New Merrian-Webster Collegiate Dictionary
Don Phillipson
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/002/979iutow.a
sp
<<There are other examples of Merriam-Webster's inexcusably shoddy
dictionary-making. According to the dictionary's editors, the spelling
"accidently" is as valid as "accidentally"; the verb "predominate" is also
an adjective meaning "predominant"; "enormity" means the same as
"enormousness"; "infer" means the same as "imply"; and "peruse" means not
only to examine carefully but to read over in a casual manner. The
Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary actually promotes the misuse of the
English language. >>
--
Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs (Ottawa, Canada)
dphillipson[at]trytel.com
Raymond S. Wise
news:f6f_a.7146$Z03.4...@news20.bellglobal.com...
> According to reviewer Robert Hartwell Fisk in
>
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/002/979iutow.a
> sp
> <<There are other examples of Merriam-Webster's inexcusably shoddy
> dictionary-making. According to the dictionary's editors, the spelling
> "accidently" is as valid as "accidentally"; the verb "predominate" is also
> an adjective meaning "predominant"; "enormity" means the same as
> "enormousness"; "infer" means the same as "imply"; and "peruse" means not
> only to examine carefully but to read over in a casual manner. The
> Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary actually promotes the misuse of
the
> English language. >>
I haven't yet read the article in question--although I did read enough to
know that the author does not believe that dictionaries should describe
actual usage, which every modern major dictionary without exception attempts
to do--but I thought I would compare and contrast the Collegiate definitions
referred to above with other American dictionaries, to see if their editors
are as guilty of "inexcusably shoddy dictionary-making" as the
lexicographers of the Collegiate are alleged to be:
First, let's take a closer look at the Collegiate definitions, using
*Merriam-Webster's Collegiate* online (which may still the 10th edition):
accidently. This is given as a secondary variant under the entry for
"accidental": "_also_ ac·ci·dent·ly." "Secondary variant" means, although as
standard as the primary variant," it is less common. This is additional
information which is not present in the other dictionary which lists
"accidently" as a variant, the AHD4.
predominate. The Collegiate notes that the adjective "predominate" dates to
1591. It is in none of the dictionaries I refer to below, but it is in *The
Century Dictionary* of 1895, and is not labeled as obsolete. The cite given
is from Burtons "Anatomy of Melancholy." The Century Dictionary is a
prescriptionist dictionary, which means that either "predominate," the
adjective, has fallen out of standard usage in only a hundred years or so,
as would seem to be the case if the other dictionaries cited here are
accurate, or, as the Collegiate entry would seem to indicate, it has hung on
in limited standard usage or has returned to standard usage after having
been nonstandard.
enormity. the Collegiate shows "immensity" as the oldest meaning of
"enormity," and adds a usage note in which it says of the people who would
wish to substitute "enormousness": "Those who urge such a limitation may
not recognize the subtlety with which _enormity_ is actually used" and goes
on to illustrate that subtlety. The Century gave for enormity the sense "2.
Enormousness ; immensity : without derogatory implication. [Rare.]"
infer. The Collegiate notes that the distinction between "infer" and "imply"
dates to "some time around the end of World War I" (and goes into more
detail). It is therefore not surprising that the Century has for "infer" the
sense "3. To bear presumption or proof of; imply."
peruse Here are the complete definitions:
[quote]
1 a : to examine or consider with attention and in detail : STUDY b : to
look over or through in a casual or cursory manner
2 : READ; _especially_ : to read over in an attentive or leisurely manner
[end quote]
In the following, I have stated whether the dictionary agrees with the
Collegiate by using the words "yes," "no," or "perhaps."
The AHD4:
accidently, yes. It is listed under the entry for "accidental"
predominate, no
enormity, yes. but that meaning is labeled a " 3. _Usage Problem_ Great
size; immensity," and a usage note accompanies the word.
infer, yes. That definition is not accompanied by the "Usage Problem" label,
but a usage note accompanying the entry says: "_Infer_ is sometimes confused
with _imply,_ but the distinction is a useful one."
peruse, no.
The dictionary at www.infoplease.com :
accidently, no.
predominate, no
enormity, yes, 3. greatness of size, scope, extent, or influence; immensity:
_The enormity of such an act of generosity is staggering._
infer, yes. Besides "4. to hint; imply; suggest." it also has "3. to guess;
speculate; surmise."
peruse, perhaps. It has as one sense "1. a reading: _a perusal of the
current books._ This does not seem to me to be making reference to a close
or careful reading.
*Encarta World English Dictionary,* North American Edition:
accidently, no
predominate, no
enormity, no. In a "Word Usage" note, comparing "enormity" and
"enormousness,: it says that the latter is "the only word in this pair that
refers, in correct usage, to significant size"
infer, yes
peruse, yes, "read something: to read or examine something in a leisurely or
careful way."
--
Raymond S. Wise
Minneapolis, Minnesota USA
E-mail: mplsray @ yahoo . com
CyberCypher
news:f6f_a.7146$Z03.4...@news20.bellglobal.com:
> According to reviewer Robert Hartwell Fisk in
> http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/002/9
> 79iutow.a sp
> <<There are other examples of Merriam-Webster's inexcusably shoddy
> dictionary-making. According to the dictionary's editors, the
> spelling "accidently" is as valid as "accidentally"; the verb
> "predominate" is also an adjective meaning "predominant";
> "enormity" means the same as "enormousness"; "infer" means the
> same as "imply"; and "peruse" means not only to examine carefully
> but to read over in a casual manner. The Merriam-Webster's
> Collegiate Dictionary actually promotes the misuse of the English
> language. >>
This is what comes of embracing descriptivism in language. You can
have it one way or the other, but not both.
If you claim to be a descriptivist, then you have no ground for
complaint. Rather, we must celebrate the victory of diversity over
the patriarchical domination of the English language for the past
6000+ years (I here refer to the protoforms of English already
prewomanishly nascent in the ancient tongue of the Philistines). And
we must believe in our slogan: "Well, that's the way the language is
utilfuckinized by native speakers. Get over it!"
If you claim to be a prescriptivist, then I empathize. Somehow we
have to win this war on description without shooting everyone who
uses English incorrectly or arresting and holding them without a
warrant until we can determine whether they are terminally infecting
the language.
I want to have it both ways, so I do. I have an signed first edition
of _The Protocols of the Learned Elders of English Lexicography and
Usage_ (they are as diverse a group as one can possibly imagine and
even include a few of the protozoans who post here). Whenever I am
offended by someone's usage or descriptivist dicta, I just repeat my
Dyed-In-The-Wool Descriptivist slogan as I wag my finger and shake
my head (or it might be the other way round) and smile inwardly as I
take comfort in my secret knowledge of the PLEELU and the linguistic
usage militias forming everywhere to protect God's One and Only
Great Linguistic Entity (That's GOOGLE, incase you missed it). We
shall overwean!
Reinhold (Rey) Aman
> According to reviewer Robert Hartwell Fisk in
> http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/002/979iutow.asp
> <<There are other examples of Merriam-Webster's inexcusably shoddy
> dictionary-making. According to the dictionary's editors, the spelling
> "accidently" is as valid as "accidentally"; the verb "predominate" is
> also an adjective meaning "predominant"; "enormity" means the same as
> "enormousness"; "infer" means the same as "imply"; and "peruse" means
> not only to examine carefully but to read over in a casual manner. The
> Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary actually promotes the misuse of
> the English language. >>
Looks like Dr. \\Schmutz was hired as M-W's editor in chief.
According to that anything-goes Schultz, if enough cretins use
whatever illiterate language they use, it's, like, correct, you know,
and worthy of being recorded in a descriptive dictionary. That'll
learn us!
--
Reinhold (Rey) Aman
Raymond S. Wise
news:Xns93D682B7D...@130.133.1.4...
You appear to think such a thing as an "anything-goes descriptivist" exists.
I don't believe there is such a creature, and if there is, it would appear
to have had not the slightest influence on English usage.
It's a straw man, and a particularly silly one.
CyberCypher
news:vjjtoql...@corp.supernews.com:
> "CyberCypher" <hui...@netscape.com> wrote in message
> news:Xns93D682B7D...@130.133.1.4...
>> "Don Phillipson" <dphil...@trytel.com> burbled
>> news:f6f_a.7146$Z03.4...@news20.bellglobal.com:
>>
>> > According to reviewer Robert Hartwell Fisk in
>> > http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/00
>> > 2/9 79iutow.a sp
Jesus, Raymond, get a fucking life, will you? Read anything by
Schultz to find an "anything-goes descriptivist", a fact verified by
Rey in another post in this thread. Beyond PS's lack of influence on
the English language as a whole, or even the English in this NG ---
which I will grant you --- the entire world of English speakers and
the media that created them constitute the world's largest
"anything-goes descriptivist", and a fairly (as in "pretty" but not
"justly") uncritical and unthinking one at that, save for William
Safire, who is as critical as anyone can possibly be and still be
expected to be taken seriously enough to be paid to express his
opinions in the newspaper ever week. (Now, if you can figure out
whether I am a supporter or detractor of Safire based on that line
alone, I will have to grant you something like women's intuition or
a linguistic-truth divining rod that wriggles and wriggles and
tickles inside you when you spot what you deem to be linguistic
heresy.)
You appear to hone in on single lines, rip them out of context, and
then proceed to create your own straw men. Read the line in the
context of the entire post, for Christ's sake. Just because the only
thing you understood in it was the DITWD slogan doesn't mean that
that is what it is has to say, nor that it speaks for me or anyone
related to me by blood, marriage, or the sequelae of sexually
transmitted diseases we might share.
I suppose, however, that I should be flattered that you even
bothered to comment on my post. It appeared dangerous enough, it
seems, that you feared someone else who read it might have been
persuaded that such a bogey-man as the "anything-goes descriptivist"
does exist.
Even if you had read Don Phillipson's post and the article he
pointed out to us --- for which I thank him, because it is an
interesting, far-out, and provocative article despite its being
wrongheaded, but I don't have the time to do a detailed and serious
analysis of it at the moment. I might, if I have the time --- you
would have noticed that Robert Hartwell Fiske is an unabashed
antagonist of the "anything-goes descriptivist", and he gets paid to
write reviews of language books. He's much more dangerous than I am.
I am not prepared to make any judgment about Don's position on the
article or Fiske's linguistic values just because he posted the info
about the article, but perhaps you can test your magic twanger on
what he said.
The "anything-goes descriptivist" has its own atagonist, the
linguistic purist who would have us speaking and writing in some
antechronic dialect of proto-English. Neither exists for real. They
are caricatures and hyperboles. Nobody takes them at face value ---
they are far too ugly.
Simon R. Hughes
> According to reviewer Robert Hartwell Fisk in
> http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/002/979iutow.a
> sp
> <<There are other examples of Merriam-Webster's inexcusably shoddy
> dictionary-making. According to the dictionary's editors, the spelling
> "accidently" is as valid as "accidentally"; the verb "predominate" is also
> an adjective meaning "predominant"; "enormity" means the same as
> "enormousness"; "infer" means the same as "imply"; and "peruse" means not
> only to examine carefully but to read over in a casual manner. The
> Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary actually promotes the misuse of the
> English language. >>
Leaving the others aside for now (I read Ray Wise's post, and that
seems reasonable enough to me), here is what I had to say in my
review of Robert Hartwell Fiske's _The Dimwit's Dictionary_, about
his prescription that the form "accidently" is wrong, wrong,
wrongity wrong:
=====
[Quoting from the dictionary, which I have already characterised as,
"an unappologetically prescriptivist dictionary"]
At least one well-known dictionary does recognize the spelling
_accidently_. But let this be a further reminder that
dictionaries merely record how people use the language, not
necessarily how it ought to be used. Some dictionaries, we can
reasonably infer, actually promote illiteracy. (p. 34)
[...]
I suspect, however, a more pressing reason for the
"acerbic" tone is that some of his prescriptions have no defence.
The entry for "accidently" is a good example. The "misspelling"
"accidently" dates back to the 15th century, and is probably the
result of forming an adverb from the noun "accident" rather than
from the adjective "accidental", from whence Fiske's correct
"accidentally" derives. I fail to see why deriving a different word
class from a word that is itself derived should be considered
correct, but one derived directly from the root noun incorrect. In
any case, the "misspelling" has had an illustrious literary history.
Aphra Behn uses "accidently" in _The Widdow Ranter_, from 1689.
Henry Fielding uses it in _Tom Jones_, his most famous work, from
1749; and John Steinbeck used it in his 1948 novel, _The Pearl_.
Between the latter two, Jane Austen also uses "accidently" in _Sense
and Sensibility_, from 1811. She also uses "accidentally", though.
(Why she uses both in the same book is a mystery.)
Fiske's claim that the use of "accidently" instead of
"accidentally" leads to illiteracy is clearly ridiculous. It is
prescriptions such as this that cause me to take everything in the
book with a large pinch of salt.
[...]
From <http://home.online.no/~shughes/stuff/older/octoberstuff.html#
011002_01_26>
=====
(My conclusion is that I would still recommend the book to
*thinking* people -- those who will not be cowed by the published
word.)
Perhaps all of the other examples Fiske mentions in his review are
errors on the part of the Mirriam-Webster staff; mixing in a
secondary form of spelling (whether we spell it "accidentally" or
"accidently" doesn't affect the pronunciation), however, and stating
that it is wrong is just as misleading.
There's no such thing as an objective review (irony intended).
--
Simon R. Hughes <!-- Kill "Kenny" for email. -->
<!-- 67 deg. 17' N; 14 deg. 23' E -->
CyberCypher
news:MPG.19a41e8b2...@news.online.no:
> Thus spake Don Phillipson:
>> According to reviewer Robert Hartwell Fisk in
>> http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/002/
>> 979iutow.a sp
>> <<There are other examples of Merriam-Webster's inexcusably
>> shoddy dictionary-making. According to the dictionary's editors,
>> the spelling "accidently" is as valid as "accidentally"; the verb
>> "predominate" is also an adjective meaning "predominant";
>> "enormity" means the same as "enormousness"; "infer" means the
>> same as "imply"; and "peruse" means not only to examine carefully
>> but to read over in a casual manner. The Merriam-Webster's
>> Collegiate Dictionary actually promotes the misuse of the English
>> language. >>
>
> Leaving the others aside for now (I read Ray Wise's post, and that
> seems reasonable enough to me), here is what I had to say in my
> review of Robert Hartwell Fiske's _The Dimwit's Dictionary_, about
> his prescription that the form "accidently" is wrong, wrong,
> wrongity wrong:
[Interesting stuff snipt]
After reading Fiske's entire review of the M-W11, I have to agree
with your rejection of Fiske's objections. He also objects to
"alright", up with which pre-boomers have put for more than half a
century. I have not noticed that it was the proximate cause of any
boom in illiteracy during that twentieth of a millennium.
I found this tidbit most interesting: "Dictionaries are no longer
sacrosanct, no longer sources of unimpeachable information.
Dictionaries are, indeed, no longer to be trusted." The problem with
this attitude, of course, is that dictionaries are not bibles of the
language, merely chronicles of usage, meaning, and orthography. I
would not go to a dictionary for a definitive answer to a question
about contemporary usage or grammar. Even the OED is good only for
historical information about usage. And grammar questions are best
answered by current grammar books and linguists who specialize in
grammar and syntax. The current grammars, however, leave much to be
desired simply because they do not answer all the questions I ask;
partly, I suppose, because their indices are not categorized the way
I would arrange them --- but, then, the grammarians who wrote them
and the publishers who issued them did not ask me to prepare the
indices, damn them.
Another pair of his choice sentences: "As most people know by now,
dictionary makers today merely record how the language is used, not
how the language ought to be used. That is, lexicographers are
descriptivists, language liberals." These are absurdities, of
course. Dictionaries are not equipped to tell us users how we ought
to use the language or "how the language ought to be used", only how
the language was used when and before the dictionary was compiled.
I've never thought that lexicographers were the priests or police of
language, only the recorders of it.
Therefore, if a lexicographer is someone who describes the way the
language is used, a putative descriptivist, then that same
lexicographer cannot be either a language liberal or conservative
based solely upon writing it down but only upon commenting on it.
Just because the lexicographer writes down the way the speakers of
English use the language does not mean that the lexicographer has to
like or dislike the way the language is used. That is Fiske's
problem.
I am all in favor of what M-W does --- but that doesn't mean that I
have to spell "accidentally" as "accidently" if I don't want to. If
there are variant spellings, then I may choose the one I prefer,
unless I have been instructed to always choose the first spelling
and never the {alternate (if this is seen as a noun) / alternative
(if this is seen as an adjective)}.
And, hell, as long as there are two or three different and
acceptable spellings of a word, then I will do just what Jane Austen
did and use both spellings in the same piece of writing. You may not
see why she used two different spellings, but I empathize totally. I
often use British English spellings and American English spellings
of the same word in the same document. Why shouldn't I? They're both
acceptable, aren't they? Unless, of course, someone says I have to
choose AmE or BrE and be consistent about it. I frankly think this
is unfair. I should be able to choose according to my taste, I
think. I prefer "travelling" and "counselling" to their single-"l"
versions just as I prefer "kidnapping" to "kidnaping" and "busing"
to "bussing" (when the latter doesn't mean "kissing").
The same should go for meaning. Someone recently complained that I
wasn't using the primary meaning of a word in a post. Why do I have
to use the primary meaning of the word if the word has more than 6
meanings (and some do) If we are restricted to the primary spelling
and the primary meaning, then all dictionaries should carry only
those and none of the secondary, teritiary, etc. meanings and
spellings. If they carry more, then "Dictionaries are no longer
sacrosanct, no longer sources of unimpeachable information.
Dictionaries are, indeed, no longer to be trusted", as Fiske
jeremiads (or jeremianicizes, if you prefer that I verb an
adjective)
If anyone complains that I am being inconsistent, why then I just
raise my hand, point my jittering index finger, and scream
"Prescriptivist asshole" in a honeyed (or honied, if you prefer, and
I don't) tone of voice so as not to offend the asshole.
Mike Lyle
[...]
> You appear to think such a thing as an "anything-goes descriptivist" exists.
> I don't believe there is such a creature, and if there is, it would appear
> to have had not the slightest influence on English usage.
>
> It's a straw man, and a particularly silly one.
OK, I think I see your position: you're a "not-anything-goes
descriptivist". Having read a lot of what you say about language use,
I feel I know fairly well where you're coming from. But that's only a
feeling: how would *you* define this variety of descriptivism?
(I've said before that I think the constant use of the terminations
-ist and -ism is entirely inappropriate in this matter, and that it
has something to say about the users; but I'll accept their use for
now.)
Mike.
Jon and Mary Miller
>Between the latter two, Jane Austen also uses "accidently" in _Sense
>and Sensibility_, from 1811. She also uses "accidentally", though.
>(Why she uses both in the same book is a mystery.)
>
Because she can?
>Fiske's claim that the use of "accidently" instead of
>"accidentally" leads to illiteracy is clearly ridiculous. It is
>prescriptions such as this that cause me to take everything in the
>book with a large pinch of salt.
>
But think of all the time you've saved me with this review, since I now
don't have to read the book. I thank you from the bottom of my heart.
>There's no such thing as an objective review (irony intended).
>
>
Mine are. (Irony absent, since we Americans don't understand it.)
Jon Miller
Simon R. Hughes
> Simon R. Hughes wrote:
>
> >Between the latter two, Jane Austen also uses "accidently" in _Sense
> >and Sensibility_, from 1811. She also uses "accidentally", though.
> >(Why she uses both in the same book is a mystery.)
> >
> Because she can?
>
> >Fiske's claim that the use of "accidently" instead of
> >"accidentally" leads to illiteracy is clearly ridiculous. It is
> >prescriptions such as this that cause me to take everything in the
> >book with a large pinch of salt.
> >
> But think of all the time you've saved me with this review, since I now
> don't have to read the book. I thank you from the bottom of my heart.
I certainly wouldn't recommend the book to someone who could not
stand the provocation.
> >There's no such thing as an objective review (irony intended).
> >
> Mine are. (Irony absent, since we Americans don't understand it.)
>
> Jon Miller
>
>
--
Raymond S. Wise
news:MPG.19a41e8b2...@news.online.no...
[...]
> Aphra Behn uses "accidently" in _The Widdow Ranter_, from 1689.
> Henry Fielding uses it in _Tom Jones_, his most famous work, from
> 1749; and John Steinbeck used it in his 1948 novel, _The Pearl_.
> Between the latter two, Jane Austen also uses "accidently" in _Sense
> and Sensibility_, from 1811. She also uses "accidentally", though.
> (Why she uses both in the same book is a mystery.)
Sometimes even the greatest writers are inconsistent. The following is from
a previous post I made to this group:
See
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=v7c57lahg7j871%40corp.supernews.com&oe=
UTF-8&output=gplain
or
[begin quote from Usenet post]
I have noted before that Mark Twain was inconsistent in *The Adventures of
Huckleberry Finn* in the word he had Jim use for "ask": Jim used both "ax"
("What's de use to ax dat question?") and "ast" ("Now I want to ast
you[...]"). The verb "druther" is another case of inconsistency: In
*Huckleberry Finn,* Twain has both "I'd druther been bit with a snake than
pap's whisky." and "I druther have [your word] than another man's
kiss-the-Bible." He had both "[He] said he'd druther not take a child away
from its father." and "He said he druther see the new moon over his left
shoulder as much as a thousand times than take up a snake-skin in his hand."
