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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613 |
grammar ... is now incresingly in the hands of everyone and is being led by pop-stars, sports "personalities", TV presenters, all aided by the media. But it is still grammar, and to be not only understood but thought to be a good commuinicator, you have to keep up with whatever the current rules are.
I agree--right up until the last phrase. I suppose, like so many things, what we can tolerate is subjective. I can tolerate sentences ending in a preposition, for ex., but I am absolutely not going to let someone who says "ain't got no" set the standard for me; I don't care how famous they are.
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Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803 |
I can tolerate sentences ending in a preposition
Can you always tell when it's a preposition?
Jack and Jill ran up a big hill.
Jack and Jill ran up a big bill.
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
Pop songs are notorious for bad grammar. The last line of this oldie seem to me
to mean just the opposite of the words:
I've got spurs that
jingle, jangel, jingle
As I go riding merrily along.
And they sing, "Oh, ain't you
glad you're single?"
And that song ain't
so very far from wrong.
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Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 2,204
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 2,204 |
to be not only understood but thought to be a good commuinicator, you have to keep up with whatever the current rules are Rhuby
I am absolutely not going to let someone who says "ain't got no" set the standard for me; I don't care how famous they are. Jackie
What I'm really meaning is, not so much that you have to use the constructions that you dislike, but that you have to accept the obvious meaning implied by common phrases, like the one that you quote, without comment.
Like you, I would not seriously use "ain't got no" to express my lack of whatever, but when someone else uses it, I do not pretend to take it at it's grammatical face value - I understand that person to be expressing a lack.
I think most of us do that, anyway.
(Afterthought) I also mean that we should not use old and outmoded grammatical constructions to audiences who do not relate to them. I use quite high-flown language on this board, because I believe that no-one will find it too obscure (laughable, perhaps!). I also use a wide vocabulary when I'm teaching - and try to keep to the grammatical standards with which I was raised.
But I use a much more "ordinary" set of words and constructions in the pub of an evening.
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 6,511
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 6,511 |
Ain't for nothin' that the AHD's usage panel includes television personalities along with the usual suspects (i.e., linguists).
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