From: roger@crux.Princeton.EDU (Roger Lustig)
Subject: Re: "Grammar" & "Usage"
Originator: news@nimaster
Organization: Princeton University
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 1992 05:19:45 GMT

In article <1992Aug25.204333.3741@desire.wright.edu> thayes@desire.wright.edu writes:
>I've been thinking about this whole discussion.  I read a post by someone
>else about work site/boardroom clothing, and I had a similar reaction to
>Gabe's, but let's consider it here too.

>TH>So can we agree that there is a reliably standard set of English usage rules?
>
>Roger> There are several sets, for several idioms and dialects.  And all of
>> them change over time.

>TH>And that these vary (only slightly) for different situations?

>Roger> They can vary quite a bit.

>Let's put it this way: how would you know that someone's speaking or writing
>reflected a dialect, or that it was in need of editing, etc.? 

All speech and writing reflects a dialect, because all speech or 
writing is in one dialect or another.  (See below.)

If it doesn't fit the setting for which it is intended, it must be
edited.

I'm not sure why you see the two choices as exclusive...

> How would you
>know that a sentence on a page was English and not some other language?

Some dialects of English, say, Anglo-Saxon ones, I'd have trouble with.

But seriously, why do you ask?

>Because there is a core set of basic rules for grammar and usage. "Dialects"
>exist as variations on the rules;

No, I'm sorry; try again.  Dialects all have the same basic structure
underlying them; but all language actually happens in one dialect or
another.  Dialects are not variations from a standard; the standard is
an abstraction developed from analysis of the set of dialects.

> 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?  

"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.

It is standard only by agreement of some of its speakers.

>Roger, you stated that there are several sets of rules for idioms and dialects. 
>I submit to you that a dialect would not be English if it did not share in the
>core set of rules.  

So far, so good.

>A dialect is a set of stylistic differences, but if it does
>not "toe the line" (OK, ObSmly) of this set of core rules, it is not English
>language anymore.

But is it a set of *differences*?  Or is it simply one implementation of
the core rules?

>TH>(Herewith,) a paragraph from a student paper I have just read:
>>"Additional research could be done on how the size of the group as 
>>well as the proportion of men to female ratio is.  Does it help or 
>>hinder combining the to genders in groups who must problem solve 
>>for survival.  How does the dominance wiegh out in an artifacial 
>>setting compared to a in the field study."

>TH>His writing reads like tea leaves in mud.  This is not clear writing.
>>It is not business English.  It is not street English.  It is poor writing.

>(Up to this point, Roger heartily agrees with everything I have said about this
>writing sample.  Check earlier posts if you don't believe me.  Hell starts to
>freeze over --- Ed.)

>TH>It communicates only that the student did not understand what he was talking
>>about, even when spoken aloud (try it).

>Roger> Not true.  It communicates only that the writer had trouble writing.
>> Many people do.  An oral presentation by the same person might have been
>> just fine.  Don't think I haven't seen cases just like that.

>Two comments.  First, you can't have it both ways, Roger.  You have long
>championed the idea that almost all one needs to do is mimic formal language in
>order to write at least passably.  But here you say that you *personally* have
>witnessed "just fine" oral presentations by people who have had
>(significant?) trouble writing.  Why?  Couldn't it be that good speaking 
>is not *that* similar to good writing, because the needs for written 
>communication are largely different than for spoken English?     

Could be, but that doesn't follow from what you say.  

Yes, all one needs to do is listen carefully to formal speech -- BUT SOME
PEOPLE DON'T DO THAT.  They need to learn to do that before they can
write well.

Just because it's easy doesn't mean that everyone does it.

As for the "needs" being different, I'm not sure I understand what you mean.

>Second comment: I never said or thought that the student was stupid 
>(even though you accuse me of this below).  

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.  

>This piece of writing reads more
>like written mumbling than like reasonable communication.  I gather you don't
>believe this at all.  Suppose he wrote what he would have
>said, a la the Roger writing method -- if he had said this to you, Roger, don't
>you think you would have been confused and asked a question for clarification?

But the person *didn't* write the way they talked.  Nobody talks this way.

