic, for example, in something both call “English,” but one that bears no resemblance whatsoever to anything you’ve ever seen in your life, you will have a better appreciation of this. And English is used every day like this all over the world, between non-native speakers, everywhere. You just won’t actually understand it yourself. But those people do.

Sentences that might strike you as horrific on aesthetic grounds can also be entertaining to other people for a whole host of reasons. Consider the possibility, for example, that the 50 Shades fans couldn’t actually handle the real BDSM world, and the real stories and terminology you enjoy would shock the living white right off them. So the sanitized version you abhor is familiar, non-threatening and therefore far more comfortable to those people.

And of course all forms of writing also convey essential facts about the author. Every person’s own usage of language – that person’s idiolect – is as good as a fingerprint. You can spot it yourself, and in fact you already have, every time you see Cyril hiding behind yet another sock puppet. This enrages you for a different reason, but you see it without necessarily being able to explain why you see it.

Anyway, “bad” writing is always in the eye of the beholder. And every great writer everywhere has started out pissing off, outraging and “insulting” every self-appointed gatekeeper of the language. It’s an inevitable outcome because real creativity will always unsettle and threaten those people who feel it is their responsibility to safeguard an outdated, arbitrary, inapplicable and totally backward-looking set of silly prejudices about how language “should” work.

They are wrong.

mediocrity
08-08-2012, 02:02 AM
And of course all forms of writing also convey essential facts about the author. Every person’s own usage of language – that person’s idiolect – is as good as a fingerprint. You can spot it yourself, and in fact you already have, every time you see Cyril hiding behind yet another sock puppet. This enrages you for a different reason, but you see it without necessarily being able to explain why you see it.


That's very interesting. I've actually said to a few acquaintances on here that it would be impossible for me to troll because my online "voice" is too distinctive. Now I know there's an actual term for what I was trying to describe. :)

Almost Jaded
08-08-2012, 03:01 AM
Interesting. Not sure what else to say to that, lol. My never-ending vitriol for 50 Shades is predicated on many things, not just the pathetic representation of BDSM. My PRIMARY gripe in fact, is the writing itself - thus I was curious for your input. You talk about idiolect; there is something else at play there as well. I never pick up a book with the intention of hating it. But many times I will pick something up at random and read a few pages - and immediately put it back on the shelf and look for something that passes for literature. While I really am enjoying this discussion and I really do like the perspective you're bringing to it, there is just something missing from your position. A recognition that there is a difference between a language evolving and a language being butchered; between written language that conveys more than just a meaning, and written language that is limited to conveying only the most basic meanings because of a failure by the writer to do anything else.

Going back to an example I made, and using it to exemplify a point you've been making; in 50 Shades, James writes "...all curved glass and steel; an architect's utilitarian fantasy". Now - you say it doesn't matter what's written, because the meaning was conveyed; yet, the first time I read that, the meaning was NOT conveyed. My first thought wasn't a picture of the building followed by a giggle at the wording; my first reaction was confusion. The sentence literally didn't make sense to me, because I began to form an image in my head at the first part of the sentence - only to have it run smack into "utilitarian" and "fantasy", in that order, which first contradicted the image I was painting and then contradicted itself. I had to go back and re-read once or twice to make the image stabilize and come into focus before I could even get to the making fun of her shit vocabulary and powers of description. Thus - not only is the writing here fodder for us nit-pickers, but it's bad writing; it does NOT properly (or even effectively) convey the authors intentions.

I dunno - I guess what I'm getting at, is that getting where you're coming from and even enjoying it is one thing, but doesn't jive with the fact that some writing just isn't palatable. You say "trust your ear" above; I read Twilight or 50 Shades and it's not a snobbish thing; I know shitty writing when I read it. It's not a genre thing. It's not a superiority thing. So what is it?

The Six
08-08-2012, 04:25 AM
^ Well, I think "watchdog pundit" is even worse, especially in the context of Dennis' larger message. That suggests that they not only want to show off,


I'm not seeing where he said they want to show off.


but were wrong to even be making the "correction" at all.

I thought there is no "wrong" with language? If conventions change, language evolves, etc., then a person should be fully justified in making a correction based on what they believe.

