Newsgroups: bit.listserv.words-l
Date:         Tue, 14 Apr 1992 21:30:33 CDT
 <WORDS-L%UGA.bitnet@VTVM2.CC.VT.EDU>
From:         "Natalie Maynor" <maynor%RA.MSSTATE.EDU@VTVM2.CC.VT.EDU>
Subject: Re: The National Academy (again)
Comments: To: WORDS-L@uga.cc.uga.edu

> well I wish you would, because I felt really slammed for no reason./cfg

Having not remembered anything slamming, I just went to usenet and found
the postings in question:

******************************************************************
> >From:         CGOODSON%UGA.bitnet@VTVM2.CC.VT.EDU
>
> >rules of English.  Who sets such rules I don't know.  Maybe we need one
> >of those offical language committees like they have in France.
> >
> >--Aaron
>
> There have been attempts to get something like that established, but it seems
> to run counter to the instincts of Americans to have some group dictate how
> we should speak... and it all finally died out (I understand) with the
> widespread dissemination of dictionaries, which serve almost the same purpose.
********************************************************************
> >From:         CGOODSON%UGA.bitnet@VTVM2.CC.VT.EDU
>
> On Fri, 10 Apr 1992 12:27:23 EST Karen Kay said:
> >> we should speak... and it all finally died out (I understand) with the
> >> widespread dissemination of dictionaries, which serve almost the same
> >purpose.
> >
> >Huh?  They ain't got no dictionaries in France or what?
> >
> >Also, Japan makes the best dictionaries in the entire world and they
> >have the Mombusho to tell them how to speak and write.No way does
> >one substitute for the other.
> >
> >Karen
>
> ...I am not disagreeing with you, just repeating what I learned in a course
> entitled: HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE....that's what the textbook writer
> said.  A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.
*********************************************************************
> >From:         "Natalie Maynor" <maynor%RA.MSSTATE.EDU@VTVM2.CC.VT.EDU>
>
> > ...I am not disagreeing with you, just repeating what I learned in a course
> > entitled: HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE....that's what the textbook writer
> > said.  A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.
>
> Ur, uh, I bet that's not exactly what the author said.  I bet it was in
> reference to the attempts to establish an Academy in eighteenth-century
> England.  I bet it said that the attempts failed for various political
> reasons (along with English distaste for copying something France had
> done) and that some presciptivists rushed to fill the perceived need by
> writing dictionaries and prescriptive grammar books -- e.g., Johnson for
> the former, Murray and Lowth for the latter.
>    --Natalie (maynor@ra.msstate.edu)
***********************************************************************
Karen might have been objecting to what you said about dictionaries,
but I wasn't.  What I was questioning was the implication that the
attempts to establish an Academy failed because it ran counter to
instincts of Americans.  Even though you probably did not intend for
it to, your wording suggested that it was a movement in this country.
The main movement was in England, led by Swift and others.  American
rebellion against authority might have been mentioned, but it was far
from the main factor leading to the dying out of the attempt.

> There have been attempts to get something like that established, but it seems
> to run counter to the instincts of Americans to have some group dictate how

The juxtaposition of those two clauses is what caught my eye, although I
did not respond at all at the time.  I replied to a reply to a reply.
   --Natalie (maynor@ra.msstate.edu)
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU