Thread: Less and fewer Board: Purgatory / Ship of Fools.
To visit this thread, use this URL:
http://forum.ship-of-fools.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=2;t=020439
Posted by SusanDoris (# 12618) on
:
I wonder if this can stay in Purgatory?...
Anyway, some time ago, on BBC Radio Five Live, on the Monday morning, 3:0 a.m. to 4:0 a.m. slot, on Dotun Adebayo's Up All Night programme, there are often two grammar experts. I clearly remember one of them in particular talking about the fact that less has been in use longfer than fewer. Pause to google a few definitions... I like this one.
Also of course I think we tend to go for single -syllabled words - saves time?!! - and although I still wince a bit, I now remain positively calm when I hear the word less used to mean fewer in today's world, and with today's uncertain usage!
Posted by Golden Key (# 1468) on
:
I was taught that "less" is for things you can't easily count, and "few/er" for things you can.
So "less rain" and "fewer raindrops on the window".
Posted by Ian Climacus (# 944) on
:
As per the other thread, sign me up as a descriptivist. Though, unlike Susan, I am yet to remain calm when I see "10 items or less". ![[Biased]](wink.gif)
Too many "rules" for standard English were made up to try and make it sound more like Latin. There is no reason we cannot end sentences with prepositions or split infinitives -- only because it is impossible in Latin did some bright sparks decide we'll apply those rules to English. English and its antecedents got on well enough before then.
And English, in all its forms, will continue on if people say less apples and fewer traffics. I liked what Leorning Cniht wrote, "We are the usage". We define what our version of English becomes. And, being native speakers, we all speak English and know how to speak English. Telling people they do not know how to speak their own language seems to me to be rather rude. Not everyone has had the benefit of learning all the rules, or they may have forgot them, or thought them stupid...
The only concern I have is that people who do no conform to standard English presently are often at a disadvantage with job applications and such. So I am torn. Friends who give me applications to review have their words ruthlessly torn apart if I spot anything that stands out. But I wish things were different.
edit: don't read my own words carefully enough!
[ 15. January 2018, 07:30: Message edited by: Ian Climacus ]
Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on
:
Children in the U.K. are taught more grammar than they have been for 40 years.
At the expense of creativity?
I think “A good writer breaks the rules, but she has to know the rules first so that she can break them.”
Posted by BroJames (# 9636) on
:
It’s tricky. These things don’t develop at the same rate in every child. For some creativity comes before a grasp of spelling, punctuation and grammar (aka SPAG). Others get to grip with the rules befor something sparks their creativity. We don’t want a person’s ability to communicate to be marred by a poor grasp of SPAG, but nor do we want their creativity to be stifled in its infancy you a paralysing perfectionism about the rules.
Posted by SusanDoris (# 12618) on
:
Strong agreement with all the above posts!! ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
I used to belong to the Queen's English society (it closed down finally I think because all the members became too old!!) and they had an interesting bulletin/small magazine wherein was a very interesting article once about the use of was and were. It was to do with the over-use of 'were' if I remember correctly!
Posted by Eliab (# 9153) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Golden Key:
I was taught that "less" is for things you can't easily count, and "few/er" for things you can.
So "less rain" and "fewer raindrops on the window".
That's the rule. But it isn't a rule that's particularly useful, or at all necessary.
"less raindrops" isn't in the least ambiguous - and it means exactly the same thing as "fewer raindrops", namely, a smaller number of them.
"fewer rain" isn't grammatical at all (and the rule is rarely if ever broken that way by native speakers). If you wanted to distinguish countable instances of rain from measurable quantities of rain, then yes, you could use "fewer rains" but in any normal context the use of the plural is enough to make that distinction and "less rains" would mean the same thing.
The distinction between less and fewer isn't one of meaning - the only things it distinguishes are the people who know and care about the rule from those who don't. While the rule exists, someone who cares about sounding educated would be well-advised to learn and follow it, but we could lose the rule completely with no detriment to the language, and I for one would weep dry tears for its passing.
Posted by L'organist (# 17338) on
:
Perhaps the reason for the confusion (in the minds of some) of fewer and less is due to the simplicity of declensions in English?
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
:
Some good comments here. I used to teach linguistics, and we used to groan over the shibboleths such as 'less'/'fewer', which would get people in a strop, mostly due to snobbery, I thought. Sorry, owing to.
Yes, the notion of descriptive versus prescriptive, makes various approaches to language clear.
I noticed recently that I use 'less' as in 'I have less friends now', so I suppose I'm less well educated.
Posted by L'organist (# 17338) on
:
... or not as educated as some, hm?
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
... or not as educated as some, hm?
My comment was sarcastic. Maybe yours is. Prescriptivism is not really the best way to teach grammar and vocabulary, unless it takes into account different contexts.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
Children in the U.K. are taught more grammar than they have been for 40 years.
At the expense of creativity?
Because people who were taught the rules unyieldingly -- Dickens, Austin, the Brontës, Maugham, etc -- had their creativity completely sapped by trying to follow all those fussy little rules. They were unable to write anything enduring.
In the realm of poetry, there are forms with very rigid rules. Nobody is saying your poem absolutely MUST follow this set of guidelines; but if it doesn't, it's not a villanelle (or a sonnet, or whatever).
Also the "educated" thing is a dangerous canard. Currently in standard English -- the English used by the people who by and large are in charge of hiring you -- the "less/fewer" distinction holds. In many or most other dialects, it is held a good deal more loosely (a similar example would be the double negative rule). Grammar mavens would do well to not paint people who speak a non-standard dialect as uneducated. Wild-eyed descriptivists would do well to not burden today's youth with unemployment or underemployment because they don't have a grasp of standard English.
Our beautiful language comes in a variety of registers, and each has its place. All are in constant flux, of course. But "this is constantly changing shape" and "this is amorphous" are not the same thing. We say "less" or "fewer" but we don't say "grobk" (as in "this sports team has grobk paying fans than that team"). Even the most woolly-pated descriptionist wouldn't go there, at least until my little neologism gains traction and becomes an accepted part of the language.
Posted by Pigwidgeon (# 10192) on
:
About twenty years ago the owner of a state-wide chain of grocery stores ran (unsuccessfully) for Governor of Arizona. His platform was that he would be the "Education Governor." Someone pointed out to him that having grocery check-out lines marked "Ten items or less" was bad grammar and not indicative of a candidate who supported education. The signs were changed (but I don't remember the new wording).
Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on
:
mousethief, you edited my comment and missed the bit where I said - I think “A good writer breaks the rules, but she has to know the rules first so that she can break them.”
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
:
Gordon Bennett, mousethief, that was a terrific post, and contained just about everything worth saying on the issue.
I remember going to a posh school aged 11, and being told that my accent and dialect did not fit in. Definitely not the way to go.
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Yes, the notion of descriptive versus prescriptive, makes various approaches to language clear.
Anyone who thinks 'prescriptivist' is the name of a wrong or mistaken approach is not a descriptivist.
Posted by luvanddaisies (# 5761) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
The distinction between less and fewer isn't one of meaning - the only things it distinguishes are the people who know and care about the rule from those who don't. While the rule exists, someone who cares about sounding educated would be well-advised to learn and follow it, but we could lose the rule completely with no detriment to the language, and I for one would weep dry tears for its passing.
There is a distinction though. Less rain should mean that the rain falling is less actual rain and more something else. quote:
“This is less rain, more chemical runoff from that big chimney on that factory over there.”, said Peter to Jane as their clothes melted under the deluge.
Or maybe
quote:
”This fruit is less apple, more banana, what a clever bit of genetic engineering.”, said Jane to Peter.
It’s not evolving to fit with a new use, it’s just not understood, so is not being used. I recently heard a Teaching Assistant bemoaning how hard the work in Year 3 (age 7ish) is “because they have to use all sort of difficult things like commas and apostrophes that I never use now I’m grown up.” That’s not evolution, it’s ignorance, and it’s not good to encourage it.
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
:
Interesting comment in Wiki that 'less' was used with count nouns until the 18th century, when the prescription came in.
Also in the Cambridge Grammar of English Language, some interesting counter-examples:
she left less than ten minutes ago.
you pass if you make ten mistakes or less.
you must drive at less than 30 miles an hour.
we paid less than 30 dollars for it.
Also a comment that Standard English speakers do use 'less' with count nouns in speech, but less likely in writing.
I would say that less people are using 'fewer', ha ha ha.
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=2819
Posted by L'organist (# 17338) on
:
Now shall we get onto the real bugbear of life - those who know when to use older and elder?
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Yes, the notion of descriptive versus prescriptive, makes various approaches to language clear.
Anyone who thinks 'prescriptivist' is the name of a wrong or mistaken approach is not a descriptivist.
Very true. I worked on the Survey of English Usage, founded by Prof. Randolph Quirk, who sadly died recently, and prescriptive comments were recorded with great alacrity, and also written about. The fact that people care about 'less'/'fewer' is important in sociolinguistic terms (and psycholinguistic, probably).
Posted by Ohher (# 18607) on
:
Usage (as in "correct" usage) is essentially a class issue. Usage errors -- that is, deviations from the "standard" -- are routinely cited in workplaces (I've worked in several of these!) as reasons to screen otherwise-qualified applicants out of job opportunities even in jobs where non-standard usage would not necessarily present a problem.
Each of us is born into discourse community. Some discourse communities' modes of discourse deviate noticeably from "standard" English -- I think of the basketball player in my class last semester who'd write, "He think he special" instead of "He thinks he's special." It was his habitual way of speaking; his family and friends spoke that way; he'd spoken that way all his life.
Lifelong habits are not only hard to change, but they bring other, more serious issues in their wake when change is successful. I grew up in a family where nobody had graduated high school (though we were a family of readers). The "discourse community" to which I belonged typically dropped the G fro "ing" words; used glottal stops to indicate the double-t sound in words like "bottle," incorporated regionalisms into our speech; never employed subjunctive mode ("If she was to go" instead of "If she were to go,") etc. etc.
By the time I got halfway through freshman year of college and understood that my usage would likely entrap me in exactly the socio-economic circumstances I was attending college to escape from, I set to work to change these aspects of my speech (and to the extent that these affected my writing, that, too).
I was successful in making these changes (it took a solid year of concentrated effort). It also permanently alienated me from my family, who regarded these changes as evidence of some sort of disloyalty.
The truth is that most of us manage two or three "discourse styles" in English. We speak and write differently to our intimates than we do in the classroom or in a job interview. Few of us are even remotely aware of this code-switching.
But we fail to learn how to do this at considerable socio-economic cost.
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
:
Terrific post, Ohher. I think code-switching is the key, and is an antidote to the old style of teaching working class kids - that you are wrong if you say X. You can teach kids that there are different codes, and that Standard English is required in many professional areas.
