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Looking through Geoffrey Nunberg's the way we talk now, I noticed the chapter titled Hell in a Handcar. He says, ...the signs seem unmistakable that the language is in a bad way. He isn't talking about things like the loss of correct usage of in behalf of vs. on behalf of. ...people seem to have lost their grip even on the simple things, like when to write its without an apostrophe. ...
And yet something has been changing over the years. It isn't that people are writing worse but that they're writing more, and spreading it about more widely. It's the effect that Jacques Barzun described fifty years ago as the endless multiplication of dufferism. On a per capita basis, we aren't producing many more novels or histories than we were in the eighteenth century. But there has been a huge growth in sectors like popular magazines, government pamphlets, press releases, and user manuals--most of them written by people who would not have been putting pen to paper in the age of Johnson.
And of course the internet has multiplied this a googol-load; I believe that the more we see poor writing the more likely we are to replicate it.
What do you all think?
I apologize for any mistakes in copying.
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Dang strait!! And Hell in a Handcar is a good example!!! Any idiot knows its Hell in a Handbasket!!!! And don't get me started about over use of exclamation points!!!!!
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I believe that the more we see poor writing the more likely we are to replicate it.
What do you all think?
I don't think so. If that were the case, all those peeving grammaticohooligans would be writing worse than the folks they complain of.
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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I try my best to re-read everything just for the punctuation. Even when texting I feel compelled to place a full stop,question mark or comma where needed. When people LOL, most times they are not but it conveys emotion in a succinct way.
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Dang strait!! And Hell in a Handcar is a good example!!! Any idiot knows its Hell in a Handbasket!!!! And don't get me started about over use of exclamation points!!!!!  Who says Americans can't do irony sarcasm? Well--texting language has already affected the e-mails from some of my friends. And if I see a word misspelled often enough then I start having a hard time remembering the correct way. Wonder how many people, say under 35, can tell you the difference between affect and effect, for ex.? I see one in place of the other all the time in mainstream media. And mantel/mantle; and lots more.
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Next thing you know they'll be thinking cleofan and clifian are the some word.
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Next thing you know they'll be thinking cleofan and clifian are the some word.No danger there. The rule for peeves is that everything wrong with language is of a recent origin. At least some time after the primal event of the peever's being corrected by Miss Thistlebottom. It's a well known truism that the Romans invented txting ( link and link). Latin changed, but I don't know anybody who say that Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, or Romanian are "worse" than Latin. (OK, I do know people who say that Italian is just corrupt Latin, but they're talking about something else.)
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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Miss Thistlebottom and Mister Misspellbottom were a pleasant, well-spoken couple. (grin) I just had a moment to think and I think, ( you asked us what we all think)... there's too many of us and too much of everything including too much of nothing for the larger part of us. And too many neweties that all need words. We just have to swim in this pool of rapidly changing words and expressions and keep afloat. 
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J'all see this in today's Word?
A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
Pedantry and mastery are opposite attitudes toward rules. To apply a rule to the letter, rigidly, unquestioningly, in cases where it fits and in cases where it does not fit, is pedantry ... To apply a rule with natural ease, with judgment, noticing the cases where it fits, and without ever letting the words of the rule obscure the purpose of the action or the opportunities of the situation, is mastery. -George Polya, mathematician (1887-1985)
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J'all see this in today's Word?
A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
Pedantry and mastery are opposite attitudes toward rules. To apply a rule to the letter, rigidly, unquestioningly, in cases where it fits and in cases where it does not fit, is pedantry ... To apply a rule with natural ease, with judgment, noticing the cases where it fits, and without ever letting the words of the rule obscure the purpose of the action or the opportunities of the situation, is mastery. -George Polya, mathematician (1887-1985)
To me this looks like a restatement of the "good writers can break the rules" argument, which never made much sense to me. If only the masters can break the rules, where does that leave the rest of us? And since we all want to be good writers, and since good writers can break the rule, how useful is the rule anyway?
Last edited by goofy; 10/19/11 02:39 PM.
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Perhaps it would be better to institute "guidelines" rather than "rules", with the admonition that it's generally better to stay within them until one learns when it may be appropriate to venture outside them.