Some people have highly unrealistic ideas of what it takes to write, and
some are simply afraid to write. They choke up.  (After some of the teachers
I've seen out there, I can understand this.) 

>You have agreed with me that it was not good writing.  You go further and state
>that it "communicates only that the writer had trouble writing." Given how
>apparently simple it is to write passably,

Who said that?  For some people, listening to formal speech in their heads 
and translating it into the same thing, written, is quite tough.

> I think it's more likely that the
>student had a comprehension, not a "language arts" (admittedly not your term),
>deficiency.

Really?  What was miscomprehended?  I can't tell from this sample, but 
clearly the person had a fair notion of what experimental parameters
and controls are, and what the difference between lab and field studies
consists of.

>Roger> I *do* prefer, and encourage foreigners to use, a
>> writing style not too different from formal spoken English.  This keeps
>> the sentence length down, for one thing.

>I am not multilingual, but it seems to me that your suggestion is perfectly
>fine for a non-native speaker.  My experience with Japanese, Indian, and Korean 
>students who are non-native speakers is that they will produce writing more
>similar to formal English -- colorless, much like the core themes I mentioned
>above (mostly because the puns and slop eludes them) -- and that they will take
>the time to make sure they understand the concepts so that they can write about
>them with the attenuated lingual felicity they posses. (No, I am not
>saying they are stupid at all.) My position is that in these cases a
>comprehension problem is more remarkable than a language problem.  

If they're college students, they've already gone through a rather impressive
selection process that many native-born USans don't.

>My position is also that the sample above is the result of a comprehension 
>problem.  

And I'd like to know what was miscomprehended, and whether your guess was
validated when you examined the student orally.

>TH>If you received an application blank or letter with as many mistakes 
>>as the sample of writing above, you would seriously consider this applicant?

>Roger> Again, it depends on the job, and on what else I knew about the person.
>> "Bad writing" does not equal "stupid," no matter how you may wish this
>> to be the case.

>To quote you, "*sigh*." I never implied that the student was stupid.  

OK, "unsuited to work that requires thought."

>I never said that people who can't write well are stupid.  For example, I could
>name a hundred high school drop outs who would do better work on my car than
>W.F. Buckley could. (I could name more, but there are only so many scrapes my
>car can get into.) 

I bet I can think of a few you haven't seen... 8-)

> However: (1) poorly written application essays etc. may
>indicate that the person is not too savvy about job hunting, a related issue;

related to what?  If I hire them, that's one skill they'll have plenty of    
time to practice!

>and (b) for some jobs (sound familiar?) poor writing is a disqualification.

>Roger> Which is also true for hundreds of other jobs.  I wouldn't hire this
>> person to write copy or even to type; but I see no evidence of the
>> "sloppy thinking" you presume.  Some people just don't know how to
>> express their (well-formed) thoughts in well-formed writing.

>You assume that this student has well-formed thoughts.  

I assume nothing.  I do *not* assume the contrary.

>Also, you say 
>that those with well-formed thoughts may/may not be put into well-formed 
>writing -- would poorly-formed thoughts be equally likely to be either well- or
>poorly-formed?  I doubt it.

Um, what?  Something's gotten malformed all of a sudden.  Was it your 
thought or your formulation?  I can't tell.

>TH>But if you were hiring for a job where communication was
>>>important -- which includes most jobs -- I believe that this student would be
>>>passed over for a better writer.

>Roger> In most cases, yes.  But I wouldn't call the person stupid or ignorant
>> or accuse them of not knowing what they were talking about.  There's
>> just no evidence for that.

>Again, I have not implied that writing inadequacy is a sign of low IQ.  *BUT*
>if I were to evaluate writing about a content area that someone claimed
>expertise in, and the writing was poorly done, I would be likely to doubt the
>person's expertise or maybe other cognitive processes.

I'd chat with them, too.  If they don't know it when they write, they won't
know it when they talk.  But if they know it but can't write, they may
still be able to say it.

>For example, if I sent you a letter seeking a position as a copy editor and
>claiming job experience at this, and my letter was full of gramatical 
>mistakes and punctuation errors, I think you'd be a *little bit* doubtful about
>my claims or my ability.