It does have that consequence that the regional dialect may be lost. But if there is more transparency about this, kids can be taught that they can be bilingual or whatever.
Posted by no prophet's flag is set so... (# 15560) on
:
Code switching indeed. We all learn to change usage depending on who we're talking to and where we are. Once that I learned on this forum is the grand misuse of the word "cottaging". I am member of a cottaging association which refers to the owners of dwellings on leased land beside a lake.
The one which creates no end of discussion in my world is: nauseous versus nauseated.
[ 15. January 2018, 16:29: Message edited by: no prophet's flag is set so... ]
Posted by leo (# 1458) on
:
I never understood the difference (and I taught English to O' level!).
I shall no longer feel any guilt about it.
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Also in the Cambridge Grammar of English Language, some interesting counter-examples:
she left less than ten minutes ago.
you pass if you make ten mistakes or less.
you must drive at less than 30 miles an hour.
we paid less than 30 dollars for it.
As I understand it, those aren't necessarily counterexamples. So, she left fewer than ten minutes ago would imply that she left some exactly integral number of minutes previously.
So less than ten buckets of water means not enough water to fill ten buckets, but fewer than ten buckets of water means a single digit number of actual buckets with water in.
On the whole though, we get by without such a distinction with 'more', and I can't think we need it with 'less'.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
I never understood the difference (and I taught English to O' level!).
I shall no longer feel any guilt about it.
It's hardly rocket science. If we meet and you smell bad, you're nauseous and I'm nauseated.
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
mousethief, you edited my comment and missed the bit where I said - I think “A good writer breaks the rules, but she has to know the rules first so that she can break them.”
Because I agreed with it, I didn't find it necessary to quote more than needed as a springboard to the rest of my thoughts. I didn't mean to imply I was disagreeing with you. I should have said so.
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Ohher:
Usage (as in "correct" usage) is essentially a class issue.
I disagree. Not that class is not part of the issue, but that it is the essential issue.
There needs to be a standard for purely communicative reasons. Think of the news. We all, no matter our variation, understand what the presenters are saying because there is a standard. The standard is from the higher class speech because they have more control. But it would be the same, for practical purposes, if the standard were Cockney or Ozark hill billy.
There will be variation and drift, but the anchor needs to be there to have a constant point of reference.
quote:
But we fail to learn how to do this at considerable socio-economic cost.
This will always be the case. We evaluate in shorthand.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
The problem with verbicide, defined by CS Lewis as a word losing a distinctive meaning and coming to mean something there was already a word for, is that you lose a useful word. If the meaning is useful or needful, then something else will come along to take its place, but the replacement is usually more cumbersome, often a hyphenated thing that trips haltingly from the tongue, to coin an expression.
When "nauseous" came to mean "nauseated" then we needed a new word for "nauseous." "Nausea-inducing" works fine, but sucks. And do we really NEED two nearly-identical words for "sick to the stomach"?
An especially difficult-to-replace word is "enormity" which has come to mean "immensity" (driven no doubt by the unfortunate fact that the related "enormous" simply means "large"). What replaces it? "Great evilness"? Actually I've not heard a good replacement for it.
On a smaller scale, "lousy" has devolved into "bad" and leaving us with such circumlocutions as "lice-ridden."
None of this is life-threatening, of course, and language moves on. But people who speak out against verbicide are not necessarily just being priggish.
Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on
:
I like the German way. They have ‘High German’ which is used at school and work and for formal writing/occasions.
Hochdeutsch' ('high German') is standard German. 'Plattdeutsch' ('Low German' or Low Saxon) is regional and non-standard. I think everyone in Germany understands Standard German, although I'm not so sure whether all the regional varieties of German are intelligible to speakers of Hochdeutsch.
It doesn’t seem to be so cut and dried in English.
One grammatical idiosyncrasy which seems to have crept in everywhere is ‘different to’. I was taught ‘different from’ and ‘similar to’. ‘Different to’ always grates on my ears. Yet less for fewer doesn’t bother me at all.
Posted by sharkshooter (# 1589) on
:
Should I avoid mentioning the current trend of using nouns as if they were verbs? Maybe I should thread that.
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Also in the Cambridge Grammar of English Language, some interesting counter-examples:
she left less than ten minutes ago.
you pass if you make ten mistakes or less.
you must drive at less than 30 miles an hour.
we paid less than 30 dollars for it.
As I understand it, those aren't necessarily counterexamples. So, she left fewer than ten minutes ago would imply that she left some exactly integral number of minutes previously.
So less than ten buckets of water means not enough water to fill ten buckets, but fewer than ten buckets of water means a single digit number of actual buckets with water in.
On the whole though, we get by without such a distinction with 'more', and I can't think we need it with 'less'.
Interesting point about 'more', as there is the idea that 'less' is increasing by analogy with 'more', used with count nouns. Hence, 'there were more dogs on show today', equates with 'less dogs on show today'. In other words, 'less' is seen as a kind of negation of 'more'.
However, I don't know if this is happening, and I don't know how one would test for this.
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
:
I think 'different than' is taking over from 'from'. This looks like an analogy with comparatives, 'better than'.
Posted by Higgs Bosun (# 16582) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by sharkshooter:
Should I avoid mentioning the current trend of using nouns as if they were verbs? Maybe I should thread that.
This is not a recent trend. In the mid '70s, in the comments book of the Cambridge University Computing Service, there was a comment:
quote:
In IBMese* any noun can be verbed.
*I.e. the language of the computer company IBM.
Posted by Ohher (# 18607) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by Ohher:
Usage (as in "correct" usage) is essentially a class issue.
I disagree. Not that class is not part of the issue, but that it is the essential issue.
There needs to be a standard for purely communicative reasons. Think of the news. We all, no matter our variation, understand what the presenters are saying because there is a standard. The standard is from the higher class speech because they have more control. But it would be the same, for practical purposes, if the standard were Cockney or Ozark hill billy.
There will be variation and drift, but the anchor needs to be there to have a constant point of reference.
I think it's pretty rare that non-standard usage actually interferes with the communication of meaning. When my student wrote, "He think he special," his classmates and I all knew perfectly well what he meant. We know what's meant by supermarket signs which read "Strawberry's $2.50 a pint," or ""10 items or less." In mousethief's example above, "grobk" definitely interferes with meaning. But that's not non-standard grammar; it's just not an English word. Nonexistent words, by definition, are incapable of carrying meaning.
The real problem with the notion of "standard" English is that it really isn't standard, or at least not for long stretches of time; this language constantly undergoes change. Unlike French, which has a sort of central authority which attempts to regulate the rate and type of change considered standard in that language, there is no central authority for the "regulation" of changes to English. The closest we can come to some authoritative version of English is perhaps the folks who produce the OED -- even then, though, we're talking about only one of English's many varieties: the British version.
I was struck a while back by re-reading a series of mystery novels by an American writer (Rex Stout) who wrote about the same characters and similar plots over a period of some 40 years. I was struck by the very noticeable (at least to me, but then, I'm an English teacher) changes to American English that were smoothly incorporated into Stout's writing.
I still think we're glumping along in Eliza Doolittle / 'enry 'iggins mode when it comes to the (sometimes quite extreme) judgmentalism of one another's speech (spelling, punctuation, etc.) patterns
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
:
Another good point about non-comprehension. I think there are dialects which are hard to follow, but if someone says, 'I like them apples', instead of 'I like those apples', I know what he means.
It's snobbery, isn't it? I'm better educated than you, so I say 'those', you fucking pleb.
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Ohher:
I think it's pretty rare that non-standard usage actually interferes with the communication of meaning.
And I think that is because there is a standard, not despite it. What you are describing are minor variations in grammar. Ones that are anchored by that standard, rather than truly free of it.
Posted by Higgs Bosun (# 16582) on
:
Prof. Alan S.C. Ross is quite well known for his work on linguistic class indicators. In a work published in 1954 in an obscure Finnish journal of lingustics he invented the terms U and non-U for the differences in English usage between upper class and the rest. This was picked up by Nancy Mitford and popularised by her.
The differences drawn out (and actually specific to the period) were for both vocabulary (sofa vs. settee, napkin vs. serviette) and pronunciation ('gel' for girl, do you pronounce 'forehead' as 'four-head' or 'forrid', and dropping Gs in "huntin', shootin' and fishin'").
One point was that it was very hard for the non-U to masquerade as a U. People have finely tuned sensitivities to the subtles of language usage.
(Alan Ross was a nice man. I played croquet with him a few times at the Edgebaston Croquet Club.)
Mrs Bosun and I have been watching 'The Crown'. It was therefore with interest that I heard an interview on the radio (sorry, The Wireless) with the actress playing Princess Margaret. It seems that when they started, they attempted to copy the vocal mannerisms of their subjects from newsreels etc. of the time. The results made them sound ridiculous, so they had to find some compromise between 21st century posh and the accents of the 50s and 60s.
In the series I do think there are some linguistic anachronisms. I' sure I caught a "thoughts and prayers" in one episode.
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Another good point about non-comprehension. I think there are dialects which are hard to follow, but if someone says, 'I like them apples', instead of 'I like those apples', I know what he means.
I don't think I do. Does he mean that he likes those apples over there, or does he mean that he likes apples in general? Presumably the context might make it clear.
Of course, I assume he and the people he deals with agree on what he means which is the important thing.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
I think it's useful to have a dialect that's "in the middle" and accessible to all English speakers. Your local dialect and mine might be mutually incomprehensible, but we can still talk "standard English" to one another, and understand each other. It's close enough to either of our native dialects for us to learn it without too much pain. Of course maybe it's okay for English to dissolve into puddles of mutually incomprehensible languages. Look at Latin. But then if you and I want to talk, I'd have to learn your dialect or you mine. And so on for each of the little puddles. Or we could speak in some third language, say French. Because the French can be relied upon to preserve some kind of middle dialect that all can learn and use.
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by sharkshooter:
Should I avoid mentioning the current trend of using nouns as if they were verbs? Maybe I should thread that.
Shakespeare's said to have introduced more words into English than anybody else. However, the majority of the words he's credited with inventing are just nouns that he's used as verbs or verbs he's used as nouns or so on.
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
I think it's useful to have a dialect that's "in the middle" and accessible to all English speakers. Your local dialect and mine might be mutually incomprehensible, but we can still talk "standard English" to one another, and understand each other. It's close enough to either of our native dialects for us to learn it without too much pain. Of course maybe it's okay for English to dissolve into puddles of mutually incomprehensible languages. Look at Latin. But then if you and I want to talk, I'd have to learn your dialect or you mine. And so on for each of the little puddles. Or we could speak in some third language, say French. Because the French can be relied upon to preserve some kind of middle dialect that all can learn and use.