Peter
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To me this looks like a restatement of the "good writers can break the rules" argument, Not disagreeing. Though I was inclined to think of it more along the lines of extenuating circumstances. "Your Honor, this man was doing 95 mph in a hospital zone". "Yes, but his wife was screaming in labor in the passenger seat. Case dismissed."
I did feel surprise that a mathematician would say the rules don't always have to be adhered to.
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Perhaps it would be better to institute "guidelines" rather than "rules", with the admonition that it's generally better to stay within them until one learns when it may be appropriate to venture outside them.
What sort of grammatical rule or guideline would we be not allowed to break until we become good writers? Shouldn't we be striving to emulate the writing of good writers, not avoid it?
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"And since we all want to be good writers, and since good writers can break the rule, how useful is the rule anyway?
There is a difference between breaking a rule for an obvious purpose or breaking a rule because you never exactly knew what the rule was.
( I mean I can't help feeling irritated when in newspapers that were known for clean and correct use of language, I now often find limp grammar published )
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There is a difference between breaking a rule for an obvious purpose or breaking a rule because you never exactly knew what the rule was.
I think I need an example.
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a restatement of the "good writers can break the rules" argument
I never understood this equivocation. If a normal writers breaks a "rule" of grammar (though most of these "rules" are really styles of usage), doesn't that move them from normal writerhood to a better writerhood?
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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There is a difference between breaking a rule for an obvious purpose or breaking a rule because you never exactly knew what the rule was.
There's where we part company. Nobody consciously knows the rules of grammar for a specific language, either native or acquired later. The only way to describe the grammar of a language is through observation of people speaking (or writing) it. If you find a situation where you find two conflicting rules, it's either because they are optional or because of a regional (or other kind of 'lect) difference.
Of the "rules" you find in the normative grammars, and style guides masquerading as same, most are not grammatical rules but style choices. (Here I'm thinking of the "use less adjectives" and "don't end sentences with a preposition" kinds of "rules".) Matters of spelling, punctuation, and usage have very little to do with the grammar of a language. (For me a grammar is a sort of abstract device for parsing and generating acceptable sentences in a given language.)
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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Or, to put it another way, the so-called rules are just there for the guidance of folks who don't really know how to write. If you are a good writer your writing will be good. You don't need to pass some sort of good writer test to be permitted to break the so-called rules.
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Or, they are guidelines for those who are learning the language.
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Or, they are guidelines for those who are learning the language.
I don't think so. People acquiring a language are busy learning real rules of grammar, not not seeking guidance in matters of style. It's the difference between learning that the 3rd person singular present indicative form of verbs (in English) end in -s.
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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Yes, quite true. I was thinking along another tangent which is'nt quite relevant now. More to do with punctuation, where and when to use certain elements.
For instance: as a speaker of Maori we never used to write a glottal stop, we just new there was one there. But for new learners.... ya gotta put em in.
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There's where we part company
Not bad parting company as long as we have a conversation.
For me a grammar is a sort of abstract device for parsing and generating acceptable sentences in a given language.
I think this is how I understand grammar too.
There is a difference between breaking a rule for an obvious purpose or breaking a rule because you never exactly knew what the rule was.
I meant when someone writes well, thus handling this device for parsing and generating acceptable sentences in a given language well, he/she may want to take "liberties" for expressive or aesthetic or whatever reasons which I called "obvious purpose" (which apperently wasn't very clear and obvious).
To a good reader these free movements in writing are obvious, I mean logic, natural and enjoyable.
With breaking a rule because you never exactly knew what the rule was I meant: in many publications, newspapers, magazines, critics and articles I notice that they are more and more written by people who never learned to properly use this sort of abstract device for parsing and generating acceptable sentences in a given language. So they (sentences) are not acceptable but is seems to be such a general phenomenen.
Question: do you still think it is important that children learn grammar well. We are not born with this understanding.
We really have to learn it. All of us. ( olly :~) )
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For me a grammar is a sort of abstract device for parsing and generating acceptable sentences in a given language.
I think this is how I understand grammar too.