"I druther" has the same number of morphemes as "I'd rather." So does "I'd
druther," it seems to me, because "druther" here has become as unanalyzable
as "druthers."
[end quote from Usenet post]
Charles Riggs
<a5799...@yahoo.no> wrote:
>Thus spake Jon and Mary Miller:
>> Simon R. Hughes wrote:
>>
>> >Between the latter two, Jane Austen also uses "accidently" in _Sense
>> >and Sensibility_, from 1811. She also uses "accidentally", though.
>> >(Why she uses both in the same book is a mystery.)
>> >
>> Because she can?
>>
>> >Fiske's claim that the use of "accidently" instead of
>> >"accidentally" leads to illiteracy is clearly ridiculous. It is
>> >prescriptions such as this that cause me to take everything in the
>> >book with a large pinch of salt.
>> >
>> But think of all the time you've saved me with this review, since I now
>> don't have to read the book. I thank you from the bottom of my heart.
>
>I certainly wouldn't recommend the book to someone who could not
>stand the provocation.
Or to someone who, like myself, can't stand Jane Austen.
--
Charles Riggs
For email, take the air out of aircom
and replace with eir
Raymond S. Wise
news:3fa4d950.03081...@posting.google.com...
First, I have no interest in theoretical descriptions of the difference
between descriptivists and prescriptivists, since they depend upon
theoretical definitions of the words themselves. My interest is in the two
sides of the actual dispute which has been going on since the late 19th
century between those who would give usage advice based upon actual usage
("descriptivists") and upon such linguistic-based principles as "A word's
meaning depends entirely on its usage, and not on its etymology," and those
who would give usage advice based upon theories for how language should be,
or how it was so much better in the past, or on pet peeves against some
usages, or simply on whim, and who have little interest in actual
usage--except when condemning usages they disagree with. Both descriptivists
and prescriptivists give advice with the aim that the reader can learn to
use a standard dialect of his language and can speak and write it clearly,
but the prescriptivist advice is based upon fantasy[1] and the descriptivist
advice is based upon reality, the actual usages used by educated speakers of
the standard dialect.
That's it. That's the difference. If you want to know more, feel free to ask
me more specific questions.
Note:
[1] Even though some prescriptivists appear to advocate the return to what
was actual usage in past times, a close look at their claims invariably
turns up many examples where their ideas about past usage are in error.
Harvey Van Sickle
-snip-
> OK, I think I see your position: you're a "not-anything-goes
> descriptivist". Having read a lot of what you say about language
> use, I feel I know fairly well where you're coming from. But
> that's only a feeling: how would *you* define this variety of
> descriptivism?
Is there such a thing as an "anything-goes-descriptivist"? I'd really
like to be pointed to one -- a true "there are no rules" type.
People who start from "the rules are defined by the usages employed by
users of the language" share a fundamental principle with those who say
"the rules are set down in a canon, and are immutable": both accept
that rules exist. It is the source of the rules which is at issue, not
the fact of the rules.
I've never come across any "descriptive" commentator who states that
"any usage goes/is acceptable". What is said is that "any usage has
the *potential* to be acceptable, if the generality of the users of the
language decide to use the language in that way" -- which is an
entirely different thing.
--
Cheers, Harvey
Ottawa/Toronto/Edmonton for 30 years;
Southern England for the past 21 years.
(for e-mail, change harvey to whhvs)
Robert Bannister
> On Wed, 13 Aug 2003 15:25:51 GMT, Mike Lyle wrote
>
> -snip-
>
>
>
>>OK, I think I see your position: you're a "not-anything-goes
>>descriptivist". Having read a lot of what you say about language
>>use, I feel I know fairly well where you're coming from. But
>>that's only a feeling: how would *you* define this variety of
>>descriptivism?
>
>
> Is there such a thing as an "anything-goes-descriptivist"? I'd really
> like to be pointed to one -- a true "there are no rules" type.
>
> People who start from "the rules are defined by the usages employed by
> users of the language" share a fundamental principle with those who say
> "the rules are set down in a canon, and are immutable": both accept
> that rules exist. It is the source of the rules which is at issue, not
> the fact of the rules.
>
> I've never come across any "descriptive" commentator who states that
> "any usage goes/is acceptable". What is said is that "any usage has
> the *potential* to be acceptable, if the generality of the users of the
> language decide to use the language in that way" -- which is an
> entirely different thing.
>
Whilst I am quite sure that Raymond is not an
'anything-goes-descriptivist', he does confuse me at times when he
insists that the personal lect of anybody whatsoever is grammatical,
even though this 'lect' might appear to be plain ignorance to many
people. Your 'potential to be(-come) acceptable' makes sense to me.
--
Rob Bannister
CyberCypher
Then you should excuse yourself from such discussions, but you
cannot.
> My
> interest is in the two sides of the actual dispute which has been
> going on since the late 19th century between those who would give
> usage advice based upon actual usage ("descriptivists") and upon
> such linguistic-based principles as "A word's meaning depends
> entirely on its usage, and not on its etymology," and those who
> would give usage advice based upon theories for how language
> should be, or how it was so much better in the past, or on pet
> peeves against some usages, or simply on whim, and who have little
> interest in actual usage--except when condemning usages they
> disagree with.
White Hat versus Black Hat. Nothing at all simplistic about this
"You're either for me or against me" attitude of yours, is there.
> Both descriptivists and prescriptivists give advice
> with the aim that the reader can learn to use a standard dialect
> of his language and can speak and write it clearly, but the
> prescriptivist advice is based upon fantasy[1] and the
> descriptivist advice is based upon reality, the actual usages used
> by educated speakers of the standard dialect.
Nothing biased at all in this "description" of what you think goes
on in the world, Raymond. All "descriptivists base their advice upon
reality" and all "prescriptivists base their advice upon fantasy".
Nothing at all absolutist about this "description" either. Seems to
me that this is a "prescription" rather than a "description".
Both "-ists" want to teach language users "to use a standard dialect
of his language" so that he may "speak and write it clearly". I got
the difference there: They have the same goals.
But the "prescriptivist advice is based upon fantasy". This ought to
mean that the prescriptivist cannot speak and write the standard
dialect clearly, no? If the prescriptivist bases his own language
use upon fantasies about the language, then the prescriptivist ought
to be a poor speaker and writer of the standard dialect. The problem
with that implication is that so many people pay attention to
prescriptivists simply because prescriptivists tend to be good
writers and speakers of the language; they are sometimes even the
educated speakers of the standard dialect that descriptivists look
to for how the language is used.
And the "descriptivist advice is based upon reality, the actual
usages used by educated speakers of the standard dialect". The
problem with this description of what descriptivists do is that
educated speakers of the standard dialect do not always agree on how
to use the language. They use it in so many different ways and
disagree on so many different points of usage. All one has to do is
follow any usage discussion here where the question is not about an
obviously ungrammatical and specious usage.
Conclusions to be drawn from these premises are:
1. Prescriptivist language advice is always wrong
(because it is based on fantasy).
2. Descriptivist language advice is always right
(because it is based on reality).
3. Prescriptivists and descriptivists never give the same advice
about usage because they use different methods of arriving at
what advice to give: fantasy and reality, respectively.
4. If prescriptivists and descriptivists should find themselves
agreeing, then it is because:
A. coincidence or chance or the advisee's good fortune (luck)
B. fantasy and reality are the same in that particular case
C. the one copied his advice from the other
D. Sorry, but this situation could never obtain simply by
definition: "fantasy" is the opposite of "reality", so
it is nothing less than contradictory when "fantasy" and
"reality" are equal --- unless, of course, we are wrong
about the natures of "fantasy" and "reality": they are not
really mutually exclusive all the time, only some of the time.
> That's it. That's the difference. If you want to know more, feel
> free to ask me more specific questions.
>
> Note:
>
> [1] Even though some prescriptivists appear to advocate the return
> to what was actual usage in past times, a close look at their
> claims invariably turns up many examples where their ideas about
> past usage are in error.
This footnote is redundant. You have already claimed that
"prescriptivist advice is based upon fantasy"; therefore, all claims
they make about present and past usage should be in error. This
statement should be as absolutist as your claims about the type of
advice offered by these two types of advisors; it should say
"verifying the claims of prescriptivists, whose advice is 'based
upon fantasy', invariably turns up examples, every one of which
demonstrates that their ideas about past usage are always in error".
Richard R. Hershberger
> http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/002/979iutow.a
> sp
> <<There are other examples of Merriam-Webster's inexcusably shoddy
> dictionary-making. According to the dictionary's editors, the spelling
> "accidently" is as valid as "accidentally"; the verb "predominate" is also
> an adjective meaning "predominant"; "enormity" means the same as
> "enormousness"; "infer" means the same as "imply"; and "peruse" means not
> only to examine carefully but to read over in a casual manner. The
> Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary actually promotes the misuse of the
> English language. >>
I just got around to reading the review. Thanks for the link.
For those unfamiliar with Robert Hartwell Fiske, he edits an online
journal "The Vocabula Review". It is stridently prescriptivist, and
generally unencumbered by facts. I read it before he started charging
a subscription. Since then, however, I stick to "The Onion" for that
internet food group. I can't recommend it as being worth the price,
but the various bits viewable with a subscription are plenty to get
its feel.
Two parts of this review caught my attention in addition to the points
others have raised. Fiske writes that "Merriam-Webster, apparently
not knowing how else to distinguish its dictionary from competing
ones, has decided to include slang words in its eleventh edition."
Apparently he believes that this is an innovation, which in turn
suggests the he is in fact entirely unfamiliar with dictionaries:
even older ones such as Webster's Second International. But upon
further reading, the appalling-ignorance theory doesn't hold up. The
first example Fiske uses of a slang word in MW11 is "dis", which he
correctly notes was also included in MW10. So what, exactly, is the
innovation? It may be that MW has decided to include a greater
proportion of slang words than previously, but Fiske's prose is so
incoherent that we cannot be sure what he thought he was saying.
The other interesting bit was this: "A FEW MONTHS AGO (before the new
edition of the Merriam-Webster Collegiate was published), I took a
poll of Vocabula Review readers and discovered that 68 percent of the
respondents rejected the strong descriptivist idea of
dictionary-making, and only 4 percent would necessarily bow to the
definitions and spellings found in the dictionary. More than that,
though, the new Merriam-Webster is a sign that dictionaries, at least
as they are now being compiled, have outlived their usefulness.
Dictionaries are no longer sacrosanct, no longer sources of
unimpeachable information. Dictionaries are, indeed, no longer to be
trusted."
What, exactly, was the point of telling us about his internet poll?
Internet polls are notoriously worthless, and limiting the poll to
those who have self-selected for presciptivist opinions by subscribing
to "The Vocabula Review" is like polling Republican Party convention
delegates "Who do you like better: George W. Bush or Bill Clinton?"
The results tell us nothing that we didn't already know. So is there
any point to is other than embarassingly empty rhetoric? In any case,
how does it relate logically to the rest of the paragraph? In the
sentence "More than that..." what exactly is the antecedent of "that"?
The paragraph is sheer babble.
I value writers such as Fiske. They serve as valuable object lessons
by showing that the most punctilious compliance with the rules of
usage have so little to do with either writing or thinking well.
Richard "not that I have an opinion" Hershberger
Raymond S. Wise
Make up your mind. Does the "anything-goes descriptivist" exist or not? Your
message above would seem to take both positions.
As for P. Schultz, he has been posting to this newsgroup for approximately
the same time I have, perhaps longer. On several occasions, I have pointedly
asked for an example of a flesh-and-blood "anything-goes descriptivist," yet
no one has suggested P. Schultz is such a person until this thread. That
strongly suggests to me that he is, in fact, *not.*
CyberCypher
news:82401463.03081...@posting.google.com:
> "Don Phillipson" <dphil...@trytel.com> wrote in message
> news:<f6f_a.7146$Z03.4...@news20.bellglobal.com>...
>> According to reviewer Robert Hartwell Fisk in
>> http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/002/
>> 979iutow.a sp
>> <<There are other examples of Merriam-Webster's inexcusably
>> shoddy dictionary-making.
[...]
>
> I value writers such as Fiske. They serve as valuable object
> lessons by showing that the most punctilious compliance with the
> rules of usage have so little to do with either writing or
> thinking well.
I agree wholeheartedly with your evaluation of Fiske and his review
of the M-W11. He did ask one good question, though: "What words from
the M-W 10th were dropped from the 11th in order to make room for
the new entries (I doubt that all the new entries are slang on the
order of "dis", which is so commonplace everywhere around the world
where rap-noise is played that it deserves to be in the
dictionary).
Quoth the raver: "More interesting than this new edition would be a
book of the words abandoned. Were they sesquipedalian words that few
people use or know the meaning of, or even disyllabic words that few
people use or know the meaning of? For it's quite true that
Americans are increasingly monosyllabic; many people cannot even
manage to say "disparage" or "disrespect" or "insult," so enamored
are they of the repugnant "dis" (included in the Collegiate tenth
and eleventh).
I wonder if they did not dispense with some of the old slang that is
no longer used. The question is interesting,. not for the reasons
that Fiske asked it but because I wonder how lexicographers decide
what words not to include. As it turns out, they are often the ones
I can't find when I need them, like, for example, "adlittoral",
which *is* in W3NID CD-ROM but *not* in M-W 11 online or AHD4
online.
Raymond S. Wise
I would join such a discussion only to state how pointless it was. Usage
determines meaning, and "descriptivists" and "prescriptivists" are labels
which have been applied to two separate groups which do in fact exist.
Bergen Evans isn't a fantasy, nor is William Simon. The disagreement between
descriptivists and prescriptivists is an actual disagreement between actual
people, not a theoretical disagreement between chimeras.
I deliberately kept my answer short, asking for further questions from Mike
Lyle, if necessary, because I have written at great length on this subject
in the past. I have, in fact, dealt with the question of whether
prescriptivists are ever right. The answer is no: When a prescriptivist is
acting qua prescriptivist, there is no logical possibility of him being
right. I will explain. First, let's look at what I have said in the past on
the subject:
See
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=47dd044c.0201070208.47ad8339%40posting.
google.com&oe=UTF-8&output=gplain
or
[quote]
When there is no dispute about a given usage descriptivists and
prescriptivists agree. Both would agree, for example, that the
sentence "Dog the bit man the" is a grammatically incorrect English
sentence. But they are nevertheless working from two separate
perspectives. The prescriptivist works with a fantasy, the
descriptivist works with a reality. It is precisely similar to the
situation that exists between a scientist and a pseudoscientist. The
pseudoscientist may be able to describe how electricity works
perfectly correctly, as may the scientist. But that does not make the
scientist's description of electricity "pseudoscientific"--in fact, to
do so would be not only a grave insult, but objectively false. The
scientist has a correct view of the world and works from that. The
pseudoscientist an incorrect view of the world and works from that.
[end quote]
See
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=a0t9000103b%40enews1.newsguy.com&oe=UTF
-8&output=gplain
or
[quote]
In English usage, however, there is no one who believes that "anything
goes." There are prescriptivists (pedants) and descriptivists. When a usage
is not disputed, prescriptivists and descriptivists are in complete
agreement, of course. It is when a usage is disputed that problems arise.
The pedant insists on a proposed or false usage, the descriptivist on an
actual or true usage.
[end quote]
The idea that when descriptivists and prescriptivists agree, there is no
usage dispute, no logical reason to distinguish the two sides, is not
original with me. It was expressed in one of the following books--which one,
I cannot now say, but I am certain it was in one of them[1]:
*The Doctrine of Correctness in English Usage, 1700-1800* by Sterling Andrus
Leonard (New York: Russell & Russell, Inc, 1962), a reprint from the 1929
edition.
*Attitudes Toward English Usage: The History of a War of Words* by Edward
Finegan. New York: Teachers College Press, (C) 1980.
Think about the logic of the matter. If a prescriptivist were to make an
observation such as "'The man bit the dog' is an English statement which
means that it was the dog who received the bite from the man,' that is a
description of actual usage. It is pointless to claim that such a statement
is a prescriptivist proclamation.
Note:
[1] I rather expect you to get smart-alecky about my listing two sources and
saying only one discusses the matter in question. But what is my
alternative: Not listing any yet saying that "It was in a book I read"? Then
you would be smart-alecky about that.
Michael West
Richard R. Hershberger wrote:
> I value writers such as Fiske. They serve as valuable object lessons
> by showing that the most punctilious compliance with the rules of
> usage have so little to do with either writing or thinking well.
After reading his stuff for a while, and that of others
of his ilk published at that site, I share your opinion --
but would never have been able to state it so elegantly.
--
Michael West
Melbourne, Australia
(In the shadow of the You-Yangs)
CyberCypher
> not? Your message above would seem to take both positions.
>
> As for P. Schultz, he has been posting to this newsgroup for
> approximately the same time I have, perhaps longer. On several
> occasions, I have pointedly asked for an example of a
> flesh-and-blood "anything-goes descriptivist," yet no one has
> suggested P. Schultz is such a person until this thread. That
> strongly suggests to me that he is, in fact, *not.*
Lately, Schultzie has taken to citing usages found in google.com
hits as evidence that "this is the way the language is used". He is
obviously confused. Surely he cannot mean that all the usages he
finds in google.com hits are examples of the way educated speakers
of the language use English, just that they are identifiable
examples of a usage, be they typos by educted native English
speakers or goofos by non-native-speakers of English. Rey and I
both think that he is confused about things. He seems to be the
closest example we have.
Does the straw man that I called a caricature and hyperbole exist?
Yes, as a caricature and hyperbole. Does the straw-man
prescriptivist that you delineated in your post today, the one that
gives usage advice based on fantasy, really exist? I think he is
also a carciature and hyperbole. Why can't you accept your own
tactics when others use them?
Let's go to some specific examples. The _Cambridge Grammar of
English_ (CGE) sometimes borders on that "anything-goes
descriptivist" carciature, yes. Here is a quote from it that will
warm your heart, I know:
[quote]
THE AIM OF THIS BOOK
Description versus prescription
Our aim is to describe and not prescribe: we outline and illustrate
the principles that govern the construction of words and sentences
in the present-day language without recommending or condemning
particular usage choices. Although this book may be (and we
certainly hope it will be) of use in helping the user decide how to
phrase things, it is not designed as a style guide or a usage
manual. We report that sentences of some types are now widely found
and used, but we will not advise you to use them. We state that
sentences of some types are seldom encountered, or that usage
manuals or language columnists or language teachers recommend
against them, or that some form of words is normally found only in
informal style or, conversely, is limited to rather formal style,
but we will not tell you that you should avoid them or otherwise
make recommendations about how you should speak or write. Rather,
this book offers a description of the context common to all such
decisions: the linguistic system itself.
[/quote]
On the basis of this description of description, I would have to
argue that there are no "descriptivists" who are capable of giving
advice about language usage. All they can do is repeat the sorts of
coelenteric nonsense the CGE editors say here. What it all amounts
to is: "Well, some people say it this way and some people say it
another way. We refuse to tell you which is better. All we can tell
you is that you usually don't find it said this way in dissertations
or articles in _The Times_ or _The National Review_; however, you
will often find it written another way in _The National Enquirer_,
_Rolling Stone_, or _The Guardian_. Which way should *you* write it?
Well, we cannot give you any such advice. We are not style or usage
manuals, just descriptivists. All we know how to say is 'Some people
say it this way, and some people say it another way'. You decide
which you prefer, or consult a style manual that pleases you.
Grammatically, everything we mention here is peachy".
On the differences between prescription and description:
[quote]
Usage manuals also give a great deal of attention to matters of
style and effective expression that lie beyond the range of grammar
aswe understand it. Thus one prescriptive usage dictionary warns
that explore every avenue is a tired clich (and adds that it makes
little sense, since exploration suggests amore challenging
environment than an avenue); that the phrase in this day and age
‘should be avoided at all costs’; that circling round is tautologous
(one can only circle by going round) and thus should not be used;
and so on. Whether or not one thinks these are good pieces of
advice, we do not take them to fall within the realm of grammar. A
sentence like In this day and age one must circle round and explore
every avenue may be loaded with careworn verbiage, or it may even be
arrant nonsense, but there is absolutely nothing grammatically wrong
with it.
[/quote]
Even a prescriptivist who has only a fair knowledge of grammar would
agree with the above: "There is often absolutely nothing wrong with
the grammar of stylistically poor, boring, and ineffective English.
It is, however, not the sort of stuff you ought to write, simply
because it is stylistically poor, boring, and ineffective. Good
grammar does not always make good English". This is my
"prescriptivist" position. I do give advice when I feel that I have
something worthwhile to say about how to phrase something; I don't
describe how others do it unless it's germane. I don't think that my
advice is always correct; I am, after all, only one man and cannot
possibly think of the best way to express everything. There are many
ways of expressing the same idea, and some of them are better and
some of them are worse. Everything depends upon the total context.