It's one big contradiction. He says language can't be legislated, but he is trying to legislate it. He's trying to legislate whether or not we can correct others.

papillonluvr
08-08-2012, 04:37 AM
Interesting. Not sure what else to say to that, lol. My never-ending vitriol for 50 Shades is predicated on many things, not just the pathetic representation of BDSM. My PRIMARY gripe in fact, is the writing itself - thus I was curious for your input. You talk about idiolect; there is something else at play there as well. I never pick up a book with the intention of hating it. But many times I will pick something up at random and read a few pages - and immediately put it back on the shelf and look for something that passes for literature. While I really am enjoying this discussion and I really do like the perspective you're bringing to it, there is just something missing from your position. A recognition that there is a difference between a language evolving and a language being butchered; between written language that conveys more than just a meaning, and written language that is limited to conveying only the most basic meanings because of a failure by the writer to do anything else.

Going back to an example I made, and using it to exemplify a point you've been making; in 50 Shades, James writes "...all curved glass and steel; an architect's utilitarian fantasy". Now - you say it doesn't matter what's written, because the meaning was conveyed; yet, the first time I read that, the meaning was NOT conveyed. My first thought wasn't a picture of the building followed by a giggle at the wording; my first reaction was confusion. The sentence literally didn't make sense to me, because I began to form an image in my head at the first part of the sentence - only to have it run smack into "utilitarian" and "fantasy", in that order, which first contradicted the image I was painting and then contradicted itself. I had to go back and re-read once or twice to make the image stabilize and come into focus before I could even get to the making fun of her shit vocabulary and powers of description. Thus - not only is the writing here fodder for us nit-pickers, but it's bad writing; it does NOT properly (or even effectively) convey the authors intentions.

I dunno - I guess what I'm getting at, is that getting where you're coming from and even enjoying it is one thing, but doesn't jive with the fact that some writing just isn't palatable. You say "trust your ear" above; I read Twilight or 50 Shades and it's not a snobbish thing; I know shitty writing when I read it. It's not a genre thing. It's not a superiority thing. So what is it?

I have to agree here. That's what I mean when I say there are some conventions that need to be followed. Also, repetetive writing may get meaning across (oh my being repeated in 50 shades too many times to count), but stylistically it sucks. Almost Jaded-maybe it's a stylistic thing we have such a problem with? That, and using vocabulary in a way that makes sense?

Then again, the vocab thing. Shakespeare invented words, as did Dr. Seuss. So maybe in 50 shades, she was reinventing the words? Assigning new meaning to them? The internet does the same thing. Take Google for example. "Google it" means "n do an internet search for it". English turned a noun into a verb.

Gotta love language. I think I just argued myself out of my own position lmao.

Almost Jaded
08-08-2012, 06:20 AM
No, you didn't - because we've all recognized that position all along. What I'm attempting to reconcile here is the inherent truth behind much of what he's saying, and the fact that reality doesn't match that academic view when one picks up a book. For that matter, AGT has said several times now things like "all great writers know" and "you'll be a better writer when" and such. Yet his position seems to be that all writers are equal. If they're not, what is the basis for determining which is which? It's like saying what makes good TV or a good movie; do you judge it by it's ratings, or by some abstract - dare we say arbitrary - standard? Jersey Shore was much watched, and generated tremendous revenue; Law& Order doesn't have the same viewership - yet has lasted 15 or 20 years now, and has an even more loyal fan base.

There is putting words on a page to convey something, and there is writing. There is language to convey meaning, and there is language that conveys more than meaning - or at least a shit ton more meaning, lol. One can say that language is effective insofar as it accomplishes something and nothing is "wrong" - but one can't put James' description of Grey Enterprises Holding's Company Inc., LLC's headquarters in the same category with Rawling's description of Hogwarts in the first Harry Potter book. One is superior. One is ineffective , inaccurate, and confusing; one is deliciously descriptive and enriches the reading experience. And this example applies to other forms of written communication as well, pretty much all of them.

So - where's the line? AGT says there isn't one so far as I can tell; but anyone who reads a lot and communicates by written word frequently - yes, even online - knws that this simply isn't true. Than again - many of us prurporting such also acknowledge that we use lolspeak, that we appreciate slang, and that we make mistakes. So I say again - where is the line?

papillonluvr
08-08-2012, 06:55 AM
One day I will be able to eloquently put into words what you did there, AJ. Sigh....and this is why I am a voracious reader and not a prolific writer. ;)

etru
08-08-2012, 10:06 AM
AGT's theories of language are all well and good (and interesting) in the ivory tower. However, if I use “loose” instead of “lose” in an appellate brief I think that it would be a good step to “loosing” my case. I do not think the judge would be interested in my thoughts on semiotics or be impressed by my citing of various esoteric linguistic scholars. Most likely he would be pissed.


