From: roger@crux.Princeton.EDU (Roger Lustig)
Subject: Re: quite unique
Originator: news@nimaster
Reply-To: roger@astro.princeton.edu (Roger Lustig)
Organization: Princeton University
Distribution: alt
Date: Sun, 22 Nov 1992 21:00:53 GMT

In article <28508@castle.ed.ac.uk> cam@castle.ed.ac.uk (Chris Malcolm) writes:
>In article <1992Nov19.033247.27605@Princeton.EDU> roger@astro.princeton.edu (Roger Lustig) writes:
>>In article <28361@castle.ed.ac.uk> cam@castle.ed.ac.uk (Chris Malcolm) writes:
>>>In article <1992Nov17.163733.4389@Princeton.EDU> roger@astro.princeton.edu (Roger Lustig) writes:
>>>>In article <28246@castle.ed.ac.uk> cam@castle.ed.ac.uk (Chris Malcolm) writes:
>>>>>In article <1992Nov16.182859.25273@Princeton.EDU> roger@astro.princeton.edu (Roger Lustig) writes:

>>>I meant simply that a language user, when reading or hearing some
>>>novel usage, will choose whether or not to adopt it. I was
>>>recommending that this choice be made on linguistic grounds, rather
>>>than, for example, that it was observed in the speech or writing of a
>>>high status person.

>>Either way would require a *conscious* choice.  I've never seen any 
>>evidence that people learn new words thatway most of the time, or make
>>their usage choices that way, any more than a child learning its first
>>language makes a set of notecards as it goes along.

>Who are you arguing with? I never said most people made conscious
>choices most of the time; I suggested that if more people made
>conscious choices it would be better for the language. 

And I replied that I could not imagine a way that this could happen.

>There is also
>plenty of socio-linguistic evidence that your presumption that
>adopting the usage of a high status person must involve a conscious
>choice is false, as almost any elementary textbook will explain.

I made no such presumption.  I was talking about your ideas about
choice, and that you presumed consciousness in the "decisions" you
said had to be made each time.

>>>is the British adoption of the US spelling "program" to designate a
>>>computer program, and the specialisation of "programme" for such cases
>>>as "programme of research".

>>Are the Brits demonstrably better off for having created this distinction?

>They think so; that's why they did it.

Evidence?  I think they did it because they had so much American
printed matter in front of them, with the -me left off.

>>The distinction certainly didn't come about *because* there was confusion.

>It came about because lots of British writers noticed an opportunity
>to avoid a confusion they had experienced.

Find me one such writer.

>>It came about because there were thousands of American books and papers
>>on computers.

>That provided the opportunity. The choice was whether to follow Us
>usage, to stick witht UK usage, or to exploit the possibility of a
>distinction. Hundreds of writers spontaneously and independently took
>the opportunity to make the distinction, in order to avoid the
>ambiguities which had sometimes troubled them, and hundreds more
>appreciated and approved of the change, and adopted it themselves.

I take it, then, that you've talked with them?  

(Even if you had, ex post facto rationalization isn't always a good
way of determining actual motivation.  I know of no case in which 
thousands of people actually perceived an ambiguity and felt they
had to change their spelling to fix it.  Even more remarkable is
that no American has ever, to my knowledge, even commented on the
ambiguity or felt any discomfort because of it.  Finally, consider
the thousands of other words with many different meanings.  Why is the
hypothesized respelling urge so selective?)

>>>>>If too many language users are simply sheep who
>>>>>thoughtlessly propagate every fresh mistake and confusion, then the

>>>>Can you show me that there exists one such person on the planet?

>>>There are plenty of posters to this net who have supported novel
>>>usages which add no extra capability to the language (being synonymous
>>>with and no more economical than existing expressions), and which

>>That doesn't make them sheep.

>That's what _I_ meant by sheep. You are confusing disagreement with my
>point of view with distaste for my metaphorical use of "sheep".

It also doesn't mean that they "thoughtlessly propagate every fresh
mistake and confusion."  I repeat: can yu show me one person on the
planet who does that?