[quote]
There are also topics in a descriptive grammar that are uniformly
ignored by prescriptivists. These include the most salient and
well-known principles of syntax. Prescriptive works tend to be
highly selective, dealing only with points on which people make
mistakes (or what are commonly thought to be mistakes). They would
never supply, for example, the grammatically important information
that determinatives like the and a precede the noun they are
associated with (/the house/, not */house the/),1 or that modal
auxiliaries like can and must are disallowed in infinitival clauses
(*/I'd like to can swim/ is ungrammatical), or that in subordinate
interrogative clauses the interrogative element comes at the front
(so we get /She asked what we needed/, not */She asked we needed
what/). Native speakers never get these things wrong, so no advice
is needed.
[/quote]
Well, it appears that descriptivists and prescriptivists have
different goals in life and that they focus on different aspects of
the language. Who was it, Mike Lyle who said that he thought the
terms "descriptivist" and "prescriptivist" were inappropriate for the
type of discussion we were having? It appears that this is strong
evidence that he was correct.
[quote]
Although descriptive grammars and prescriptive usage manuals differ
in the range of topics they treat, there is no reason in principle
why they should not agree on what they say about the topics they
both treat. The fact they do not is interesting. There are several
reasons for the lack of agreement.We dealwith three of them here:
(a) the basis in personal taste of some prescriptivistwriters’
judgements; (b) the confusion of informality with ungrammaticality;
and (c) certain invalid arguments sometimes appealed to by
prescriptivists. These are extraneous features of prescriptive
writing about language rather than inherent ones, and all three of
them are less prevalent now than they were in the past. But older
prescriptive works have exemplified them, and a few still do; their
influence lingers on in the English-speaking educational world.
[/quote]
Notice the sentence beginning "These are extraneous features" five
lines up. This is strong evidence that you have created a straw-man
prescriptivist to whip and burn. You are still fighting the ghost of
Lowth.
[quote]
All we are pointing out is that where the author of an authoritarian
usage manual departs from recommendations that agree with the way
most people use the language, prescriptivist and descriptivist
accounts will necessarily disagree. The authoritarian prescriptivist
whose recommendations are out of step with the usage of others is at
liberty to declare that they are in error and should change their
ways; the descriptivist under the same circumstances will assume
that it is precisely the constant features in the usage of the
overwhelming majority that de.ne what is grammatical in the
contemporary language, and will judge the prescriptivist to be
expressing an idiosyncratic opinion concerning how the language
ought to be. [/quote]
Robert Hartwell Fiske is an egregious example of the sort of
authoritarian prescriptivist who uses invalid, untrue, and
inchoherent arguments to make his points, but he is no longer the
archetypal prescriptivist. Garner (we'll forget about CMS 15 here)
and Fowler (1, 2, & 3) and other manuals of English usage are. As a
recent thread pointed out, as amended by Gowers, even Fowler2 ---
and Fowler was both a prescriptivist and a lover of formality ---
does not insist upon the kind of idiocies that Fiske, that silly
goose, honks and conks about.
Where I do have a major quarrel with the CGE is here:
[quote]
Another kind of illegitimate argument is based on analogy between
one area of grammar and another. Consider yet another construction
where there is variation between nominative and accusative forms of
pronouns:
[3] a.They invited me to lunch.
b.% They invited my partner and I to lunch.
The '%' symbol is again used to mark the [b] example as typically
used by some speakers of Standard English but not others, though
this time it is not a matter of regional variation. The status of
the construction in [b] differs from that of It's me, which is
undisputedly normal in informal use, and from that of !Me and Kim
saw her leave, which is unquestionably non-standard. What is
different is that examples like [b] are regularly used by a
signi.cant proportion of speakers of Standard English, and not
generally thought by ordinary speakers to be non-standard; they pass
unnoticed in broadcast speech all the time.
Prescriptivists, however, condemn the use illustrated by [3b],
insisting that the ‘correct’ formis They invited my partner and me
to lunch. And here again they seek to justify their claim that [3b]
is ungrammatical by an implicit analogy, this time with other
situations found in English, such as the example seen in [a]. In [a]
the pronoun functions by itself as direct object of the verb and
invariably appears in accusative case. What is different in [b] is
that the direct object of the verb has the form of a coordination,
not a single pronoun. Prescriptivists commonly take it for granted
that this difference is irrelevant to case assignment. They argue
that because we have an accusative in [a] we should also have an
accusative in [b], so the nominative I is ungrammatical.
But why should we simply assume that the grammatical rules for case
assignment cannot differentiate between a coordinated and a
non-coordinated pronoun?
[/quote]
It seems clear to me that this reasoning by the CGE editors is faulty,
sort of like Ptolemy's circles within circles explanation of the Earth-
centric universe. Why should we assume that there is one rule for
uncoordinated pronouns and another for coordinated pronouns? That is my
question. Rather than using a pronoun coordinated with a noun phrase
containing both a possessive pronoun that takes the same form in
subjective and objective position and a normal pronoun, let's take
[3c] They invited her to lunch.
and
[3d] They invited them to lunch.
Can we turn these into:
[3e] *They invited her and they to lunch.
[3f] *They invited they and she to lunch.
I don't think either works. We must say:
[3g] They invited her and them to lunch.
or
[3h] They invited them and her to lunch.
Which is better is a matter of style and taste, so I won't comment on
that.
So now we have a third rule of coordinated pronouns: if both are
pronouns, they must both be in the objective form (I won't say case and
I won't argue about Latin rules of grammar here). If this isn't
Ptolemaic in its workaround, I don't know what is. And if this isn't
what people mean by "anything-goes descriptivism" (native speakers say
it all the time and so we must accept it as grammatical because
grammatical means the way natives speakers speak and use the language),
then I will have to agree that except for Schultzie when he's being
contentious and perverse, I don't know what is. This attitude assumes
that whatever native speakers say is correct. To me, that means
"anything goes --- as long as it is said by a native speaker".
I cannot but agree that some prescriptivsts argue on the basis of
spurious "rules" of grammar, but these CGE guys argue that if native
speakers say things that violate what we have hitherto thought were the
rules of English, why, then, what we thought were the rules of English
were in fact not the rules but only spurious approximations of the
rules that we silly geese believed in because only the best writers and
speakers used them; now we get our grammar rules from the masses of
English speakers, so the rules change whenever there is a tidal turn in
how the masses of native speakers speak and use the language.
In other words, there are no rules. All we can do is describe special
cases like "They invited my partner and I" as idioms; that at least is
not as offensive as claiming that there is a special rule for
coordinated pronouns when the first is a full noun phrase and the
second a mere pronoun.
[quote]
We should stress that not all prescriptive grammarians exhibit the
shortcomings we have just catalogued --- universalising taste
judgements, confusing informality with ungrammaticality, citing
spurious external justi.cations, and arguing from spurious
analogies. There are usage manuals that are accurate in their
understanding of the facts, clear-sighted in their attitudes towards
usage trends, and useful in their recommendations; such books can be
an enormous help to a writer. But the good prescriptive manuals
respect a crucial tenet: that their criterion should always be the
use of the standard language by its native speakers.
[/quote]
This final paragraph of theirs does in your nonsense about
prescriptivism always being based on fantasy, even though they define
"the good prescriptivist" as a closet descriptivist. Funny how
discriminatory people can be, init? [Ambiguity intentional.]
So let's get back to the descriptivist-prescriptivist row, shall we?
When people ask for advice about how to say something, they are asking
for an opinion, a recommendation, a judgment. A descriptivist is ill-
equpped to give advice, as we have seen from the mouths of the editors
of the CGE. They do not advise or make judgments, they only describe. A
prescriptivist, on the other hand, is well-equipped to give advice, as
we have also seen from the very same sources. Prescriptivists are
replete opinions. Not all good, not all sound, not all based on fact,
but all normative and judgmental, just as literary critics are replete
with interpretations of works of literature.
Advice is normative. It takes the form "You should do X".
Descriptivists do not say things like "You should do X" but instead say
things like "Well, many native speakers say Y, and many say Z. Y is
more often found in formal English and Z is more often found in
informal English. Beyond that, any suggestion I might make would be a
prescription, and I'm not allowed to do that and retain my status as a
descriptivist. Sorry".
CyberCypher
Kind of like the man with a "The End of the World Is Coming Soon"
sign, huh? A party-pooper who doesn't want others to discuss
things he thinks are stupid to discuss. My, that is not a nice way
for a descriptivist to behave. That is very normative behaviour. You
are playing linguistic-discussion-cop. But we all know that you
think it's pointless, so why bother reiterating, unceasingly, the
pointlessness of the discussion as you understand it?
> Usage determines meaning, and "descriptivists" and
> "prescriptivists" are labels which have been applied to two
> separate groups which do in fact exist. Bergen Evans isn't a
> fantasy, nor is William Simon. The disagreement between
> descriptivists and prescriptivists
Do you mean to imply that there is only one disagreement between
these two very real groups?
> is an actual disagreement between actual people, not a
> theoretical disagreement between chimeras.
But none of is here is talking about Bergan Evans and William Simon
and their linguistic disagreements. Give us some specifics to talk
about and we will have a totally different discussion.
[...]
> I deliberately kept my answer short, asking for further questions
> from Mike Lyle, if necessary, because I have written at great
> length on this subject in the past. I have, in fact, dealt with
> the question of whether prescriptivists are ever right. The answer
> is no: When a prescriptivist is acting qua prescriptivist, there
> is no logical possibility of him being right. I will explain.
So you have created a circular definition of a prescriptivist.
> First, let's look at what I have said in the past on the subject:
[...]
>
> [quote]
>
> When there is no dispute about a given usage descriptivists and
> prescriptivists agree. Both would agree, for example, that the
> sentence "Dog the bit man the" is a grammatically incorrect
> English sentence. But they are nevertheless working from two
> separate perspectives.
What two different perspectives? This is a question of grammar. It
is also a question of native speaker knowledge of the language. No
native speaker of English would agree that this sentence is
grammatical. What has this to do with description and prescription?
> The prescriptivist works with a fantasy,
If it's a fantasy, how does it lead to correct grammatical judgments
such as the one you offer above? The "even a broken clock is right
twice a day" (assuming it's a 12-hour and not a 24-hour clock, that
is) principle?
> the descriptivist works with a reality.
So everything the descriptivist says should be true; descriptivists
cannot make mistakes about English because they hear and read what
all native speakers say and write, so they have infallible knowledge
of how the language is used. They get everything from sufficient
number of first-hand (not second-hand) sources so that a statistical
analysis of each pronunciamento they make about usage is based on
statistically significant numbers of users: p < 0.05.
Don't you smell a rat here, Raymond? Can't you detect even an iota
of prejudicial stink when you type these clauses and make these
claims? As I said, Black Hat (Ps), White Hat (Ds).
> It is precisely similar to the situation that exists
> between a scientist and a pseudoscientist.
I think the analogy fails. The Ps and Ds disagree on very little,
only on disputed usages. and while the Ps make recommendations about
which usages are correct, the Ds cannot do that; all the Ds can do
is describe how some or many or most native speakers use the
language and cannot recommend which usage is better, because, in
fact, for a D, anything a native speaker says is correct. See my
earlier post on the Cambridge Grammar of English.
Scientists and pseudoscientists have different basic assumptions
about how the universe operates; the Ss assume that there are normal
and natural laws and that it is possible to eventually explain
everything in such a way that their experimental results can be
reproduced and that their hypotheses actually predict what will
happen. Cs (charlatans or pseudoscientists) believe in the
paranormal, not the normal, the supernatural, not the natural. Ps
and Ds do not have different basic assumptions about English. They
merely disagree about some of the rules.
> The pseudoscientist may be able to describe how
> electricity works perfectly correctly, as may the scientist. But
> that does not make the scientist's description of electricity
> "pseudoscientific"--in fact, to do so would be not only a grave
> insult, but objectively false.
So does the correct explanation of how electricity by the
pseudoscientist make his explanation scientific? And if the
pseudoscientist can explain everything as correctly as a scientist
can, does that make him a scientist too, or just a scientist gone
bad?
> The scientist has a correct view of the world and works from that.
Ah. White Hat. Normative statement again. Not descriptive but
judgmental. Wouldn't a chemist, a sound scientist who worked in the
field every day, but somehow decided that she wanted to find some
unknown process that would enable her to achieve "the transmutation
of the base metals into gold, the discovery of a universal cure for
diseases, and the discovery of a means of indefinitely prolonging
life" (W3NID) still be a scientist underneath those robes of
alchemy?
> The pseudoscientist an incorrect view of the world
> and works from that.
[...]
Black Hat. Normative statement.
[...]
>
> In English usage, however, there is no one who believes that
> "anything goes." There are prescriptivists (pedants)
Now you are redefining your terms. Are you talking about pedants or
prescriptivists here? Ps may be pedantic, but not all pedeants are
Ps, I suspect.
> and
> descriptivists. When a usage is not disputed, prescriptivists and
> descriptivists are in complete agreement, of course. It is when a
> usage is disputed that problems arise. The pedant insists on a
> proposed or false usage, the descriptivist on an actual or true
> usage.
And here is where your definition falls to pieces. Here is your
achilles heel. Ps are always wrong and Ds are always right. You are
so black and white, Raymond, such a bigot, such a dogmatist. How can
you stand it? You compare apples and oranges and dare to say that
one tastes better than the other. Absurd!
>
> [end quote]
>
>
> The idea that when descriptivists and prescriptivists agree, there
> is no usage dispute, no logical reason to distinguish the two
> sides, is not original with me.
It is also stated quite clearly in the intro to the CGE, so there is
no need to support your assertion. Anyway, it is prima facie
acceptable and even obvious.
[...]
> Think about the logic of the matter. If a prescriptivist were to
> make an observation such as "'The man bit the dog' is an English
> statement which means that it was the dog who received the bite
> from the man,' that is a description of actual usage. It is
> pointless to claim that such a statement is a prescriptivist
> proclamation.
I don't understand why you think that anyone would believe such a
purely descriptive statement could be a prescriptive statement,
unless, of course, one assumes that everything a prescriptivist says
is "a prescriptive proclamation". This seems ludicrous to me. I hope
you aren't being serious. I cannot take this seriously. It isn't
argument, only meaningless bluster.
> Note:
>
> [1] I rather expect you to get smart-alecky about my listing two
> sources and saying only one discusses the matter in question. But
> what is my alternative: Not listing any yet saying that "It was in
> a book I read"? Then you would be smart-alecky about that.
I' just a smart-alecky guy, Ray. You know that and I know that. But
you cannot tell me not to be so because that would be prescriptivism
and prescriptivism is always wrong.
Martin Ambuhl
..., simply to offer a quotation from Herbert Spenser's _Autobiography_
(NY, 1904) vol 1, p vii:
"That neither in boyhood nor youth did I receive a single lesson in English
and that I have remained entirely without formal knowledge of syntax down
to the present hour, are facts which should be known; since their
implications are at variance with assumptions universally accepted."
By the way, this seems to be an instance of the comma separating the
subject from the verb, a phenomenon which another poster identified as
recent and which I claimed not to have seen.
--
Martin Ambuhl
Simon R. Hughes
The comma between subject and verb is still current in some other
languages (Danish winds me up, sometimes). I seem to remember that
it has also been used in older forms of English (which manuscript
reading will reveal, since most modern versions silently edit out
archaisms). 1903, the year in which Spenser died, should not qualify
as an older form of English.
Perhaps it is simply as he said: he had no formal training in
English, and has acquired the habit from older or foreign texts.
Simon R. Hughes
>
> Richard R. Hershberger wrote:
> > I value writers such as Fiske. They serve as valuable object lessons
> > by showing that the most punctilious compliance with the rules of
> > usage have so little to do with either writing or thinking well.
>
>
> After reading his stuff for a while, and that of others
> of his ilk published at that site, I share your opinion --
> but would never have been able to state it so elegantly.
You lot don't recognise the regulatory function of the linguistic
liberal/ conservative debate. If everyone agreed that the language
should be used as anyone pleased, we would be forever be finding
ourselves barbarians to one another.* The problems we already have
understanding spoken dialects would multiply, were not English
regulated by any means at all. They would also supplant themselves
to the written language.
Furthermore, for those Anglo-supremacists out there, English,
without any kind of regulation, would not have risen to the position
it enjoys in the world today; no one else would have bothered
learning such a fickle language.
As I have said before, we should welcome the bickering: it's the
only way our language is regulated. (Or should we instead institute
a bureaucratic language academy?)
* 1 Corinthians 13: 11 "Therefore if I know not the meaning of the
voice, I shall be unto him that speaketh a barbarian, and he that
speaketh shall be a barbarian unto me".
Richard R. Hershberger
> Richard R. Hershberger wrote:
> > I value writers such as Fiske. They serve as valuable object lessons
> > by showing that the most punctilious compliance with the rules of
> > usage have so little to do with either writing or thinking well.
>
>
> After reading his stuff for a while, and that of others
> of his ilk published at that site, I share your opinion --
> but would never have been able to state it so elegantly.
Thanks. But upon re-reading my own post in the cold light of day, I
must amend it. In the paragraph quoted above, please change "have" to
"has".
Richard R. Hershberger
J. W. Love
>I'm piggy-backing on replies by CyberCypher to Raymond Wise
>to Mike Lyle..., simply to offer a quotation from Herbert
>Spenser's _Autobiography_ (NY, 1904) vol 1, p vii:
>"That neither in boyhood nor youth did I receive a single lesson
>in English and that I have remained entirely without formal
>knowledge of syntax down to the present hour, are facts which
>should be known; since their implications are at variance with
>assumptions universally accepted."
>By the way, this seems to be an instance of the comma
>separating the subject from the verb, a phenomenon which
>another poster identified as recent and which I claimed not to
>have seen.
Maybe a comma has dropped out after "English," making its mate, the comma after
"hour," a surprise.
Michael West
"Simon R. Hughes" <a5799...@yahoo.no> wrote in message
news:MPG.19a6dc38d...@news.online.no...
> Thus spake Michael West:
> >
> > Richard R. Hershberger wrote:
> > > I value writers such as Fiske. They serve as valuable object lessons
> > > by showing that the most punctilious compliance with the rules of
> > > usage have so little to do with either writing or thinking well.
> >
> >
> > After reading his stuff for a while, and that of others
> > of his ilk published at that site, I share your opinion --
> > but would never have been able to state it so elegantly.
>
> You lot don't recognise the regulatory function of the linguistic
> liberal/ conservative debate. If everyone agreed that the language
> should be used as anyone pleased, we would be forever be finding
> ourselves barbarians to one another.* The problems we already have
> understanding spoken dialects would multiply, were not English
> regulated by any means at all. They would also supplant themselves
> to the written language.
You may or may not have missed the point. The weakness
I was pointing to wasn't linguistic conservatism, but rather
the unimpressive, lacklustre, unconvincing manner in which
Fiske and his cohorts dispense it.
Simon R. Hughes
I miss points all the time, but I have an axe to grind.
Raymond S. Wise
> "Raymond S. Wise" <illinoi...@mninter.net> burbled
>
> > not? Your message above would seem to take both positions.
> >
> > As for P. Schultz, he has been posting to this newsgroup for
> > approximately the same time I have, perhaps longer. On several
> > occasions, I have pointedly asked for an example of a
> > flesh-and-blood "anything-goes descriptivist," yet no one has
> > suggested P. Schultz is such a person until this thread. That
> > strongly suggests to me that he is, in fact, *not.*
>
> Lately, Schultzie has taken to citing usages found in google.com
> hits as evidence that "this is the way the language is used". He is
> obviously confused. Surely he cannot mean that all the usages he
> finds in google.com hits are examples of the way educated speakers
> of the language use English, just that they are identifiable
> examples of a usage, be they typos by educted native English
> speakers or goofos by non-native-speakers of English. Rey and I
> both think that he is confused about things. He seems to be the
> closest example we have.
>
> Does the straw man that I called a caricature and hyperbole exist?
> Yes, as a caricature and hyperbole. Does the straw-man
> prescriptivist that you delineated in your post today, the one that
> gives usage advice based on fantasy, really exist? I think he is
> also a carciature and hyperbole. Why can't you accept your own
> tactics when others use them?
It is not a caricature. It follows logically from the facts which I stated.
>
> Let's go to some specific examples. The _Cambridge Grammar of
> English_ (CGE) sometimes borders on that "anything-goes
> descriptivist" carciature, yes. Here is a quote from it that will
> warm your heart, I know:
>
> [quote]
> THE AIM OF THIS BOOK
>
> Description versus prescription
>
> Our aim is to describe and not prescribe: we outline and illustrate
> the principles that govern the construction of words and sentences
> in the present-day language without recommending or condemning
> particular usage choices. Although this book may be (and we
> certainly hope it will be) of use in helping the user decide how to
> phrase things, it is not designed as a style guide or a usage
> manual. We report that sentences of some types are now widely found
> and used, but we will not advise you to use them. We state that
> sentences of some types are seldom encountered, or that usage
> manuals or language columnists or language teachers recommend
> against them, or that some form of words is normally found only in
> informal style or, conversely, is limited to rather formal style,
> but we will not tell you that you should avoid them or otherwise
> make recommendations about how you should speak or write. Rather,
> this book offers a description of the context common to all such
> decisions: the linguistic system itself.
> [/quote]
None of the following is really new: I've stated it before in previous posts
to this newsgroup and the newsgroup alt.english.usage .
I have not yet been able to take a look at the *Cambridge Grammar of
English,* but it certainly sounds from the above that it is a comprehensive
grammar of the English language, the sort of thing which is produced only by
linguists and never by either descriptivist or prescriptivist usage
commentators. Prescriptivism has never been in any sort of real dispute with
this sort of descriptivist. They occasionally misunderstand the controversy,
and bring up the work of the scientists to show that "there are no
'descriptivists' who are capable of giving advice about language usage," as
you do below.
