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Your post about the much-needed apostrophe after "Teachers" has lost its subject line. I read it and was going to respond but the board went into its meltdown mode and I couldn't access it any more. Anyway, please go to the edit icon and give it a title, so it's clickable again. Meanwhile, these folks would surely sympathize with you, as do I: http://www.apostrophe.fsnet.co.uk/
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AnnaStrophic,
Thank you for the link.
My first dear, departed post appears to have been stinking up the place, so I decided to toss it out. I tried to delete it entirely, but the system wouldn’t allow me to do that. I deleted the title and the text hoping that would remove it from view. But, of course, that didn’t work either. Instead, it left something of an annoying mystery to those who see its empty parking space with the name “Dgeigh” painted on the curb – not what I was hoping for. I’ve tried to find a way back to it to reinstate it, but the parking space is all I can find: no title, no text, no dice.
I found a copy of the original text though. If you would like to see it again, here it is:
Submitted for Your Arbitration
Hello! This is the first time I've posted anything on this site, so I hope my thoughts are in the right spirit.
I belong to a local credit union named "[City Name] Area Teachers Credit Union", a name that has always annoyed me. It is my contention that there is an apostrophe missing from the name after the "s" in "Teachers". It also seems to me that the truant apostrophe puts the term "teacher" in a bad light, casting serious doubt on the qualifications of the teachers who are members.
Years ago I used to work at the credit union, and would, on occasion bring up the topic of the missing apostrophe. One wouldn't think that a humble apostrophe could kill a conversation quite so quickly - blank stares all around.
Your thoughts?
Apropos - and this may be kicking a dead dog, so to speak, but - the credit union also proudly advertises that it offers "Safety Deposit Boxes". What exactly is a "safety" deposit box? Is it anything like a "safe" deposit box? Or is it more like a "safety" pin?
I know, I know: descriptive vs. prescriptive (and if it weren't for the word "Teachers" in the credit union's name it wouldn't be so annoying), but one would think that the good-business side of a financial institution, trying to represent itself and its customers (educators) in the best way possible, would try to adhere to the prescriptive use of the language rather than the descriptive use, a use that borders on the colloquial.
Thoughts?
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Prescriptive is good.
On the subject of the missing apostrophe, I have two contributions:
1. Have you yet read Eats, Shoots and Leaves? If not, you ought.
2. Will you please join me in being as exercised about church names like Saint Johns rather than Saint John's and All Saints rather than All Saints'?
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>Prescriptive is good.
Didn't your role model say something like "judge not, lest ye be judged"? (Sorry about the irony excess there)
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Didn't your role model say something like "judge not, lest ye be judged"?
Quite right! This is as good an example as any of why the Scriptures ought not be read in a literalistic way, especially out of context.
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Yes, I suppose prescriptivism is something of a cross to bear – “glass houses” and all that – but I think it does have its place in trying to correct the obvious misusage of a word through unfortunate ignorance, and keep that misusage out the authoritative representatives of the words of our language, i.e. dictionaries.
If everyone were to apply the “judge not” argument to language, reductio ad absurdum, there would be no language. There would be no agreement on the meaning, form, or spelling of words, and no agreement on rules or conventions. People would utter whatever they chose, and no one would understand them.
On the other hand, having written all of the above, I do not advocate prescriptivism being taken to the point of restricting creativity, or bringing our language to a stagnant halt.
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People would utter whatever they chose, and no one would understand them.
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Why me? I edited a word(s) for clarity  in my previous response and it took a huge bite out of my post, leaving nothing but... Dgeigh - If you have the auto-emailed version of the reply (if you have that function turned on) would you repost it? Thanks in advance... and "C'est la vie" if you don't.
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In reply to:
Why me?
Don't sweat it, musick, you probably just posted something that triggered a flag with your beloved heimatsicherheitsabteilung. The whole world is Unca Tom's cabin, doncha know.
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You go Dgeigh! You're absolutely right! The no-apostrophe error would irk me too.
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Musick,
I’m sorry, but I don’t have the auto-email capability turned on. To be honest, I didn’t even know it existed until you mentioned it.
I did read your reply earlier today though. I wanted to answer, but I was busy at the time and didn’t have the opportunity.
