From: pjh@eng.cam.ac.uk (Philippa Hogben)
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
Subject: Re: Use of 'I' and 'me'
Date: 20 Aug 92 10:46:10 GMT
Organization: cam.eng

roger@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Roger Lustig) writes:

>In article <pjh.714232717@nessi> pjh@eng.cam.ac.uk (Philippa Hogben) writes:
>>roger@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Roger Lustig) writes:

[stuff deleted]

>>Are those writers whose works survive to the present day necessarily
>>the_best_ writers or are they just the most popular.

>Why not the best?  They're the ones whose language has been admired down
>the ages; they're the ones whose language has served as a model.  

_What_ they wrote has been admired down the ages, not necessarily
_the_way_ they wrote.

>Do we
>get lots of complaints about Milton's grammar, or that of the KJV, or
>that of Pope and Swift and Dickens?  Their language is exemplary, in
>every sense of the word.

Don't know about that but in another article I read a couple of
moments ago somebody appeared to be complaining about the way Jane
Austin wrote.

>>>>Does this mean that Shakespeare always wrote gramatically
>>>>correct English? 

>>>*This* doesn't mean it, but he did.  

>>How do you know? What evidence have you?

>By comparing it to any definition of the grammar of the English
>language, I can see that  Shakespeare's usage is grammatical.  To be
>sure, Shakespeare's own writing is part of the evidence that leads us to
>formulate the grammar (and the rules of usage and style); but no
>grammar, except for an arbitrary one, will find fault with his work.

By this definition, how can he fail to be correct?
....

>I guess "informal" and "conversational" have suddenly come to mean
>"wrong."  News to me...

That is not what I said. I meant that something which was formally
correct was not "colloquial". A colloquial idiom would certainly be
considered incorrect (or out of place if you prefer) in certain
situations (as you point out below). Many colloquiallisms _are_
gramatically incorrect - but I didn't claim it was wrong to use them
(in cetain situations).

>It might be inappropriate to use this or that usage in a formal business
>letter or in a scholarly address or a textbook.  But that does not make
>the usage incorrect in other settings.  

>Some things, however, are indeed incorrect in all settings: those are
>things that are ungrammatical.  Such as placing the article after the
>noun.

But some things which _are_ ungrammatical are colloquiallisms, like
saying "you and I" instead of "you and me" or saying "should of"
instead of "should've"

>>That does not mean to say that it would necessarily be uncommon.

I didn't say it would.
.....

>Note also that almost all of the usages that people get all het up about
>in this group are being used in *informal* speech or writing.  

True but I'm afraid I don't see what point you are making.
....

>>But logically speaking, it _is_ incorrect since the subject pronoun
>>"I" is used where an object pronoun is required.

>Grammar isn't based on any formal logic.  Grammar is a set of rules
>evolved over time; 

When I said "logically speaking" I really meant "according to the
rules of grammar". I suppose I should have been more careful.

>and the evolution of "you and I" as an undeclinable
>unit has simply not proceeded the way the rest of the pronoun-usage
>rules have.  It is an idiom, and a  long-established one, and idioms
>simply march to their own rules.  

Precisely. It is an idiom - a colloquiallism - which does not mean it
is grammatical.
.....

>Well, then, where are all the *other* "colloquial" usages?  (You can
>also find a lot of "you and me" in Shakespeare, by the way.)

So he was inconsistent aswell?

>Now let's look at Shakespeare's audience again.  It consisted mainly of
>the nobility and citizenry of London -- not the common, uneducated
>rabble.  

I think there was quite a lot of the "common, uneducated rabble" in
his audience, actually. (At least, according to the various people I
have heard talking about it.)

>The language that these people expected was, quite simply, the
>London dialect of their time, the most advanced form of English in
>existence.  Shakespeare did not cut his audience any slack, either: he
>peppered his plays with hundreds of loanwords, new coinages, and other
>fanciful things.  He did not write down to anyone; his style is
>complicated in the extreme.

His "style" varies according to the social standing of his characters.
Some of his more "noble" characters spoke in verse while others speak
in very "rough" words.  He had something for all classes of people to
identify with.

>>>>Again, there are instances of authors/playwrights who appear to
>>>>deliberately use the language incorrectly to provide dramatic effect.

>>>a) Shakespeare was not one of those, except in the situations I
>>>mentioned;

>>>b) this example is not one of those situations;

>>>c) Shakespeare's knowledge of correct/incorrect usage was entirely
>>>intuitive, as was everybody else's in his time.

>>So he wasn't necessarily a "good" - i.e. grammatically correct -
>>author, which is the point I was originally trying to make.

>No, he WAS necessarily grammatically correct.  Because we HAVE no
>definition of "grammatical correctness" aside from "what skilled
>speakers and writers say and have said."  What concept of "grammatical
>correctness" do you propose?  How would you derive it, if not by
>studying the history and present state of the language?

Who says Shakespeare was a skilled writer? He is merely one whose
writing has survived. You said above that that his knowledge was
intuitive. How many expressions in English are counter intuitive?
Remember the expression 'the exception which "proves" the rule'
(leaving aside what was actually meant by "prove"). If you define as
correct "the language as used by those ancient writers whose works
survive" then, of course, Shakespeare has to be correct. This is as
useful as saying that gravity pulls things down and definging down as
the direction gravity pulls things. I do not think your definition of
correctness is correct. The language of Shakespeare, Dickens et cetera
is, while understandable, verry different to uors.

>In general, native speakers simply don't make mistakes of grammar.

I simply do not believe this statement. Of course they do. Look above
in what I have been writing, I am sure you will find several
grammatical errors. People are _taught_ grammar (or not as the case
may be in this country) they do not know it "instinctively". Listen to
a child learning to talk - it will make several grammatical mistakes
which will (sometimes) be corrected and added to its knowledge of what
is correct and what isn't. What happens when the "correcter" doesn't
know what is correct? The child learns an incorrect usage. So of
course native speakers make grammatical errors (in my experience, they
are sometimes worse at it than people who learn the language as a
foreign language).

>THose learning the language later, do.  

Sometimes. Sometimes they merely apply rules too rigourously or use
rules which are valid for their language but not for the foreign one.

>There may be non-standard
>usages, unusual or inappropriate styles, etc.; but, by any reasonable
>definition, Shakespeare's grammar was necessarily correct.

By definition, of course.

....

Philippa
--
Philippa Hogben   pjh@eng.cam.ac.uk  (Reverse if mailing from Janet)
Any mistakes are mine, all mnie.

I am not a .sig virus. I am a free bug.