>>I'd like to hear about 
>>some of these coinages that were created for no reason.  I've never
>>encountered one.

>US English is full of coinages that have arisen simply by the
>propagation of mistakes. 

Ah, tradition.  When there's something you don't like in the language,
call it an Americanism.  (Calling it a Scotticism went out of style
some time ago.)  No doubt the English *never* coin words that way?
Guess again.

>I do not regard that a good enough reason --
>on its own -- to justify a new usage.

Nor *is* it.  What justifies it is that people find it useful, and use it.
Who cares where it came from?  If it works, use it.

>>Examples?  I've never encountered a new word or meaning that diminished
>>the language.

>"I could care less"; imply/infer confusion, loose/lose confusion,
>diffuse/defuse confusion. As a general point, it is impossible in
>postings to the US to make points which depend on specific spellings,
>because US readers will never pick them up. 

And you folks talk funny, too.  Sorry, Chris, but this is simply 
bigotry. I see plenty of poor spelling in postings from the UK, too.

Also, most of these examples are simply spelling matters.  Spelling is
standardized, and is in any case no more than a representation of 
language as opposed to language itself.  As for "I could care less,"
it's a spoken idiom whose meaning is never mistaken due to the vocal
inflection usedwhen speaking it.  Just like saying "How interesting"
to mean "how boring," etc.

>For example, I sometimes
>write "my spelling mistakes are intensional", but it is largely wasted
>on a US readership, who need to have it pointed out to them that
>"intension" means something different from "intention", and is not
>simply a misspelling.

Well, aren't you just the *cleverest* thing.  Let's all get together
and applaud Chris's erudition.  "Intension" is a highly specialized
word that most people in both countries don't know.  Here in the US, 
it's limited almost entirely to discussions of logic, and most people
just don't expect to find it in net.colloquy.  And that includes those
who know the word.

If you wish to write clearly, use simple words.

>>Neither process hurts our language, which is certainly as capable of
>>subtle expression today as it ever was.

>Spelling is a simple and obvious example.  Writers who enjoy word play
>often use deliberate misspellings to point to furher elaborations of
>meaning. The paradigmatic over-the-top example is Finnegan's Wake.
>Readers who can't spell simply miss the point. 

So do many who *can* spell.  Believe me.  I've read the whole thing
aloud with a small group; those who dropped out because they didn't 
get it included several excellent spellers -- one or two writers,
no less.

>US readers and writers
>are on average worse spellers than British, and to that extent their
>written language is blunter.

Yet they manage to get across what they mean.  

>*>>and whose support [of a usage] consists of no more than "other people do
>*>>it so why shouldn't I?" 

>*>Well? Why shouldn't they?  That's the justification for using the
>*>language in the first place, and for using every word in it.  Because
>*>other people speak it, because other people use those words.

>That is exactly what I mean by sheep. No doubt if you were a lemming
>you would swim off into the sea and drown with the others, secure in
>your democratic rectitude.

But people *don't* drown because of language.  They *live* because
of language.  They  are *human* because of it.  And they grow up
speaking, not the language of their choice, but the one they 
were, lemming-like, born into, and learned quite unconsciously.
The horror!

>>>The confusion of "infer" and "imply" into
>>>synonyms has recently been defended on just these grounds. That's what
>>>I mean by "sheep" in this context.

>>So, can we no longer express ourselves? Is there really a lot of 
>>ambiguity due to this "confusion"?  Have oyou encountered a sentence
>>in which the speaker/writer's meaning was truly unclear?  Where it
>>was not obvious from the context? 

>Yes, often, especially in posting from the US. A spelling case in
>point is lose/loose and break/brake. I can't read autos.tech without
>frequently having to do double-takes and decide from the context which
>word the author intended. Usually it is clear, but it does slow down
>the reading speed; in some cases one has to pause and reflect for a
>few seconds; and sometimes there is a genuine ambiguity.

Again: if we have gotten down to spelling, we can discount the entire
spoken language from the discussion -- and that, of course, is where
most coinages and new usages appear.