Thank you, belMarduk.
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it does have its place in trying to correct the obvious misusage of a word through unfortunate ignorance, and keep that misusage out the authoritative representatives of the words of our language, i.e. dictionaries.
Misuses such as using nice to mean something other than 'ignorant', or silly to mean something other than 'blessed', or disinterested to mean'impartial' or uninterseted to mean 'lacking interest'? That sort of obvious misusage of a word through unfortunate ignorance?
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Dear Dgeigh ~
Don't fret. Don't be offended. Faldage is just like this, sometimes. He means well and knows a lot about words. And he does, after all, look a great deal like the Archbishop of Canterbury.
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Dgeigh, this message board has been wacky the past week or so! I'm sorry you had gremlins attack your attempt to delete your post; at the same time, I don't understand why you wanted to delete it. Stinking?  Anyway, on the pre- vs. des- issue, I sit squarely in the middle, on the fence. I'm a firm prescriptivist when it comes to style, while lexically I'm a descriptivist. Go figger.
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Pooh-Bah
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I've never figured out the pre- vs des- thing but the "Huh, what apostrophe" response would niggle at me too. Changes happen, silly no longer means blessed, but I prefer to at least try to follow the current rules. (Although moments of pure sillyness with a small child do leave me feeling blessed?/blest?happy.)
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There is certainly nothing wrong with setting standards for particular circumstances. Someone on another board once compared language use to choice of shoes. If you are interviewing for a job as a senior executive and you're wearing a pair of dirty work boots you're probably not going to get the job. On the other hand, if you're looking for a job on an off shore oil rig and you're wearing a pair of $600 Guccis you're not going to do very well, either.
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People would utter whatever they chose, and no one would understand them.
This exists. It's called glossolalia or speaking in tongues. For some it's a religious experience, and for others it's nonsense. I'm afraid that prescriptivists exaggerate in their own way similar to how descriptivists exaggerate, i.e., for rhetorical pruposes. Very few prescriptive rules have anything to do with ambiguity or clearness of meaning; many say they do, but they don't. The thing about correcting somebody's "grammar" is, that if you can correct it, you've already understood it, and what's the use. It simply annoys people. Somebody with aphasia or the desire to speaking in tongues doesn't need to be understood, nor can they.
There's something that's been studied by sociolinguists (mainly in Europe) called accommodation (theory). People speaking different dialects or languages who wish to communicate often accommodate towards one another. They end up not speaking their own dialect/language, but something in between. That is, if they wish to communicate. I've observed that many speaking the same language oftentimes don't.
keep that misusage out the authoritative representatives of the words of our language, i.e. dictionaries.
A dictionary is a book written by humans. Monolingual dictionaries are written for people who've already learned the language they're written in. In other words, nobody learns a language from a dictionary. Or if they do, it is not a language that anybody else shares with them. You need a grammar (in the technical sense) which is a set of rules for generating legal sentences / utterances in the language. (And you don't find grammars in books, you learn them from people speaking a language while growing up.) A dictionary (or lexicon) is not only a collection of vocabulary, but also the place where exceptions to rules are listed. Nobody would suggest that the plural of ox, i.e., oxen, is wrong, so why insist that ain't or irregardless is? In fact, ain't for the contraction of am not is OK.
This does not mean that I don't write in a standard register formally or that nobody should, but the web and forums thereon are not the place for formal writing. I don't for the most part dislike the the extra, tiny set of arbitrary rules for writing formal English so much as I dislike the prescriptivists who argue from authority (often anonymous) or logic, etc. (NB, the "arbitrary rules" above are different from the grammatical rules a speaker learns during language acquisition. Those rules are unconscious, and the arbitrary, prescriptivist rules are anything but.) There is absolutely nothing wrong with splitting an infinitive, ending a sentence with a preposition, or using which for a restrictive relative clause. Not a thing. Most of these rules were invented ex nihilo in the 18th or 19th century, and completely contradicted the grammar of English. (That's probably why they're so hard to follow; sort of like our spelling non-system.)
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There is absolutely nothing wrong with splitting an infinitive, ending a sentence with a preposition, or using which for a restrictive relative clause. Not a thing. Most of these rules were invented ex nihilo in the 18th or 19th century, and completely contradicted the grammar of English.