Places with multiple dialects of varying degrees of inter-comprehensibility typically do have such. Either a dominant dialect or a foreign language.
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
:
Higgs Bosun - on the subject of Princess Margaret, I think there are some old films of the Queen, where her accent is very conservative, and it looks as if she has subsequently moderated it. But then even old films from the 40s and 50s have quite strangulated conservative RP (Received Pronunciation). I have one or two friends who say 'miniature' and 'parliament', with the 'ia' as two syllables. And of course, 'off' as 'orff'. Gorgeous.
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
:
Some quite nice conservative RP from the legend that was Brian Sewell. There ain't many left like this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5EFJ_rpSAa4
I also recommend 'Casual sex on the Thames towpath', by Brian. Lovely vowels. (youtube).
Posted by Nick Tamen (# 15164) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by sharkshooter:
Should I avoid mentioning the current trend of using nouns as if they were verbs? Maybe I should thread that.
Calvin (the boy in the comic with the tiger for a best friend, not the Reformer) called that “verbing,” though he expanded it to apply to use of any other part of speech as a verb. As Calvin said to Hobbes, “verbing weirds language.”
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
:
Cue Shakespeare:
Within my mouth you have enjailed my tongue,
Doubly portcullised with my teeth and lips ..
Richard II
Grace me no grace, nor uncle me no uncle. (Rich II)
[ 15. January 2018, 19:55: Message edited by: quetzalcoatl ]
Posted by Rossweisse (# 2349) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
...I think “A good writer breaks the rules, but she has to know the rules first so that she can break them.”
One rule for writers that should not be broken is that if your (average) reader has to stop and puzzle out exactly what you meant by what you wrote, it's wrong.
When I see something like "less" misused, it stops me in my tracks. It simply does not mean the same thing as "fewer."
Posted by Ian Climacus (# 944) on
:
Does anyone use "farther" anymore? I rarely see it, except in my own writing, or books.
Oh well, the people have spoken.
Posted by Rossweisse (# 2349) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
...None of this is life-threatening, of course, and language moves on. But people who speak out against verbicide are not necessarily just being priggish.
Thank you, mt.
("Verbing" is another threat.")
[Edited to note that I cross-posted on "verbing.")
[ 15. January 2018, 20:15: Message edited by: Rossweisse ]
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Places with multiple dialects of varying degrees of inter-comprehensibility typically do have such. Either a dominant dialect or a foreign language.
I know. ![[Confused]](confused.gif)
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Rossweisse:
Thank you, mt.
("Verbing" is another threat.")
[Edited to note that I cross-posted on "verbing.")
Verbing can be very useful though. Creating more words, especially where there is a hole in the lexicon, can be a good thing. For instance, the much-abused "gift" as a verb. It really does mean something different from "give," as the latter doesn't necessarily imply freely given. For instance I can say "I gave her $5 and she gave me a haircut." But it makes no sense at all to say "I gave her $5 and she gifted me with a haircut." Because "to gift" and "to give" don't mean the same thing. And there's no quicker way to say it than with a single-syllable verb. Neologisms always sound bad ("coastal" was vilified as barbaric by the east-coast (U.S.) press corps when it was coined). Then we get over it.
I must doubly agree about confusing people. That's why good punctuation is helpful. I am a pretty good reader, and if I have to stop and work out what you mean because your comma usage is shitty (or non-existent where needed for clarity), then you are not writing clearly and therefore you are not writing well.
Put another way, if "breaking the rules" creates confusion or ambiguity, it is not bold and brave, it is shit.
Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Also in the Cambridge Grammar of English Language, some interesting counter-examples:
she left less than ten minutes ago.
you pass if you make ten mistakes or less.
you must drive at less than 30 miles an hour.
we paid less than 30 dollars for it.
The first is not a counter-example: time is continuous. The third example is similar: speed is also a continuous quantity. In the fourth example, although money isn't continuous, it's not integer: "less than 30 dollars" is probably $29.99.
The second example is an example of incorrect usage.
Posted by Shubenacadie (# 5796) on
:
Does anyone else think that '10 items or less [items]' is wince-inducing whereas '10 items or less [than 10 items]' sounds perfectly OK? Or is it just me? I'm not sure if it's logical when you think about it, but who says language has to be logical?
I think perhaps I have something of a prescriptivist heart and descriptivist head -- language changes, but we don't have to like it. And while it's changing, it can cause confusion or unintentional amusement. A few years ago I remember it being reported on the radio that the OED (or some such) had said (as descriptivists) that the non-literal use of use 'literally' as an intensifier was now acceptable (a change for the worse in my view -- what are you supposed to say when you really do mean 'literally'?). The presenter (James Naughtie if I remember rightly) said something along the lines of 'never mind whether you're allowed to say it -- it still sounds really silly', with which I agree.
('...which I agree with' would also have been OK at the end of the previous paragraph ).
Posted by Huia (# 3473) on
:
I have been a prolific reader since I was quite young. At that time (no TV) the publishing market was divided more clearly and books in NZ were sourced in Great Britain.
When more books from the US became available I remember having to broaden my understanding of grammar and the way words were used. For some years I would stop mid read, jarred by an unfamiliar construction or usage.
In the school where I volunteer getting the children writing seems to be the focus in the early years, rather than strict adherence to the rules of grammar, which is introduced as they move up through the various levels.
Huia
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Shubenacadie:
Does anyone else think that '10 items or less [items]' is wince-inducing whereas '10 items or less [than 10 items]' sounds perfectly OK? Or is it just me? I'm not sure if it's logical when you think about it, but who says language has to be logical?
I think perhaps I have something of a prescriptivist heart and descriptivist head -- language changes, but we don't have to like it. And while it's changing, it can cause confusion or unintentional amusement. A few years ago I remember it being reported on the radio that the OED (or some such) had said (as descriptivists) that the non-literal use of use 'literally' as an intensifier was now acceptable (a change for the worse in my view -- what are you supposed to say when you really do mean 'literally'?).
Semantic shift often happens when there's little use for the original restricted use (cf. "begging the question" spreading from its original sense of assuming the conclusion). How often do you literally mean literally? (Did you see what I did there?)
It is also a regular development for adjectives to become mere intensifiers and then to lose their intensity. Was that pizza from that cheap place really awful or just not very nice?
Anyway, the erosion of the original sense of "literally" is not new, as is often thought. Is the 18th Century old enough? http://www.slate.com/articles/life/the_good_word/2005/11/the_word_we_love_to_hate.html
For all the talk of ambiguity, in reality it doesn't happen. In the same way that we cope unambiguously with "more" as the antonym of both "less" and "fewer", people who use "less" in both senses do not generally find there is misunderstanding, howsoever some may contrive theoretically ambiguous sentences.
I'd agree that knowing the rules of standard English is a useful skill, but we should, I think, steer clear of confusing "non-standard" with "wrong", and not be amongst those who treat a person less favourably should their English not comply with our personal standards, or consider them "uneducated".
[ 15. January 2018, 22:39: Message edited by: Karl: Liberal Backslider ]
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
:
If you want to say 'literally' in a literal sense, you say 'literally'. The fact that a word can be used non-literally doesn't mean that its literal sense is wiped out. Otherwise there would be no literal senses left. For example, I can talk about the root of a problem, but I can still talk about the parsnip roots in the ground. And so on. Language is always splitting in terms of usage, but each branch does not destroy the other branches, nor are there less branches. Ha.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
Literally stands to be the next word lost to the unnecessarily-large pool of words that all mean roughly "a lot."
"Really" used to mean "in reality" (as opposed to metaphorically). Now it means "a lot."
"Very" used to mean "in truth" (as opposed to metaphorically). Now it means "a lot."
"Truly" is almost gone. "Literally" is going.
Eventually when we want to say "he was dead, and I don't mean metaphorically, but he was dead in the literal sense of the word, his pulse had stopped, his brain waves had gone cold" we will have to use nearly as many words, because all the one-word adverbs for what we want to say will have been sucked into the "a lot" pool.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
If you want to say 'literally' in a literal sense, you say 'literally'. The fact that a word can be used non-literally doesn't mean that its literal sense is wiped out.
No. It means you can't be sure though. If I say "I was literally dead" you don't know if I was just in great pain, or really tired, or if I had in fact shuffled off the mortal coil, albeit temporarily. If the word has a non-literal sense, then you have to flag it in some way to indicate you're using the literal sense. In which case, the literal sense is kind of worthless by itself.
Posted by Golden Key (# 1468) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Yes, the notion of descriptive versus prescriptive, makes various approaches to language clear.
Anyone who thinks 'prescriptivist' is the name of a wrong or mistaken approach is not a descriptivist.
FWIW: I believe the term sought is "proscriptive", as in forbidding something.
There's a saying that "English grammar is descriptive, not proscriptive". Mostly true, but we have to have some rules so we can understand each other.
ETA: Or do I have that wrong? Long day.
[ 16. January 2018, 00:56: Message edited by: Golden Key ]
Posted by Gee D (# 13815) on
:
I am probably in the minority here, but agree totally with what Mousthief has said about the difference; less is for quantity and fewer for number.
Another bugbear, along the same line as "literally" is the use of verbal when what is meant is oral. It's hard to think of a contract that is not verbal; easy to think of one which is at least partly oral.
None of this is snobbery, it's about making accurate use of a rich language.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Golden Key:
FWIW: I believe the term sought is "proscriptive", as in forbidding something.
There's a saying that "English grammar is descriptive, not proscriptive". Mostly true, but we have to have some rules so we can understand each other.
ETA: Or do I have that wrong? Long day.
It's prescriptive.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Ian Climacus:
Does anyone use "farther" anymore? I rarely see it, except in my own writing, or books.
Oh well, the people have spoken.
I think this may be a pond thing. I hear it (and use it) a lot. I definitely use the old "farther in space and further in sequence, or metaphorically" rule. Nothing could be further from the truth, but my house could be farther from Pittsburgh.
Posted by no prophet's flag is set so... (# 15560) on
:
Shall we do "which" and "that" too?
And making and taking decisions about things down the pike or pipe. Traditional meaning usual these days. Unthaw meaning to thaw or refreeze, who knows?
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
Shall we do "which" and "that" too?
And making and taking decisions about things down the pike or pipe. Traditional meaning usual these days. Unthaw meaning to thaw or refreeze, who knows?
The brown bear, which lives in these woods, is a fierce animal.
The brown bear that lives in these woods is a fierce animal.
These really mean two quite different things.
Posted by Eutychus (# 3081) on
:
hosting/
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
Shall we do "which" and "that" too?
