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From: "Peter Duncanson [BrE]" <m...@peterduncanson.net>
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english,sci.lang
Subject: Re: square meters Re: Olympic question(s)
Date: Sun, 30 Sep 2012 14:06:18 +0100
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On Sun, 30 Sep 2012 06:25:32 +0200, Joachim Pense <s...@pense-mainz.eu>
wrote:

>Am 29.09.2012 22:48, schrieb Peter T. Daniels:
>> On Sep 29, 11:22 am, Joachim Pense <s...@pense-mainz.eu> wrote:
>>> Am 29.09.2012 14:43, schrieb Peter T. Daniels:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>> On Sep 29, 1:53 am, "benli...@ihug.co.nz" <benli...@ihug.co.nz> wrote:
>>>>> On Sep 29, 5:15 pm, Joachim Pense <s...@pense-mainz.eu> wrote:
>>>
>>>>>> Am 28.09.2012 22:48, schrieb benli...@ihug.co.nz:
>>>
>>>>>>> On Sep 29, 12:08 am, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:
>>>>>>>> On Sep 28, 1:20 am, "benli...@ihug.co.nz" <benli...@ihug.co.nz> wrote:
>>>
>>>>>>>>> They may not recognize their diachronic significance, but they
>>>>>>>>> certainly do notice them.
>>>
>>>>>>>> Once again, how is that not _exactly_ what I have been saying?
>>>
>>>>>>> Because what you said, several days ago, was:
>>>
>>>>>>> "People _don't_ notice language change. That's how it can happen!"
>>>
>>>>>> If I don't notice the diachronic significance of a change, then I don't
>>>>>> notice the change. I only may notice the variation. So I don't see a
>>>>>> contradiction in what Peter wrote here.
>>>
>>>>> What we were discussing was the existence (or lack) of recorded
>>>>> comments on AusEng pronunciation from the early years. So even if
>>>>> Peter's general claim were correct in the sense you and he propose, it
>>>>> would not explain an absence of such comments, since people may
>>>>> perfectly well comment on differences without giving a historical
>>>>> explanation of them.
>>>
>>>> Wait a minute ... the absence of comments on "language change" shows
>>>> that they recognized that "language change" was proceeding all around
>>>> them, just as it always had been and always will?
>>>
>>>>> Certainly if someone is comparing two different dialects of a
>>>>> language, they may notice differences without being aware of their
>>>>> diachronic significance (that one dialect is innovative relative to
>>>>> the other). But can that be true of generational differences? If
>>>>> grandma notices the young folks talking in a new way, she has noticed
>>>>> a change.
>>>
>>>> She has noticed what YOU CALL a change. What she has noticed is that
>>>> they are talking sloppy or wrong and tries to correct them. She hopes
>>>> they'll grow out of it as they grow out of their adolescence.
>>>
>>>> Pretty obviously, that's a denial of the existence or possibility or
>>>> acceptability of change.
>>>
>>>>> She knows she didn't talk that way when she was their age.
>>>>> She may attribute it to moral decline, or foreign corruption, or
>>>>> whatever; she may not know whether the change will last or be just a
>>>>> passing fad. But it would seem very perverse to say that she has not
>>>>> noticed a change.
>>>
>>>> Why do you claim that any difference is a change? Why can you not
>>>> accept that it is simply a difference -- and that the origin of
>>>> differences became a topic of academic study for a handful of
>>>> scholars, that has still, over 200 years later, not filtered down to
>>>> the gen.pub.?
>>>
>>> Everyone notices that "gay" meant something different 50 years ago. A
>>> difference between earlier and today is called a change.
>>
>> No. It is a difference. It is an added meaning. It is not grasped as a
>> change in the language, because the concept of "change in a language"
>> is not available. In this case, it's not a mistake or merely a
>> difference, but an improvement. (Except to those who think it's a
>> corruption.)
>>
>
>An added meaning is not perceived as a change?
>
I'm not an expert on languages. 

My impression from reading this thread is that those who distinguish
between a "difference" and a "change", short for "change in the
language", do so on the basis that "the language" or "The Language" is
something that lasts for generations. They are using "difference" for a
word or usage that may be ephemeral.

To older people new words or new meanings adopted by young people are
differences. These may be perceived by the older people to be
unnecessary and sometimes corruptions of existing words.

Such differences don't become "Changes In The Language" unless they are
adopted and used more widely and survive to be used in the future as
accepted features of, at least some version of, the language.

I've referred to young people but of course the same applies to any
small group whose slang or jargon might or might not get into wider use.

-- 
Peter Duncanson, UK
(in alt.usage.english)