Yep, jheem, the Victorian inkhorns decided, for example, that if you can't split a Latin infinitive, you can't split an English one, either. I had an editor once who took that to extremes. He decided that since "to boldly go" was incorrect, then "he is boldly going" is, also.
Where's the *sigh* emoticon?
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the Victorian inkhorns decided
A lot of these rules have been blamed on Robert Lowth, an 18th century English bishop, but I've been reading his Short Introduction to English Grammar, and have yet to find anything of the sort. In fact, I think it more likely that lesser known Victorians did the damage, as they did so much other damage ...
The thing about the Romans is that given a preposition and the noun phrase that it governed, they enjoyed splitting the preposition and interposing other words. Of course, it's easier in Latin with cases and all to show some of the relationships between words in a sentence rather than just word order.
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Pooh-Bah
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Faldage, I like the shoe analogy.
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I'm sorry for my absence from the discussion. I've been too busy lately.
The misuses of "nice" and "silly" have been established in the language for so long that to try to revive and reinstate the original meanings now would be somewhat quixotic.
Even the misuses of "disinterested" and "uninterested" have, more than likely, taken root in the language so deeply that to try to remove them would be almost impossible, and certainly much more painful than anyone would be willing to bear. The only thing that might reinstate their original meanings, as the only meanings, would be an evolutionary selection process, so to speak, that would favor the original meanings over the new meanings.
I think our discussion has diverged into two areas: 1) prescriptivism as applied to the spoken language, and 2) prescriptivism as applied to the written language. Mea culpa! I should have been more specific and written, “People would utter and write whatever they chose…” I intended the comments I made above to be directed toward the written language, and not the spoken language. Nevertheless, I submit that prescriptivism as applied to the spoken language requires a different perspective than it would when applied to the written language.
To try to apply prescriptivism to something as dynamic as the common, everyday conversation, riddled with interruptions of thought, accidental, incorrect choice of words, sudden changes in topic, interruptions in general, etc., would be frustrating, to say the least, and no doubt, sans some sort of jack-booted grammar police, futile. Certainly, it would annoy people, as jheem wrote.
Faldage’s analogy of the shoes seems to apply primarily to the spoken language. Consider that one who would not apply for an oil rig job wearing Guccis would probably not apply the same reasoning to the written application, i.e. he or she would not intentionally down play, or dress down, if you will, his or her use of the written language by choosing to misuse words and grammar.
Regarding the correction of grammar (and, of course, I mean as applied to the written language): there are obviously many who believe there to be a need to use correct grammar, or there wouldn’t be so many English classes focusing, in whole or in part, on grammar throughout every level of education. Just because a teacher can sift through a student’s writing and arrive at a meaning doesn’t mean that the teacher shouldn’t point out the student’s mistakes. Although I have no experience with editors, I can nevertheless imagine an editor pointing out a writer’s incorrect grammar, in spite of the fact that the editor grasped the writer’s meaning. (Should the writer require a reader to wade through poor grammar, misuse of words, or misspellings in order to arrive at the writer’s meaning?) There is some use in pointing out grammatical mistakes.
toOrulz thee abb.anndonne vigINht woodk-osS ,
I do not suggest that language is learned through dictionaries. Nevertheless, I still contend that they are the authoritative representatives of the words of our language. When one wants the authoritative answer on how to spell or use a word, or to find the word's part of speech, or to learn the word's etymology, one consults a dictionary, not a comic book, not a cereal box, not a mail carrier, not a bank teller, not a crystal ball, but a dictionary. Granted: there are many words in dictionaries that began as misuses. But, that doesn’t necessarily make their use grammatically desirable.
I don’t think I expressed myself one way or the other on this point, but to be clear, I am not suggesting that this forum adhere solely to formal writing, or for that matter, have any rules about formal writing at all. It’s obvious that everyone here has a strong grasp of the rules of English, and in the discussions of the language, can apply, bend, or abandon those rules as they choose. My thoughts on prescriptivism apply primarily to those who do not think about words or the language at all, and perpetuate misuses until they become so popular in the language that some dictionaries include them, giving their continued misuse the aegis of authority.