Please no. This thread is alive and in Purgatory for as long as it doesn't descend into a "my pet grammar peeves" thread. It was doing quite well there for a while; fewer derailments, please.
/hosting
Posted by SusanDoris (# 12618) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
One grammatical idiosyncrasy which seems to have crept in everywhere is ‘different to’. I was taught ‘different from’ and ‘similar to’. ‘Different to’ always grates on my ears. Yet less for fewer doesn’t bother me at all.
Ah, yes, I was going to mention the 'different from' too! The problem is that 'difficult to' is so much easier to say and quicker too!
The use of disinterested when it should be not interested, or uninterested, though, I will not become tolerant of. But I don't mind ending a sentence with a preposition!
[mended code]
[ 16. January 2018, 05:23: Message edited by: Eutychus ]
Posted by Eutychus (# 3081) on
:
hosting/
I think that was a cross-post, but it's a perfect example of where this thread shouldn't go. There's plenty to discuss apart from simply listing our grammatical bugbears.
/hosting
Posted by SusanDoris (# 12618) on
:
Apologies of course - I didn't see your first hosting post until I had posted mine.
Posted by balaam (# 4543) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Ian Climacus:
Does anyone use "farther" anymore? I rarely see it, except in my own writing, or books.
Oh well, the people have spoken.
Yes, I pronounce it ferther because I have a northern English accent, but it is still in common use as the comparative adjective of far.
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
:
One obvious solution to the 'less/fewer' difference is in terms of dialect. Standard English doesn't permit forms such as 'there are less lions in the world today', but many dialects do permit this. In fact, it's favoured over 'fewer lions'.
Standard English is the prestige dialect of British English, and therefore, people tend to say that other forms are 'wrong'. Of course, this applies to many other phrases, such as double negatives, which are perfectly well-formed in some dialects.
Posted by balaam (# 4543) on
:
Grammatical rules have exceptions driven by context.
John has an apple, Jane has a few apples. Saying John has fewer is correct, but it is less ambiguous in this example to use less.
"Would you like more or fewer than six eggs?" just sounds stilted compared with, "Would you like more or less than six eggs." The proximity to more makes less sound better. Sorry grammar pedants, I will continue to use it.
But in the supermarket I will abide by the rules. If my trolley contains three items, say wine, beer and bread. I will be in my rights to go down the 10 items or fewer isle with my eight bottles of beer, four bottles of wine and my six loaves of bread. If you want to be pedantic about the meaning of the checkout label, then you have to allow me to do that.
What matters here is that 8 beer, 4 wine and 6 bread are outside what is meant by the label and it is clear that my trolley load is outside what is meant. Ten items or less is clear in its meaning.
The rules of grammar are there for a purpose: To make things understood. I cannot understand those who would use grammar rules to complain about things that are understandable. That is not the purpose of grammar.
Posted by balaam (# 4543) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Standard English is the prestige dialect of British English, and therefore, people tend to say that other forms are 'wrong'. Of course, this applies to many other phrases, such as double negatives, which are perfectly well-formed in some dialects.
There is a difference between correct grammar and acceptable usage. Phrases can be both incorrect grammar and acceptable usage.
[Tangent]Double negatives have always been a feature of English. Double nagatives are those who complain about them.[/Tangent]
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by balaam:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Standard English is the prestige dialect of British English, and therefore, people tend to say that other forms are 'wrong'. Of course, this applies to many other phrases, such as double negatives, which are perfectly well-formed in some dialects.
There is a difference between correct grammar and acceptable usage. Phrases can be both incorrect grammar and acceptable usage.
[Tangent]Double negatives have always been a feature of English. Double nagatives are those who complain about them.[/Tangent]
Well, correct according to who, I mean whom! I don't see how one group of dialect speakers get to tell another group that their linguistic forms are incorrect. Having said that, Standard English users have often done just that, but that is the nature of privilege.
But the notion of acceptability is certainly interesting, and became widely used in linguistics, to get away from the language of wrong and incorrect.
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on
:
It's the useful distinction. A fossilised rule written in a book is just an description of the writer's preferred usage. That he's somehow come to the conclusion his usage is "right" and other usages "wrong" is a manifestation of prestige dialect rather than any objective "right" or "wrongness".
I mean, I hate innit, my internal grammar can't cope with an "isn't it" that doesn't refer back to an "it is", but that it's gained currency amongst certain speech communities demonstrates that that is not universal.
This is perhaps what some prescriptivists misunderstand about descriptive grammar. It's not "anything goes". Rather, it's about whether a particular usage is in use, whether it's dialectically limited or not. "He done good" is grammatical (within certain dialects, and note that the terms are "grammatical" and "not grammatical" rather than "correct" and "incorrect") not because someone somewhere said it, but because it is an accepted form within those dialects. *"He doed good" is ungrammatical because there are no dialects where it would be an accepted form.
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
:
Black English (or whatever you call it)*, has often been heavily censored for its constructions, which diverge from Standard English. A form such as 'he been done work', is well-formed in some dialects, and it just seems bizarre to me that a Standard English speaker comes along and says, 'incorrect'. Go away.
*African American Vernacular English, I think in US linguistics.
Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Well, correct according to who, I mean whom! I don't see how one group of dialect speakers get to tell another group that their linguistic forms are incorrect.
...but on the other hand, individual speakers of particular dialects correct the speech of other speakers on a continual basis. Usually, we call these people "parents" and "teachers".
I certainly teach my children to say "I wrote" rather than "I writed", although the latter is both perfectly comprehensible, and an entirely normal stage that children's language development goes through. And when they're old enough to understand the discussion, we'll talk about strong verbs and weak verbs, and how language changes and we don't say things like "holpen" any more.
Which makes things like "in use" a little tricky to define. "I writed" is in almost universal use in my local preschool community.
[ 16. January 2018, 11:37: Message edited by: Leorning Cniht ]
Posted by balaam (# 4543) on
:
What is true of words may not be true of phrases. If I were to use the word summat just about anywhere in England it would be understood as meaning something despite its use being more or less confined to the North. The same applies to the word nowt for nothing.
But when speaking to someone from, what sounded to me like Sarf Landon (again I understood the dialect) and used the phrase "It's summat and nowt," there was no understanding, as they did not use something and nothing to mean of little consequence below the Thames.
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Well, correct according to who, I mean whom! I don't see how one group of dialect speakers get to tell another group that their linguistic forms are incorrect.
...but on the other hand, individual speakers of particular dialects correct the speech of other speakers on a continual basis. Usually, we call these people "parents" and "teachers".
I certainly teach my children to say "I wrote" rather than "I writed", although the latter is both perfectly comprehensible, and an entirely normal stage that children's language development goes through. And when they're old enough to understand the discussion, we'll talk about strong verbs and weak verbs, and how language changes and we don't say things like "holpen" any more.
Which makes things like "in use" a little tricky to define. "I writed" is in almost universal use in my local preschool community.
Not really. The generalisations language learners make (including children) are not considered part of the accepted language of the speech community. It's not like no-one's thought of this before
Posted by RdrEmCofE (# 17511) on
:
quote:
quetzalcoatl Black English (or whatever you call it)*, has often been heavily censored for its constructions, which diverge from Standard English. A form such as 'he been done work', is well-formed in some dialects, and it just seems bizarre to me that a Standard English speaker comes along and says, 'incorrect'. Go away.
How far can a language diverge from the standard form, before it becomes another language altogether.
My answer would be once it becomes substantially unintelligible to everyone except the users of the new variant.
The English of The Venerable Bede and Alfred the Great is pretty much unintelligible to all English speakers except experts in the field of Saxon English. Historically it may be 'English' but to all intents and purposes it is a 'different language' than today the one we all call English.
So far American 'English' has not diversified sufficiently to render it unintelligible to an educated person in the UK who writes, speaks and understands the actual English language, with all its evolved grammatical, syntax and spelling rules.
Were Black 'English' to depart any further from the already variant 'Americanised' English it would have crossed the line of unintelligibility which would mark it out as a quite separate but historically related language. It would have a distinct identity of its own and could no longer be regarded as any kind of communicable English language, by virtue of the fact that it had become impossible to use it to communicate effectively with actual English speaking people.
Divergence and innovation is fine, within limits, but unlimited variance can only lead to meaningless babble from the perspective of anyone relying on the standard form for accurate comprehension.
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Black English (or whatever you call it)*, has often been heavily censored for its constructions, which diverge from Standard English. A form such as 'he been done work', is well-formed in some dialects, and it just seems bizarre to me that a Standard English speaker comes along and says, 'incorrect'. Go away.
*African American Vernacular English, I think in US linguistics.
The problem I have is not that it is corrected, but that it is generally treated as a lesser variation than white variations. My own mother corrected my speech to standard English despite her word usage and accent being other than standard. My family code switch, but we do so knowing the standard.
The problem is not acknowledging variants as variation; it is the judgement often attached to that is problematic.
Such as statements like this:
quote:
Originally posted by RdrEmCofE:
Were Black 'English' to depart any further from the already variant 'Americanised' English it would have crossed the line of unintelligibility which would mark it out as a quite separate but historically related language.
Lad, have you been outside of Southampton? This intelligibility problem already exists within the UK between white dialects of English. I've heard accent throw people though the grammar was perfectly correct. Why should Black be different?
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
:
Going off topic really, but we would start getting into creoles and pidgins, some of which can become independent languages.
But I think plenty of black dialects are nowhere near this, and are English dialects. I don't know enough about US dialects, but I'm not aware of any UK black English dialects which might become separate. Of course, some of them are hard to follow because of the accent, but that is also true of other English dialects such as Geordie.
Fun fact: my grandad still used 'thou' and 'thee' when I was a kid - living near the Humber.
Posted by BroJames (# 9636) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by RdrEmCofE:
<snip>So far American 'English' has not diversified sufficiently to render it unintelligible to an educated person in the UK who writes, speaks and understands the actual English language, with all its evolved grammatical, syntax and spelling rules.<snip>
I think the terminology you have chosen for the distinction between "American 'English'" and "the actual English language" is a little tendentious. It could quite fairly be argued that modern American English and modern British English are both cousins, descendants of 17th Century English.
This piece in The Atlantic is helpful on the problem of distinguishing languages and dialects.
Quite apart from the broad differences between American English and British English, there are language differences of usage, vocabulary and grammar in what are recognisably variants of English within the British Isles which are greater than those separated by the Atlantic.
The one I know a little is the Doric (from the North East of Scotland). Sometimes the relation to contemporary English English is clear (to me at least) so "fit ye gan ti dee we yirsel fan yer aller?" obviously (to me) translates to "what are you going to do when you are older?" whereas while I know what "the loon is a richt glaikit crattur" means, the connection between it and "the boy is a very silly creature" is less obvious.