That is why I stated, in a previous post in this thread, that "I have no
interest in theoretical descriptions of the difference between
descriptivists and prescriptivists, since they depend upon theoretical
definitions of the words themselves." The actual dispute between
descriptivists and prescriptivists has always been between two groups who
give usage advice, and has involved the scientists only peripherally.
Now, there is some overlap between the scientists and the descriptivist
usage commentators. The scientist, being human, is likely to be just as
disgusted as the descriptivist usage commentator by a line of argument
expressed by a prescriptivist which does not accord with the facts. And it
is often not completely possible for a linguist to be seen as not commenting
on usage: *A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language* by Randolph
Quirk et al. identified itself as a grammar of Standard English, and pointed
out that by doing so they were in a sense commenting about English usage,
since to write the book they must identify some usages as standard and some
as nonstandard, in order to avoid discussing the latter. I expect the only
linguists who can avoid commenting in some manner about standard dialects
are those who spend their entire lifetime studying languages which have no
standard dialect--such as Amerindian languages spoken by only the members of
one village.
Joseph Priestley[1] has been identified as the author of the first
descriptivist grammar, "Rudiments of English Grammar" (1761). This was not a
comprehensive grammar, but a grammar like the others of the time which
advised on usage, thus dealing only with a very narrow subset of grammar.
Linguist George P. Krapp, when he wrote *The Pronunciation of Standard
English in America,* New York: Oxford University Press, (C) 1919, might be
seen as having written a book on linguistic research: "The instances
discussed in the present volume are such as the author himself has observed.
None are taken at second hand from books." However, that volume did deal
only with standard pronunciation, and Krapp's *A Comprehensive Guide to Good
English,* New York: Rand McNally & Company, (C) 1927, was clearly a
descriptivist usage commentary.
*A Dictionary of Contemporary American Usage* by Bergen Evans and Cornelia
Evans, New York: Random House, (C) 1957, is a classic descriptivist usage
commentary. Bergen Evans was a strong foe of prescriptivism.
I have compared descriptivism and scientific medical care to prescriptivism
and quackery. I have also, however, and more accurately, described the work
of linguistic scientists as like medical research, descriptive usage advice
like scientific medical care, and prescriptivism like quackery.
There is, here, the additional analogy that a scientific medical researcher,
being human, is likely to be as disgusted as the scientific medical
practitioner by statements made by a medical quack.
For "descriptivism" we could substitute "descriptive prescriptivism" or
"scientific prescriptivism" and for "prescriptivism" we could substitute
"prescriptive prescriptivism" or "pseudoscientific prescriptivism," but I
can see no real advantage to doing so. The terms "descriptivism" and
"prescriptivism" would appear to be firmly entrenched when speaking of usage
commentary and the dispute among the two sides involved. They don't mislead
me: Why should they mislead you or Mike Lyle?
>
> [quote]
> Although descriptive grammars and prescriptive usage manuals differ
> in the range of topics they treat, there is no reason in principle
> why they should not agree on what they say about the topics they
> both treat. The fact they do not is interesting. There are several
> reasons for the lack of agreement.We dealwith three of them here:
> (a) the basis in personal taste of some prescriptivistwriters'
> judgements; (b) the confusion of informality with ungrammaticality;
> and (c) certain invalid arguments sometimes appealed to by
> prescriptivists. These are extraneous features of prescriptive
> writing about language rather than inherent ones, and all three of
> them are less prevalent now than they were in the past. But older
> prescriptive works have exemplified them, and a few still do; their
> influence lingers on in the English-speaking educational world.
> [/quote]
>
> Notice the sentence beginning "These are extraneous features" five
> lines up. This is strong evidence that you have created a straw-man
> prescriptivist to whip and burn. You are still fighting the ghost of
> Lowth.
If so, then I have fallen into a logical error. Perhaps you could point out
where I went wrong.
I don't see how, though. To identify a prescriptivist statement about
standard usage--say the spelling and pronunciation of "aluminum" and
"aluminium" as they are used in various varieties of English--as being
"prescriptive" while at the same time identifying an identical statement by
a descriptivist as "descriptive" seems simply perverse. It makes more sense
to identify opinions which conform with actual usage as being "descriptive."
To do otherwise is exactly like identifying a correct statement of
scientific fact uttered by a pseudoscientist as "pseudoscientific"--an
absurd result, obviously.
Is *that* what you mean by "an anything-goes descriptivist"? It's not what I
understand the term to mean. I would be surprised if there were any
linguists or any descriptive usage commentators who would say that "anything
goes as long as it is said by a native speaker," because of such phenomena
as spoonerisms and other slips of the tongue, and because the individual may
have--for various reasons--learned a pronunciation for a word or meaning of
a word which does not conform with anyone else's pronunciation or meaning of
those words. What the authors of the CGE appear to be discussing above is
something different: It appears, in fact, to be what I have called, for want
of a better word, "lects," which are rule-based ways of speaking learned
from others. This is in principle testable. A more difficult question is
identifying whether a usage belongs to an underlying grammar or is instead
an idiom, not analyzable by the underlying grammar of the speaker. But
that's also a problem in the analysis of Standard English, with some usages
explained as idioms by some grammarians and as grammatical forms by others.
I would think an "anything-goes descriptivist" would have to be someone who
says that whatever utterance is made by anyone whatsoever is correct.
Substituting for "utterance" the phrase "utterance by a native speaker of
English" doesn't improve the matter. Obviously, you are saying something
else, but what, exactly? If by "anything-goes descriptivist" you mean
something like "A person who believes that any usage which is idiomatic in
any one dialect of English is acceptable in the standard dialects of
English" then here again I do not believe that such a creature exists.
Again, you are confusing two different "descriptivists." I repeat: There has
never been any dispute of consequence between linguistic scientists and
prescriptivist usage commentators. The dispute has been between descriptive
usage commentators and prescriptive usage commentators.
Note:
[1] I misspelled his name as "Priestly" in the "Isn't 'from whence'
redundant?" thread.
Raymond S. Wise
It's like discussing the possibility that "anti-Semitic" means "an enemy of
the descendants of Shem." In actual usage it means "an enemy of the Jews."
Any discussion of the matter is utterly pointless. (I'm not talking about a
discussion of how people might *feel* about the word "anti-Semitic"--there
might be some interest in that. I'm talking about a discussion of the actual
*meaning of the word.*)
>
> > Usage determines meaning, and "descriptivists" and
> > "prescriptivists" are labels which have been applied to two
> > separate groups which do in fact exist. Bergen Evans isn't a
> > fantasy, nor is William Simon. The disagreement between
> > descriptivists and prescriptivists
>
> Do you mean to imply that there is only one disagreement between
> these two very real groups?
The one disagreement is about whether to base usage advice on actual usage
or not.
> > is an actual disagreement between actual people, not a
> > theoretical disagreement between chimeras.
>
> But none of is here is talking about Bergan Evans and William Simon
> and their linguistic disagreements. Give us some specifics to talk
> about and we will have a totally different discussion.
I don't believe there is any one individual more identified with
descriptivism than Bergen Evans. And William Simon is certainly one of the
most well-known prescriptivists. I don't understand why you object to me
mentioning them.
>
> [...]
>
> > I deliberately kept my answer short, asking for further questions
> > from Mike Lyle, if necessary, because I have written at great
> > length on this subject in the past. I have, in fact, dealt with
> > the question of whether prescriptivists are ever right. The answer
> > is no: When a prescriptivist is acting qua prescriptivist, there
> > is no logical possibility of him being right. I will explain.
>
> So you have created a circular definition of a prescriptivist.
If the suggestion is that my definition is illogical, you'll have to do
point out to me just how that might me. My definition appears be quite
straightforward and in accordance with the facts.
I said that "the descriptivist works with a reality." I did not say that he
necessarily draws the correct conclusions. As in the case of medical
science, sometimes mistakes are made.
Let me point out one possible source of error. A usage commentator[1] once
said that lexicographers, who base standard usage on the usage of educated
people, identify those "educated people" as being like *them,* the
lexicographers. This opens up the possibility that they will minimize the
importance of or ignore the usage of educated people who are very different
from them.
>
> Don't you smell a rat here, Raymond? Can't you detect even an iota
> of prejudicial stink when you type these clauses and make these
> claims? As I said, Black Hat (Ps), White Hat (Ds).
My position seems quite straightforward and in accordance with the facts. If
you can prove to me that I am showing prejudice, I will be grateful. I'll
even be grateful if you merely try to do so.
>
> > It is precisely similar to the situation that exists
> > between a scientist and a pseudoscientist.
>
> I think the analogy fails. The Ps and Ds disagree on very little,
> only on disputed usages. and while the Ps make recommendations about
> which usages are correct, the Ds cannot do that; all the Ds can do
As I pointed out elsewhere, not only can the descriptivists make
recommendations on usage, but the descriptivist-versus-prescriptivist
disagreement involves only those descriptivists who make recommendations on
usage. Linguistic scientists are not directly involved.
By the way, a poster to this newsgroup once attempted to limit
"descriptivists" to one particular branch of linguistics, structural
linguistics. That school is contrasted with "generative linguistics," but at
the most essential level there is no difference between them: "Structual
linguistics" studies the real-world phenomenon of actual usage, and
"generative linguistics" is based upon the idea of grammar as rules existing
in the brain, and on the idea that the brain is "wired for grammar" in a
particular way. In other words, both structural linguistics and generative
linguistics intend to study real-world phenomena, not matters which are of
mere theoretical interest.
> is describe how some or many or most native speakers use the
> language and cannot recommend which usage is better, because, in
> fact, for a D, anything a native speaker says is correct. See my
> earlier post on the Cambridge Grammar of English.
>
> Scientists and pseudoscientists have different basic assumptions
> about how the universe operates; the Ss assume that there are normal
> and natural laws and that it is possible to eventually explain
> everything in such a way that their experimental results can be
> reproduced and that their hypotheses actually predict what will
> happen. Cs (charlatans or pseudoscientists) believe in the
> paranormal, not the normal, the supernatural, not the natural. Ps
> and Ds do not have different basic assumptions about English. They
> merely disagree about some of the rules.
What marks a pseudoscientist is not that he believes in the supernatural or
paranormal--although he may--but in his being unable to test his hypotheses
and theories by the scientific method.
A descriptivist can test whether his hypotheses and theories are correct. A
prescriptionist cannot, and is often unaware that it is necessary to do so.
However, a descriptivist is able to test the hypotheses and theories of
prescriptivists, just as scientists can test the ideas of pseudoscientists.
In fact, we perform such tests all the time in this newsgroup and in
alt.english.usage .
>
> > The pseudoscientist may be able to describe how
> > electricity works perfectly correctly, as may the scientist. But
> > that does not make the scientist's description of electricity
> > "pseudoscientific"--in fact, to do so would be not only a grave
> > insult, but objectively false.
>
> So does the correct explanation of how electricity by the
> pseudoscientist make his explanation scientific? And if the
> pseudoscientist can explain everything as correctly as a scientist
> can, does that make him a scientist too, or just a scientist gone
> bad?
I didn't say he could explain *everything* as correctly as a scientist can.
Not only might he explain *some* things correctly, he may even be a
scientist himself: A classic example is Isaac Newton, who was a great
physicist but who was also an alchemist. Nikola Tesla did important work in
electricity, but later appears to have become a pseudoscientist. (The
alternate explanation is that his crackpot pronouncements were merely
intended to help him raise money for his research.)
>
> > The scientist has a correct view of the world and works from that.
>
> Ah. White Hat. Normative statement again. Not descriptive but
> judgmental. Wouldn't a chemist, a sound scientist who worked in the
> field every day, but somehow decided that she wanted to find some
> unknown process that would enable her to achieve "the transmutation
> of the base metals into gold, the discovery of a universal cure for
> diseases, and the discovery of a means of indefinitely prolonging
> life" (W3NID) still be a scientist underneath those robes of
> alchemy?
As I said, what differs a scientist from a pseudoscientist is his ability to
use the scientific method to test his hypotheses and theories.
>
> > The pseudoscientist an incorrect view of the world
> > and works from that.
>
> [...]
>
> Black Hat. Normative statement.
Well, I've taken a look at various dictionaries' definitions of "normative"
and "norm" and none seem to apply to this "White Hat/Black Hat" business.
Please explain.
>
> [...]
> >
> > In English usage, however, there is no one who believes that
> > "anything goes." There are prescriptivists (pedants)
>
> Now you are redefining your terms. Are you talking about pedants or
> prescriptivists here? Ps may be pedantic, but not all pedeants are
> Ps, I suspect.
I'm talking about language pedants, that is, prescriptivists.
>
> > and
> > descriptivists. When a usage is not disputed, prescriptivists and
> > descriptivists are in complete agreement, of course. It is when a
> > usage is disputed that problems arise. The pedant insists on a
> > proposed or false usage, the descriptivist on an actual or true
> > usage.
>
> And here is where your definition falls to pieces. Here is your
> achilles heel. Ps are always wrong and Ds are always right. You are
> so black and white, Raymond, such a bigot, such a dogmatist. How can
> you stand it? You compare apples and oranges and dare to say that
> one tastes better than the other. Absurd!
Again, you will have to explain. I see no benefit to anyone of identifying
statements made by prescriptivists which conform to actual usage as
"prescriptivist." See the discussion using the "scientist/pseudoscientist"
analogy above.
>
> >
> > [end quote]
> >
> >
> > The idea that when descriptivists and prescriptivists agree, there
> > is no usage dispute, no logical reason to distinguish the two
> > sides, is not original with me.
>
> It is also stated quite clearly in the intro to the CGE, so there is
> no need to support your assertion. Anyway, it is prima facie
> acceptable and even obvious.
Whew!
>
> [...]
>
> > Think about the logic of the matter. If a prescriptivist were to
> > make an observation such as "'The man bit the dog' is an English
> > statement which means that it was the dog who received the bite
> > from the man,' that is a description of actual usage. It is
> > pointless to claim that such a statement is a prescriptivist
> > proclamation.
>
> I don't understand why you think that anyone would believe such a
> purely descriptive statement could be a prescriptive statement,
> unless, of course, one assumes that everything a prescriptivist says
> is "a prescriptive proclamation". This seems ludicrous to me. I hope
> you aren't being serious. I cannot take this seriously. It isn't
> argument, only meaningless bluster.
Here you puzzle me. From what you have said up to this point, *you* would
appear to be the logical candidate to say that "everything a prescriptivist
says is 'a prescriptive proclamation'."
>
> > Note:
> >
> > [1] I rather expect you to get smart-alecky about my listing two
> > sources and saying only one discusses the matter in question. But
> > what is my alternative: Not listing any yet saying that "It was in
> > a book I read"? Then you would be smart-alecky about that.
>
> I' just a smart-alecky guy, Ray. You know that and I know that. But
> you cannot tell me not to be so because that would be prescriptivism
> and prescriptivism is always wrong.
No, it's not prescriptivism, not in the sense we have been discussing.
Note:
[1] I have an idea who it is but am acting from memory and cannot verify it,
so I won't say here.
Martin Ambuhl
> *A Dictionary of Contemporary American Usage* by Bergen Evans and Cornelia
> Evans, New York: Random House, (C) 1957, is a classic descriptivist usage
> commentary. Bergen Evans was a strong foe of prescriptivism.
And yet you need read no further than the entry on the use of "A" and "An"
to find one of the most strident pieces of prescriptivism ever written. To
all those using "an" before "historical," the anti-prescriptivist Evanses
say that you are wrongity-wrong-wrong and will rot in hell.
--
Martin Ambuhl
CyberCypher
> "CyberCypher" <hui...@netscape.com> wrote in message
> news:Xns93D8A5FB8...@130.133.1.4...
>> "Raymond S. Wise" <illinoi...@mninter.net> burbled
[...]
>> Does the straw man that I called a caricature and hyperbole
>> exist? Yes, as a caricature and hyperbole. Does the straw-man
>> prescriptivist that you delineated in your post today, the one
>> that gives usage advice based on fantasy, really exist? I think
>> he is also a carciature and hyperbole. Why can't you accept your
>> own tactics when others use them?
>
> It is not a caricature. It follows logically from the facts which
> I stated.
You do not state them clearly. The way you state them makes it
clear to me that you are withholding information, and the statements
you make below make that abundantly clear. Your two sets of terms
"descriptivist/descriptivism" and "prescriptivist/prescriptivism"
actually stand for a series of other terms that are not obvious to
those who have not read everything else you've written on the
subject. I do not have a file of everything you've said on this
topic. Everything I remember your having written on this topic has
included the two sets of vague and imprecise terms only. This post
finally gets down to the nitty-gritty of what you really mean. Now
that you've said it in full, all I can say is that you have said
essentially that the good guys wear white hats and the bad guys wear
black hats The good guys do good things and the bad guys do bad
things. That's what makes them good guys and bad guys. You've made
the world larger by including different types of prescriptivists and
descriptivists in it, but you haven't said anything arguable. The
way you define your terms is the way any absolutist defines his
terms. And you are an absolutist, no doubt about it. But you seem to
think you are not. Well, that's your problem, not mine.
[...]
> I have not yet been able to take a look at the *Cambridge Grammar
> of English,* but it certainly sounds from the above that it is a
> comprehensive grammar of the English language,
Yes, it is.
> the sort of thing
> which is produced only by linguists and never by either
> descriptivist or prescriptivist usage commentators.
Ah! a refinement of terminology. Thank you for that. Now I know what
*you* are on about.
> Prescriptivism
> has never been in any sort of real dispute with this sort of
> descriptivist. They occasionally misunderstand the controversy,
> and bring up the work of the scientists
It wasn't I who brought up the work of the scientists (whatever
scientists you are talking about), but you who introduced scientists
and pseudoscientists as analogous to prescriptivists and
descriptivists.
> to show that "there are no
> 'descriptivists' who are capable of giving advice about language
> usage," as you do below.
If what I do is describe how the language is used, then I do not
prescribe how the language is used. I prescribe how the language
"should be used" when I tell other people that the way in which they
use the language is incorrect.
> That is why I stated, in a previous post in this thread, that "I
> have no interest in theoretical descriptions of the difference
> between descriptivists and prescriptivists, since they depend upon
> theoretical definitions of the words themselves."
A terminological problem, here, I fear. Either you mean "stipulated"
definitions or "agreed upon" definitions. A "theoretical" definition
seems to me to be one which exists only in a theory or one which is a
definition of something that is not known for certain to exist.
> The actual
> dispute between descriptivists and prescriptivists has always been
> between two groups who give usage advice, and has involved the
> scientists only peripherally.
Oh, I see. You are calling linguists "scientists". I prefer to call
linguists "linguists" and leave out the assignment of luinguistics to
science, which I see as only physics and chemistry, and its subsets, of
which biology in all its forms (including anatomy, medicine, etc) and
botany in all its forms exist. Social science is social science and not
hard science. The science of language is a special science of the
social science sort and not a hard science.
> Now, there is some overlap between the scientists and the
> descriptivist usage commentators. The scientist, being human, is
> likely to be just as disgusted as the descriptivist usage
> commentator by a line of argument expressed by a prescriptivist
> which does not accord with the facts.
It seems to me that if one is aware that a line of argument does not
accord with facts and that someone recognizes it, that that someone
will simply say that the line of argument is false because it is based
upon incorrect premises or an inaccurate knowledge of the facts. No
need for "disgust", is there? Or is disgust an indispensible
characteristic of a "descriptive usage comentator" (DUC)? What
happens if DUC-1 reads a paper written by DUC-2 and finds arguments
that are not in accord with the facts? Does DUC-1 get disgusted or does
DUC-1 reserve the expression of any judgmental reaction and assume that
DUC-2 simply made an excusable research error? Or does the crime of
deviating from the facts cause DUC-1 to label DUC-2 a PUC
(prescriptivist usage commentator) simply on the basis of having
misrepresented the facts, intentionally or unintentionally?
> And it is often not
> completely possible for a linguist to be seen as not commenting
> on usage: *A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language* by
> Randolph Quirk et al. identified itself as a grammar of Standard
> English, and pointed out that by doing so they were in a sense
> commenting about English usage, since to write the book they must
> identify some usages as standard and some as nonstandard, in order
> to avoid discussing the latter.
These are, presumably, the oxymoronic "descriptivist prescriptivists".
> I expect the only linguists who
> can avoid commenting in some manner about standard dialects are
> those who spend their entire lifetime studying languages which
> have no standard dialect--such as Amerindian languages spoken by
> only the members of one village.
In other words, languages which have no usage commentators at all
because all usage commentating is done by all the users in the village,
so that everyone over the age of Zty-five is a language maven and
qualified to give linguistic advice about what is and is not correct in
the unavillage language. But in Taiwan, Japan, and the USA, older
children tell younger children what is correct and not correct usage,
and that normally constitutes prescriptive usage advice based upon the
older child's longer acquaintence with the language and its speakers.
> Joseph Priestley[1] has been identified as the author of the first
> descriptivist grammar, "Rudiments of English Grammar" (1761). This
> was not a comprehensive grammar, but a grammar like the others of
> the time which advised on usage, thus dealing only with a very
> narrow subset of grammar.