AJ's criticisms are not those of coining a new phrase or turning the meaning of a word on its head (as “bad” meaning “good”). This is a conscious decision. What is annoying is when people, and native speakers (I am not), stumble through English thinking they are correct (“shear” vs. “sheer”). This is not an evolution of the language, but a simple misuse. Read some old Civil War letters from the semi-literate troops (no insult intended to them). They are often almost unintelligible. Then read some prominent authors of the time and see the distinction in comprehensibility.

All Good Things
08-08-2012, 02:53 PM
It's one big contradiction. He says language can't be legislated, but he is trying to legislate it. He's trying to legislate whether or not we can correct others.

I’m saying that your attempt to correct others is misplaced. It says more about you than it does about the language, which moves right along without you anyway. It shrugs you off like a bear does a flea.

Also, the people you are correcting tend to ignore you.

Anyway, it’s the research that indicates the “gatekeeper pundits” are overreaching psychologically. They are trying to be somebody they are not or gain status they don’t actually have. Several researchers working in different but related fields – dialectology, semantics and language migration – have all come to this same conclusion.

If it makes you feel any better, it happens even more among those who are disadvantaged in an ethnographic and socioeconomic sense; the so-called “low status” speakers. The good news for them is that their own language habits have an outsized impact on how language evolves. Not so much the hypercorrection part, but the daily habits and practices part.

I would encourage you to perhaps research hypercorrection and related practices of linguistic armchair punditry to see what research out there already says about people who do this. This research has all been done. I’m not sure what else I can say about it in a way that would be enlightening or helpful. Others interested in this subject may want to do the same.


Then again, the vocab thing. Shakespeare invented words, as did Dr. Seuss. So maybe in 50 shades, she was reinventing the words? Assigning new meaning to them? The internet does the same thing. Take Google for example. "Google it" means "n do an internet search for it". English turned a noun into a verb.

Yes, that’s right! The second part of your post is the most important. Although we all tend to think of authors’ neologisms as the most influential, nothing could be further from the truth. New words and expressions arise spontaneously throughout the language from every direction and group and individual and then either rise to the surface or die a slow, quiet death. It’s one of the many ways that language evolves.


So - where's the line? AGT says there isn't one so far as I can tell; but anyone who reads a lot and communicates by written word frequently - yes, even online - knws that this simply isn't true. Than again - many of us prurporting such also acknowledge that we use lolspeak, that we appreciate slang, and that we make mistakes. So I say again - where is the line?

OK, there are several things going on here. So let’s take them one at a time.

There’s great value in remembering that much of what happens to us occurs below the line of conscious awareness or deliberative choice. We make judgments, assess threats, respond to flavors, burst out laughing, store thoughts, retrieve ideas and many hundreds of other activities while never even getting close to a conscious decision about any of them. There is a whole body of powerful research on this subject done by the Israeli psychologist Daniel Kahneman, originally conducted for the U.S. military for purposes of developing and evaluating training, which demonstrates through an ingenious practice of involving the reader in scenarios that we share as a species many deeply ingrained habits of instinct, choice, response, reflection and reaction without our conscious minds engaged in any way.

BTW, the reason Kahneman adopted this strategy of involving the reader to demonstrate the principles is that he grew weary of academics scoffing about how these silly results were because of those brainless undergraduate research subjects and they weren’t like that at all. They openly resisted and dismissed the idea that they did not control their reality. So he re-cast the examples to involve every reader and lo and behold it ensnared every reader, including all the academics, who then got really quiet and then eventually converted to his ideas en mass.

Anyway, the reason our brains do this is that there is great efficiency in having pre-programmed or pre-assessed responses in a world of limited resources and energy. So our brains make sense out of the world by deploying this massive, sophisticated and interlinked cognitive filtering network that runs constantly in the foreground of our sentient reality (what we call “ourselves” actually runs in the background). The best way for an author to penetrate this network is to hop on the back of words and ideas and concepts that the author believes the reader recognizes and ride those through the network and into the engaged mind.