>A year ago I reviewed a book written by a US journalist about the
>future of intelligent computers. Every single page had several
>misspellings on it, in which a specialised technical term had been
>replaced by a similarly spelt unspecialised English word with a
>different meaning. In many cases the misspelling simply made the
>sentence silly; but the ordinary reader might simply have been
>puzzled, not knowing the similar technical term. But in many cases the
>sentence made sense, in the sense of having meaning, with the wrongly
>spelt word, but a _wrong_ meaning. These mistakes so severely occluded
>the meaning of the book that I recommended that the edition be
>scrapped and re-issued in corrected form. Sufficient other reviewers
>must have made similar complaints, because I never saw the book
>reviewed, or on sale in bookshops.

Your point?  Somebody outside their technical comptetence wrote something
that  showed them up.  Big deal.  Velikovsky confused hydrocarbons
with carbohydrates.  That says nothing about language, and everything
about Velikovsky.

>>A centuries-old prejudice.  IN the 19th C, every neologism 
>>that some writer didn't like
>>was written off on the Americans, whether there was factual 
>>basis for this assertion or not.   Perusal of the more recent supplements
>>to the OED will showthat language coinage takes
>>place about as fast in the British Isles as it does here.  

>I suspect you are arguing with some generalised opponent rather than
>with me. I have tried to make it clear to you that I have _no_
>objections to neologisms, I _like_ neologisms, I often invent them
>myself; all I disapprove of are _dumb_ neologisms.

So give us examples!  And don't use misspellings.  They're a different
matter.

>>>>Ah, here we go.  Funny, but this argument has been made in every century
>>>>that there's *been* an English language, and especially the last four.
>>>>Swift was absolutely sure that English was going to the dogs ...
>>>>yet we can read his prose without trouble or dictionaries.

>>>Not true. Swift is often used, and has often been used, in Englih
>>>language comprehension tests, and the proportion of today's British
>>>schoolchildren who can understand it is definitely less than a few
>>>decades ago.

>>Is this due to language change?  (Hint: unlikely.)  Probably has 
>>to do with the educational system (sorry to hear you're having the 
>>same problems we are) and the economic upheavals of the last generation.

>You seem to have decided that changes in language use which are due to
>changes in the educational system ot the economy shouldn't be counted
>as language changes. 

You seem to assume your conclusion: that lowered average reading skills *are*
a language change.  Slick definition, but no good in the long run; after all,
average reading comprehension in Swift's time was lower still.

>You seem to suggest that the only kind of change
>in language use which is _really_ a language changes is one which is
>_due_ to language change. Perhaps you could explain this strangely
>circular notion?

No circle at all.  We have different definitions of "language change."  
I mean neologism, new usage, new constructions.  You seem to include
changes in reading habits, pedagogy,social status, etc.

>>>>And on and on; most people feel that English has been declining since
>>>>their schooldays.

>>>In the UK they seem to be right. Most educational researchers agree
>>>that both the used and comprehended vocabularies of teenage UK
>>>schoolchildren is less, and their ability to understand and use
>>>complex sentences poorer, than it was in the time of their parents.

>>What has this to do with the state of the language?  That sounds more like
>>an indictment of the schools.  Or perhaps of TV.

>What has declining vocabulary to do with the state of the language???

But the vocabulary of the *language* is increasing.  (I also suspect
that average teenager vocabulary is just as large, if not larger, than 
it ever was.  Certainly passive vocab.  School measurement rarely
gets into colloquial and local usage.)

>Once again you seem to imply (so I infer :-) [I hope you agree that
>swopping these two words round significantly changes the meaning!]
>that language changes due to school doesn't count -- but this time you
>include TV influence as not counting either as a proper change! Just
>what kind of language changes _do_ you allow; and why do you disallow
>language changes due to certain kinds of influence, such as school,
>TV, and (I presume) the industrial revolution?

*Sigh*  see above.  Yes, use of the language has changed.  Yes, some
people don't read as well as their parents did.  Yes, we are more
visually oriented.  No, that's not what I was talking about, nor was it
what *you* were talking about with "conscious choices" and respelling
"programme" and the like.

