From: roger@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Roger Lustig)
Subject: Re: Can I axe you a question?
Originator: news@nimaster
Organization: Princeton University
Date: Sun, 23 Aug 1992 05:38:35 GMT

In article <1992Aug23.044215.29046@news.columbia.edu> gmw1@cunixa.cc.columbia.edu (Gabe M Wiener) writes:
>>>Most lyricists I know are not the most grammatical people...

>>Really?  When people can hear the words
>>(which is the case in country music), they generally don't succeed
>>if they violate accepted usage.  Moreover, if they have a hit, they can
>>contribute to *defining* usage -- certainly with far more effectiveness
>>than any writer of rulebooks ever will.  They make language by using
>>language powerfully, not by drawing lines in the sand.

>Ah, so suddenly bad grammar becomes "powerful" and creative.  Gimme a break.

No, Gabe, give *yourself* a break.

Don't continue to make a fool of yourself by trying to prove that
something's bad grammar simply because you label it so.

You have yet to produce a single bit of evidence for your assertion that
"one less set of footsteps" is bad grammar or bad usage --in any
dialect.

I have produced several expert opinions to the contrary, along with many
examples of usage.

And, for the record, if prominent people say it, and others copy them,
then, by definition is *is* usage.

Nothing to do with "creative."  Just the way the language works.

>There is one thing knowing the rules well enough that you can bend them with
>creative license.  It's quite another to not know what you are bending.

So tell me what the rule is, and where you learned it, and how your
teacher knew it was a rule.  Tell me how the rule came to be, and why.
Tell me why we are better off with the rule than without.

I'm still waiting.  And until you tell me, I shall consider your
purported rule to be a chimera.

>I remember in high school, someone played me Jackson Browne's "For America."
>There's this line..."as if freedom was a question of might...as if loyalty
>was black and white...."  From the context of the song, you *knew* he was
>talking hypothetically and not about the past.  Too bad he didn't use "were."

Big fat hairy deal he didn't use "were."  The subjunctive isn't used
much in colloquial speech, and is disappearing from formal speech, too.
Has been for centuries.  

And it hasn't hurt the language one bit.  Browne didn't invent that
usage, nor did he abuse it.

In his (very colloquial) context, "were" sounds affected.  In that
sense, it's *wrong.*

>Would've sounded a lot better and made the meaning of his lyric a lot better.

Bullshit.  His lyric means exactly the same either way.  If you can't
understand the subjunctive meaning from the "as if," you've got bigger
problems than I can help you with.

>Jackson Browne wasn't making some thought-out creative choice there.  He

Indeed.  He was using his language naturally and correctly.  He wasn't
writing a treatise or addressing Congress.  He was speaking to people in
their everyday, colloquial language -- which is the language of popular
song, too.

>simply made an *error*.

According to what rule?  State the rule.  Cite its source.  

In his context, "were" would have been the error.  People just don't say
that in the context of a popular song anymore.

Roger