Sorry for this long digression, but it’s crucial to paint this picture of how your mind really works because how you think it works – the process of deliberative choice based on individual words or language use – is taking you in a misleading direction. Much of what we as humans “like” turns out not to come from a deliberative decision about language, words or usage at all. It comes from an emotional response to the impact of the multilevel reality painted by the ideas generated in our minds. This is not “the subconscious,” in the way Freud framed it, it’s far more sophisticated and dynamic and interlinked than that. It’s also intangible and difficult to define, and it defies efforts to quantify it. It pushes everything over into the realm of artistic expression and creativity and leaves it there on the shore.

It turns out we “like” what modulates our neural networks or that stimulates them within specific parameters. Push too far and the reader rejects, like you did when that single word usage rose to the surface and poked you in the eye. It was only one of many hundreds of responses that were pulsing through your mind at the time. You like what is familiar – to a point – and what challenges you – also to a point. You reject what your emotions reject. Reading is a form of deep emotional engagement. We are kidding ourselves when we think it has to do principally with conscious deliberative analysis.

I like to tell my daughter that our brains are these enormously powerful emotion engines that rule our world. Our logical minds are an afterthought, bolted on like an aftermarket carburetor. It’s a useful analogy to get through the day, and an important corrective factor for people who think for a living. Your thoughts are really emotions wearing a “smart” mask.

On a related subject of semantics, it’s helpful to remember a few important points.

1. Your response to a creative work of writing is determined by how your lexical filters attach meaning to words. In other words (ha!), what’s important is how your mind “sees” words and not how an author or your friends or anybody else actually uses them, or how a dictionary defines them.

2. Words have meaning for people at variance from how they are defined in dictionaries. Lexicographers – folks like me who compile or consult on dictionaries – spend the vast majority of our research time evaluating how language is created and used by everybody in day-to-day life, how it evolves and how widespread usage is changing. That is a retrospective process – it’s backward-looking – so it will always lag reality.

3. There is zero prescriptive input from linguists to this process. There are no “corrections.” None. Linguists do not “correct” because correcting just contaminates the data pool. Besides, the language lives on and will do what it will do. It seriously could not give a shit.

ArmySGT.
08-08-2012, 04:55 PM
So, the lesson I am getting in this is, regardless if it is a Judge, an Academic, or a midwestern house mouse............... write for your intended audience?

The Six
08-08-2012, 09:14 PM
I’m saying that your attempt to correct others is misplaced. It says more about you than it does about the language, which moves right along without you anyway. It shrugs you off like a bear does a flea.

Of course it says more about you than the language. Nobody's trying to change the language. But if my attempt at corrections are just to stroke my own ego, then your saying my attempts are "misplaced" must be for a similar reason. After all, one grammar correction may just be a few sentences. You've typed entire essays on why we're wrong. Talk about ego, right?



Also, the people you are correcting tend to ignore you.

This is true for lots of things. People in general don't like to be told that they're wrong. Doesn't mean you should hold back from doing it if you believe you're right.


If it makes you feel any better, it happens even more among those who are disadvantaged in an ethnographic and socioeconomic sense;

I wasn't feeling bad in the first place, but thanks anyway. As for this research you mention, any links?

strippername
08-08-2012, 09:44 PM
I love that the OP of this thread will write a sentence and add ",lol" to the end. "My mom is a bitch, but I love her, lol." I am not sure about grammar and internet shorthand. It definitely has me lol'ing!

One of my favorites is when someone spells the word "genius" wrong. We do need to remember here that even though someone may not be able to spell or has not learned correct grammar it does not make them lesser or stupid. Ur all 2 legit 2 quit.

papillonluvr
08-08-2012, 10:43 PM
Of course it says more about you than the language. Nobody's trying to change the language. But if my attempt at corrections are just to stroke my own ego, then your saying my attempts are "misplaced" must be for a similar reason. After all, one grammar correction may just be a few sentences. You've typed entire essays on why we're wrong. Talk about ego, right?



This is true for lots of things. People in general don't like to be told that they're wrong. Doesn't mean you should hold back from doing it if you believe you're right.



I wasn't feeling bad in the first place, but thanks anyway. As for this research you mention, any links?



Here's a link to a study. I read this back in college. If I remember correctly somewhere in there it mentions that language changes fastest in lower socioeconomic classes, and slowest among the highest classes.

papillonluvr
08-08-2012, 10:44 PM
Ooops forgot the link:

http://www.euroconferences.info/proceedings/2007_Proceedings/2007_Hamaidia_Lena.pdf

Djoser
08-09-2012, 02:14 AM
Interesting thread, AJ.

