From: roger@crux.Princeton.EDU (Roger Lustig)
Subject: Re: "Grammar" & "Usage"
Originator: news@nimaster
Organization: Princeton University
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 1992 18:26:59 GMT

In article <1992Aug26.153522.21648@news.columbia.edu> gmw1@cunixa.cc.columbia.edu (Gabe M Wiener) writes:
>In article <1992Aug26.051945.18599@Princeton.EDU> roger@crux.Princeton.EDU (Roger Lustig) writes:
[Ted Hayes wrote:]
>>> they may more or less be seen as valid
>>>representatives of the category of "standard" English, but they are
>>>understandable as English because they share these core features.  By way of
>>>analogy, an ostrich is less "bird-like" than a robin because the ostrich has
>>>fewer (not less) bird-like features -- doesn't fly, doesn't catch worms,
>>> sticks head in ground, etc. (Hiding its head in the ground is a sign of 
>>>a less bird-like feature, of course.)

>>Um, I guess.  Which bird is *most* birdlike?  How can you tell?
>>What's a standard bird?  

>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.

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.*

Those of us who have sufficient memory for flying toasters, that is.

>>"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.

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

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.

>>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.  

>I've heard speach and read prose that would call this assertion into question.

Cynicism aside, have you really?  In what situations?

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

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

>>Formal knowledge of grammar has little to do with writing skill

>By understanding rules of grammar you can better *apply* them.  Of course,

That's what they say.  Yet I don't ever bother applying rules in any
conscious sense, and my writing passes and even sells on occasion.  And, of 
course, there are the many people who know lots of rules and still don't
write worth beans.

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

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.

>>And with all the other dialects.  You seem to have gotten hold of the 
>>fallacy of there being a "Standard" plus a lot of dialects.  Standard 
>>is but one dialect that has been socially privileged.

>Properly:  one dialect which has gained more universal acceptability

More universal?  Isn't that like "more unique"?  8-)

Besides, what's the difference between social privilege and "acceptability?"
Does social behavior ever leave the picture?

>>Indeed; we call a set of sufficiently overlapping dialects a language.
>>Not the other way around; a language is not a standard idiom plus 
>>dialects that radiate from it.

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

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.

> When language is *taught*, it is the standard that
>is taught, not some remote dialect.  The standard is just that, a standard.

Excuse me, but in what way is the standard not a dialect?  You seem to be 
making some odd dichotomy.  (Besides, what gets taught in *real* reality,
not the theoretical kind, is a local version of "standard.")

Roger

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