Of course.  I've said this a dozen times.  But most jobs are not this 
self-referential wrt the cover letter.

>Roger > No.  Do you expect the "recommendations for future research " graf
>>>> to show creativity?  It's almost always the same bullshit.

>>>I'm not sure what you meant here.  My question was, do you think that 
>>>this student's misuse of standard writing shows creativity, as opposed to
>>>misunderstanding how to communicate properly -- yes, properly -- in written
>>>English?

>> No.  Did I say it did?

>Roger, what is a "graf?"  What is "wrt?"  These are the sources of my confusion
>("wrt" occurred in earlier posts of yours).

Oh,  sorry.  You'll find wrt in new.announce.newusers; it stands for "with
reference to."  "graf" is copy-editor slang, esp. at newspapers; it means
"paragraph."  Newspaper writers use it too, when referring to their work.

Anyway, I neither suggested that the writer showed creativity, nor that
they should.

>TH>So you are agreeing that that this person needs to learn -- re-learn,
>>>maybe -- grammar and usage.

>Roger> No.  The person needs to learn writing.  Not the same thing.

>We must agree to disagree then.  I cannot be convinced that written
>communication is not *at least* a type of usage that carries with it a
>requirement for adherence to grammatical structure.  

Which is something that anyone who gets as far as college already knows
how to do -- when speaking.  The thing to learn is how to transfer
that intuitive knack that's already there into the written  form.

>And I'm not talking about
>knowing that this & that is a subjunctive, or a hanging participle.  I mean
>that puttting words on paper in a certain order means one thing or maybe
>another depending on the order, tense, number, types of words, etc.  All of

But this is true of the spoken idiom, too!  And people know the word
order they need to use, the tense, etc.  They just need to become
conscious of the things they're saying, and the ways they say them.

>these elements are lacking in the student sample above.

I disagree.  They do not appear on the page, but I doubt strongly that
the person is incapable of using those elements when speaking.

Try this: get someone who writes like this to SPEAK a paragraph such as
the one above, in their own words, not worrying about formality, into
a tape recorder.  Have them transcribe it, "um" and "uh" and all.  Then 
let them edit out the bits they know they need to remove.  (Not hard
with a word processor.)  Then let them change what they want.  Then 
hide the edited page, and let them speak it again, in "class presentation"
English.  Let them repeat the transcription process.  It won't be all
that far from decent writing, and they won't ahve "learned" a single
rule.

For the record, I couldn't state most of the rules of word order in
English if you put a gun to my head.

>Roger>I might add that many people who speak excellently write 
>>>> badly 

>TH>(I assume that was meant to rankle on purpose)

>Roger> No.  Just fact.

>Shades of the "less/fewer" debate.  Of course since I'm posting this I will
>claim to be right.

Look, all I need is examples.  Alas, I can't take you around to offices...

>TH>I am curious about two things here.  First, you say that good speaking can be
>>turned into good writing.  Do you believe that the opposite is true?

>Roger> I don't see why not.

[I should clarify this.  I do *not* believe that people who write well
but speak badly will automatically become good speakers by reading a lot. 
That's not what speech pathology is about.  Perhaps I misunderstood
your use of "good writing."  I certainly do believe that most good
written prose can be read aloud, or spoken after memorization, to sound
like good spoken idiom.]

>So President Reagan is a good writer by virtue of being a good speaker?
>Come now, Roger.

He's a good *reader*.  He's a *terrible* speaker, as you know if you
ever caught him in a rare off-the-script moment in one of his rare
press conferences.  Of, for that matter, in the 2nd debate with Mondale, 
where he almost lost it completely.

Besides, you "by virtue of" misses my point: if he were a good speaker, he
could easily learn to write well.

(An ex-director I know tells me that Reagan was the only Hollywood
actor he ever met who *asked* how lines should be read.  He'd then 
mark his script and do it pefectly.)

>Roger>Learning to write is
>> *important.*  I think there should be a much greater emphasis on it.
>> But, as I said, it's a tricky job, and not one related to basic grammar
>> and whatnot.  