>>>And you are
>>>quite wrong about people not taking stands on linguistic grounds in
>>>those days. Shakespeare was no isolated linguistic giant. Not only
>>>were there many well-educated word-coiners at work in the literary
>>>arena of his time, the common people of the time were capable of
>>>understanding much more complex language than they are today, and the

>>Evidence for this?  Most of the common people couldn't read.  A large
>>portion of them never left their village or town, and never heard
>>complex language in the first place.

>The evidence for this exists in a variety of forms: sermons of the
>time; comments on public reception of the sermons; 

Almost all of this came from the tiny literate class, and from a 
few major cities (which weren't that large, either).

>diarists recording
>overheard arguments; attempts at transcription of the stories of story
>tellers; etc. You didn't have to leave your village to hear complex
>language, because when there was no TV and no reading, what people
>often did in the evening was tell stories. Not surprisingly, some got
>very good at it, and most got very good at listening to these extended
>monologues, just as kids today are very good at understanding the
>story-telling conventions of TV and film. Travelling story-tellers,
>singers, and mummers were common and popular. Given the greater
>dependence of the people of the time on extended monologue as the
>major form of entertainment, it would in fact be surprising if they
>_hadn't_ been better at it than people of today.

Well?  How many extended monologists were there?  

and what makes you think that stories told in the village were
told in complex language?  (Hint: their written form won't do, 
as it's certainly recast in the written idiom.)  Sorry, I'd like
a little more evidence that what you're referring to translates to
large active vocabularies on the part of more than a tiny percentage
of the population in whatever century you're describing.

>>Again, I'd like to see some evidence for this aspect of Merrie England.
>>The wordplay in Shakespeare is *not* evidence; his audience included
>>many who did not expect to get this or that passage.

>I presume you meant "...many who could not be expected...". That kind of
>syntactical confusion is common in US postings.

I meant what I said.  Try bringing your nose back down to where you
can read what I write.  There were many who DID NOT EXPECT to understand
all parts of the play to which they had purchased admission.

Moreover, you have once again demonstrated your bigotry.  I see all kinds
of dreadful writing from England, too.

>>>>> ... sheep who suppose that any usage employed by some people somewhere
>>>>>is by that fact alone justified as a usage which cannot be criticised.

>>>>Excuse me, but do you know anyone who fits the latter category?

>>>Not personally, but I do see them posting to this newsgroup. That's
>>>why I started this argument.

>>If you ever see another such posting, forward it to me. 

>You said it yourself in this posting I'm replying to. I quoted it
>above, and have marked it with asterisks.

Here it is:

>*>>and whose support [of a usage] consists of no more than "other people do
>*>>it so why shouldn't I?" 

>*>Well? Why shouldn't they?  That's the justification for using the
>*>language in the first place, and for using every word in it.  Because
>*>other people speak it, because other people use those words.

That's not the same as "some people somewhere," as I'm sure you'd realize
if you gave it a moment's thought.  It has to do with the speaker's 
own linguistic environment -- with the people the speaker or writer in 
question actually communicates with.  

And, as I point out in this very passage, using the *language* is justified
by the linguistic environment.  And by nothing else.

>>At the same time,
>>explain to me how people who take an interest in language to the extent of
>>arguing the acceptability of a word qualify as sheep.  They are, after
>>all, expending far more conscious effort on language than do most people.

>Expending conscious effort in defending the position that should one
>should not expend any conscious effort is an ovine philosophical position.

Wel, that *settles* it, doesn't it.  To hell with linguistics.  To hell
with the psychology of language.  To hell the with the practice of great
speakers and writers through  the ages.  If you don't like a usage, just
insult its users, and to hell with all we know about language and its 
uses and its history.  

And to hell with the fact that nobody ever said the preposterous things you 
wish to put in my mouth.  If you think I have said that "one should not
expend any conscious effort," then you really need to learn to read a 
little more closely.

Roger