With breaking a rule because you never exactly knew what the rule was I meant: in many publications, newspapers, magazines, critics and articles I notice that they are more and more written by people who never learned to properly use this sort of abstract device for parsing and generating acceptable sentences in a given language. So they (sentences) are not acceptable but is seems to be such a general phenomenen.
If I may, I think that your understanding grammar does differ a great deal from how zmj and I understand it. For me, this abstract device for parsing and generating acceptable sentences is acquired by children, almost automatically and largely unconsciously. By the time children learn to read, they already have a mastery of most of the grammar of their language. So when you say that there are adults who don't understand how to use this abstract device for parsing and generating acceptable sentences, in other words they don't know the grammar of their native language, I'm very skeptical. A real example might help.
Last edited by goofy; 10/21/11 12:16 AM.
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I'd like a definition of "conversation".
----please, draw me a sheep----
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A real example He gots no (whatever)?
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A real example He gots no (whatever)? I don't know the history of gots. My sense is that it's used very informally and often jokingly. Is that really an example of the sort of thing Nunberg is talking about?
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A real example might help.
Yes, possibly my understanding of grammar may differ from your's and Zm's. (I doubt it) It's a.o. about things like inconsistancy in using plural and singular forms in one sentence.
Or mixing up articles and personal pronouns incoherently.
Yes, children master a great deal of their grammar before they enter school(most of them), but then why teach them if it weren't to give them the real understanding of the why, such and so... and why do children find it so hard? Many children consider Dutch grammer as more difficult than English grammar.
Maybe you English are just lucky. But it can't be a local thing. In many countries people complain about today's language education.
Universities here complain that a too large part of newly entering students is no longer able to write correct Dutch; to a point where they have introduced an obligatory test and special courses to try solve this problem.
**Ha! example!!! Universities here complain that a too large part of newly entering students is no longer able to write correct Dutch.= correct
Universities here complain that a too large part of newly entering students are no longer able to write correct Dutch. = incorrect
(its a very simple example but this is what I mean)
I know this is not what Nunberg means directly but bad writing becomes worse when the knowledge of basics gets lost.
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Yes, children master a great deal of their grammar before they enter school (most of them), but then why teach them if it weren't to give them the real understanding of the why, such and so... and why do children find it so hard?
Because those children speak a kind of Dutch (a dialect or sociolect) that differs in its grammar from the Standard Dutch preferred in certain jobs and situations. They speak this way, because they acquired the grammar of the dialect spoken at home and in their neighborhood. If you really want them to speak proper ("correct") Dutch, you should remove them from this improper environment and put them in one where only proper Dutch is spoken. Then they will acquire proper Dutch without any need for teaching them anything.
Many children and adults make all sorts of errors (both according to the grammars of their learned dialect and of proper Dutch because they mix them up and/or have not really learned how to code-switch between the different languages they know.
**Ha! example!!! Universities here complain that a too large part of newly entering students is no longer able to write correct Dutch.= correct
Universities here complain that a too large part of newly entering students are no longer able to write correct Dutch. = incorrect.
Yes, I would call this a grammatical error. You see this sort of thing all the time. I am not sure that it is generated by the writer's faulty grammar or by some other problem. It's kind of a clunky sentence, too. I'd've rewritten it as:
Universities here complain that many newly entering students cannot write correct Dutch.
It's the sort of error that probably cannot be corrected by teaching writers some grammatical rule of subject-verb concord (which I would argue all have in their grammar), but to teach them how to edit their own writing or another person's. And you teach them that in high school, although, more and more, this sort of lesson is being pushed off to universities.
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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I'd like a definition of "conversation".How about A-H ( link): "The spoken exchange of thoughts, opinions, and feelings; talk"? Of course, Bran was using it metaphorically, because our conversation is happening offline via forum software and not in real time as face-to-face conversations do. Hope that's helps.
