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Source: (consider it) Thread: Less and fewer
SusanDoris

Incurable Optimist
# 12618

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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!

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I know that you believe that you understood what you think I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.

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Golden Key
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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".

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Ian Climacus

Liturgical Slattern
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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]

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 ]

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Boogie

Boogie on down!
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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.”

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BroJames
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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.
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SusanDoris

Incurable Optimist
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Strong agreement with all the above posts!! [Smile] 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!

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Eliab
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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.

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L'organist
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Perhaps the reason for the confusion (in the minds of some) of fewer and less is due to the simplicity of declensions in English?

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Rara temporum felicitate ubi sentire quae velis et quae sentias dicere licet

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quetzalcoatl
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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.

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L'organist
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... or not as educated as some, hm?

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Rara temporum felicitate ubi sentire quae velis et quae sentias dicere licet

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quetzalcoatl
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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.

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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.

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mousethief

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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.

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Pigwidgeon

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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).

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Boogie

Boogie on down!
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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.”

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quetzalcoatl
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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.

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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.

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Dafyd
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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.

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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams

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luvanddaisies

the'fun'in'fundie'™
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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.

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quetzalcoatl
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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

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L'organist
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Now shall we get onto the real bugbear of life - those who know when to use older and elder?

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Rara temporum felicitate ubi sentire quae velis et quae sentias dicere licet

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quetzalcoatl
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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).

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Ohher
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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.

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quetzalcoatl
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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.

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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.

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no prophet's flag is set so...

Proceed to see sea
# 15560

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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... ]

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leo
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# 1458

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I never understood the difference (and I taught English to O' level!).

I shall no longer feel any guilt about it.

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My reviews at http://layreadersbookreviews.wordpress.com

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Dafyd
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# 5549

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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'.

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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams

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mousethief

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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.

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lilBuddha
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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.

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Hallellou, hallellou

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mousethief

Ship's Thieving Rodent
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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.

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Boogie

Boogie on down!
# 13538

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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.

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sharkshooter

Not your average shark
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Should I avoid mentioning the current trend of using nouns as if they were verbs? Maybe I should thread that.

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Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O LORD, my strength, and my redeemer. [Psalm 19:14]

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quetzalcoatl
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# 16740

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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.

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quetzalcoatl
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I think 'different than' is taking over from 'from'. This looks like an analogy with comparatives, 'better than'.

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Higgs Bosun
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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.
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Ohher
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# 18607

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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

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quetzalcoatl
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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.

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lilBuddha
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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.

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Higgs Bosun
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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.

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Dafyd
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# 5549

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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.

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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams

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mousethief

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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.

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Dafyd
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# 5549

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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.

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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams

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lilBuddha
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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.

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quetzalcoatl
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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.

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quetzalcoatl
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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).

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Nick Tamen

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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.”

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The first thing God says to Moses is, "Take off your shoes." We are on holy ground. Hard to believe, but the truest thing I know. — Anne Lamott

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quetzalcoatl
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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 ]

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Rossweisse

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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."

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Ian Climacus

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Does anyone use "farther" anymore? I rarely see it, except in my own writing, or books.

Oh well, the people have spoken.

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Rossweisse

High Church Valkyrie
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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 ]

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mousethief

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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]

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mousethief

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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.

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