This is one among a number of websites which celebrates the language, as does this call centre sketch. (Partly I enjoy it because my grandmother was Duguid.)
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
:
That's a very decent article in the Atlantic, making the point that 'language' is a political as well as a linguistic unit.
I think creoles also show this, as they were often seen as inferior and even degenerate forms, because the people who spoke them were seen as inferior. Possibly, they have gone up in the world, partly because people in linguistics have been fascinated by them.
In fact, there is a hypothesis that English is a creole. Or there was a hybrid between various sources, e.g. French, Norse, Old English, and other stuff.
Quite controversial, but an interesting idea, although you might then claim that all languages have been creolized partly. But a creole is not just a mixture, so that is a strong argument against.
Posted by leo (# 1458) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
I never understood the difference (and I taught English to O' level!).
I shall no longer feel any guilt about it.
It's hardly rocket science. If we meet and you smell bad, you're nauseous and I'm nauseated.
I still don't see the point.
Posted by RdrEmCofE (# 17511) on
:
quote:
Lad, have you been outside of Southampton? This intelligibility problem already exists within the UK between white dialects of English. I've heard accent throw people though the grammar was perfectly correct. Why should Black be different?
It isn't. It just happened to be the example I was replying to. The instance was entirely chosen by the original producer of the text I quoted at the begging of my comments. I was not specifically citing 'Black English' as being in any way different than any other 'variant' of or departure from standard English.
Nevertheless when variant language becomes unintelligible to a person who understands standard English, they are no longer listening to standard English, but something other than English as understood by English speakers or writers.
At the risk of being considered really offensive by people who do not properly understand the technical terminology I could correctly refer to all variants of standard English, as 'bastard English',
And if you had read my profile you would realize how inappropriate the term 'Lad' is when addressing me. Though by all means keep it up, it makes me feel like I am, once again, young enough to be back in school.
Posted by BroJames (# 9636) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
I never understood the difference (and I taught English to O' level!).
I shall no longer feel any guilt about it.
It's hardly rocket science. If we meet and you smell bad, you're nauseous and I'm nauseated.
I still don't see the point.
In British English, I would have said that if we meet and you smell bad you are nauseating and I am nauseated by you, which leaves me feeling nauseous. (Although I see that nauseous can also be applied to something causing nausea, such as the nauseous stench of my grammatical self-satisfaction and smugness.)
Posted by Shubenacadie (# 5796) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Anyway, the erosion of the original sense of "literally" is not new, as is often thought. Is the 18th Century old enough? http://www.slate.com/articles/life/the_good_word/2005/11/the_word_we_love_to_hate.html
If people have been doing it for a long time, that's interesting, but it doesn't make it seem less silly to me, and I note that the author of that article agrees that it sometimes seems silly. (Of course if it was part of my own idiolect it would presumably seem OK to me, but I'd be at risk of sounding silly to others).
quote:
I'd agree that knowing the rules of standard English is a useful skill, but we should, I think, steer clear of confusing "non-standard" with "wrong", and not be amongst those who treat a person less favourably should their English not comply with our personal standards, or consider them "uneducated". [/QB]
I would tend to agree in many situations, but it could be argued that non-standard usage in a context where you'd expect standard English is 'wrong in the circumstances'. And just the other week I pointed out to my parents that a grammatical mistake in an e-mail purporting to come from their internet service provider might be an indication of its being spam -- which, judging by the URL that appeared when I hovered over the hyperlink, it was. I hope that's not snobbish. (Of course wrong/non-standard grammar doesn't prove that an e-mail is spam any more than perfect grammar proves the opposite, but my impression is that there is a correlation).
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
I never understood the difference (and I taught English to O' level!).
I shall no longer feel any guilt about it.
It's hardly rocket science. If we meet and you smell bad, you're nauseous and I'm nauseated.
I still don't see the point.
Of having different words for different things? How do you propose to communicate without them?
Posted by Ohher (# 18607) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by RdrEmCofE:
I was not specifically citing 'Black English' as being in any way different than any other 'variant' of or departure from standard English.
Here, I think, is where we come t the crux of the matter: the "standard."
I'll paraphrase something I read in print (don't recall where) some years back. A group of linguists studied usage among several discourse communities speaking various brands of English. One community spoke what was then referred to as "Ebonics." (Don't blame me; it was, briefly, an accepted term) Another community was a group of professors in a Department of English at some university.
These were groups which would likely have been mutually intelligible.
Their findings, after recording, coding, and analyzing the "rules" governing each group's linguistic output: the "Ebonics" users were far more consistent in applying the rules of Ebonics usage to their discourse than the English professors were in applying the rules of their "standard" English to their discourse.
As English spreads across the globe, native speakers of English are just going to have get used to non-native speakers putting various "spins" on the language. Speakers of Language A will forever leave present-tense "to be" verbs out of their English sentences, because there's no such verb form in their first language; Language B speakers will mix up definite and indefinite articles, because their first language lacks articles completely; Language C speakers will be inserting the wrong-gender pronouns, and Language D speakers will do weird things to English's strict word-order, and so on.
The plain fact is that "standard" English (whatever that is) just won't cut much mustard in most places; what really counts is using the English which melds with that used by the discourse community you belong to. That English, whatever form it takes, will be its own standard, not a "departure" from anything at all.
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by RdrEmCofE:
I was not specifically citing 'Black English' as being in any way different than any other 'variant' of or departure from standard English.
Shouldn't have assumed. Apologies.
quote:
And if you had read my profile you would realize how inappropriate the term 'Lad' is when addressing me. .
It had naught to do with age. Addressing with a diminutive someone who is old enough to know better than they are acting is a habit I picked up from my father. So it was a cheeky, mild rebuke that was misdirected.
Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Ohher:
As English spreads across the globe, native speakers of English are just going to have get used to non-native speakers putting various "spins" on the language.
Well, yes, but just like the example of schoolchildren, when non-native English speakers import features of their native language into English, we tend to call it "getting it wrong" and correct them. When I'm editing a paper written by one of my Russian colleagues, I get off to a reasonable start by inserting an article everywhere one wasn't, and removing all the articles that were there.
I tend to think you only have the potential to develop a new variant of English if you take a community of speakers of language A, and have them speak English amongst themselves in reasonable isolation from the wider English-speaking community.
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Shubenacadie:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Anyway, the erosion of the original sense of "literally" is not new, as is often thought. Is the 18th Century old enough? http://www.slate.com/articles/life/the_good_word/2005/11/the_word_we_love_to_hate.html
If people have been doing it for a long time, that's interesting, but it doesn't make it seem less silly to me, and I note that the author of that article agrees that it sometimes seems silly. (Of course if it was part of my own idiolect it would presumably seem OK to me, but I'd be at risk of sounding silly to others).
quote:
I'd agree that knowing the rules of standard English is a useful skill, but we should, I think, steer clear of confusing "non-standard" with "wrong", and not be amongst those who treat a person less favourably should their English not comply with our personal standards, or consider them "uneducated".
I would tend to agree in many situations, but it could be argued that non-standard usage in a context where you'd expect standard English is 'wrong in the circumstances'. And just the other week I pointed out to my parents that a grammatical mistake in an e-mail purporting to come from their internet service provider might be an indication of its being spam -- which, judging by the URL that appeared when I hovered over the hyperlink, it was. I hope that's not snobbish. (Of course wrong/non-standard grammar doesn't prove that an e-mail is spam any more than perfect grammar proves the opposite, but my impression is that there is a correlation). [/QB]
And of course it depends whether the grammar in use would be correct in some dialects, or whether it's simply an error. There are such things, even to descriptivists.
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
quote:
Originally posted by Ohher:
As English spreads across the globe, native speakers of English are just going to have get used to non-native speakers putting various "spins" on the language.
Well, yes, but just like the example of schoolchildren, when non-native English speakers import features of their native language into English, we tend to call it "getting it wrong" and correct them. When I'm editing a paper written by one of my Russian colleagues, I get off to a reasonable start by inserting an article everywhere one wasn't, and removing all the articles that were there.
I tend to think you only have the potential to develop a new variant of English if you take a community of speakers of language A, and have them speak English amongst themselves in reasonable isolation from the wider English-speaking community.
What happens is that even when English becomes a native language in forn parts, the "spins" become part of the local dialect.
There is a hypothesis, gaining traction, that this is how Middle English arose. There is a vast gulf between the highly inflected synthetic Old English and the largely uninflected analytic Middle English (which resembles Modern English far more closely than it does its immediate ancestor). The problem is not that English lost its inflections (so have Norwegian and Swedish and, in the main, German) but the speed with which this appears to have happened. The hypothesis is that the written, literary Old English of Beowulf and Alfred the Great was the language brought over the North Sea by the Anglo-Saxons, but on the ground, as it was adopted by the native British (previously Latin or Celtic speaking), their imperfect grasp of the language, especially its inflections (both Vulgar Latin and British Celtic of this period were losing inflection) could have resulted in a weakening of the noun and adjective case system, so the language of common discourse became far more analytical, whilst the scholarly written language of the Anglo-Saxon overlords remained more conservative. When the Norman Invasion happened the Old English literary tradition was pretty much killed, and the Anglo-Saxon aristocracy and monastics replaced by Norman ones. When English writing re-emerged, it was in a form of the vernacular.
Point therefore being that the speech habits of second language speakers can have an influence on a language as a whole.
Posted by Higgs Bosun (# 16582) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Shubenacadie:
A few years ago I remember it being reported on the radio that the OED (or some such) had said (as descriptivists) that the non-literal use of use 'literally' as an intensifier was now acceptable (a change for the worse in my view -- what are you supposed to say when you really do mean 'literally'?).
The problem is that a frequent use of 'literally' is not as intensifier but as a synonym for 'figuratively'. For instance, a teenager complaining about having to climb a hill:
quote:
I literally died!
Posted by leo (# 1458) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
I never understood the difference (and I taught English to O' level!).
I shall no longer feel any guilt about it.
It's hardly rocket science. If we meet and you smell bad, you're nauseous and I'm nauseated.
I still don't see the point.
Of having different words for different things? How do you propose to communicate without them?
I guess I felt that your comment didn't communicate well.
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Higgs Bosun:
quote:
Originally posted by Shubenacadie:
A few years ago I remember it being reported on the radio that the OED (or some such) had said (as descriptivists) that the non-literal use of use 'literally' as an intensifier was now acceptable (a change for the worse in my view -- what are you supposed to say when you really do mean 'literally'?).
The problem is that a frequent use of 'literally' is not as intensifier but as a synonym for 'figuratively'. For instance, a teenager complaining about having to climb a hill:
quote:
I literally died!