And was, therefore, a prescriptive as well as a descriptive work.
[...]
> I have compared descriptivism and scientific medical care to
> prescriptivism and quackery. I have also, however, and more
> accurately, described the work of linguistic scientists as like
> medical research, descriptive usage advice like scientific medical
> care, and prescriptivism like quackery.
>
> There is, here, the additional analogy that a scientific medical
> researcher, being human, is likely to be as disgusted as the
> scientific medical practitioner by statements made by a medical
> quack.
I'm sorry, but I reject all of your analogies. Language usage
commentators are not scientists but critics of and and advisors
about language usage.
[...]
> For "descriptivism" we could substitute "descriptive
> prescriptivism" or "scientific prescriptivism" and for
> "prescriptivism" we could substitute "prescriptive prescriptivism"
> or "pseudoscientific prescriptivism," but I can see no real
> advantage to doing so.
[...]
I see a great deal of advantage to doing so. One is that it might avoid
the kind of misunderstanding your imprecise terminology causes. It
might make you realize that a "descriptivist prescriptivist" is no less
a prescirptivist than a "prescriptivist prescriptivist". That would
preclude the possibility that anyone reading what you had to say would
mistake your words for the absurd statements they sometimes make, such
as when you say that prescriptivism is based on fantasy. That is not at
all what you mean to say. What you mean and what you say are two
different things. You mean to say that "pseudoscientific
prescriptivism" is based upon the same sorts of fantasies as are
entertained by the pseudoscientists who entertain the notion that the
paranormal is real and true, that telekinesis and ESP are true, and
that people like Dunniger and Yuri Geller are not con artists or mere
entertainers but people with special paranormal gifts.
> The terms "descriptivism" and
> "prescriptivism" would appear to be firmly entrenched when
> speaking of usage commentary and the dispute among the two sides
> involved. They don't mislead me: Why should they mislead you or
> Mike Lyle?
Because you haven't bothered to clarify what you mean by these two
terms and are loath to admit that "descriptive prescriptivism" is a
form of prescriptivism.
>> [quote]
>> Although descriptive grammars and prescriptive usage manuals
>> differ in the range of topics they treat, there is no reason in
>> principle why they should not agree on what they say about the
>> topics they both treat. The fact they do not is interesting.
>> There are several reasons for the lack of agreement.We dealwith
>> three of them here: (a) the basis in personal taste of some
>> prescriptivistwriters' judgements; (b) the confusion of
>> informality with ungrammaticality; and (c) certain invalid
>> arguments sometimes appealed to by prescriptivists. These are
>> extraneous features of prescriptive writing about language rather
>> than inherent ones, and all three of them are less prevalent now
>> than they were in the past. But older prescriptive works have
>> exemplified them, and a few still do; their influence lingers on
>> in the English-speaking educational world. [/quote]
>>
>> Notice the sentence beginning "These are extraneous features"
>> five lines up. This is strong evidence that you have created a
>> straw-man prescriptivist to whip and burn. You are still fighting
>> the ghost of Lowth.
>
> If so, then I have fallen into a logical error. Perhaps you could
> point out where I went wrong.
I already have. You don't mean what you say or say what you mean. You
don't define your terms carefully enough to make it clear what you are
talking about. You just like to stand up on your cyberspace street-
corner soapbox and hold forth froth on the evils of prescriptivism
because it makes you feel as if you are contributing something to the
world.
Areff
This is a common characteristic hypocrisy of so-called descriptivist
commentators, but I'm surprised that such persons are not, apparently,
called on it more often. Descriptivists, so-called, have a strong
disfavor for any usage out there that they consider to have been the
result of prescriptivist social influence. But if the Prime Directive
of the descriptivists is to describe, and not judge, then surely they
must accept the consequences of prescriptivist social influence on the
language.
Richard R. Hershberger
The connection between your response and the posts you responded to is
obscure, but what the heck...
You are very close to making the straw-man argument about "anything
does" descriptivists. Raymond has made a second career of pointing
out that this is a mythical beast, and he is right. I also question
that there is any connection between the rise of a standard dialect
and the writing of hand-wringing usage manuals. The establishment as
standard of one dialect (usually that of the "respectable classes" in
and around the capital) happens widely, with or without the help of
usage manuals. Manuals can serve as linguistic etiquette guides,
helping provincials and the upwardly mobile to learn the standard
dialect. So manuals can hasten the spread of the standard dialect,
but they don't create it. Neither are they necessary to prevent the
standard dialect from fragmenting. It is a common idea among
prescriptivists that without their efforts communication would soon
become impossible. Swift three centuries ago thought that an academy
was necessary to prevent this. He never got his academy and yet we
somehow still muddle through. How can this be? It is simply because
language change doesn't work that way. There are intrinsic
conservative forces which have nothing to do with prescriptivist Dutch
boys holding their fingers in the linguistic dike.
Which brings us your characterization of the debate as being between
conservatives and liberals. I assume that you identify the
conservative side with the prescriptivists. Prescriptivists usually
imagine that they are linguistically conservative, but they are not.
A conservative would not object to the old and established sense of
"aggravate" meaning "exasperate". A conservative would welcome the
use of "they" as a singular indeterminate personal pronoun as a fine
old English usage which elegantly fills the need. A conservative
would resist innovations such as the claim that "which" cannot be used
to introduce a restrictive relative clause. A conservative would
enthusiastically proclaim MWDEU to be the indispensible usage manual,
since it stands alone in telling us what the old established usages
really are. Yes, prescriptivists often identify themselves as
linguistic conservatives. But that is possible merely through
carefully studied ignorance.
Richard R. Hershberger
Simon R. Hughes
Indeed.
> but what the heck...
>
> You are very close to making the straw-man argument about "anything
> does" descriptivists. Raymond has made a second career of pointing
> out that this is a mythical beast, and he is right. I also question
> that there is any connection between the rise of a standard dialect
> and the writing of hand-wringing usage manuals. The establishment as
> standard of one dialect (usually that of the "respectable classes" in
> and around the capital) happens widely, with or without the help of
> usage manuals.
1. I don't think I have mentioned usage manuals in this thread. The
debate I was talking about has taken place since the beginning of
the eighteenth century, and has been carried out in letters,
forewords, coffee houses, etc. Usage manuals, I believe, began to
appear later.
The regulation I wrote about is an informal one that results from
the debate (including Swift's contribution to it), not a formal one
attempted by the publication of usage manuals. For example, being
aware of the debate over usage X and Y might lead A to use X instead
of Y in a letter to B, believing that B would be more likely to
understand X than Y. When enough people have voted with their pens,
along come the descriptivist lexicographers and place usage X in the
latest offering from Microsoft. Y falls by the wayside.
But anyway, the result of your misunderstanding is the following bit
hitting wide of your mark. This thread encourages that kind of
thing, apparently.
> Manuals can serve as linguistic etiquette guides,
> helping provincials and the upwardly mobile to learn the standard
> dialect. So manuals can hasten the spread of the standard dialect,
> but they don't create it. Neither are they necessary to prevent the
> standard dialect from fragmenting. It is a common idea among
> prescriptivists that without their efforts communication would soon
> become impossible. Swift three centuries ago thought that an academy
> was necessary to prevent this. He never got his academy and yet we
> somehow still muddle through. How can this be? It is simply because
> language change doesn't work that way. There are intrinsic
> conservative forces which have nothing to do with prescriptivist Dutch
> boys holding their fingers in the linguistic dike.
>
> Which brings us your characterization of the debate as being between
> conservatives and liberals. I assume that you identify the
> conservative side with the prescriptivists.
2. I chose "conservatives" because I didn't mean "prescriptivists".
Likewise, I chose "liberals" because I didn't mean "descriptivist".
There are differences. A conservative need not be prescriptivist. A
liberal need not be descriptivist.
The result of your misunderstanding is that the next bit, although
true *in some cases*, does not address what I had written.
> Prescriptivists usually
> imagine that they are linguistically conservative, but they are not.
> A conservative would not object to the old and established sense of
> "aggravate" meaning "exasperate". A conservative would welcome the
> use of "they" as a singular indeterminate personal pronoun as a fine
> old English usage which elegantly fills the need. A conservative
> would resist innovations such as the claim that "which" cannot be used
> to introduce a restrictive relative clause. A conservative would
> enthusiastically proclaim MWDEU to be the indispensible usage manual,
> since it stands alone in telling us what the old established usages
> really are. Yes, prescriptivists often identify themselves as
> linguistic conservatives. But that is possible merely through
> carefully studied ignorance.
--
Robert Bannister
> A descriptivist can test whether his hypotheses and theories are correct. A
> prescriptionist cannot, and is often unaware that it is necessary to do so.
> However, a descriptivist is able to test the hypotheses and theories of
> prescriptivists, just as scientists can test the ideas of pseudoscientists.
> In fact, we perform such tests all the time in this newsgroup and in
> alt.english.usage .
A prescriptivist can test whether 'between you and I' is grammatical or
not by comparison with other uses of 'I'. A descriptivist can only claim
the X% of people say this, so it must be OK, but he/she cannot prove
this, since no survey of English speakers can be sufficiently exhaustive.
I'm not re-entering the 'between you and I' debate - simply commenting
on your claim about scientific objectiveness: it just doesn't hold up.
--
Rob Bannister
Simon R. Hughes
It holds up as much as a scientific claim that iron bars bend when
sufficient force is applied in the right directions. No one can test
all iron bars (and if they could, what would we reinforce our
concrete with? -- no one asks science-theorists this kind of
question). The problem is that linguistics is dealing with people,
who have wills of their own (a number of linguists do, too), not
iron bars.
Robert Bannister
> Simon R. Hughes <a5799...@yahoo.no> wrote in message news:<MPG.19a6dc38d...@news.online.no>...
>
>>Thus spake Michael West:
>>
>>> Richard R. Hershberger wrote:
> You are very close to making the straw-man argument about "anything
> does" descriptivists. Raymond has made a second career of pointing
> out that this is a mythical beast, and he is right. I also question
> that there is any connection between the rise of a standard dialect
> and the writing of hand-wringing usage manuals. The establishment as
> standard of one dialect (usually that of the "respectable classes" in
> and around the capital) happens widely, with or without the help of
> usage manuals. Manuals can serve as linguistic etiquette guides,
> helping provincials and the upwardly mobile to learn the standard
> dialect. So manuals can hasten the spread of the standard dialect,
> but they don't create it. Neither are they necessary to prevent the
> standard dialect from fragmenting. It is a common idea among
> prescriptivists that without their efforts communication would soon
> become impossible. Swift three centuries ago thought that an academy
> was necessary to prevent this. He never got his academy and yet we
> somehow still muddle through. How can this be? It is simply because
> language change doesn't work that way. There are intrinsic
> conservative forces which have nothing to do with prescriptivist Dutch
> boys holding their fingers in the linguistic dike.
In fact, only a very few people ever read manuals, style guides, even
dictionaries, but, nevertheless, the original spur towards conservatism
must have been the invention of printing. Nowadays, radio, movies and TV
have an even bigger influence.
Of course, the influence is not always conservative. It can also be
innovative, but there is still a trend towards standardisation - hmm,
that's not a well-chosen word - I mean an influence for all speakers of
a given language to speak similarly: not necessarily accent, but
vocabulary and phrases.
--
Rob Bannister
CyberCypher
news:MPG.19aa2e163...@news.online.no:
There is only one problem with your objection here, Simon. There has
never been an instance of an iron bar not bending when sufficient
force was applied in the right directions, just as there has never
been an instance of anything heavier than air floating upward
instead of Earthward when tossed out a window.
Science can make predictions that can be verified statistically (not
that statistical verification is always sufficient, but for the most
common cases, it certainly is). The assumption that all iron bars
manufactured by the same ironworks at the same time from the same
batch of molten iron are pretty much the same is a reasonable
generalization, sufficiently so that quality control testing finds
it necessary to test only a small fraction of the batch to make a
reasonable judgment about the quality of all of them. There is
always a small possibility of error, of course.
With language, though, there is no guarantee that this will happen.
There is no guarantee that we call make enough predictions about all
the members of the same batch of college graduates graduating after
4 years of undergraduate study from the same university. They are
not all made of the same materials --- other than physiologically,
and even there the inidividual variations are myriad compared with
those found in the same batch of iron bars above. They have not
learnt, memorized, or understood to the same degree or in the same
way the same educational materials provided them over those four
years. They have not had the same experiences. They may all be
called "graduate of the class of 1999, Harvard University", but they
are not all equally educated or intelligent or capable of succeeding
in the field for which each has been prepared. All iron bars made to
be used to build railings or to reinforce concrete (or whatever iron
bars are used for these days) are essentially fungible; people are
not, and so their practices, linguistic an otherwise, cannot be
predicted with the kind of accuracy that we can expect from hard
science scientists like physicists.
While it's true that political polling has been turned into a
reasonably predictive statistical science, it still does not enjoy
the same level of accuracy as the predictions of physics and
chemistry. The predictions of medical science cannot be compared
with those of physic and chemistry; they are more like political or
marketing pollings simply because different people have different
bodies and tend to be more or less allergic and more or less
responsive to the same treatments.
And then there are the Jane Austens among us who don't consistently
spell the same words the same way. I use both /-t/ and /-ed/ past
tense markers for the same verbs and don't think twice about it, for
example.
CyberCypher
news:3F400FD1...@it.net.au:
That is perhaps true these days, but that wasn't true when I went to
high school and university. We were all required to have one of
each, just as I was required to have a typewriter (or to play a
typist to typewrite all my undergraduate papers) when I went to
Brown U. back in 1961. We were taught English grammar out of the
Harbrace or some other guide for writers of expository English, were
failed for misspelling more than three words in a paper, wer
required to diagram sentences, etc., and in the 1870s, after
Murray's grammar (based, it appears, on the principles of both
Priestley and Lowth) was published, it was hailed as a major
pedagogical feat and went through at least 40 editions. I don't know
where it was used more enthusiastically, England or the US, but it
certainly was used, which meant that it was read.
> but, nevertheless, the original spur towards
> conservatism must have been the invention of printing. Nowadays,
> radio, movies and TV have an even bigger influence.
I have read one or two articles that claimed this was an urban myth,
but it has always seemed a reasonable inference to me.
> Of course, the influence is not always conservative. It can also
> be innovative, but there is still a trend towards standardisation
> - hmm, that's not a well-chosen word - I mean an influence for all
> speakers of a given language to speak similarly: not necessarily
> accent, but vocabulary and phrases.
That has always been a function of contact. Raymond pointed out in
one of his poast yesterday that there are many AmerInd languages
(not dialects of a particular language) that are restricted to a
single village. I don't see how all speakers of the same language
can be expected to maintain a common vocabulary of words and phrases
without mass media like printing, radio, TV, movies, and the Net.
And because most of the products of the mass media are based upon
the rules in some style manual or other, and because those rules are
based upon some grammar handbooks and dictionaries, it isn't
necessary for everyone to read all those boring things in order to
learn what is in them --- but, as we well know, that will not stop
us from changing the language anyway.
Skitt
> Robert Bannister burbled:
>> In fact, only a very few people ever read manuals, style guides,
>> even dictionaries,
>
> That is perhaps true these days, but that wasn't true when I went to
> high school and university. We were all required to have one of
> each, just as I was required to have a typewriter (or to play a
> typist to typewrite all my undergraduate papers) when I went to
> Brown U. back in 1961. We were taught English grammar out of the
> Harbrace or some other guide for writers of expository English, were
> failed for misspelling more than three words in a paper, wer
> required to diagram sentences, etc., and in the 1870s, after
> Murray's grammar (based, it appears, on the principles of both
> Priestley and Lowth) was published, it was hailed as a major
> pedagogical feat and went through at least 40 editions.
Disregarding the "after 1870s" stuff, I, attending high school and college
from 1949 to 1956 in California, never heard of any manuals or style guides
in the curriculum. I didn't even know they existed until I started reading
AUE, even though I was briefly (to fill my time between more important
assignments), in 1967, a tech editor for The Boeing Company in Seattle.
That "between assignments" thing has landed me in all kinds of interesting
jobs -- the most prestigious one being while I was in the US Army, namely,
impersonating a lawyer. I found that to be a snap ... That was, possibly,
the high point in my life, as far as wielding power over those "in power"
(read: of high rank) was concerned. (Me -- corporal, they -- major, oh
joy!)
--
Skitt (in SF Bay Area) http://www.geocities.com/opus731/
I speak English well -- I learn it from a book!
-- Manuel (Fawlty Towers)
Robert Lieblich
[ ... ]
> There has
> never been an instance of an iron bar not bending when sufficient
> force was applied in the right directions, just as there has never
> been an instance of anything heavier than air floating upward
> instead of Earthward when tossed out a window.
Depends on your definition of "floating." Have you never observed
the behavior of tree leaves on a windy day?
I thought I'd change the subject rather than try to follow whatever
you and Ray are going on about. It looks very deep and very
important, and that strikes me as reason enough to ignore it.
[ ... ]
--
Bob Lieblich
Having yet another one of those days
CyberCypher
news:bhp7lg$1fi47$1...@ID-61580.news.uni-berlin.de:
> CyberCypher wrote:
>> Robert Bannister burbled:
>
>>> In fact, only a very few people ever read manuals, style guides,
>>> even dictionaries,
>>
>> That is perhaps true these days, but that wasn't true when I went
>> to high school and university. We were all required to have one
>> of each, just as I was required to have a typewriter (or to play
>> a typist to typewrite all my undergraduate papers) when I went to
>> Brown U. back in 1961. We were taught English grammar out of the
>> Harbrace or some other guide for writers of expository English,
>> were failed for misspelling more than three words in a paper, wer
>> required to diagram sentences, etc., and in the 1870s, after
>> Murray's grammar (based, it appears, on the principles of both
>> Priestley and Lowth) was published, it was hailed as a major
>> pedagogical feat and went through at least 40 editions.
>
> Disregarding the "after 1870s" stuff, I, attending high school and
> college from 1949 to 1956 in California, never heard of any
> manuals or style guides in the curriculum.
It was only during the 17th-19th centuries that culture moved from
east to west in the US. Once the movies became popular, everything
started to back up, kind of like the toilet does when the sewer or
the septic tank isn't working quite right. My guess is that eastern
culture (European until the mid-19th century) never reached
California and that now the east coast and the rest of the world is
awash in what California is best at producing --- and it isn't fruit
or vegetables or movies anymore.
> I didn't even know
> they existed until I started reading AUE, even though I was
> briefly (to fill my time between more important assignments), in
> 1967, a tech editor for The Boeing Company in Seattle.
But you are a special case, Skitt. It isn't just anyone who can go
to high school and college in California and come out educated and
able to use the language well. My #1 son managed, but he had help
from his eastern-educated mother and step-father, both professors at
USD. So who knew that turning right on a red light would be such a
powerful cultural force?
> That "between assignments" thing has landed me in all kinds of
> interesting jobs -- the most prestigious one being while I was in
> the US Army, namely, impersonating a lawyer. I found that to be a
> snap ... That was, possibly, the high point in my life, as far as
> wielding power over those "in power" (read: of high rank) was
> concerned. (Me -- corporal, they -- major, oh joy!)
In the Navy, one had to be an officer to impersonate a lawyer. How'd
you pull that off as an E3?
CyberCypher
news:3F40237A...@Verizon.net:
> CyberCypher wrote:
>
> [ ... ]
>
>> There has
>> never been an instance of an iron bar not bending when sufficient
>> force was applied in the right directions, just as there has
>> never been an instance of anything heavier than air floating
>> upward instead of Earthward when tossed out a window.
>
> Depends on your definition of "floating." Have you never observed
> the behavior of tree leaves on a windy day?
A physicist once told me that the reason leaves and other heavier
than air objects floated on windy days is that the atmospheric
pressure on the surface of the earth increased sufficiently to cause
the air to act like a body of holey Swiss cheese, and that wherever
there was a hole, the leaves and other stuff would fall to the
ground. . . . Okay, he had been eating mushrooms and having fondue
visions at the time.
> I thought I'd change the subject rather than try to follow
> whatever you and Ray are going on about. It looks very deep and
> very important, and that strikes me as reason enough to ignore it.
It might have both, but it turned out to be a problem of talking
about different things while using the same words to do it. I'm a
bit embarrassed at having spent so much time and energy on the topic
when what Raymond has been saying all along has been a truism and
nothing to argue about. The only thing that is arguable is his
unwarranted assumption that everyone should understand exactly what
he means when he uses vague terms. Writer-based prose, as usual,
continues to mystify readers not privy to the writer's mind until
the writer reveals enough of it to make his underlying assumptions
clear.
You haven't missed much, Bob. It's all a rehash of his old postings
about what someone just today called Raymond Wise's second career. I
like that line. When something rings as true as that observation,
it's a little like hearing the music of the spheres.
Skitt
A lawyeresque statement if I ever saw one. You should be quietly proud. I
love it.
Skitt
> "Skitt" burbled:
They looked at may _Battery of Tests_ scores and then matched them to what
they needed. The exact words I heard were "This guy can do anything -- what
do we need?" The answer was "A lawyer". So, I became one. I *did* have
one week's training. I also had a civilian lawyer as my boss and back-up.
No worries, eh?
CyberCypher
news:bhpbvh$1q7vg$1...@ID-61580.news.uni-berlin.de:
> CyberCypher wrote:
[...]