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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**Ha! example!!! Universities here complain that a too large part of newly entering students is no longer able to write correct Dutch.= correct
Universities here complain that a too large part of newly entering students are no longer able to write correct Dutch. = incorrect
If the first sentence is correct, then why does the second sentence sound better to me? I think the answer is because the English I speak differs from Standard English in this respect. In Standard English, the verb agrees with the subject. In my English, if there is a lot of material between the subject and the verb, the verb sometimes agrees with the closest noun. This is called the principle of proximity. Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage says Proximity agreement may pass in speech and other forms of unplanned discourse; in print it will be considered an error. But this does not mean that I don't know the grammar of my native language. It means that I have to learn the grammar of another language, the grammar of Standard English. The same thing goes for those Dutch children who have to learn Standard Dutch.
Last edited by goofy; 10/21/11 02:04 PM.
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I'd like a definition of "conversation".How about A-H ( link): "The spoken exchange of thoughts, opinions, and feelings; talk"? Of course, Bran was using it metaphorically, because our conversation is happening offline via forum software and not in real time as face-to-face conversations do. Hope that's helps. Thank you, that helps. And what is called when one person imposes confines on the conversation? Colloquially - not in organized debate.
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It's kind of a clunky sentence, too Ouf! That sentence was copyrighted!!! You flattened the intent of what I meant to say. (tears) The point is, it may be clunky but it is supposed to make clear that this phenomenen has been going on for years. Many, but still a minor part could not write correct Dutch. Now that this part has become the larger part mesurements have been taken. That wasn't clear? Then: clunky sentence! Throw it away! (grin) Your sentence is perfect of course but it does not cover the poor load.
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1.Universities here complain that a too large part of newly entering students is no longer able to write correct Dutch.
2. Universities here complain that a too large part of newly entering students are no longer able to write correct Dutch.
What we have here is some confusion about the number of the subject. If the subject is part it's singular and is is correct. If it's students it's plural and are is correct. I would suggest that if this sentence were just fired off without much thought the correct are would be used. If it were over analyzed the writer might have thought that the subject was the singular part and would have incorrected it.
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I can't see two subjects in this sentence and the is sounds good to me.
@ Goofy. Well, I guess my standard Dutch is reponsable for choosing is in this. We would never say a bunch of boys are. A flock of birds are never flying in Dutch. It is. Blame it on Babylon.
Last edited by BranShea; 10/21/11 10:02 PM. Reason: Babylon
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Maybe part of is functioning like a determiner, like bunch of or crew of: A bunch of the boys were whooping it up in the Malamute saloon - Robert Service, "The Shooting of Dan McGrew" A crew of Pyrates are driven - Jonathan Swift, "Gulliver's Travels" This is discussed by MWDEU under agreement, subject-verb; a bunch of the boys. My native speaker intuition tells me that the sentence with the singular verb is wrong. That might not mean much, after all my dialect is not the same as Standard English. But based on the MDWEU entry, I think my dialect and Standard English line up on this point. So I'm changing my mind. This isn't the principle of proximity at work. The Standard English sentence is the one with the plural verb.
Last edited by goofy; 10/21/11 09:33 PM.
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formerly known as etaoin...
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And what is called when one person imposes confines on the
conversation? Colloquially - not in organized debate.
I'd say "lectures".
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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I am thinking more of when one person decides what
will or will not be discussed at their whim and fancy,
imposing this on others.
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I am thinking more of when one person decides what will or will not be discussed at their whim and fancy, imposing this on others.
Not sure what you're talking about, but I don't see anybody stopping you. I've known Branshea a lot longer than you, and if I've upset her with my postings, she'll no doubt get in touch with me via other methods and let me know. She doesn't need you policing the boards for her or me or anybody else.
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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You missed the point entirely. So I'll drop it. And I am not
policing the boards, tho' there are those here who do.
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A real example He gots no (whatever)? I don't know the history of gots. I don't either, but I've seen it develop more or less spontaneously in young children, and it makes sense: got is perceived as the infinitive of a verb that approximates the meaning of have: "Got a minute?" the song "I Got Rhythm" is not past tense, as in "Yesterday I got rhythm," but present, as in "I have rhythm," so the conjugation runs I got, you got, he or she gots…Peter
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I agree Peter...I hear kids use 'gots' a lot and I guess they unlearn the use of it as they grow up, because us adults tell them its not correct.