This isn't a problem; amazingly we still understand people when they do this.
Posted by Higgs Bosun (# 16582) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
quote:
Originally posted by Higgs Bosun:
quote:
Originally posted by Shubenacadie:
A few years ago I remember it being reported on the radio that the OED (or some such) had said (as descriptivists) that the non-literal use of use 'literally' as an intensifier was now acceptable (a change for the worse in my view -- what are you supposed to say when you really do mean 'literally'?).
The problem is that a frequent use of 'literally' is not as intensifier but as a synonym for 'figuratively'. For instance, a teenager complaining about having to climb a hill:
quote:
I literally died!
This isn't a problem; amazingly we still understand people when they do this.
Part of what I was attempting to say is that 'literally' here does not appear to be an intensifier.
It is obvious that "I literally died" does not mean that the person who said that had died. However, what about:
- I'm literally dying
- Climbing the hill, he literally died
- I went to a comedy club and one of the comedians literally died on stage.
The last illustrates a case where 'died' could be taken figuratively, and so 'literally' eliminates the figurative meaning.
Posted by Gwai (# 11076) on
:
Since it hasn't come up yet, I completely recommend anyone interested in words and prescriptive vs. descriptive read Kory Stamper's Word By Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries. She does a great job describing what it's like writing dictionaries in a very interesting way but she also very interestingly tries to persuade readers against a prescriptive approach to language. I was somewhat persuaded.
Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Higgs Bosun:
It is obvious that "I literally died" does not mean that the person who said that had died. However, what about:
When my friend who was in cardiac arrest for 2-3 minutes, and was resuscitated by a colleague who knew how to use an AED, tells his story, he says "I literally died" to mean exactly that.
So perhaps it's not always obvious
(With respect to your last comment, I was watching the live TV broadcast when Tommy Cooper died on stage. Like many people, I thought it was part of his act.)
[ 17. January 2018, 14:40: Message edited by: Leorning Cniht ]
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Higgs Bosun:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
quote:
Originally posted by Higgs Bosun:
quote:
Originally posted by Shubenacadie:
A few years ago I remember it being reported on the radio that the OED (or some such) had said (as descriptivists) that the non-literal use of use 'literally' as an intensifier was now acceptable (a change for the worse in my view -- what are you supposed to say when you really do mean 'literally'?).
The problem is that a frequent use of 'literally' is not as intensifier but as a synonym for 'figuratively'. For instance, a teenager complaining about having to climb a hill:
quote:
I literally died!
This isn't a problem; amazingly we still understand people when they do this.
Part of what I was attempting to say is that 'literally' here does not appear to be an intensifier.
It is obvious that "I literally died" does not mean that the person who said that had died. However, what about:
- I'm literally dying
- Climbing the hill, he literally died
- I went to a comedy club and one of the comedians literally died on stage.
The last illustrates a case where 'died' could be taken figuratively, and so 'literally' eliminates the figurative meaning.
Yeah, there's some posh name for words which can mean almost opposites of themselves. Thing is, 99% of the time the usage of "literally" is unambiguous. Literally is indeed used figuratively as well as a mere intensifier. In a way, all intensifier uses are in fact figurative as they are not, erm, literal.
There really is no point in standing Canute-like against the tide which is usage. People will find ways of avoiding ambiguity when they need to. The literal meaning of literally can also be expressed by "actually". You may not like it, but I reckon that most UK English speakers would say "The comedian actually died on the stage!" if they thought "literally" ambiguous. It's what I'd say.
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
People will find ways of avoiding ambiguity when they need to.
With a modicum of education, they needn't have to do this as often. IIRC, you are one of the techs-savy Shippies. When the technically illiterate speak to you about their computers, have you never experienced frustration in their lack of proper use of terminology? The first time someone asked me for recommendation on replacing their CPU, I spent time researching one that would work in their system to then realise that they meant computer.
quote:
You may not like it, but I reckon that most UK English speakers would say "The comedian actually died on the stage!" if they thought "literally" ambiguous. It's what I'd say.
Actually can be as ambigous as literally. In usage, the two are fairly interchangeable.
quote:
There really is no point in standing Canute-like against the tide which is usage.
Language will change. A standard slows that down to something manageable.
And why should we gracefully let go wonderful words that are beautifully communicative if one understands how to use them. Like irony. There literally isn't a replacement word.
Now, through ignorance, it means just about anything, therefore almost nothing. It is no more descriptive or fuctional than innit.
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
People will find ways of avoiding ambiguity when they need to.
With a modicum of education, they needn't have to do this as often. IIRC, you are one of the techs-savy Shippies. When the technically illiterate speak to you about their computers, have you never experienced frustration in their lack of proper use of terminology? The first time someone asked me for recommendation on replacing their CPU, I spent time researching one that would work in their system to then realise that they meant computer.
Yes, but two points - 1. I come across as an insufferable arsehole if I point out to people that "CPU" (or, worse, "modem) doesn't mean the box under their monitor, and 2. no amount of pointing it out ever actually makes any difference anyway. You'll end up working out what the hell they mean anyway.
quote:
quote:
You may not like it, but I reckon that most UK English speakers would say "The comedian actually died on the stage!" if they thought "literally" ambiguous. It's what I'd say.
Actually can be as ambigous as literally. In usage, the two are fairly interchangeable.
quote:
There really is no point in standing Canute-like against the tide which is usage.
Language will change. A standard slows that down to something manageable.
And why should we gracefully let go wonderful words that are beautifully communicative if one understands how to use them. Like irony. There literally isn't a replacement word.
Now, through ignorance, it means just about anything, therefore almost nothing. It is no more descriptive or fuctional than innit.
You are doomed to failure. As old words change meaning, new words arise. You can rail against it if you like, but you might as well whine that it gets cold in Winter.
All you achieve is coming over all superior and cleverer than the person you're talking to.
Posted by wabale (# 18715) on
:
Some time ago I bought ‘Good English’ by G.H.Vallins, followed by ‘Better English, and ‘the Best English’. The lack of a capital ‘T’ on the cover page of ‘the best English’ presumably didn’t concern the author, though I wonder what he might have made of the modern confusion over ‘better’ and ‘best’ one sometimes hears on the tele. He drew a fine line between ‘correct’ English and ‘usage’, which I found useful, and it probably still works in principle today.
I can recall a Deputy Head in a Basildon school telling a student that ‘Report English’ was a ‘dialect’ - I think that was the word he used. He needed to learn this dialect for the job market. The implication was that there was nothing wrong with the student’s own everyday language.
If you’re writing technical reports, or speaking English whilst piloting an airliner, you need to be as precise as possible. But, apart from life-or-death situations, and other situations where precision is required, it shouldn’t, in my opinion, become an occasion for a kind of moral judgement. A few years ago I tutored an adult, an extremely capable person, who as part of her job had to write reports for clients. As a put-down, her boss ridiculed her English mistakes. Having read a couple of her reports I’m confident the clients wouldn’t actually have noticed. She was an extremely conscientious person, and I really hope that after she had read a book or two she felt able to turn the tables on her boss!
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Yes, but two points - 1. I come across as an insufferable arsehole if I point out to people that "CPU" (or, worse, "modem) doesn't mean the box under their monitor,
I find if I, politely and humorously, explain why it matters that we communicate effectively, there is no animosity. And it is a two way street, communication is. As is my helping someone. If they wish me to make an effort on their behalf, it isn't unreasonable for me to expect an effort on their part.
quote:
and 2. no amount of pointing it out ever actually makes any difference anyway. You'll end up working out what the hell they mean anyway.
With extra time and effort. It is annoying to have to ask them to carefully explain what they are talking about, I don't wish to have to do this with everyday conversation Every. Single. Time.
quote:
You are doomed to failure. As old words change meaning, new words arise. You can rail against it if you like, but you might as well whine that it gets cold in Winter.
You missed what I was saying. If it helps, working towards the standard is like buying a coat for the cold of winter. Pretending a standard is unnecessary is like walking into the snow naked and having your bits freeze off.
quote:
All you achieve is coming over all superior and cleverer than the person you're talking to.
This is where human interaction is key. How one discusses word usage can mitigate correction. In fact, one shouldn't do it as a correction. Having a conversation works better.
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on
:
Or you can just let it go.
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Or you can just let it go.
Not sure why ignorance is superior to knowledge. Or why one person's right to abuse a language is greater than another person's to not.
Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by wabale:
But, apart from life-or-death situations, and other situations where precision is required, it shouldn’t, in my opinion, become an occasion for a kind of moral judgement.
I find myself often rather busy these days. Given that I have many different calls on my time, if you want something from me, it is courteous for you to communicate your needs in an efficient manner. That requires both precision and brevity on your part.
Fairly high up my list of minor everyday irritations are people who stop me when I'm in the middle of doing something (I'm always in the middle of doing something) with some simple request, but launch in to some laboriously-presented five minute story to ask a thirty second question.
[ 17. January 2018, 19:47: Message edited by: Leorning Cniht ]
Posted by Nick Tamen (# 15164) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Or you can just let it go.
Not sure why ignorance is superior to knowledge. Or why one person's right to abuse a language is greater than another person's to not.
There's a right to abuse a language, or a right not to be subjected to abuse of the language?
And innocently using the wrong word or term (like "CPU"*) is an "abuse"?
* I’ll admit ignorance. What is the correct term?
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Or you can just let it go.
Not sure why ignorance is superior to knowledge. Or why one person's right to abuse a language is greater than another person's to not.
I think the problem is categorising other people's usages as "abuse".
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Nick Tamen:
There's a right to abuse a language, or a right not to be subjected to abuse of the language?
I think there is a right for both. My preference is for people to know what the proper use is, not that they be restricted to it.
quote:
And innocently using the wrong word or term (like "CPU"*) is an "abuse"?
* I’ll admit ignorance. What is the correct term?
Computer. The box containing the electronic parts is a computer. Inside that box is the Central Processing Unit which is, essentially, the brain of the computer.
The misuse of the terminology makes communication difficult. Why is knowing the basic terminology of the tools one uses an imposition? It should be the default.
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Or you can just let it go.
Not sure why ignorance is superior to knowledge. Or why one person's right to abuse a language is greater than another person's to not.
I think the problem is categorising other people's usages as "abuse".
It is abuse. One of the definitions of abuse is misuse. If it helps, I'll switch to misuse.
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on
:
Look, where technical terms are concerned, I grant you there's specific definitions for these things.
But the main thrust of this thread is people getting their panties wet about "less" and "fewer". And in this case it's not misuse; it's established use. It just doesn't match up to a largely artificial distinction from 18th Century grammarians. Ditto figuratively used "literally". Ditto split infinitives. Ditto sentence final prepositions. Ditto use of "whom". Ditto just about every other shibboleth that the language mavens get all worked up about.