I think that somewhere in the old sets of rules there is a clause prohibiting the correction of grammar and spelling, but I could be wrong about that.

It is discouraged, in general. However, if someone should happen to tell another member that 'You are loosing the argument because your stupid', they can certainly expect this:

:rotfl:

But there is certainly nothing wrong with this thread, it's all in fun and I know no one means any harm here.


I don't buy into the notion that all writing is equally legitimate, whether it conforms to common rules concerning spelling and grammar or not. Sure, it can all be lumped into the 'an attempt to communicate' category, but that's not saying much. Hmm is that a pun?

pinups4
08-09-2012, 05:07 AM
Girls don't have 'costumers' they have 'customers'


And please learn your apostrophes!. Apostrophes are for contractions (can't vs can not) and posessives (steve's pizza belongs to steve. Steves are dumb has something to do with many steves)

All Good Things
08-09-2012, 12:08 PM
I find it refreshing that this thread that AJ started three days ago has 1,084 page views already. It seems people are passionate about language one way or the other.

Almost Jaded
08-09-2012, 01:09 PM
Strippername - yeah, I abuse "lol". It has become a sort of punctuation for me, and it's become a bad habit, lol. <---- that was one purpose. Lol.

It has taken me this long, but I'm finally going to cheat. I am taking this discussion off-SW and involving a Theoretical and Slavic-language linguist I know rather well. This is too interesting to keep to a slow paced vBoard talk!! Come to think of it - if you're who you say you are AGT, she certainly knows you and your work. Hell - you might know her, too. She studied at Princeton and spent/spends a lot of time in Russia... :)

All Good Things
08-09-2012, 01:39 PM
^ I'm only a figment of my imagination. :)

Since most of the dancers on the site know who I am IRL, I always assumed that info found its way to you. I'll PM you a link to my Google and LinkedIn profiles.

Djoser
08-09-2012, 04:33 PM
^ I'm only a figment of my imagination. :)

Since most of the dancers on the site know who I am IRL, I always assumed that info found its way to you. I'll PM you a link to my Google and LinkedIn profiles.

Wait a minute--you are saying most of the dancers on Stripperweb know you personally in real life??

That's several thousand dancer members. So either I am sorely mistaken in your intended meaning, or you are exaggerating your real life Stripperweb social connections by several orders of magnitude. For what purpose I cannot imagine without serious misgivings...

All Good Things
08-09-2012, 05:31 PM
^ I'll amend and revise my comments:

Since many of the long-time dancers on the site know who I am IRL, I always assumed that info found its way to you.

I've "allowed" -- to the extent that allowing these things has any meaning -- many of the dancers to share my personal IRL info among themselves for purposes of maximizing transparency.

That's far short of the total population of the site, of course, so I apologize if my tendency to think of my own circle of personal experience as constituting more of the whole than it does got too far out of hand there.

Djoser
08-09-2012, 07:53 PM
That's a very big difference in meaning--but whatever...

BlackSheEp3
08-09-2012, 09:09 PM
I can never get to and too right.

Oh well, I will keep trying.

papillonluvr
08-10-2012, 12:45 AM
Too= also. As well, it is used as a modifier to say something like "very", such as "too scary".

ArmySGT.
08-10-2012, 09:56 AM
This thread is to, two, too much.

Almost Jaded
08-10-2012, 01:12 PM
Their they're Sarge; know knead two bee soar...

All Good Things
08-10-2012, 02:23 PM
Well, AGT, it seems that we are somewhat in agreement then. :)

I always thought the "papillon" in your SN referred to the dog, and then today I realized your avatar is from Cardcaptor Sakura, so that means you're mixing French and colloquial English in your SN.

Charrière would be proud, too.

I always thought "butterfly" was ungainly in English. In the Romance languages it's far more poetic: papillon (French), mariposa (Spanish) and farfalla (Italian), that last one the most onomatopoeically brilliant of all three.

If you ever decide to change your SN, you could always go with "butterfly" in Ancient Greek: "psyche."

papillonluvr
08-10-2012, 09:21 PM
Their they're Sarge; know knead two bee soar...

That totally just messed with my head. I had to read it twice to get it.


AGT, I always thought "butterfly" should be "flutterby". makes more sense.