>> In the Navy, one had to be an officer to impersonate a lawyer.
>> How'd you pull that off as an E3?
>
> They looked at may _Battery of Tests_ scores and then matched them
> to what they needed. The exact words I heard were "This guy can
> do anything -- what do we need?" The answer was "A lawyer". So,
> I became one. I *did* have one week's training. I also had a
> civilian lawyer as my boss and back-up. No worries, eh?
Back in 1965 or '66, a taxi sideswiped my car on the east side of
NYC. The driver thought I'd let him go, but I stopped him and
immediately asked for all his papers. The passenger was obviously in
a hurry and had no time for formalities. Her first remark after
hearing my opening remarks was "You must be a lawyer". Then she
launched into a tirade against the profession (Sorry, Bob). In some
ways, it's easy to impersonate a lawyer, I guess.
Skitt
> "Skitt" burbled:
>> CyberCypher wrote:
>>> In the Navy, one had to be an officer to impersonate a lawyer.
>>> How'd you pull that off as an E3?
>>
>> They looked at may _Battery of Tests_ scores and then matched them
>> to what they needed. The exact words I heard were "This guy can
>> do anything -- what do we need?" The answer was "A lawyer". So,
>> I became one. I *did* have one week's training. I also had a
>> civilian lawyer as my boss and back-up. No worries, eh?
>
> Back in 1965 or '66, a taxi sideswiped my car on the east side of
> NYC. The driver thought I'd let him go, but I stopped him and
> immediately asked for all his papers. The passenger was obviously in
> a hurry and had no time for formalities. Her first remark after
> hearing my opening remarks was "You must be a lawyer". Then she
> launched into a tirade against the profession (Sorry, Bob). In some
> ways, it's easy to impersonate a lawyer, I guess.
True, but attaching some weight to the opinions is another matter. Anyway,
as I said, I had a civilian lawyer, one properly admitted to the bar, to
back up all of my decisions. He never contradicted any of them.
<applause>
Evan Kirshenbaum
> Richard R. Hershberger wrote:
> > I value writers such as Fiske. They serve as valuable object
> > lessons by showing that the most punctilious compliance with the
> > rules of usage have so little to do with either writing or
> > thinking well.
>
> After reading his stuff for a while, and that of others
> of his ilk published at that site, I share your opinion --
> but would never have been able to state it so elegantly.
That's one for my quote file. (Although pedant that I am, I think
I'll change the "have" to a "[has]".)
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |"Revolution" has many definitions.
1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |From the looks of this, I'd say
Palo Alto, CA 94304 |"going around in circles" comes
|closest to applying...
kirsh...@hpl.hp.com | Richard M. Hartman
(650)857-7572
Evan Kirshenbaum
> Disregarding the "after 1870s" stuff, I, attending high school and
> college from 1949 to 1956 in California, never heard of any manuals
> or style guides in the curriculum. I didn't even know they existed
> until I started reading AUE, even though I was briefly (to fill my
> time between more important assignments), in 1967, a tech editor for
> The Boeing Company in Seattle.
I attended high school from 1978 to 1982 in suburban Chicago, and
Warriner's _English Grammar and Composition_ was used throughout. I
can't recall how prescriptivist it was, but Googling,
The overemphasis on the proper form of the sentence is another
relic of the Enlightenment's passion for neat and tidy
categorization. Modern grammar books such as the deathless
Warriner's English Grammar and Composition solemnly inform the
student that there are four kinds of sentences: simple, compound,
complex, and compound-complex. Each one needs a subject and a
predicate, and there are three ways to connect them. Thus the
grammar mavens teach children to use their language as if they
were instructing them how to assemble a barbecue grill; they
insist on rules consistently contradicted by the speech and
writing of the most brilliant users of our language.
http://www.people.virginia.edu/~hl5s/fumbled.html
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |A specification which calls for
1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |network-wide use of encryption, but
Palo Alto, CA 94304 |invokes the Tooth Fairy to handle
|key distribution, is a useless
kirsh...@hpl.hp.com |farce.
(650)857-7572 | Henry Spencer
Robert Bannister
> CyberCypher wrote:
>
> [ ... ]
>
>
>>There has
>>never been an instance of an iron bar not bending when sufficient
>>force was applied in the right directions, just as there has never
>>been an instance of anything heavier than air floating upward
>>instead of Earthward when tossed out a window.
>
>
> Depends on your definition of "floating." Have you never observed
> the behavior of tree leaves on a windy day?
And if you've ever been under the flight path of a big airport where you
can just about count the rivets of the 747s coming in to land, it can be
a real worry as to whether those things can really stay up or not.
--
Rob Bannister
Evan Kirshenbaum
> I agree wholeheartedly with your evaluation of Fiske and his review
> of the M-W11. He did ask one good question, though: "What words from
> the M-W 10th were dropped from the 11th in order to make room for
> the new entries (I doubt that all the new entries are slang on the
> order of "dis", which is so commonplace everywhere around the world
> where rap-noise is played that it deserves to be in the dictionary).
It's 10,000 new words *and senses*. Not all are new headwords. So,
for instance, according to their web site, "lurk" now has a third
sense of
to read messages on an Internet discussion forum (as a newsgroup or
a chat room) without contributing information (as addresses,
schedules, and notes)
http://www.merriam-webstercollegiate.com/info/new_words.htm
I can't really quibble with any of the new inclusions.
> Quoth the raver: "More interesting than this new edition would be a
> book of the words abandoned. Were they sesquipedalian words that few
> people use or know the meaning of, or even disyllabic words that few
> people use or know the meaning of?
From an Amazon customer review, they found (or, rather, didn't find)
"lonelily", "pein", and "Daoist".
> I wonder if they did not dispense with some of the old slang that is
> no longer used. The question is interesting,. not for the reasons
> that Fiske asked it but because I wonder how lexicographers decide
> what words not to include. As it turns out, they are often the ones
> I can't find when I need them, like, for example, "adlittoral",
> which *is* in W3NID CD-ROM but *not* in M-W 11 online
Nor in the tenth (print or on-line). It's not an unabridged
dictionary.
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |The General Theorem of Usenet
1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |Information: If you really want to
Palo Alto, CA 94304 |know the definitive answer, post
|the wrong information, and wait for
kirsh...@hpl.hp.com |someone to come by and explain in
(650)857-7572 |excruciating detail precisely how
|wrong you are.
http://www.kirshenbaum.net/ | Eric The Read
CyberCypher
news:7k5a5y...@hpl.hp.com:
> "Skitt" <ski...@comcast.net> writes:
>
>> Disregarding the "after 1870s" stuff, I, attending high school
>> and college from 1949 to 1956 in California, never heard of any
>> manuals or style guides in the curriculum. I didn't even know
>> they existed until I started reading AUE, even though I was
>> briefly (to fill my time between more important assignments), in
>> 1967, a tech editor for The Boeing Company in Seattle.
>
> I attended high school from 1978 to 1982 in suburban Chicago, and
> Warriner's _English Grammar and Composition_ was used throughout.
> I can't recall how prescriptivist it was, but Googling,
>
> The overemphasis on the proper form of the sentence is another
> relic of the Enlightenment's passion for neat and tidy
> categorization. Modern grammar books such as the deathless
> Warriner's English Grammar and Composition solemnly inform the
> student that there are four kinds of sentences: simple,
> compound, complex, and compound-complex. Each one needs a
> subject and a predicate, and there are three ways to connect
> them. Thus the grammar mavens teach children to use their
> language as if they were instructing them how to assemble a
> barbecue grill; they insist on rules consistently contradicted
> by the speech and writing of the most brilliant users of our
> language.
>
> http://www.people.virginia.edu/~hl5s/fumbled.html
>
Here's a lovely line from that essay:
"Although some linguists admire pronouns as the only words in
English that still have sex, . . ."
CyberCypher
news:3F4166EC...@it.net.au:
I was working at NAS Atlanta/Dobbins Air Force Base/Lockheed in
Marietta, GA, back in the mid-late 1960s when the first C5A
Starlifter took off for the first time. It was an amazing site. This
huge airplane with four big jets hanging down from two wings that
appeared to flap as the monster took off. It required, to take off
and land, about half the runway distance of the F8 fighters our Navy
pilots used. And when it reached an invisible line at the end of its
take-off trajectory, it made a huge left turn and seemed to hang
there for a brief eternity, threatening every second to plunge to
the residential earth below.
There were no 747s before that plane, but it managed to breed
prolificly (Hey, if "accidently" is okay, why not this?) So now.
after 36 years of watching those metallic dragons floating through
the skies --- friendly and unfriendly --- I always wonder when those
big fat jets will fall during the flight I happen to be on at the
moment.
CyberCypher
news:3cfy5x...@hpl.hp.com:
> CyberCypher <hui...@netscape.com> writes:
>
>> I agree wholeheartedly with your evaluation of Fiske and his
>> review of the M-W11. He did ask one good question, though: "What
>> words from the M-W 10th were dropped from the 11th in order to
>> make room for the new entries (I doubt that all the new entries
>> are slang on the order of "dis", which is so commonplace
>> everywhere around the world where rap-noise is played that it
>> deserves to be in the dictionary).
>
> It's 10,000 new words *and senses*. Not all are new headwords.
> So, for instance, according to their web site, "lurk" now has a
> third sense of
>
> to read messages on an Internet discussion forum (as a
> newsgroup or a chat room) without contributing information (as
> addresses, schedules, and notes)
>
> http://www.merriam-webstercollegiate.com/info/new_words.htm
>
> I can't really quibble with any of the new inclusions.
Except for "agita", neither can I. Thank you for pointing this site
out.
>> Quoth the raver: "More interesting than this new edition would be
>> a book of the words abandoned. Were they sesquipedalian words
>> that few people use or know the meaning of, or even disyllabic
>> words that few people use or know the meaning of?
>
> From an Amazon customer review, they found (or, rather, didn't
> find) "lonelily", "pein", and "Daoist".
I think these three can be done without as headwords, so no
objections here either.
>> I wonder if they did not dispense with some of the old slang that
>> is no longer used. The question is interesting,. not for the
>> reasons that Fiske asked it but because I wonder how
>> lexicographers decide what words not to include. As it turns out,
>> they are often the ones I can't find when I need them, like, for
>> example, "adlittoral", which *is* in W3NID CD-ROM but *not* in
>> M-W 11 online
>
> Nor in the tenth (print or on-line). It's not an unabridged
> dictionary.
Right, and "adlittoral" is one of those words that once you have
looked up a single time, you remember forever.
CyberCypher
> CyberCypher <hui...@netscape.com> writes:
>
>> I agree wholeheartedly with your evaluation of Fiske and his
>> review of the M-W11. He did ask one good question, though: "What
>> words from the M-W 10th were dropped from the 11th in order to
>> make room for the new entries (I doubt that all the new entries
>> are slang on the order of "dis", which is so commonplace
>> everywhere around the world where rap-noise is played that it
>> deserves to be in the dictionary).
>
> It's 10,000 new words *and senses*. Not all are new headwords.
> So, for instance, according to their web site, "lurk" now has a
> third sense of
>
> to read messages on an Internet discussion forum (as a
> newsgroup or a chat room) without contributing information (as
> addresses, schedules, and notes)
>
> http://www.merriam-webstercollegiate.com/info/new_words.htm
>
> I can't really quibble with any of the new inclusions.
Except for "agita", neither can I. Thank you for pointing this site
out.
>> Quoth the raver: "More interesting than this new edition would be
>> a book of the words abandoned. Were they sesquipedalian words
>> that few people use or know the meaning of, or even disyllabic
>> words that few people use or know the meaning of?
>
> From an Amazon customer review, they found (or, rather, didn't
> find) "lonelily", "pein", and "Daoist".
I think these three can be done without as headwords, so no
objections here either.
>> I wonder if they did not dispense with some of the old slang that
>> is no longer used. The question is interesting,. not for the
>> reasons that Fiske asked it but because I wonder how
>> lexicographers decide what words not to include. As it turns out,
>> they are often the ones I can't find when I need them, like, for
>> example, "adlittoral", which *is* in W3NID CD-ROM but *not* in
>> M-W 11 online
>
> Nor in the tenth (print or on-line). It's not an unabridged
> dictionary.
Right, and "adlittoral" is one of those words that once you have
looked up, you remember forever.
Raymond S. Wise
news:JKH%a.19771$BC2....@newsread2.news.atl.earthlink.net...
> Raymond S. Wise wrote:
>
> > *A Dictionary of Contemporary American Usage* by Bergen Evans and
Cornelia
> > Evans, New York: Random House, (C) 1957, is a classic descriptivist
usage
> > commentary. Bergen Evans was a strong foe of prescriptivism.
>
> And yet you need read no further than the entry on the use of "A" and "An"
> to find one of the most strident pieces of prescriptivism ever written.
To
> all those using "an" before "historical," the anti-prescriptivist Evanses
> say that you are wrongity-wrong-wrong and will rot in hell.
Here is the passage in question: "The form _a_ should be used before an _h_
that is pronounced, as in _history_ and _hotel._ Formerly these _h_ sounds
were not pronounced and _an historical novel, an hotel,_ were as natural as
_an honorable man, an hour, an heiress._ This is no longer true and these
archaic _an_'s, familiar from English literature should not be repeated in
modern writing."
The name of the book is *A Dictionary of Contemporary American Usage.* Its
purpose, like that of other descriptivist usage guides, is to give guidance
on how to write and speak a standard dialect, and in this case the standard
dialect is limited to Standard American English. Any advice in this book
then, unless specifically speaking of some other standard dialect, should be
seen to have the following understood: "If what you intend to do is to speak
and write Standard American English, then you should...."
Could a descriptivist guide be written on a nonstandard dialect? Yes, in
principle. However, there are very few people who seek to learn to speak and
write nonstandard dialects. At best, there are, on the one hand, people who
seek to become acquainted with aspects of the nonstandard dialect, and on
the other hand, people who wish to learn to speak and write representations
of nonstandard dialects which will be taken by the reader or audience of a
fictional work as being believable, although such representations do not
reflect precisely the actual usage used in those dialects. Therefore, while
you might find the work of a linguist writing a description of a nonstandard
dialect, you will find not find a writer, using descriptivist principles,
writing a guide in which he makes such a statement as the following (with,
understood, "If what you intend to speak and write is nonstandard dialect
[X], then..."): "You should not use Usage [Y], as it is a standard usage not
used in this dialect."
But that *is* the type of thing to expect in a descriptivist usage guide
intended to help someone learn to write and speak a standard dialect of
English, there is a market for such guides, and so you will find that such
guides have been written. When you come across one, then, it is perverse to
expect it not to do precisely that which it has been written to do.
--
Raymond S. Wise
Minneapolis, Minnesota USA
E-mail: mplsray @ yahoo . com
Raymond S. Wise
news:Pine.GSO.4.44.03081...@sparky.cs.nyu.edu...
Your comment is a non sequitur. The usage in question, the use of "an"
preceding "historical" or "hotel," depends upon language change not having
the slightest thing to do with prescriptivist bugaboos.
Your statement that descriptivists must "accept the consequences of
prescriptivist social influence on the language" is silly, because it should
be obvious that that is precisely what descriptivists do. I, for example,
accept that the double negative has been banished from standard English
usage in part--and I suspect, largely--due to the influence of
prescriptivists. And I accept--how could I not?--the spellings that came
about because of prescriptivist error, such as "arctic" (where there was a
pronunciation change as well) and "island."
I have also said, in this group or in alt.english.usage , that a complete
description of a usage would contain prescriptivist comments on it, however
objectively erroneous those comments happened to be--and that such error
should in the very same entry be pointed out to the reader. But that is a
project for a future date: Current descriptivist usage guides are limited by
practical considerations of size and marketability.
Raymond S. Wise
news:Xns93DAB76FD...@130.133.1.4...
> "Raymond S. Wise" <illinoi...@mninter.net> burbled
> news:vjuabra...@corp.supernews.com:
>
> > "CyberCypher" <hui...@netscape.com> wrote in message
> > news:Xns93D8A5FB8...@130.133.1.4...
> >> "Raymond S. Wise" <illinoi...@mninter.net> burbled
>
> [...]
>
> >> Does the straw man that I called a caricature and hyperbole
> >> exist? Yes, as a caricature and hyperbole. Does the straw-man
> >> prescriptivist that you delineated in your post today, the one
> >> that gives usage advice based on fantasy, really exist? I think
> >> he is also a carciature and hyperbole. Why can't you accept your
> >> own tactics when others use them?
> >
> > It is not a caricature. It follows logically from the facts which
> > I stated.
>
> You do not state them clearly. The way you state them makes it
> clear to me that you are withholding information, and the statements
> you make below make that abundantly clear. Your two sets of terms
> "descriptivist/descriptivism" and "prescriptivist/prescriptivism"
> actually stand for a series of other terms that are not obvious to
> those who have not read everything else you've written on the
> subject. I do not have a file of everything you've said on this
> topic. Everything I remember your having written on this topic has
> included the two sets of vague and imprecise terms only. This post
> finally gets down to the nitty-gritty of what you really mean. Now
> that you've said it in full, all I can say is that you have said
> essentially that the good guys wear white hats and the bad guys wear
> black hats The good guys do good things and the bad guys do bad
> things. That's what makes them good guys and bad guys. You've made
> the world larger by including different types of prescriptivists and
> descriptivists in it, but you haven't said anything arguable. The
> way you define your terms is the way any absolutist defines his
> terms. And you are an absolutist, no doubt about it. But you seem to
> think you are not. Well, that's your problem, not mine.
It is extremely difficult for me to believe that there are more than a
handful of people in the world who think that there is a dispute between
linguistic scientists and the prescriptive usage commentators. Frankly, I
find it remarkable that you appear to be claiming to have ever been at one
time under such a misapprehension.
Good grief! You don't *still* believe that, do you?
>
> [...]
>
> > I have not yet been able to take a look at the *Cambridge Grammar
> > of English,* but it certainly sounds from the above that it is a
> > comprehensive grammar of the English language,
>
> Yes, it is.
>
> > the sort of thing
> > which is produced only by linguists and never by either
> > descriptivist or prescriptivist usage commentators.
>
> Ah! a refinement of terminology. Thank you for that. Now I know what
> *you* are on about.
>
> > Prescriptivism
> > has never been in any sort of real dispute with this sort of
> > descriptivist. They occasionally misunderstand the controversy,
> > and bring up the work of the scientists
>
> It wasn't I who brought up the work of the scientists (whatever
> scientists you are talking about), but you who introduced scientists
> and pseudoscientists as analogous to prescriptivists and
> descriptivists.
>
> > to show that "there are no
> > 'descriptivists' who are capable of giving advice about language
> > usage," as you do below.
>
> If what I do is describe how the language is used, then I do not
> prescribe how the language is used. I prescribe how the language
> "should be used" when I tell other people that the way in which they
> use the language is incorrect.
Your use of "prescribe" here does not accord with the usage which the word
has actually acquired in the context of the dispute between the descriptive
usage commentators and the prescriptive usage commentators.
Note that there are people who believe that the person who "describe[s] how
the language is used" by writing rules for how to speak it, as
anthropologists studying indigenous languages do, for example, are "being
prescriptive." I'm sure you do not agree with that, but your use of the term
is no less illegitimate than theirs.
>
> > That is why I stated, in a previous post in this thread, that "I
> > have no interest in theoretical descriptions of the difference
> > between descriptivists and prescriptivists, since they depend upon
> > theoretical definitions of the words themselves."
>
> A terminological problem, here, I fear. Either you mean "stipulated"
> definitions or "agreed upon" definitions. A "theoretical" definition
> seems to me to be one which exists only in a theory or one which is a
> definition of something that is not known for certain to exist.
To get the sense I intended, you might as well substitute for "theoretical
definition" "any definition of a word's meaning which claims to be based
upon anything other than actual usage in the context in question."
>
> > The actual
> > dispute between descriptivists and prescriptivists has always been
> > between two groups who give usage advice, and has involved the
> > scientists only peripherally.
>
> Oh, I see. You are calling linguists "scientists". I prefer to call
> linguists "linguists" and leave out the assignment of luinguistics to
> science, which I see as only physics and chemistry, and its subsets, of
> which biology in all its forms (including anatomy, medicine, etc) and
> botany in all its forms exist. Social science is social science and not
> hard science. The science of language is a special science of the
> social science sort and not a hard science.
There is a stark divide between science and symbolic logic (including
mathematics) on the one hand and all other methods which attempt to
ascertain truth, on the other.
Science and symbolic logic are the only ways of gaining human knowledge in
which we can be certain we are approaching the truth. Symbolic logic is like
a game in which one must follow the rules: Anything which is proven by
following such rules is true by definition, true by the rules of the game.
It has no necessary connection between reality outside the logical system:
"Correspondence rules" have to be created in order to apply logical proofs
to reality, and in that case we cannot be certain we have done it right
except when scientific discoveries justify what we have done.
Science *does* have to do with reality, and is the only self-correcting
method of saying true statements about that reality. Science is, in fact,
not a body of knowledge, but a method of verifying hypotheses and
theories.[1] Those hypotheses and theories, once verified, bring us closer
to the truth, but we would go no further if we did not continue to apply the
scientific method. This is true no less of the soft sciences than of the
hard ones. As I said, there is a stark divide between this method of
learning what is true and other methods.