Posted by Nick Tamen (# 15164) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by Nick Tamen:
There's a right to abuse a language, or a right not to be subjected to abuse of the language?
I think there is a right for both.
On what basis can either be called a "right"?
quote:
The misuse of the terminology makes communication difficult. Why is knowing the basic terminology of the tools one uses an imposition? It should be the default.
Thanks for the clarification on CPU.*
I never said it’s an imposition to know the correct terminology. I questioned why innocently getting the term wrong—especially when it’s something that lots of people get it wrong—is an "abuse" of anyone's "rights." (ETA: I cross-posted with your switch to "misuse." That is much better. I still find the claim of a "right" somewhat bizarre, though.)
*BTW, it was my department's IT people who some years ago corrected me when I referred to that box as the "computer" and told me that the correct term is "CPU." So . . . .
[ 17. January 2018, 20:41: Message edited by: Nick Tamen ]
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
But the main thrust of this thread is people getting their panties wet about "less" and "fewer".
OK, you used that wrong.
quote:
And in this case it's not misuse;
But I am not arguing that case. I have been mostly commenting on the broader issue of standard v. not having a standard.
With a side of how misuse of words isn't always neutral.
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Nick Tamen:
On what basis can either be called a "right"?
Karl seemed to be implying that the burden to deal was with those who prefer proper terminology/word use. Not sure what word to use at the moment.
quote:
*BTW, it was my department's IT people who some years ago corrected me when I referred to that box as the "computer" and told me that the correct term is "CPU." So . . . .
Don't get me started on IT people.No, not all of them. But some think a piece of paper from Microsoft or a course at a polytechnic means more than it does.
IME, the problem started when marketers began to use CPU to mean computer. Some IT people went in the same direction. Whether because it was easy or out of ignorance likely varies.
Posted by Nick Tamen (# 15164) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Karl seemed to be implying that the burden to deal was with those who prefer proper terminology/word use. Not sure what word to use at the moment.
I'd probably go with saying that I have a hope that people will speak "properly" (whatever that means in context) and perhaps, in certain cases, can have a reasonable expectation that they will. When my hopes and expectations are not realized, I’ll cope with it, likely with little or no effort required, and sometimes with a private chuckle. I'll only correct someone if I’m in a position where it's appropriate for me to do so, such as with my children, employees I supervise or students I’m teaching.
In the rare instance where I really can't tell what the other person means, I’ll ask questions to figure it out, and I’ll rely on the tenor of the conversation to decide whether saying something like "for future reference, this is called the x" would be appreciated, would seem pedantic or critical, or would likely be forgotten in 5 minutes.
quote:
IME, the problem started when marketers began to use CPU to mean computer. Some IT people went in the same direction. Whether because it was easy or out of ignorance likely varies.
But see the problem? People are possibly subject to impatience and criticism for using the wrong term, when all they’re doing is using what those in a better position to know have told them is the correct term. I suspect my patience would wear thin when all I want is my computer/CPU working again.
Posted by Russ (# 120) on
:
Seems to me there are three possible positions here.
1. There is no such thing as an error in use of language. There is only successful and unsuccessful communication of meaning.
2. If an individual does it, it's an error. If a community does it, it's not an error, it's a feature of the way they speak.
3. People can get it wrong, both individually and collectively, although when we're talking about language the reference point is established majority usage (rather than any fixed or inherently-right usage).
Take your pick...
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Nick Tamen:
But see the problem? People are possibly subject to impatience and criticism for using the wrong term, when all they’re doing is using what those in a better position to know have told them is the correct term. I suspect my patience would wear thin when all I want is my computer/CPU working again.
You wanna compare frustrations?
Friend: lilB, my CPU is broken, I need a new one, can you advise?
Me: Sure. You have a (x) brand, right? What is the model?
Friend: Don't know. (x) 27"?
Me. No, that is the monitor model. Look on the case for a label.
Friend:It is ##-##-###
Me: OK, I'll give a look and let you know.
(Later)
Me: I sent you some links for CPUs that will work in your computer.
Them: lilB, those are electrical bits.
Me: Those are CPUs.
Them: No, I need the whole CPU.
Me: What are you talking about? Those are whole CPUs.
Them: I sent you a pic.
Me: That is a computer. OK, what is wrong with it?
Friend: Well, it doesn't...
And that is just one of the words that causes problems.
Posted by Nick Tamen (# 15164) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by Nick Tamen:
But see the problem? People are possibly subject to impatience and criticism for using the wrong term, when all they’re doing is using what those in a better position to know have told them is the correct term. I suspect my patience would wear thin when all I want is my computer/CPU working again.
You wanna compare frustrations?
Friend: lilB, my CPU is broken, I need a new one, can you advise?
Me: Sure. You have a (x) brand, right? What is the model?
Friend: Don't know. (x) 27"?
Me. No, that is the monitor model. Look on the case for a label.
Friend:It is ##-##-###
Me: OK, I'll give a look and let you know.
(Later)
Me: I sent you some links for CPUs that will work in your computer.
Them: lilB, those are electrical bits.
Me: Those are CPUs.
Them: No, I need the whole CPU.
Me: What are you talking about? Those are whole CPUs.
Them: I sent you a pic.
Me: That is a computer. OK, what is wrong with it?
Friend: Well, it doesn't...
And that is just one of the words that causes problems.
It's only causing a problem because you are insisting on the use of the correct term. Once it becomes clear that your friend doesn’t understand the difference between computer and CPU—which is a very common thing to encounter, I’d guess—you have two choices:
• Say "time out, let's make sure we both know what we're talking about so we can get to the problem more quickly. The CPU is . . ., and the computer is . . . ." Then once that’s sorted out, deal with the problem. Or
• Accept that your friend doesn’t know the right words and translate in your head, which in my experience is the option the leads to the quickest resolution of the problem.
I do the latter all the time with family and friends in discussions on things legal. Unless it matters that they know and use the right term, and as long as I know what they mean, I usually see no need to correct them.
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
:
You understand that was a synopsis, not a verbatim conversation? And that people use computers on a daily basis, but not the law?
[ 18. January 2018, 05:41: Message edited by: lilBuddha ]
Posted by RdrEmCofE (# 17511) on
:
quote:
From Nick Tamen • Accept that your friend doesn’t know the right words and translate in your head, which in my experience is the option the leads to the quickest resolution of the problem.
That only works well when your 'Babel Fish' is properly functioning. If you have a dysfunctional 'Babel Fish' you will make wrong assumptions on the matter of what YOU think the speaker should mean and what the speaker actually understands themselves to mean. In other words you are in the realm of 'assumption' rather than accurate communication. That is when option one of your suggestions is the only viable option. It slows comprehension and annoys the ignorant, who assume you are just being pedantic, but at least it ensures accurate communication, which is what language is supposed to do.
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Look, where technical terms are concerned, I grant you there's specific definitions for these things.
But the main thrust of this thread is people getting their panties wet about "less" and "fewer". And in this case it's not misuse; it's established use. It just doesn't match up to a largely artificial distinction from 18th Century grammarians. Ditto figuratively used "literally". Ditto split infinitives. Ditto sentence final prepositions. Ditto use of "whom". Ditto just about every other shibboleth that the language mavens get all worked up about.
That's pretty much it. There is also the issue of dialects, which I think is very important. I suspect that some dialects have used 'less' with plural nouns for a very long time, and now they are wrong? It's like saying that Cockney is a barbaric pronunciation of English.
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
:
Karl wrote:
quote:
There is a hypothesis, gaining traction, that this is how Middle English arose. There is a vast gulf between the highly inflected synthetic Old English and the largely uninflected analytic Middle English (which resembles Modern English far more closely than it does its immediate ancestor). The problem is not that English lost its inflections (so have Norwegian and Swedish and, in the main, German) but the speed with which this appears to have happened. The hypothesis is that the written, literary Old English of Beowulf and Alfred the Great was the language brought over the North Sea by the Anglo-Saxons, but on the ground, as it was adopted by the native British (previously Latin or Celtic speaking), their imperfect grasp of the language, especially its inflections (both Vulgar Latin and British Celtic of this period were losing inflection) could have resulted in a weakening of the noun and adjective case system, so the language of common discourse became far more analytical, whilst the scholarly written language of the Anglo-Saxon overlords remained more conservative.
I think this is part of the argument for English being a creole. These tend to happen when languages hybridize, and in addition, a simplified version arises - pidgin. This is used for business, trade, and so on, but sometimes becomes the first language for some people. This is a creole.
So we see the disappearance of inflections in English, for example, if you conjugate 'walk' in the present tense, you see this, with the exception of the 'he' form, 'he walks'. But I/you/we/they - walk.
However, this is still (as far as I can see), an insufficient argument that English is a creole, although it is certainly a hybrid. I guess it starts to get rather technical.
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
:
I should add that this is one particular description of how creoles evolve - the so-called 'life-cycle' argument. There are others, which don't involve the pidgin phase.
Posted by Nick Tamen (# 15164) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
You understand that was a synopsis, not a verbatim conversation? And that people use computers on a daily basis, but not the law?
Perhaps I could have pointed out that many of the people I had in mind re law conversations are well-educated children of lawyers or judges or decades-long spouses of lawyers, so legal talk is pretty normal at home.
But seriously, there are lots of things that people use on a daily basis the components of which they very well might or might not know the right names for: cars, refrigerators, washing machines, cell phones, televisions. Shoot, even houses—we all used to roll our eyes when my engineer father would tell us that what we called the window sill was really the window stool. (I still have no clue on that one.)
I know many people use computers every day, but that hardly means they all understand the technology they’re using; I’d wager most don't. And as with so many other things, anyone who expects otherwise will likely be disappointed.
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Nick Tamen:
But seriously, there are lots of things that people use on a daily basis the components of which they very well might or might not know the right names for: cars, refrigerators, washing machines, cell phones, televisions.
That there are variations in names is a feature/bug of language. This doesn't negate the practicality of a standard. Instead, it accents the need. A standard lets language meander but still maintain integrity.
quote:
Shoot, even houses—we all used to roll our eyes when my engineer father would tell us that what we called the window sill was really the window stool. (I still have no clue on that one.)
The sill is the horizontal protrusion at the bottom of the window on the outside, the stool is the same on the inside.* One, potentially confusing issue is that in simpler window constructions, they are the same piece of material. And some constructions might have only one, the other or neither.
quote:
I know many people use computers every day, but that hardly means they all understand the technology they’re using; I’d wager most don't.