But Chouchou, as it is in Japanese, it kind of cute when you hear a little kid say it. :)

But yes, it's from Papillon, the dog breed. I used to have one, but gave him up to a nice older couple when I moved to Japan. As for my avatar, I just thought it was pretty anime picture that kind of fit with Papillon. :)

Mr Hyde
08-12-2012, 07:07 PM
"should of", "would of", instead of should have, would have. Infuriating. :-/

This is the one that is currently making me nuts. People just spell shit phonetically these days, I guess.

I could list scores of this shit, but it's so bad, a professor at Washington State made this website....

http://public.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/errors.html

Mr Hyde
08-12-2012, 07:14 PM
I can never get to and too right.

Oh well, I will keep trying.

Here, read this...


http://public.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/to.html

All Good Things
08-12-2012, 10:05 PM
This is the one that is currently making me nuts. People just spell shit phonetically these days, I guess.

I could list scores of this shit, but it's so bad, a professor at Washington State made this website....



Paul Brians is a professor of literature. He's not a linguist. This kind of pontificating about language while masquerading under a non-linguist PhD is a lot like Dr. Laura Schlessinger masquerading as a psychologist on her call-in radio show while hoping nobody notices her PhD is in physiology and she earned it by studying rats.

Using language does not make you an expert on language any more than having a body makes you a medical doctor.

Here’s linguist Ed Battistella’s book published by Oxford University Press:



Reviews:

On Chicago Tribune's Top 10 books on language in 2005: "This book reminds us that language is the basis of the last acceptable prejudice: There is no snobbery as safe as looking down your nose at people for their grammar, vocabulary or accent. As Battistella shows, this kind of condescension often comes from misunderstandings and myths about the way language works."--Nathan Bierma, Chicago Tribune

"Battistella has indeed identified issues central both to our society at large and to the American educational system. He shows us that all too often, what citizens and teachers believe about language, grammar, and so-called proper English reflects folk-beliefs from deep in centuries past. These common myths about the nature of language carry vast ripple effects in how we treat people and educate our young. In user-friendly and lively terms, linguist Ed Battistella explores bad language--a topic both timely and crucial to our nation."--Rebecca S. Wheeler, Department of English, Christopher Newport University

Collection of essays on language use edited by Laurie Bauer and Pete Trudgill



"Unfortunately, linguistic research is generally inaccessible to the non-linguist and so much that is written about human language for the masses is by non-specialists who take the opportunity to air their own prejudices. As editor Peter Trudgill says, if you want to know about physics, you ask a physicist; and if you want to know about language you ask a linguist and not just someone who has used it successfully in the past. The chapters are written by highly competent academics who are well-known in the linguistics community, and despite their being written for lay readers, there is much here that is also relevant for linguists and students of language. Read this book to find out how all languages are equally complex, why linguistic change is inevitable, and to laugh at the rubbish newspapers print."

loveshooks
08-12-2012, 11:09 PM
^^^as per Battistella, language is a tool that is linked to power...the power to decide which conventions are 'proper' and which deviations from that arbitrary standard are deemed 'improper' or the hallmark of 'low culture'.

"(Battistella)...traces the association of mainstream norms to ideas about refinement, intelligence, education, character, national unity and political values. Battistella argues that none of these qualities is inherently connected to language"

What I find problematic in your argument in this thread is that you are omitting your own social location from a discussion that in large part focuses upon the issue of people not knowing the arbitrary conventions of what is deemed 'proper English'. If we're sticking solely to an argument that in actuality language is an organic, ever changing set of symbollic representations, then yeah, I'm with you. Normative conventions are arbitrary crap.

What you're leaving out however is that for people who occupy social locations other than whiteness, wealth and citizenship, using 'proper English' is vitally important in achieving success and overcoming barriers of stigma and marginalization. The point is not that the linguistic conventions of marginalized groups are improper, the point is that the linguistic conventions of marginalized groups are used by the privileged as a justification for exclusion from their positions of power and spaces of privilege. Access to opportunity and legitimacy within spaces of privilege is defined in part by the ease with which one weilds the linguistic tools of those who have the power to define those linguistic tools as normative.

Only those who who are 'at home' in spaces of privilege and who forget that not everyone is granted that privilege can argue that familiarity with normative/'proper' language is meaningless. Notions of 'proper' language have been reified in that deviation from these norms results in real-world implications for many who deviate from them. For those who are are positioned outside of spaces of privilege, using arbitrary lingustic conventions is an act of using the tools of the enemy against itself. Code-switching is a perfect example of the use of normative language when necessary, while still maintaining the richness, history and meaning inherent to personal dialects, accents and vocabulary.