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My old German professor would spit on the floor when he said a French word and then mutter "Bastard Latin!"
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My old German professor would spit on the floor when he said a French word and then mutter "Bastard Latin!"
Lovely habit spitting on floors. I'm glad I left the barnyard behind when I got to university. Anyway, French is neither worse nor better than Latin or German.
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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If only they'd get rid of the filthy habit in Baseball.
Decades ago I taught both Latin and French, loved them both.
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Lovely habit spitting on floors.
I forget where I read it but it was an account of an English ship's captain in Japan back when Japan started letting gaijin back in after a hundred years or so of forbidding them from entering. He said that he was amazed how clean the Japanese kept their houses. They were so clean that he almost didn't feel like spitting on the floor.
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gaijin
NOUN:
pl. gaijin
A non-Japanese person.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ETYMOLOGY:
Japanese : gai, outside, foreign (from Middle Chinese wajh) + jin, person ; see jinriksha
AHD. Thank you.
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Aug 2005
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gaijin
I was actively studying Japanese at my last job (for a Japanese telecom company), and so, I would try to practice with the owner and Japanese-speaking customers at my local sushi restaurant. One day, I was asking the owner if some guest who had come in and were sitting in one of the tatami dining rooms were Japanese (nihonjin) or not. That led to my in a sentence referring to myself as a gaijin. My host corrected me. He said technically, since we were in the States, he was the gaijin (foreigner) and I was an amerikajin (American). It sounded too formal to me, so we settled on henna hakujin (weird white guy). The five days I spent in Japan I heard the word gaijin more than any other word.
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Carpal Tunnel
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OP
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
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weird white guy [snort]
I heard the word gaijin more than any other word. Ah, yes--closely related to gringo, I believe!
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Joined: Nov 2011
Posts: 1,075
old hand
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old hand
Joined: Nov 2011
Posts: 1,075 |
I really do dislike the idea that our "language is changing fo the worse."
Language changes. Sometimes it brings in "dross": more often it brings in "gold."
We have to live with it, innit?
I'm immortal until proven otherwise
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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 really do dislike the idea that our "language is changing fo the worse."
Language changes. Sometimes it brings in "dross": more often it brings in "gold."
We have to live with it, innit? I can't believe that Geoff Nunberg was serious when he said the language was changing for the worse. It can only have been irony.
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Joined: Mar 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
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Okay, I'll run the risk of copyright violation (shh, don't tell anybody) and try and put enough direct quotes in for you to get a better idea of what he said. Or, you could just look in the book on pp. 154-6.
At any time in the past four hundred years you could claim that the language was falling apart...
And to tell the truth, I have the same impression myself. I look around me and the signs seem unmistakable that the language is in a bad way. ...
But are things really worse than they used to be? Maybe it's just that I'm getting old and cranky. The fact is, complaining about English usage has always been an old man's game. ...
It would be a hard point to prove one way or the other. By context, I infer that by "it" in this sentence he means language worsening, not whether complaining is an old man's game. Then he goes into talking about how many more people are writing these days and how more widespread their writing is than used to be possible.
The number of people who sit down at a keyboard every day has probably increased tenfold over the past few years--quite a few of them people whose writing used to be seen only on their refrigerator doors. They're people who were never able spell very well, but over the telephone you couldn't tell. HTH. And, I admit to creating a subject topic line that I hoped had a "hook".
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Joined: Jan 2008
Posts: 132
member
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From the quote Jackie gives, I get the impression that Nunberg is setting up the argument in order to disprove it. On the other hand he seems to have a prescriptivist streak; he wrote this: It may be that my children will use gift and impact as verbs without the slightest compunction (just as I use contact, wondering that anyone ever bothered to object to it). But I can't overcome the feeling that it is wrong for me to use them in that way and that people of my generation who say "We decided to gift them with a desk set" are in some sense guilty of a moral lapse, whether because they are ignorant or because they are weak. In the face of that conviction, it really doesn't matter to me whether to gift will eventually prevail, carried on the historical tide. Our glory, Silone said, lies in not having to submit to history.
Last edited by goofy; 11/19/11 05:04 PM.
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