Much as I think people should learn about the items they use, I don't expect people to know everything. But basic knowledge helps. It helps them.
quote:
And as with so many other things, anyone who expects otherwise will likely be disappointed.
This is mistaking the likely outcome for the most beneficial outcome.
Politeness, BTW, is a tangent to this issue, not a solution.
*Not completely the same. There are overlapping functions, but not a completely identical set.
Posted by Ohher (# 18607) on
:
lB, some linguists (I believe this idea emerged from the MIT dept. thereof, but can't swear to that) would suggest that the very idea of "a language" is problematic. Some research suggests each user of a language uses it in ways as unique to that individual as a fingerprint, and that what we refer to when we speak of "a language" is actually a multitudinous set of overlapping idiolects (only not quite that extreme -- I just don't know a more appropriate word for this). Such an idea makes nonsense of the notion of "standard" English.
After all, the point of using a language is to communicate, not to try to get as close as possible to some (possibly) mythical perfect version of the language. Most of us probably communicate most effectively within our own customary discourse communities. The "He think he special" sentence style used by my student is something I've encountered fairly often before. My guess is that's "standard" usage among his discourse community -- he's heard it all his life and said it all his life, and it has served him perfectly well. Will it serve him as a bank teller? A sports injury therapist or a sports scout (conceivable career choices, given his major)? A dental hygienist? A TV news anchor? An English professor? "He think he special" will probably only get seriously in his way with the last two options.
English is not about to go wandering off into chaos if we abandon the idea of a standard. Why won't it? Simple: it's still a communication device, and communication can only happen when we maintain broad agreement about word order and what "tree" means. The need to communicate will slow the rate of change and override impulses to ride the language off into the sunset.
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Ohher:
lB, some linguists (I believe this idea emerged from the MIT dept. thereof, but can't swear to that) would suggest that the very idea of "a language" is problematic. Some research suggests each user of a language uses it in ways as unique to that individual as a fingerprint, and that what we refer to when we speak of "a language" is actually a multitudinous set of overlapping idiolects (only not quite that extreme -- I just don't know a more appropriate word for this). Such an idea makes nonsense of the notion of "standard" English.
Hothouse philosophy. That we can communicate effectively is proof of language despite our variations.
quote:
After all, the point of using a language is to communicate, not to try to get as close as possible to some (possibly) mythical perfect version of the language.
Not advocating for a perfect version of a language. Nor a static one. Out language isn't a static one, despite having standards that are taught. I am actually arguing for the status quo. A taught standard that has living variation.
Posted by Honest Ron Bacardi (# 38) on
:
quetzalcoatl wrote: quote:
I think this is part of the argument for English being a creole. These tend to happen when languages hybridize, and in addition, a simplified version arises - pidgin. This is used for business, trade, and so on, but sometimes becomes the first language for some people. This is a creole.
I can agree with that, although I don't think an intermediate stage of pidgin is automatic. Though thinking about it, it probably hinges on what you mean by "simplification", which looks an easy concept but probably isn't.
I've read a fairly convincing paper that argued that the road to simplification started in late early English rather than middle English (which then gave it a good shove). The northern Germanic speakers and their neighbours the western Germanic speakers, having settled their squabbles, were keen to understand each other, and their languages were close enough to make a start without a lot of effort. Still, it was citing evidence and that was the theory they advanced.
There are interesting points to be made about the emergence of middle English consequent to the fusing of the Norman overlord culture with a greater identification with their vassal state, given how crap their top-level rulers were, and vice versa no doubt.
[ 18. January 2018, 21:30: Message edited by: Honest Ron Bacardi ]
Posted by Honest Ron Bacardi (# 38) on
:
Karl wrote: quote:
There really is no point in standing Canute-like against the tide which is usage. People will find ways of avoiding ambiguity when they need to.
I think I was with you until this point. The thing about tides is that they come in - and then they go out again.
Here's a practical test. Watch a raft of pre-war films, American or British, and the more demotic the better. There are plenty of usages that have come and gone. Maybe they served some subculture which has vanished, maybe they started sounding dated where a more classic usage seemed timeless. We can postulate all sorts of reasons. But the point is that this is not a one-way street. Absent some central authority such as the Academie Francaise in French*, there is a continuous dialogue between English users, and it hinges on matters such as intelligibility, reliability, and all the sorts of things people have raised on this thread.
So these sorts of discussions are exactly what is needed concerning a cultural good that belongs to the public, i.e. those who would seek to use English. There is no obligation on any member of the public to accept something because it is "catching on". Indeed, to assert that we should do that is itself a form of prescriptivism. And it will never stop, nor should it, as the "literally" argument illustrates.
* Yes, I know a lot of their edicts get ignored.
Posted by Nick Tamen (# 15164) on
:
![[Overused]](graemlins/notworthy.gif)
I concede, lilBuddha, not only because I’d gone far beyond beating a dead tangent, but because you explained the sill/stool difference better than my father ever did. It's likely useless (to me) information, but at least I know.
Posted by argona (# 14037) on
:
Looping for a moment back to the thread title, I do like
Posted by argona (# 14037) on
:
Forgive me, I've barely posted in ages. I do like [url= http://https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=image+the+pedant%27s+revolt&rlz=1CDGOYI_enGB676GB676&oq=image+the+pedant%27s+revolt& aqs=chrome..69i57.23301j0j7&hl=en-GB&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8#imgrc=tyu-07Lt_2lFfM:]this [/url]
Posted by Shubenacadie (# 5796) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Nick Tamen:
...doesn’t understand the difference between computer and CPU—which is a very common thing to encounter, I’d guess...
Apologies if I'm prolonging a tangent, but I'm curious as to who uses 'CPU' to mean 'computer'. Perhaps I've led a sheltered life, but I think I've only ever heard 'CPU' used by techie-type people who presumably know what it means.
quote:
Originally posted by Nick Tamen:
...there are lots of things that people use on a daily basis the components of which they very well might or might not know the right names for: cars...
But does anyone use the word 'engine' to refer to a car?
Come to think of it, they sometimes use 'motor', but I'm guessing that that originated as a contraction of 'motor car' (there's no equivalent like 'CPU machine'), and in standard English at least I would associate it with the early part of the 20th century ('motorist' of course is still common).
(To indicate where I'm coming from, I'm not very tech-savvy, but I do have a vague idea what a CPU is as part of general knowledge. I'd rarely have occasion to talk about one, though).
Posted by argona (# 14037) on
:
I give up
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by argona:
I give up
Was this what you were looking for?
[ 18. January 2018, 23:01: Message edited by: lilBuddha ]
Posted by Shubenacadie (# 5796) on
:
Does this work?
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
:
Or this?
Posted by Nick Tamen (# 15164) on
:
{sigh}. I really was trying to wrap up this tangent, or at least stop feeding it.
quote:
Originally posted by Shubenacadie:
quote:
Originally posted by Nick Tamen:
...doesn’t understand the difference between computer and CPU—which is a very common thing to encounter, I’d guess...
Apologies if I'm prolonging a tangent, but I'm curious as to who uses 'CPU' to mean 'computer'. Perhaps I've led a sheltered life, but I think I've only ever heard 'CPU' used by techie-type people who presumably know what it means.
In my experience, lots of people on this side of the pond, because at some point a techie-type told them that’s what the unit is "properly" called. These people might also use "computer" to mean computer/CPU+keyboard+monitor.
quote:
quote:
...there are lots of things that people use on a daily basis the components of which they very well might or might not know the right names for: cars...
But does anyone use the word 'engine' to refer to a car?
No, but over here, at least, "engine" is commonly used to refer to anything under the hood (bonnet), whether actually part of the engine or not.
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Nick Tamen:
No, but over here, at least, "engine" is commonly used to refer to anything under the hood (bonnet), whether actually part of the engine or not.
Car owner says my engine isn't working and thinks "The mechanic will sort out what that means" and the mechanic thinks "Here are my holiday expenses sorted". This is part of why it benefits the owner of something to have some knowledge.
Not that all mechanics are predatory, just that if you do not have an understanding of what is happening, you have no idea which sort you are dealing with.
Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by Nick Tamen:
No, but over here, at least, "engine" is commonly used to refer to anything under the hood (bonnet), whether actually part of the engine or not.
Car owner says my engine isn't working and thinks "The mechanic will sort out what that means" and the mechanic thinks "Here are my holiday expenses sorted". This is part of why it benefits the owner of something to have some knowledge.
Not that all mechanics are predatory, just that if you do not have an understanding of what is happening, you have no idea which sort you are dealing with.
My brother builds new buses and knows everything there is to know about cars. But many parts are now self contained units and there is no fixing them without breaking them.
This makes them much cheaper to build and much more expensive to repair.
We now have a new lease car every two years. We know what we are paying every month and there are no other costs except insurance. No car to sell at the end of it, just hand in your car and collect the new one.
Posted by RdrEmCofE (# 17511) on
:
Off thread anecdote:
quote:
Car owner says my engine [heater fan] isn't working and thinks "The mechanic will sort out what that means" and the mechanic thinks "Here are my holiday expenses sorted". This is part of why it benefits the owner of something to have some knowledge.
Had a VW Golf heater fan either not going or only going full blast. Dealer quoted £250.00 to fix. Did some internet research. Problem was a thermal fuse blown. Cost £0.95 at RS Spares. Fixed it myself, (no labour charge). Total cost £2.50 including bus fare to get part.
= Dealer would have been 100 times more expensive.
Posted by argona (# 14037) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by argona:
I give up
Was this what you were looking for?
No but similar, and yours is better! Thanks
Posted by argona (# 14037) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Or this?
That's the one
Posted by wabale (# 18715) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
quote:
Originally posted by wabale:
But, apart from life-or-death situations, and other situations where precision is required, it shouldn’t, in my opinion, become an occasion for a kind of moral judgement.
I find myself often rather busy these days. Given that I have many different calls on my time, if you want something from me, it is courteous for you to communicate your needs in an efficient manner. That requires both precision and brevity on your part.
Fairly high up my list of minor everyday irritations are people who stop me when I'm in the middle of doing something (I'm always in the middle of doing something) with some simple request, but launch in to some laboriously-presented five minute story to ask a thirty second question.
Leorning Cniht
Hi, Leorning Cniht. I am all in favour of fewer words, or possibly ‘less’. I am in awe - yes really - of the linguistic knowledge deployed on this thread. However identical arguments are sometimes deployed, particularly by those who believe in rigid rules, as a form of ad hominem argument. My own ‘laboriously-presented five minute’ stories were a way of making clear I was not referring to any instance of that on the ship, but to very real arguments I have witnessed elsewhere. It was an attempted tangent, and I am sorry if you took it as just an interruption.
© Ship of Fools 2016
UBB.classicTM
6.5.0