Language is inherently tied to social location, and the choice between adopting or discarding the conventions of normative language is not neutral for those who must struggle to occupy positions of power, privilege and 'belonging'. Let's not forget that.

All Good Things
08-13-2012, 12:28 AM
Yes, quite right, thanks for that excellent summary!

I’ve deliberately omitted the whole argument of language as a weapon used as an exclusionary mechanism to marginalize lower-status speakers within society, which is one of the central tenets of Ed Battistella’s book, as you rightly note. In my experience, that is a bridge too far in almost all lay discussions of grammar and language use.

Aside from the potential to be wildly inflammatory and therefore difficult to convey dispassionately – and there’s very solid research suggesting grammar Nazi practices are downright racist, so there’s that, too – it’s not reasonable in my experience to expect people to come around to this view until they have enthusiastically embraced the central notion that there is no “correct” usage at all. As you can see in this thread, that alone is a huge battle.

The next step is to demonstrate that efforts to correct others’ usage are sort of comically wrongheaded – not unlike bowing and crossing yourself in the bathroom mirror to ward off evil spirits to prevent disease (myth and superstition) instead of just washing your hands thoroughly at the sink (science).

Next in my view is the need to demonstrate that in every way that is meaningful, everything important to real grammar in the language of native speakers is deeply embedded and internalized at a young age and is never taught to anybody in any language in any school anywhere in the world.

Once you get that groundwork in place, you can get to the more challenging medications in your arsenal.

Perhaps the bitterest pill to swallow is that speakers and writers of the privileged dialect – one I use most commonly in English myself, as I am in this thread – will see that particular usage disappear fastest as it cedes ground to the more dynamic upstarts bubbling up through the culture.

Appeals to authority in language are as useless as monarchial privilege in the storming of the Bastille. Language will do what it will do.

Thanks again for that thoughtful contribution.

Almost Jaded
08-13-2012, 08:49 AM
Well, this is getting heavier, lol.

While certainly not knocking the work and views of those far more educated in the matter than myself, I have to say that there is a strong current of academia for it's own sake being brought in here. Much as one should consult a physicist for physics questions and a linguist for language questions, one doesn't need a physicist to explain the basic laws at a highschool level, and one doesn't need the level of research being produced here to explain how language usage in day to day life affects the thoughts of the people you're associating with vis a vis there perceptions of the one speaking or writing. Diving deeply into those waters is valuable work and has it's place, certainly. However, applying the overarching concept of language used as method of classifying people, as an indicator of racism, etc is a bit much. Missing from all that is a basic acknowledgement that while all that may be true, there is also some truth the fact that there is a difference between dialect, creative usage, change and evolution of language - and ignorance, poor education, or just plain ol' stupidity. One cannot say that someone who has access to the best educations and grows up in a privileged class but who still fails to understand the difference and usage of the 3 theres is simply evolution of language or indication of classism, etc - that's a failure of that person to learn and apply something.

Let's go back to the physics example. Somebody might have all their ducks in a row and be perfectly well educated and have great ideas - but building a machine that uses electricity to separate hydrogen and oxygen to use as fuel to run the motor that runs the generator to produce electricity to separate hydrogen and oxygen is still an idiotic pursuit, because they missed something in class or failed to grasp a concept or SOMETHING. I know, I know - the laws of physics are rigid, and language isn't, blah blah - but misusing a concept out of ignorance is still ignorance, regardless. At some point, the idea for the machine and the thought to be expressed in writing that contained several uses of the word "there" were both ideas in someone's brain that were put into something concrete and observable. And when you use the wrong "there" all over the place, there is a failure in that process, regardless of what doctor wrote what about what.

Sticking to strict rules that overlook or ignore language evolution, we can all agree can come across as class separation or racism or whatever. But there is a line in there somewhere, somewhere between complete failure to communicate with language and everyone using exactly the same style and language, that separates evolving usage from erroneous thinking. There is a difference between change and ignorance. I take exception to your assertion that this isn't true, and have not yet seen this issue addressed in any of the arguments presented. Using "ladder" for "latter" isn't linguistic change or growth or evolution or anything other than a straight fucking failure to know the right word. Period.