>
> > Now, there is some overlap between the scientists and the
> > descriptivist usage commentators. The scientist, being human, is
> > likely to be just as disgusted as the descriptivist usage
> > commentator by a line of argument expressed by a prescriptivist
> > which does not accord with the facts.
>
> It seems to me that if one is aware that a line of argument does not
> accord with facts and that someone recognizes it, that that someone
> will simply say that the line of argument is false because it is based
> upon incorrect premises or an inaccurate knowledge of the facts. No
> need for "disgust", is there? Or is disgust an indispensible
> characteristic of a "descriptive usage comentator" (DUC)? What
> happens if DUC-1 reads a paper written by DUC-2 and finds arguments
> that are not in accord with the facts? Does DUC-1 get disgusted or does
> DUC-1 reserve the expression of any judgmental reaction and assume that
> DUC-2 simply made an excusable research error? Or does the crime of
> deviating from the facts cause DUC-1 to label DUC-2 a PUC
> (prescriptivist usage commentator) simply on the basis of having
> misrepresented the facts, intentionally or unintentionally?
I was thinking of disgust for the beliefs of the fool. I have seen plenty of
damage done by pseudoscience, and I believe it is immoral to be neutral
about it: At best--at the very best--crackpot theories deserve, as Martin
Gardner put it, a horse laugh.
>
> > And it is often not
> > completely possible for a linguist to be seen as not commenting
> > on usage: *A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language* by
> > Randolph Quirk et al. identified itself as a grammar of Standard
> > English, and pointed out that by doing so they were in a sense
> > commenting about English usage, since to write the book they must
> > identify some usages as standard and some as nonstandard, in order
> > to avoid discussing the latter.
>
> These are, presumably, the oxymoronic "descriptivist prescriptivists".
Not exactly. I was just pointing out that language, like any other
phenomenon we might like to study, puts certain limits upon us. As a
practical matter, we have to limit the scope of our study, and that is what
those who write comprehensive grammars must do also.
>
> > I expect the only linguists who
> > can avoid commenting in some manner about standard dialects are
> > those who spend their entire lifetime studying languages which
> > have no standard dialect--such as Amerindian languages spoken by
> > only the members of one village.
>
> In other words, languages which have no usage commentators at all
> because all usage commentating is done by all the users in the village,
> so that everyone over the age of Zty-five is a language maven and
> qualified to give linguistic advice about what is and is not correct in
> the unavillage language. But in Taiwan, Japan, and the USA, older
> children tell younger children what is correct and not correct usage,
> and that normally constitutes prescriptive usage advice based upon the
> older child's longer acquaintence with the language and its speakers.
A truly complete description of the language of the village would describe
such a process. But, as I mentioned above, there are practical limits to
what we can study.
>
> > Joseph Priestley[1] has been identified as the author of the first
> > descriptivist grammar, "Rudiments of English Grammar" (1761). This
> > was not a comprehensive grammar, but a grammar like the others of
> > the time which advised on usage, thus dealing only with a very
> > narrow subset of grammar.
>
> And was, therefore, a prescriptive as well as a descriptive work.
But as the term "prescriptive" has been used in the dispute between the
descriptive usage commentators and the prescriptive commentators, it is
flatly *not* a prescriptive work.
>
> [...]
>
> > I have compared descriptivism and scientific medical care to
> > prescriptivism and quackery. I have also, however, and more
> > accurately, described the work of linguistic scientists as like
> > medical research, descriptive usage advice like scientific medical
> > care, and prescriptivism like quackery.
> >
> > There is, here, the additional analogy that a scientific medical
> > researcher, being human, is likely to be as disgusted as the
> > scientific medical practitioner by statements made by a medical
> > quack.
>
> I'm sorry, but I reject all of your analogies. Language usage
> commentators are not scientists but critics of and and advisors
> about language usage.
Well, you really missed my point there. Language usage commentators are not
scientists, they are people who operate according to certain scientific
principles derived from linguistics. Some of them are scientists, such as
George P. Krapp, but that is (obviously) not an essential element of their
work as descriptive usage commentators.
Let me repeat the analogy I made: The work of linguistic scientists iss
like
medical research, descriptive usage advice like scientific medical care, and
prescriptivism like quackery. You might say that much of linguistic science
is like the work of *basic* medical research, but like basic medical
research, it ultimately helps someone. For example, a linguist who writes a
grammar of an indigenous language has written something which may be used
immediately by people who wish to contact the indigenous people in question.
Skeptics, such as those who write *The Skeptical Inquirer,* are invaluable
for combating pseudoscience, but most of them are not scientists themselves.
Among other things, descriptive usage commentators function as skeptics of
prescriptivism, by showing how prescriptivist usage commentators use faulty
logic and incorrect beliefs in their arguments concerning language usage.
>
> [...]
>
> > For "descriptivism" we could substitute "descriptive
> > prescriptivism" or "scientific prescriptivism" and for
> > "prescriptivism" we could substitute "prescriptive prescriptivism"
> > or "pseudoscientific prescriptivism," but I can see no real
> > advantage to doing so.
>
> [...]
>
> I see a great deal of advantage to doing so. One is that it might avoid
> the kind of misunderstanding your imprecise terminology causes. It
> might make you realize that a "descriptivist prescriptivist" is no less
> a prescirptivist than a "prescriptivist prescriptivist". That would
> preclude the possibility that anyone reading what you had to say would
> mistake your words for the absurd statements they sometimes make, such
> as when you say that prescriptivism is based on fantasy. That is not at
> all what you mean to say. What you mean and what you say are two
> different things. You mean to say that "pseudoscientific
> prescriptivism" is based upon the same sorts of fantasies as are
> entertained by the pseudoscientists who entertain the notion that the
> paranormal is real and true, that telekinesis and ESP are true, and
> that people like Dunniger and Yuri Geller are not con artists or mere
> entertainers but people with special paranormal gifts.
The error of pseudoscientists is not so much in what they believe as in
their inability to test their beliefs using the scientific method.
>
> > The terms "descriptivism" and
> > "prescriptivism" would appear to be firmly entrenched when
> > speaking of usage commentary and the dispute among the two sides
> > involved. They don't mislead me: Why should they mislead you or
> > Mike Lyle?
>
> Because you haven't bothered to clarify what you mean by these two
> terms and are loath to admit that "descriptive prescriptivism" is a
> form of prescriptivism.
I can do so only using the word "prescriptivism" in a manner which does not
accord with its actual usage when speaking about the matter in question. I
can do that with any word. If I stipulate that "dog" means a feline, then I
can say that a friend of mine has a dog. In reality, however, as the word is
actually used, she has a cat.
>
> >> [quote]
> >> Although descriptive grammars and prescriptive usage manuals
> >> differ in the range of topics they treat, there is no reason in
> >> principle why they should not agree on what they say about the
> >> topics they both treat. The fact they do not is interesting.
> >> There are several reasons for the lack of agreement.We dealwith
> >> three of them here: (a) the basis in personal taste of some
> >> prescriptivistwriters' judgements; (b) the confusion of
> >> informality with ungrammaticality; and (c) certain invalid
> >> arguments sometimes appealed to by prescriptivists. These are
> >> extraneous features of prescriptive writing about language rather
> >> than inherent ones, and all three of them are less prevalent now
> >> than they were in the past. But older prescriptive works have
> >> exemplified them, and a few still do; their influence lingers on
> >> in the English-speaking educational world. [/quote]
> >>
> >> Notice the sentence beginning "These are extraneous features"
> >> five lines up. This is strong evidence that you have created a
> >> straw-man prescriptivist to whip and burn. You are still fighting
> >> the ghost of Lowth.
> >
> > If so, then I have fallen into a logical error. Perhaps you could
> > point out where I went wrong.
>
> I already have. You don't mean what you say or say what you mean. You
> don't define your terms carefully enough to make it clear what you are
> talking about. You just like to stand up on your cyberspace street-
> corner soapbox and hold forth froth on the evils of prescriptivism
> because it makes you feel as if you are contributing something to the
> world.
Again, I do not believe that there are more than a handful of people who do
not understand that the descriptivist/prescriptivist dispute involves
descriptive usage commentators and prescriptive usage commentators. I have
read a great deal on this subject during the last thirty-five years, and the
idea that there is any appreciable number of people who do not understand
what the usage dispute is about is laughable. Make that "worthy of a horse
laugh."
Note:
[1] I was just reading a review in the *Skeptical Inquirer* today of
*Denying Evolution: Creationism, Scientism, and the Nature of Science* by
Massimo Pigliucci. The review, in the July/August 2003 issue of SI, quotes
Pugliucci as saying essentially the same thing about science as I said above
in the footnoted sentence.
Raymond S. Wise
news:3F400D58...@it.net.au...
In fact, such a test as you propose is *not* a scientific test. It is, for
those prescriptivists who know the prescriptivist rules, simply a
demonstration of the symbolic logic of the rules, representing only itself
and having no necessary connection with the real world or, for that matter,
with the symbolic logic of any *other* set of prescriptionist rules.
It's as if one looked at a record of a long game of Monopoly and said "All
the players obeyed the rules by requiring that one have four houses before
he buys a hotel." The same person, looking at a game of Monopoly in which
the players required that one have only three houses before he buys a hotel
would pronounce it to be "against the rules." But that would be an incorrect
assessment if, in fact, the second group of players were indeed playing a
long version of the game in which they had decided that the rule would be
that one needed three houses before he could buy a hotel. That would be only
"against the rules" of the observer, not of the observed.
Whether there are people who play Monopoly with the
three-houses-before-one-can-buy-a-hotel rule is a question which can be
answered objectively.
For those who are uncertain of the prescriptivist rules, the sort of test
you propose is, again, not a scientific test. It is primarily a mnemonic
device.
(See also my comments upon symbolic logic and truth in my recent reply to
CyberCypher.)
CyberCypher
[Everything snipt...]
Raymond, you define everything so exclusively that it is impossible
to argue with you. You are never wrong.
You stipulate your definitions
(1) after the fact, or
(2) in some other post, or
(3) in that part of your brain where you find it hard to believe
that anyone does not know what you mean when you use a word --- not
everyone is as well-versed as you are in all the aspects of the
debate. As someone else said, you have made it "a second career" to
know all there is to know about this debate and, I say, to repeat
it assuming that everyone else knows exactly what you mean when you
say what you say, just because you know what you mean.
Take a look at the essay that Evan quoted from today. It discusses
the major points of contention between PUCs and DUCs.
It even cites William Safire as our leading PUC in the USA (John,
not William, Simon <John Simon Drama and film critic; music
columnist, _The New Leader_> <Simon, John. Paradigms Lost:
Reflections on Literacy and Its Decline. New York: C.N. Potter,
1980> dates you; he used to be number one, though, and he still
seems to sit on the AHD4 language usage panel despite his not being
a native speaker of English) but does not claim that PUC that he is,
he bases his prescriptions on fantasy --- it does, however, point
out that some of his arguments for and against certain usages are
based on historical inaccuracies and "[m]any of his suggestions for
formal writing, such as avoiding unnecessary capital letters and
exclamation points, make good clear sense. Safire cleverly breaks
each rule in its formulation, and his explanations are witty and
cogent".
I must admit that Safire's language columns often bore me and that I
don't find his advice helpful most of the time. I prefer his
political and cultural commentary, which is at least more
interesting and connected to what interests me, and, unlike the
trash spewed by Ann Coulter, is eminently readable most of the time,
whether or not I agree with it.
But back to the point.
Now that I see what you are about, there is no point in having a
discussion.
Your claims are all truisms cached in ambiguous words for those not
thoroughly familiar with your cognitive labyrinth. Your definitions are
normative and bigoted, though you think they are neutral and all
"supported by fact". There is no disagreeing with your stipulations,
just with your zealotry.
Virgil Partch's 1950s cartoon of a man sweeping drinks of a bar and
someone sitting at the bar cursing "#@&%&&@@##% reformed drunks!"
reminds me both of your stance on the PucDuc controversy and my
feeling about your attitude about the PucDuc controversy.
If there is to be any fruit borne of such a discussion, the topic
will have to be amended so that it reflects some aspect of the issue
of that will not bring forth only stillborn chatter.
I have no more to say about it for now.
Peter Moylan
>I was working at NAS Atlanta/Dobbins Air Force Base/Lockheed in
>Marietta, GA, back in the mid-late 1960s when the first C5A
>Starlifter took off for the first time. It was an amazing site. This
>huge airplane with four big jets hanging down from two wings that
>appeared to flap as the monster took off.
I've witnessed that from inside a Starlifter. The wings flap so
much that it looks as if they're going to scrape the tarmac.
It's hard to convince yourself that there's not going to be a
crash. Then, on a turn in the air, the wings bend so much that
it seems certain they'll snap off.
The introductory talk was quite an experience, too. None of this
"please read the card in the seat pocket". It was more along the
lines of "We don't often have to ditch, but if we ditch on this
flight then here's what y'all have to do ...", followed by about
half an hour of detailed instructions, estimates of the probable
survival rates, and so on. Not the most pleasant flight I've
ever had.
--
Peter Moylan Peter....@newcastle.edu.au
http://eepjm.newcastle.edu.au (OS/2 and eCS information and software)
Areff
[Areff:]
> > This is a common characteristic hypocrisy of so-called descriptivist
> > commentators, but I'm surprised that such persons are not, apparently,
> > called on it more often. Descriptivists, so-called, have a strong
> > disfavor for any usage out there that they consider to have been the
> > result of prescriptivist social influence. But if the Prime Directive
> > of the descriptivists is to describe, and not judge, then surely they
> > must accept the consequences of prescriptivist social influence on the
> > language.
>
> Your comment is a non sequitur. The usage in question, the use of "an"
> preceding "historical" or "hotel," depends upon language change not having
> the slightest thing to do with prescriptivist bugaboos.
>
> Your statement that descriptivists must "accept the consequences of
> prescriptivist social influence on the language" is silly, because it should
> be obvious that that is precisely what descriptivists do. I, for example,
> accept that the double negative has been banished from standard English
> usage in part--and I suspect, largely--due to the influence of
> prescriptivists. And I accept--how could I not?--the spellings that came
> about because of prescriptivist error, such as "arctic" (where there was a
> pronunciation change as well) and "island."
You accept it with a sneer; you cannot resist expressing disgust for
the actions of the prescriptivists. Therefore, you are not a neutral
observer. NTTAWWT.
Raymond S. Wise
I have never claimed to be a neutral observer, any more than a cop claims to
be a neutral observer of crime or a skeptic claims to be a neutral observer
of pseudoscience.
On the contrary, I have in the past made the specific point that
pseudoscience is morally wrong.
That's looking at it from the point of view of the skeptic of pseudoscience,
someone who is not necessarily himself a scientist. Looking at it from the
scientist's point of view, however, it is abundantly clear that the
scientist cannot be neutral about error either. If he were, the whole
structure of science would quickly collapse.
Robert Bannister
So how should we feel about error in language? Error in science is
error; error in language is a prescriptive fallacy?
--
Rob Bannister
Robert Bannister
Now we are really getting into double speak: what else are the so-called
prescriptivists doing? Where some of us take issue, is in those place
where we subjectively disagree with their findings. In the above, for
example, I disagree with the conclusion about 'an historical'.
--
Rob Bannister
Raymond S. Wise
If the purpose of language is to communicate an idea from one mind to
another, and to communicate it in a given dialect and register[1], then
errors are made when (1) the complete idea does not get through or (2) the
idea is communicated, but the dialect or register are not what was intended.
These can happen either from errors made by the speaker or by the listener.
A spoonerism is an example of an error. Either the idea fails to get
through, or it gets through only because the listener can figure out from
the statement made what the speaker intended to get across.
Grammatical errors are an example of not communicating in the dialect
intended. (Truism: There are no dialects which do not have grammatical
rules.) Once, for example, in the space of a few minutes, I told two
different strangers "Is this your keys?" showing them a set of keys which I
had found. While I successfully got the idea across, I did it while making a
grammatical error. The construction I used is, as far as I know, unknown to
*any* dialect of English.
A scientist must not be neutral about error, but that doesn't mean that he
must in every case be *opposed* to it. We would not be here, after all, if
not for mutations in the DNA of our ancestors, and I rather think your
average scientist is not neutral about his own existence! Similarly, we
would not be speaking the language we now do if it were not for language
change due to errors made by speakers in the past. This applies to written
language as well: I pointed out earlier in this thread how the spelling
"island" was the result of error, yet it is now standard usage.
Note:
[1] I'm not sure this can be said to be the entire purpose of language, and
it is certainly not the entire effect of language. For example, every time a
criminal suspect makes a statement from which detectives can deduce a fact
which the speaker did not wish to be revealed, language has accomplished
something which was not intended by the speaker. There are other examples
which are more subtle, as when a mother can tell from the tone of voice of
one of her children that the child is telling a lie, again, something which
the speaker did not intend.
Raymond S. Wise
The type of prescriptivists we must deal with today are those who believe
that their advice represents a standard dialect, when in fact it represents
only a fantasy dialect. If by some miracle a prescriptivist's advice
represented the actual standard dialect, it would no longer make any sense
to call him a prescriptivist: He would be a descriptivist.
When you say you "disagree with the conclusion about 'an historical,'" do
you mean that you believe a writer intending to write Standard American
English should write "an historical"? If so, then you are advising speakers
of Standard American English to make a reform in their dialect. Unless there
is a practical use for such advice, that is not descriptive usage advice.
(Yes, descriptivist usage commentators do call for certain types of language
reform from time to time, when they believe there is an actual good to be
accomplished by such a change. I have done it myself, in alt.usage.english
and alt.english.usage .)
CyberCypher
[...]
> The type of prescriptivists we must deal with today are those who
> believe that their advice represents a standard dialect, when in
> fact it represents only a fantasy dialect.
So all prescriptions are false and based on fastasy --- by
definition.
> If by some miracle a
> prescriptivist's advice represented the actual standard dialect,
There is an actual standard dialect, though.
> it would no longer make any sense to call him a prescriptivist: He
> would be a descriptivist.
And if the prescriptivist prescribes something that is not part of
the fantasy dialect, he ceases to be a prescriptivist and
transmogrifies into a descriptivist --- again, by definition.
How can you justify this kind of crap, Raymond? We all know that
William Safire is prescriptivist and one who argues for his
subjective usage prescriptions based on false facts about the
language. He is --- I repeat --- a prescriptivist. Nobody disagrees
with that. But when Safire prescribes something that is in the
standard dialect, he is no longer a prescriptivist but a
descriptivist! I like that. It's so mealymouthed and weaselly. When
Lowth, the mother/father of all prescriptivists in English,
prescribed something that was based on fact instead of his
preference, he was a descriptivist?
Who is the one who is confused about terminology? You use it most
annoyingly. You don't say what you mean or mean what you say.
> When you say you "disagree with the conclusion about 'an
> historical,'" do you mean that you believe a writer intending to
> write Standard American English should write "an historical"? If
> so, then you are advising speakers of Standard American English to
> make a reform in their dialect. Unless there is a practical use
> for such advice, that is not descriptive usage advice. (Yes,
> descriptivist usage commentators do call for certain types of
> language reform from time to time, when they believe there is an
> actual good to be accomplished by such a change. I have done it
> myself, in alt.usage.english and alt.english.usage .)
And again, when your DUCs call for language reform, their belief
that "there is an actual good to be accomplished by such a change"
is somehow (by definition, of course) significantly and obviously
different from any belief by a prescriptivist that "there is an
actual good to be accomplished by such a change".
Martin Gardner would be rolling over in his grave could he but read
these words of yours. When he wasn't talking about faith and
ontology, his philosphical logic was faultless, as far as I could
tell. You did not learn that lesson, did you.
Raymond S. Wise
news:vk8jhbt...@corp.supernews.com...
[...]
> The type of prescriptivists we must deal with today are those who believe
> that their advice represents a standard dialect, when in fact it
represents
> only a fantasy dialect. If by some miracle a prescriptivist's advice
> represented the actual standard dialect, it would no longer make any sense
> to call him a prescriptivist: He would be a descriptivist.
Well, I started writing the above post by describing both types of
prescriptivists I had in mind, and ended up deciding to mention only the
kind which is around today. However, I should say a word about the other
kind, otherwise people are going to be wondering what I had in mind.
The other kind of prescriptionist, the kind which either doesn't exist today
or is very rare, is the sort of person who wished to make a large-scale
reform in the language. It's not just that he objected to usages which were
in widespread use by well-regarded writers--that applies to prescriptivists
today--but that he knew that what he was proposing was considerably
different from what was in the widespread use of educated speakers and
writers. He was trying to propose a *new* standard dialect and he knew it.
Noah Webster was an odd combination of the two types of prescriptivists and
a descriptivist. He was a reformer attempting to propose a new standard of
spelling--and to a certain extent he succeeded. His etymologies were very
much based upon fantasy, and he derided the scientific etymological work
then being done by the German philologists. (One of the first things which
the Merriam-Webster company did after Webster's death was to straighten out
the etymologies in his dictionary.) And he was an admirer of the descriptive
grammar of Joseph Priestley, adapted some of it into his own grammar, and
criticized the traditional grammarians about certain points, as when he
criticized Robert Lowth:
From
http://ebbs.english.vt.edu/hel/helmod/intro.html
[quote]
The American Noah Webster chafed against the constraints imposed by Lowth:
"In polite and classical language, two negatives destroy the negation and
express an affirmative....In popular language, two negatives are used for a
negation according to the practice of ancient Greeks and the modern French"
(_Philosophical and Practical Grammar,_ 1807; quoted in Finegan 42)
[end quote]
The work cited is *Attitudes Toward English Usage: The History of a War of
Words* by Edward Finegan. New York: Teachers College Press, (C) 1980.
