From: cam@castle.ed.ac.uk (Chris Malcolm)
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: myself
Date: 17 Dec 92 16:32:53 GMT
Distribution: sci
Organization: Edinburgh University

In article <kh-rv7a@lynx.unm.edu> lgorbet@carina.unm.edu (Larry P Gorbet ANTHROPOLOGY) writes:
>In article <29384@castle.ed.ac.uk> cam@castle.ed.ac.uk (Chris Malcolm) writes:

>>Oddly enough, very few people have problems with "he" and "him", quite a
>>few have problems with "me" and "I", and most people have problems with
>>"who" and "whom", yet the rules in each case are identical.

>This is true only if by "rules" you mean "'objective' descriptions of
>distribution"---and then only if you ignore speaker-internal variation and
>if you are in certain varieties of English which are not spoken often by
>most English speakers.  If, on the other hand, "rule" refers to the
>principle in the speaker's head which characterizes their language, then
>the troubles to which this thread has been devoted are prima facie evidence
>that the rules are *not* the same.

Well my posting did point out that people's behaviour varies, so I
presume you are in fact arguing against the notion of prescriptive
linguistic rules, and suggesting that rules of linguistic usage can
only be descriptive.

Since we are quite happy in most (if not all) other aspects of our
social life to accept both descriptive and prescriptive rules, e.g., the
distinctions between legal and illegal behaviour, moral and immoral
behaviour, etc., why should language be different? Some nations actually
have set up bodies whose purpose is to define proper usage of their
language. Most nations do so for the subset of their language
constituting the proposal and acceptance of contracts. And at the level
of small social groups, such as groups of friends or colleagues, there
is always a consensus about what constitutes proper linguistic
behaviour, although that differs between groups, changes with time, and
usually has some disputable questions.

As far as the meanings of words are concerned, it has been generally
agreed that there are authoritative dictionaries one can consult, and
that one needs a particularly strong case if one wishes to dispute with
one of these dictionaries. Where written language is concerned there
also exist prescriptive guides to grammar and usage. Like dictionaries,
there are areas of dispute, but like dictionaries, one needs a good case
to quarrel with one. All large organisations whose business largely
involves writing adopt their own prescriptive standards, often by
adopting a particular dictionary and style guide.

My point is that human linguistic behaviour involves the notions of both
descriptive and prescriptive standards. The fact that there is no one
true absolute prescription no more negates the utility of the notion of
prescriptive rules than the fact that there is no single absolute
description negates descriptive rules.

So, as I said, it is odd that people's observed behaviour wrt who/whom,
he/him, me/I, is so inconsistent, when there exists such a very simple
prescriptive rule which most authoritative language users will agree
with.

-- 
Chris Malcolm    cam@uk.ac.ed.aifh          +44 (0)31 650 3085
Department of Artificial Intelligence,    Edinburgh University
5 Forrest Hill, Edinburgh, EH1 2QL, UK                DoD #205
Newsgroups: sci.lang