BringOnTheMen
08-13-2012, 11:44 AM
Curious- where are all of you grammar-Nazis (and anti-Nazis) getting your rules from?

Not meant to be snarky, and not meaning to join the debate. Just curious if any of you have a holy grail book of grammar. I've always wanted to take a grammar class but they are usually reserved for ESL students and I like to think I'm a little more advanced than that. I'd love to have some sort of grammar reference book to refer to when writing essays.

All Good Things, I've always been interested in linguistics and I would love to learn more about your view but unfortunately I'm not allowed to engage in language anarchy until I've completed my degree. :D Ironically, my major is closely related to linguistics yet my professors and graders are the strictest group of grammar-Nazis I've met. Hence, why my next degree will be quantitative...

babylovexxx
08-13-2012, 12:29 PM
I like how the title of this thread does not use proper grammar.

Kellydancer
08-13-2012, 01:26 PM
I just want to state that I was reading the paper today and found incorrect grammar usage. I was repulsed that people with poor grammar are writing for the paper.

Kellydancer
08-13-2012, 02:25 PM
Not to change the subject but I imagine All Good Things to look like a James Bond clone.

caitlin1214
08-13-2012, 03:29 PM
This isn't an internet thing but it's worth sharing . . . I remember an interview with an R&B group and one of its members was trying to say how their album could be enjoyed by kids or their parents because, and I quote, "Our lyrics aren't too profound."


(I get what they were trying to do, but if profanity is the noun, profane is the adjective.)

papillonluvr
08-13-2012, 04:31 PM
^ maybe they meant "profound" as in doesn't require a lot of thinking to enjoy it.

snakesandmonkeys
08-13-2012, 05:30 PM
So this is not super topical but...
My favorite non-grammatically correct colloquialism comes from my friend in rural NC. It is "might could". As in "we might could stop in this gas station and get a 12 pack" or "we might could argue this till the cows come home, that is the beauty and joy of language".

I have to admit that AGT post's made my panties wet. I have always suspected that linguistics was super interesting and sexy, but I am way biased towards the life sciences.

I also used to think that linguistics "people" had their heads up their asses and used big words and complicated sentence structure to hide the fact that they didn't really have anything to say and (like I said before) had their heads up their asses.

But (and did you see what I did just then, starting a sentence with but?) AGT used the words like "dynamic" and "internalized" (words that people tend to throw around when they don't know what the fuck their talking about) and I understood his sentences the very first read through. Maybe linguistics is super sexy and interesting and has as much to say about life as the life sciences.

It could be that I am making the argument for the other team, and that my poor, horrible punctuation makes what I write hard to read. But (I really do love to start a sentence with but) as someone with just the worst spelling and grammar and punctation in the world, I like the idea of saying " well, you understood what I was saying RIGHT?!

snakesandmonkeys
08-13-2012, 05:32 PM
So this is not super topical but...
My favorite non-grammatically correct colloquialism comes from my friend in rural NC. It is "might could". As in "we might could stop in this gas station and get a 12 pack" or "we might could argue this till the cows come home, that is the beauty and joy of language".

I have to admit that AGT post's made my panties wet. I have always suspected that linguistics was super interesting and sexy, but I am way biased towards the life sciences.

I also used to think that linguistics "people" had their heads up their asses and used big words and complicated sentence structure to hide the fact that they didn't really have anything to say and (like I said before) had their heads up their asses.

But (and did you see what I did just then, starting a sentence with but?) AGT used the words like "dynamic" and "internalized" (words that people tend to throw around when they don't know what the fuck their talking about) and I understood his sentences the very first read through. Maybe linguistics is super sexy and interesting and has as much to say about life as the life sciences.

It could be that I am making the argument for the other team, and that my poor, horrible punctuation makes what I write hard to read. But (I really do love to start a sentence with but) as someone with just the worst spelling and grammar and punctation in the world, I like the idea of saying " well, you understood what I was saying RIGHT?!

Mr Hyde
08-13-2012, 06:49 PM
Did you even look at the link? It's not a treatise on linguistics, it's a simple guide to common errors in word usage. It's very accurate and pretty comprehensive of the crap that I see, and that this thread is about.

snakesandmonkeys
08-13-2012, 06:55 PM
No I did not look at the link. I read the entire thread and then responded to the stuff that moved me to respond to it. I am going back to look at that link. I am up and ready argue.