>Quesiton: you say learning to crochet or scuba dive or play the viola are 
>frequently "tricky jobs," and they require understanding fundamentals -- 
>why shouldn't a writer understand fundamentals?

Of course they should -- but they need to be the right fundamentals!  
Knowing Riemann's theory of harmony will only help  a little bit if you're 
doing viola; even cello technique only has limited applications.  
Formal knowledge of grammar has little to do with writing skill, and if
you don't believe me, well, I'm a good example; I learned most of
my grammar after I'd learned to write well in two languages.  (I've
since lost the German to a great extent; but I *never* knew much German
grammar, having gone from around-the-house German to 10th grade, i.e.,
long after they'd stopped teaching grammar.)

>TH>Simply "aping formal, but uncomplicated speech" is not necessarily correct
>>>English usage for writing.

>Roger> Damn close, though.  In fact, most business letters could be improved by
>> making them a little more speech-like.  That's what I do when I edit
>> them.

>Do you notice improvement in speaking ability after you return edited
>letters?  Why not, Roger?

Oh, give it a rest.  For one thing, I don't notice much improvement in 
writing ability; I don't return them with memos listing the mistakes.
For another, you seem to have misread me above (and I you).  Knowing how 
to write does *not* make one able to speak well.

>TH>  Much communication in speech, again as Bonita
>>>pointed out, is nonverbal, and when verbal depends on pitch, etc. of voice. 
>>>I would say that good speakers who also write well (or passably) do so because
>>>they understand how to use the language appropriately for that medium.  

>Roger> Sure--one learns what sticks to the page, and what doesn't.  But formal
>> speech is organized to minimize the non-verbal cues, too.  Informal
>> speech relies on them much more.

>The best speeches at conventions and gatherings use a number of non-verbal
>cues -- not as many as informal speech, true -- because they facilitate
>communicaiton.  Writing is *devoid* of these cues; have you ever communicated
>better by making eye contact in print?  Of course not.

How many people can you make eye contact with at a convention?

Yes, this is the difference bwtween oratory and oratorical prose.  But
would you give your poor student a B instead of an A if they'd given an
oral lab report and not made eye contact?

>Roger> Waste of time.  Most good writers don't know a large bunch of
>> grammatical rules, and those who do don't refer to them much.  I myself
>> can't tell you what all those clauses are; I never learned grammar per
>> se, though I've read a bit about it since school let out.  As for usage,
>> learning rules just won't help.  Either you learn it by speaking and
>> reading prose, or you don't learn it. 

>Parrots and mynah birds (sp?) ape speech (pardon the mixed species).  Would you
>say that they are learning English?  Of course not.  So why don't you think
>that *understanding* English is essential to learning it at least at the level
>of the core aspects of English I mentioned above?

Are you really trying to tell me that the student who wrote that bit 
didn't understand English?  

Or do you mean that one can't understand English without formal knowledge
of its structure?  No, that can't be it either.

As for aping speech, it's -->their own speech<-- they need to imitate.

>Roger> There's a standard *formal* English.  Its rules are quite irrelevant to
>> much that is spoken and written.

>But what is spoken and written would not be recognized as English unless it had
>a substantial overlap with core *formal* English.

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.

>Roger> Funny how 70 years of radio and 45 of TV have had no effect on Southern
>> accents, isn't it?  Very few Southerners in prestigious positions in
>> broadcasting -- Dan Rather's unique accent deserves mention -- yet all
>> that blather hasn't buried Southern accent or usage.

>Actually broadcasters are taught to speak with a "Midwestern accent" (though
>thank goodness they don;t put "at" at the end of sentences!).  Even in Houston,
>where I spent a number of years, you could tell the difference between
>"broadcasters" and "commentators" (such as Marvin Zindler) by sound alone.

And all that didn't make a dent in how people talk.  

>It would be impossible to understand Chaucer or Dan Rather if their English did
>not overlap with core formal aspects of English grammar and usage.  

Correctly: if their language did not have the same underlying structure
as all English dialects, including Standard, do.

NB: most people don't understand Chaucer, either.

>If they did not overlap, they might as well be speaking Hindi.

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.

Roger