A final thought: I agree that there are many archaic and unnecessary rules in our language. The split infinitive is a very good case in point. Perhaps it’s time for those rules to be formally reassessed. Certainly they are being informally reassessed.
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Welcome aBoard, Dgeigh. Stick around. I always enjoy a battle of the wits with an opponent who is armed. You and Father Steve should make quite a team.
Quite the essay, Dgeigh. Please forgive me if I misrepresent your meaning in any way; it'll be a while before I can give it the attention it deserves, but I want to make a few points in response to it.
You seem to be claiming a one to one correspondence between written and formal language, on the one hand and spoken and informal language on the other. I think this is an oversimplification, but it isn't the main thrust of your argument so I'll not mention it further.
My point in mentioning silly, nice, and (dis/un)interested is that while the shift in meaning in these words happened long ago, in the case of nice more than once (and we have no reason to believe that it is not still going on) it is a normal linguistic process. There's no reason for it to stop now just because some folks bewail its happening on their watch.
As far as bad grammar's obscuring meaning, I would say that the vast majority of cases of prescriptivists' complaints do not address this issue and, further, that it is quite possible, and I would even say common, for misunderstood usages to be perfectly grammatical, or that the root of the misunderstanding to be in elements other than the grammar.
toOrulz thee abb.anndonne vigINht woodk-osS ,
I'm not sure if this was just a case of lax proofing, but if it was intended to illustrate some point, I am at a loss to understand what point that was. Please enlighten me.
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I'd like to welcome you aboard, too. Some of my animus towards prescriptivists was not really aimed at you, though I did use some of your examples.
My point about the dictionary as an authority is that besides only being as good as the lexicographer(s) who put it together, many contain—as you point out—usages and meanings that prescriptivists rail against. (That is modern dictionaries are becoming more descriptivist than prescriptivist.) So, it comes down to some kind of personal choice on the part of he who prescribes. (And, I'm sure any true prescriptivists won't be upset with my using the third person singular masculine personal pronoun to refer to a person of undetermined gender.)
What I was trying to say yesterday is that many of the prescriptivists rules have nothing to do with grammar, and many go against the grain (or spirit or drift) of English. They were invented for all the wrong reasons: split infinitives, for example.
Spelling and punctuation are in need of some sort of overhaulage, but I doubt that would ever happen short of a science fiction scenario of near nuclear devastation. Punctuation especially, as handled by the "experts" (cf. Lynne Truss whose recent book is riddled with mistakes) is a confused and ever changing hodge-podge of "rules".
toOrulz thee abb.anndonne vigINht woodk-osS
Ya got me, too. What's it mean? I teach classes at university, and I must say, in the worst writing examples, even of non-native speakers, I've never ever seen a sentence approaching this kind of incomprehnsibility. That's what I was on about with my reference to accomodation theory. Many folks cannot write formal English, and so they transcribe how they talk, sort of. And, many of their problems, I wouldn't list under grammar, but rather rhetoric and logic.
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toOrulz thee abb.anndonne vigINht woodk-osS Taking into account possible misspellings, misuse of punctuation, and unusual word order, I come up with:
Vigilance would cause thee to abandon rules. ?
Dgeigh, I am so happy that you're here! Stick around for a while, won't you?
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Faldage, jheem, Jackie, thank you all for your words of welcome. I am glad to have found such a group of people. I’ve always enjoyed words, but have never met anyone with whom I could discuss my thoughts on the subject. As I mentioned before, to offer an apostrophe as a topic for discussion will usually drop a conversation dead in its tracks. I wish I had more time to participate, but with everything I have going on, I don’t have much time to spare.
toOrulz thee abb.anndonne vigINht woodk-osS ,
toO rulz thee abb.anndonne vigINht wood k-osS ,
toO abb.anndonne thee rulz wood vigINht k-osS ,
To abandon the rules would invite chaos.
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The point is that the rules have not been abandoned, merely changed. The prescriptivist has it easy; he need only parrot the rules handed down to him. The descriptivist must examine the language in the wild and determine what the real rules are.
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A-HA! Thanks. I should have left the word order alone. K-oss---how obvious!
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