Raymond S. Wise
> "Raymond S. Wise" <illinoi...@mninter.net> burbled
> news:vk8jhbt...@corp.supernews.com:
>
> [...]
>
> > The type of prescriptivists we must deal with today are those who
> > believe that their advice represents a standard dialect, when in
> > fact it represents only a fantasy dialect.
>
> So all prescriptions are false and based on fastasy --- by
> definition.
By logical deduction, using the words "descriptive" and "prescriptive" as
they have in fact been used throughout the descriptivist/prescriptivist
debate. I've said it before and I'll say it again: It makes no sense to
insist on calling "prescriptive" a rule which fits completely the actual
usage of the dialect in question. It *does* make sense to call it
"descriptive."
>
> > If by some miracle a
> > prescriptivist's advice represented the actual standard dialect,
>
> There is an actual standard dialect, though.
There is indeed. (Several standard dialects, actually: See page 511 of *The
Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language* by David Crystal.)
In French, there is the standard dialect prescribed by the French Academy.
However, there are also the standard dialects of actual usage. The first is
recorded in the dictionary of the Academy. The standard dialect of actual
usage as spoken in France is recorded in such descriptive dictionaries as
the *Grand Robert*[1]. Canada has its own standard dialect of French,
similar to, but not identical with, the standard dialect of actual usage
spoken in France.
>
> > it would no longer make any sense to call him a prescriptivist: He
> > would be a descriptivist.
>
> And if the prescriptivist prescribes something that is not part of
> the fantasy dialect, he ceases to be a prescriptivist and
> transmogrifies into a descriptivist --- again, by definition.
By logical deduction. Can you demonstrate otherwise?
>
> How can you justify this kind of crap, Raymond? We all know that
> William Safire is prescriptivist and one who argues for his
> subjective usage prescriptions based on false facts about the
> language. He is --- I repeat --- a prescriptivist. Nobody disagrees
> with that. But when Safire prescribes something that is in the
> standard dialect, he is no longer a prescriptivist but a
> descriptivist! I like that. It's so mealymouthed and weaselly. When
> Lowth, the mother/father of all prescriptivists in English,
> prescribed something that was based on fact instead of his
> preference, he was a descriptivist?
Of course. I doubt that he (or anyone else) was so perverse that he was
completely wrong about every single last aspect of the English language.
Surely by the time of Lowth, for example, there were certain standard
spellings of words which he adhered to.
>
> Who is the one who is confused about terminology? You use it most
> annoyingly. You don't say what you mean or mean what you say.
!?
>
> > When you say you "disagree with the conclusion about 'an
> > historical,'" do you mean that you believe a writer intending to
> > write Standard American English should write "an historical"? If
> > so, then you are advising speakers of Standard American English to
> > make a reform in their dialect. Unless there is a practical use
> > for such advice, that is not descriptive usage advice. (Yes,
> > descriptivist usage commentators do call for certain types of
> > language reform from time to time, when they believe there is an
> > actual good to be accomplished by such a change. I have done it
> > myself, in alt.usage.english and alt.english.usage .)
>
> And again, when your DUCs call for language reform, their belief
> that "there is an actual good to be accomplished by such a change"
> is somehow (by definition, of course) significantly and obviously
> different from any belief by a prescriptivist that "there is an
> actual good to be accomplished by such a change".
>
> Martin Gardner would be rolling over in his grave could he but read
> these words of yours. When he wasn't talking about faith and
> ontology, his philosphical logic was faultless, as far as I could
> tell. You did not learn that lesson, did you.
You had me worried for a moment there, but a quick search of www.csicop.org
and Google Groups archive convinced me that Gardner still lives. Like Asimov
and Sagan, when he dies, the skeptical community will immediately know of
it.
The difference between descriptivist and prescriptivist suggestions for
language reform is that the descriptivists make modest suggestions, are
aware that the reform will fail if the public rejects it, do not claim that
the reform represents actual usage (as some prescriptivists do), and are
interested only in reforms that have a practical effect. For example, I have
suggested that the metaphorical sense of "schizophrenic" should be dropped,
because it likely misleads people into a misunderstanding of what
constitutes the disease of schizophrenia. I have pointed out, however, that
such a reform would be unnecessary if (1) people actually are *not* misled
or (2) at some point in the future, people are well-enough educated that the
metaphoric use of the term schizophrenia has no chance to mislead them, just
as "melancholy" today has no chance of misleading people into believing in
the four humors theory of illness.
Note:
[1] Just the other day, a Frenchwoman of my acquaintance noted that in
English a word gains entry to dictionaries if it is used sufficiently often.
I agree with that, of course. She then went on to say that a word does not
gain entry into a French dictionary until the French Academy approves it. I
disagree with that. It may be true of the dictionary of the French Academy,
but it is certainly not true of other French dictionaries. "États-unien"
(meaning "a citizen of the United States of America") is listed in the
current *Petit Larousse* and *Petit Robert,* but I am certain it is not
listed in the dictionary of the French Academy, and I don't expect it to be
for a great many years, if ever. (Curiously, that is a word which my friend
claims is not used, although it is, as I pointed out to her, all over Usenet
and the Internet, and is in those two dictionaries. She did acknowledge that
"Ricain" [short for "Américain" and offensive or humorous] is used, because
she has actually heard French people use it.)
Raymond S. Wise
> In French, there is the standard dialect prescribed by the French Academy.
> However, there are also the standard dialects of actual usage. The first
is
> recorded in the dictionary of the Academy. The standard dialect of actual
> usage as spoken in France is recorded in such descriptive dictionaries as
> the *Grand Robert*[1]. Canada has its own standard dialect of French,
> similar to, but not identical with, the standard dialect of actual usage
> spoken in France.
The following is not so much a matter of standard dialects as of duelling
standards, and shows that the French Academy does not have completely
official approval for the usages it recommends. The French government has
put into place a reform called the "féminisation des titres" in which
"madame le maire" ("Madam Mayor") is replaced by "madame la maire" and
"madame le ministre" ("Madam Minister," used for a government minister) is
replaced by "madame la ministre." The French Academy emphatically disagrees,
but their opinion is of no importance as far as standard practice within the
government is concerned.
CyberCypher
> "CyberCypher" <hui...@netscape.com> wrote in message
> news:Xns93DE8A4DC...@130.133.1.4...
>> "Raymond S. Wise" <illinoi...@mninter.net> burbled
>> news:vk8jhbt...@corp.supernews.com:
>>
>> [...]
>> > If by some miracle a
>> > prescriptivist's advice represented the actual standard
>> > dialect,
[...]
>> > it would no longer make any sense to call him a prescriptivist:
>> > He would be a descriptivist.
>>
>> And if the prescriptivist prescribes something that is not part
>> of the fantasy dialect, he ceases to be a prescriptivist and
>> transmogrifies into a descriptivist --- again, by definition.
>
> By logical deduction. Can you demonstrate otherwise?
Yes.
SCENARIO: William Safire is a prescriptivist. We call him that
because he generally prescribes usages that he believes are correct
and the way the language should be used. He is often wrong about the
historical facts of English grammar and usage, as the Virginia
article pointed out, but some of his advice is good, the article
also says. Someone asks him for advice about a usage. It is not one
of his 50 no-nos and he advises something that the quintessential
descriptivist linguist and DUC Raymond Wise would advise because it
is based on the reality of current usage.
QUESTION: Does William Safire become a
descriptivist simply because he and you agree on one piece of
advice?
ANSWER: Hardly, Raymond. His advice is the same as advice given by a
descritptivist and for the same reasons, but Safire is still a
prescriptivist, and so are you when you prescribe based on actual
usage/reality, and by your own admission: you are a descriptivist
prescriptivist and Safire is a prescriptivist prescriptivist (to use
your own terminology). Except that in this instance, Safire's
prescription is, like yours, based on description. That just means
his advice in this case is descriptive-prescriptive (to use your
terminology again). He hasn't changed his stripes; for you he's
still a prescriptivistist skunk who's seen the descriptivist light,
acknowledged reality and the truth, and got your religion for a
second. But tomorrow he'll be back to his evil
prescriptivist-prescriptivist ways.
>> How can you justify this kind of crap, Raymond? We all know that
>> William Safire is prescriptivist and one who argues for his
>> subjective usage prescriptions based on false facts about the
>> language. He is --- I repeat --- a prescriptivist. Nobody
>> disagrees with that. But when Safire prescribes something that is
>> in the standard dialect, he is no longer a prescriptivist but a
>> descriptivist! I like that. It's so mealymouthed and weaselly.
>> When Lowth, the mother/father of all prescriptivists in English,
>> prescribed something that was based on fact instead of his
>> preference, he was a descriptivist?
>
> Of course. I doubt that he (or anyone else) was so perverse that
> he was completely wrong about every single last aspect of the
> English language. Surely by the time of Lowth, for example, there
> were certain standard spellings of words which he adhered to.
This is not answer to the question. I said nothing about spelling.
When Lowth offered the same advice that you would offer, was he a
descriptivist, this mother of all prescriptivists? Can you claim him
and do you claim him when he says what you agree with and disclaim
him when he says what you do not agree with? This is when you repeat
the cliché "Even a broken clock is correct twice a day" and say that
nobody is perfectly wrong or perfectly right but Safire is still a
prescriptivist and you would prefer not to ask him for advice about
usage because you base your usage prescriptions on reality and he
bases his on fantasy. You do not claim that he is now a member of
your camp because you two agree on the same usage for the same
reasons. The best you can say about him at that moment of your
agreement is that he is being reasonable, not that he is a
descriptivist. You misuse your own terms.
>> Who is the one who is confused about terminology? You use it most
>> annoyingly. You don't say what you mean or mean what you say.
>
> !?
>
[...]
>
> The difference between descriptivist and prescriptivist
> suggestions for language reform is that the descriptivists make
> modest suggestions, are aware that the reform will fail if the
> public rejects it, do not claim that the reform represents actual
> usage (as some prescriptivists do), and are interested only in
> reforms that have a practical effect. For example, I have
> suggested that the metaphorical sense of "schizophrenic" should be
> dropped, because it likely misleads people into a misunderstanding
> of what constitutes the disease of schizophrenia. I have pointed
> out, however, that such a reform would be unnecessary if (1)
> people actually are *not* misled or (2) at some point in the
> future, people are well-enough educated that the metaphoric use of
> the term schizophrenia has no chance to mislead them, just as
> "melancholy" today has no chance of misleading people into
> believing in the four humors theory of illness.
See, I was not wrong to use you as the quintessential DUC above, now
was I? It's nice to see that someone is so impressed with his own
rectitude that he makes himself the hero of his own world --- even
if it is only the world of usage commentary.
R F
On Thu, 21 Aug 2003, Raymond S. Wise wrote:
> You had me worried for a moment there, but a quick search of www.csicop.org
> and Google Groups archive convinced me that Gardner still lives. Like Asimov
> and Sagan, when he dies, the skeptical community will immediately know of
> it.
That doesn't sound too skeptical to me. Wouldn't they want to see the
body?
Mike Lyle
> > (Yes,
> > descriptivist usage commentators do call for certain types of
> > language reform from time to time, when they believe there is an
> > actual good to be accomplished by such a change. I have done it
> > myself, in alt.usage.english and alt.english.usage .)
>
> And again, when your DUCs call for language reform, their belief
> that "there is an actual good to be accomplished by such a change"
> is somehow (by definition, of course) significantly and obviously
> different from any belief by a prescriptivist that "there is an
> actual good to be accomplished by such a change".
We seems to be approaching a point at which it will become clear that
the root of the problem is that we've been looking for more precise
and more exclusive definitions of the two words than they can in
practice bear.
Perhaps this overworking of the terms comes partly from the necessity
of hammering home to beginning linguistics students the boundaries of
the discipline on which they are embarking; and partly from the
influence of a certain cultural relativism.
There is little doubt in my mind that some comments made "from the
linguistics corner" in our discussions purport to be objective though
they are in fact value statements.
Mike.
R F
On Thu, 21 Aug 2003, Mike Lyle wrote:
> There is little doubt in my mind that some comments made "from the
> linguistics corner" in our discussions purport to be objective though
> they are in fact value statements.
This is dead obvious to me, and is a point I tried to make earlier.
Typically, any development in language that is thought to be the result of
some sort of prescriptivist influence is treated with scorn and disdain,
with the suggestion that it might even be illegitimate, no matter how
successfully established the development is. It's hypocrisy, plain and
simple, and something ought to be done about it.
Raymond S. Wise
news:Pine.GSO.4.53.03...@alumni.wesleyan.edu...
No. Experience tells us that when some famous person is said by several
sources in the new media to be dead, that person usually *is* dead. It is
not invariably true--Mark Twain was reported by a paper to be dead and I
believe that report was copied by other newspapers. But it is true often
enough that it is reasonable to believe that such reports are true until
proven otherwise.
When I turned on my computer on the morning of September 11, 2001, and went
to Yahoo! I read the report that the World Trade Center towers in New York
had been destroyed. My first thought was that this was a hoax, and that
someone had hacked into Yahoo!'s Web site--something similar to when the
Harvard Lampoon printed a fake front page of the Acropolis having fallen
down and wrapped it around newspapers in Boston. The idea of the site having
been hacked made more sense, according to my experience, than the towers
being destroyed. My conclusion was wrong, of course, because the situation
was indeed an extraordinary one.
Robert Bannister
> If the purpose of language is to communicate an idea from one mind to
> another, and to communicate it in a given dialect and register[1],
> then errors are made when (1) the complete idea does not get through
> or (2) the idea is communicated, but the dialect or register are not
> what was intended. These can happen either from errors made by the
> speaker or by the listener.
>
> A spoonerism is an example of an error. Either the idea fails to get
> through, or it gets through only because the listener can figure out
> from the statement made what the speaker intended to get across.
I have an idea that the frequent, non-deliberate use of spoonerisms is
something like dyslexia, ie a medical or physical disfunction, so
perhaps that should not be included here.
>
> Grammatical errors are an example of not communicating in the dialect
> intended. (Truism: There are no dialects which do not have
> grammatical rules.) Once, for example, in the space of a few minutes,
> I told two different strangers "Is this your keys?" showing them a
> set of keys which I had found. While I successfully got the idea
> across, I did it while making a grammatical error. The construction I
> used is, as far as I know, unknown to *any* dialect of English.
I'm sure I've come across dialects that use 'is/be/are' in unusual
places - seems to be more common with the verb 'to be' than others.
>
> A scientist must not be neutral about error, but that doesn't mean
> that he must in every case be *opposed* to it. We would not be here,
> after all, if not for mutations in the DNA of our ancestors, and I
> rather think your average scientist is not neutral about his own
> existence! Similarly, we would not be speaking the language we now do
> if it were not for language change due to errors made by speakers in
> the past. This applies to written language as well: I pointed out
> earlier in this thread how the spelling "island" was the result of
> error, yet it is now standard usage.
That is rather a different kettle of fish from the types of language
usage that are perceived by some as errors, because it was imposed on
the language, as were several other odd spellings. This is not the same
as people using illogical constructions because (a) everyone around them
does the same, (b) they don't know any better, (c) they perversely think
their construction is better than the standard usage, or (d) they think
it is cool. Actually, I suspect coolness, or fashion, is a stronger
influence.
>
>
> Note:
>
> [1] I'm not sure this can be said to be the entire purpose of
> language, and it is certainly not the entire effect of language. For
> example, every time a criminal suspect makes a statement from which
> detectives can deduce a fact which the speaker did not wish to be
> revealed, language has accomplished something which was not intended
> by the speaker. There are other examples which are more subtle, as
> when a mother can tell from the tone of voice of one of her children
> that the child is telling a lie, again, something which the speaker
> did not intend.
Agreed. And then there are poetry and literature, whose purposes
occasionally appear to be deliberately obscure. Did I mention legal
language or diplomatic language!
--
Rob Bannister
Robert Bannister
>>> seen to have the following understood: "If what you intend to do
>>> is to
>>
> speak
>
>>> and write Standard American English, then you should...."
>>
>> Now we are really getting into double speak: what else are the
>> so-called prescriptivists doing? Where some of us take issue, is in
>> those place where we subjectively disagree with their findings. In
>> the above, for example, I disagree with the conclusion about 'an
>> historical'.
>
> The type of prescriptivists we must deal with today are those who
> believe that their advice represents a standard dialect, when in fact
> it represents only a fantasy dialect. If by some miracle a
> prescriptivist's advice represented the actual standard dialect, it
> would no longer make any sense to call him a prescriptivist: He would
> be a descriptivist.
>
> When you say you "disagree with the conclusion about 'an
> historical,'" do you mean that you believe a writer intending to
> write Standard American English should write "an historical"? If so,
> then you are advising speakers of Standard American English to make a
> reform in their dialect. Unless there is a practical use for such
> advice, that is not descriptive usage advice. (Yes, descriptivist
> usage commentators do call for certain types of language reform from
> time to time, when they believe there is an actual good to be
> accomplished by such a change. I have done it myself, in
> alt.usage.english and alt.english.usage .)
I mean that, while I have a (purely personal) objection to people who
say 'an historian', I'm fairly certain that I, along with many others,
frequently do say 'an historical'. Therefore, while I am not in a
position to make judgements about American English, I have grave doubts
about the writer's correctness. It is too sweeping, it is unlikely to be
based on genuine data, and it is prescriptive. What the writer should
have said was that the use of 'an' before 'h' was dying out, but that
usage varies; ie it doesn't matter very much.
--
Rob Bannister
Michael West
"Raymond S. Wise" <illinoi...@mninter.net> wrote:
> When I turned on my computer on the morning of September 11, 2001, and went
> to Yahoo! I read the report that the World Trade Center towers in New York
> had been destroyed. My first thought was that this was a hoax, and that
> someone had hacked into Yahoo!'s Web site
I thought exactly the same thing when I opened
the NY Times online page that morning.
Contributing to this disorientation was the
fact that the page design had a different look --
there was a different banner over the headlines,
for some reason (were their production facilities
damaged in the attack?)
--
Michael West
Melbourne, Australia
Robert Bannister
> By logical deduction, using the words "descriptive" and "prescriptive" as
> they have in fact been used throughout the descriptivist/prescriptivist
> debate. I've said it before and I'll say it again: It makes no sense to
> insist on calling "prescriptive" a rule which fits completely the actual
> usage of the dialect in question. It *does* make sense to call it
> "descriptive."
In fact, the whole thing is totally subjective the way you put it. I am
quite sure that what you call 'prescriptivists' are giving rules about
what they think is the standard dialect, but which you call 'fantasy'.
You say that 'descriptivists' may give rules about 'actual usage', but
as we see so often here in aue, actual usage differs widely, even within
what might be considered standard (or Standard) English.
In other words, you or I or others may disagree strongly with the
prescriptivist because we believe the dialect the person is making rules
about is only used by a small, elite group*. We are, however, equally
entitled to disagree with the suggestions made by a descriptivist when
they are formulated like a rule.
* Please don't use the word 'fantasy'. All these esoteric rules are,
indeed, used by some people. Look how many 'Oy' me, because I do not
follow the 'less/fewer' rule very often.
--
Rob Bannister
Mike Barnes
>I mean that, while I have a (purely personal) objection to people who
>say 'an historian', I'm fairly certain that I, along with many others,
>frequently do say 'an historical'. Therefore, while I am not in a
>position to make judgements about American English, I have grave doubts
>about the writer's correctness. It is too sweeping, it is unlikely to
>be based on genuine data, and it is prescriptive. What the writer
>should have said was that the use of 'an' before 'h' was dying out, but
>that usage varies; ie it doesn't matter very much.
PMFJI but how do you pronounce "historical"? Of those people that I have
heard putting "an" before "hist-" words, some voice the "h" and some
don't. ISTM that there are two quite separate matters of "correctness"
here: saying "an 'istorical" is a pronunciation issue, and saying "an
Historical" is an a/an selection issue.
(Any advance on three consecutive indefinite articles?)
--
Mike Barnes
Cheshire, England
Robert Bannister
That is why, for some time, I didn't believe I actually said 'an', but
it seems I do drop or at least soften the 'h' sometimes.
--
Rob Bannister
Raymond S. Wise
I take Evans and Evans to have been discussing only American English usage
in the article in question, with a reference to historical British English
usage. If they had thought contemporary British English usage to be of
interest, they would have mentioned it (as I expect they did in the entry
for "get" or "got" or "gotten"). I doubt if there was any other person at
that time as qualified to write a usage guide based upon actual usage and
using the scholarly studies that then existed as was Bergen Evans, so until
and unless he is proven wrong on the matter, I'll accept as accurate what he
said on the matter.
GrapeApe
of things about the Eleventh Edition.... Still missing some words I think
should be included (sorry, I forgot which), and a rather extended time before a
word is included.... Perhaps that will lend itself to one side of the d/p
argument or the other... they aren't exactly jumping on top of that new jargon
at the earliest chance.