From: roger@crux.Princeton.EDU (Roger Lustig)
Subject: Re: "Grammar"/"Usage": round 3 (beware!)
Originator: news@nimaster
Reply-To: roger@astro.princeton.edu (Roger Lustig)
Organization: Princeton University
Date: Wed, 2 Sep 1992 03:52:14 GMT

In article <1992Aug27.192407.3783@desire.wright.edu> thayes@desire.wright.edu writes:

>This discussion is becoming an addiction.  I am "in denial" even now.

>Gabe>While we may have difficulty agreeing on the ideal form of a bird, many
>>people have no problems categorizing the ostrich as a non-standard bird,
>>or a flying toaster as a non-bird.

>Roger>Fer sher.  Similar problems arise when we wish to define 
>>"standard English" in any way that does not allow for variation 
>>based on different times, places, purposes, etc.  We know what 
>>it's *not,* but we don't know what it *is.*

>Most non-mathematical things and concepts are defined using the same eductive
>process, Roger.  Even the field of accountancy is basically an applied problem
>in classification of what does, and does not, "count" as one thing or another.  

Yet most of those classes have pretty straightforward definitions, and the
only problem is interpreting a rule as applied to this case or that.
"Standard" English is defined as "what people speak in certain circumstances,
er, what they *should* speak, well, what they speak when they're writing --
no, wait, when they're writing *well*, that is to say, writing the way we
like them to, or rather, the way they *want* to, um..."

>Roger>"Standard" English is a dialect, and a somewhat artificial one.
>>It is not something other than a dialect, does not have any special
>>privilege or priority in a linguistic sense.

>Gabe>But it _does_ get accorded "special privilege or priority" by most
>>people who are *not* linguists.

>Roger> Indeed, but not in any systematic way, or even with agreement on what
>> it is, what it consists of.  At best we get partial definitions from
>> examples and exclusions.

>I think you are missing the point, Roger.  You and Mandar think "Standard 
>English" [tm] is a dialect, something like "Bostonian accent"
>or "Southerner" or "Sloan Park." 

Actually, Mandar accords it super-dialect status.

>The point is that spoken (and -- greatly
>separate -- written) English has a core set of grammatical and usage structure,
>much like the prototypical bird.  The variations come in verbiage, inflection,
>style, etc.  That's why the style manuals for *The Economist* and the
>*Associated Press* contain different word preferences, styles, etc., but still
>discuss the same core, standard thing: the English language.

Fine.  But the core is not equivalent to Standard English.  The core applies
to *all* the varieties, and is of no help whatever in defining or 
determining Standard English.  Use the core as your guide and *any* 
English dialect -- OK, most of them -- could be construed as "Standard."

>Roger>You did suggest that they needed to "re-learn" basic grammar and usage.
>>And these things are known to everyone who can talk.  Not in a textbook
>>way, of course, but known.  

>Gabe>There *are* many people who would do well to re-learn basic grammar and
>>usage.

>Roger> In what sense of "re-learn"?  And to what end?

>Roger, do you know how to swim or ride a bicycle?  How about poker?  I bet you
>have automated many of the "rules" of biking, swimming, etc., and this is why
>you couldn't "explain" them and don't have to think about these rules.  You
>just do them, which is how people -- as you say -- "know" how to use grammar. 
>Not everybody is equally facile as a swimmer, and they may even be doing
>some motor action that may cause damage in the long run. "Re-learning" to swim
>or bike would be beneficial.  Thus it is the same with "re-learning" grammar
>and usage -- to speak & write more effectively, more accurately, and so on.

So, do swimmers actually learn the order in which their neurons fire?

No.  Their coaches tell them, "go like this."  That's not "learning
the rules," as if there *were* rules of swimming in the sense of rules
of grammar, anyway.  When swimmers relearn, they go like this, and then
they do it again and again until they go like this automatically.  No
rules involved.  Just going like this, i.e., examples.  

And that's how we learn to speak and write, too: by example.  Learning
rules is nice for some people, but most people get bogged down in the 
rules (which they never consulted before when choosing a word or a 
phrase) and don't ultimately find them useful.

>Gabe>Some people learn to write well first, but many find that their abilities
>>are improved by an understanding of how the language works.

>Roger> And, as I have said, many don't.  However, direct observation of one's
>> own speech is a way of crossing the bridge between intuition and conscious
>> knowledge, the bridge one must traverse every time one writes a sentence in
>> one's own language.

>By analogy, some people gain by studying chess and some don't -- but if you're
>serious about chess you will study attacks and defenses.  

Another problem: most people aren't serious about writing in that sense of
"serious," and shouldn't be.  It's not what they do for a living, or as
a hobby.

>Same with musical
>instruments (vis a vis training).  Simply observing oneself playing chess will
>not improve the game dramatically, and simply playing an instrument alone 
>will not make one a fine musician.  Why don't you see the same with writing?  

Because neither one is a skill taught universally, and neither one is
an adjunct of language, and neither one is a tool generally used toward
a goal unrelated to the art of writing.  People who don't like music or
chess don't play, and it doesn't matter.  Everyone has to talk, and almost
everyone has to write at least a little.  Everyone *does* talk competently,
at least within everyday contexts.

>I think Gabe's point is quite insightful.

I think it's a bogus analogy.

>Roger>Not the other way around; a language is not a standard idiom plus 
>>dialects that radiate from it.

>Gabe>But that *is* effectively what happens, even though some linguists may
>>think otherwise. 

>Roger> No, it is not.  Only in schools does this happen, and even there the 
>> "standard" idiom subtly changes to reflect the local dialect.  Hang
>> out in a grade school or a high school in Georgia sometime, and listen.
>> Repeat in Indiana and California.  The "Standard" idiom is merely so by
>> convention, and convention changes, too, thus changing the idiom with it,
>> or the conception of what's standard.  
>> Look: about 95% of verbal behavior is idiomatic, dialect speech.  The dialects
>> are not understood by their users, or even by users of other dialects, to
>> be variants of some "standard"; they are heard as *the* language.  Those
>> encountering a new dialect don't compare it to "standard," but to *their*
>> speech.

>OK then, why is it that the kids in Indiana and Georgia, and Bristol and Perth,
>can understand each other?  What aspects will they not understand about each
>other's speech?  Could it be ... that their speech has a common core and that
>their particular verbiage, inflection, etc. reflect the extent to which their
>"dialect" does not overlap with that core?

No.  

All their dialects are implementations of that core.  The core is below the
surface of the language, closer to the deep structure, if you will.  That is
what the dialects have in common: their structure.  Standard is one such
dialect, but it is no "closer" to the core than any other dialect.  

Roger

Newsgroups: alt.usage.english