From: roger@crux.Princeton.EDU (Roger Lustig)
Subject: Re: Arguing about language
Originator: news@nimaster
Reply-To: roger@astro.princeton.edu (Roger Lustig)
Organization: Princeton University
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 1992 23:26:09 GMT

In article <98529@netnews.upenn.edu> crawford@ben.dev.upenn.edu (Lauren L. Crawford) writes:
>In article <1992Nov19.232920.25852@Princeton.EDU> roger@astro.princeton.edu (Roger Lustig) writes:

>>You're welcome to like or dislike what you please, and to express your
>>dislikes and likes as strongly as you wish.  

>>However, that's a long way from saying that *other* people are doing something
>>bad by using this or that word.  People are generally doing the best they
>>can when they speak, and generally have good and sufficient reasons for
>>using the words they use, and avoiding the words they don't.

>"Doing something bad" implies that language use -- or misuse -- is a moral
>issue.  I see your point that belittling or sneering at _people_ who use
>"non-standard" (isn't that a lovely PC word) English 

No.  It's a technical term, pure and simple.

>is small-minded and
>uncool.  I agree.  But I see nothing reprehensible about loathing the
>language itself.  

Loathe all you want.  But when you *express* your loathing, keep in
mind where your attitudes come from.

>Here's the "some of my best friends are ..." argument:

>Some of my best friends don't talk so good.  In fact, my dearly beloved
>flays the language daily.  But when he says, "She don't care," I don't
>correct him.  Fortunately, he doesn't say it too often.  Do I accept the
>usage of "don't" rather than "doesn't" as good English in that context?  NO. 

Do you have a definition of "Good English"?  That's my point.  Sure, there's
such a thing, but what's its relevance to colloquial speech?  If your honey
does this in seminars or sales meetings, perhaps it's an issue.

>It's hideous, it grates on the ear, and it's wrong.  

Wrong wrt what?  Wrt the way you were brought up?  I don't know where 
your snookums grew up; in lots of places that's just the way folks
talk when they're just folks.

>Is my d.b. stupid and
>deserving of my holier-than-thou-izing him?  No, he's a bright guy and a
>total sweetie-muffins.  

Look, I *trust* your taste, OK?  8-)

>>If you wish to limit your speech and writing to a standard that satisfies
>>you -- *any* standard -- by all means do so.  Everyone has methods and 
>>pathways and rules that lead to means of expression they find satisfactory.
>>But do not insist that other people limit their speech to the same 
>>subset of the language that you have chosen, unless you can *demonstrate* 
>>that distinctions of great value are being lost by this or that usage.

>There are only three sets of people who can limit others' speech to a
>"subset" of language:  editors, teachers and parents.  In challenging the

You left off: pundits.  These folks can intimidate, and by spreading their
opinions-as-facts, can cow quite a lot of people into writing unnaturally.
And speaking likewise.

>(mis)use of a word or phrase, I'm not insisting that anyone do anything.  How

But you make it clear that you'd rather never hear it again, and that it's
important enough to comment on.

>can I?  What authority do I have to do so?  But if I'm editing something,
>you can bet I'll hold it to a standard.  

Advice: be a minimalist when editing.  Change the things that *have* to
be changed.  Keep your style sheet short.  (Short-sheeting?  Hmmm..)
That is, have a standard, but not too many of them.  Only admit the
most important things to your standard.

>A friend of mine who is a professor here showed me a couple of senior
>papers, which, he said, weren't unusual.  The language
>was awful, with the kinds of mistakes elementary school kids make.  The
>grammar, not to mention the spelling, was ... well, you'd probably just
>find it creative.  I found it appalling.  My friend, in a fit of
>exasperation, scrawled across the top of one paper, "How did you make it
>through four years at Penn?"  I understood his exasperation.    

Heck, you've got me all wrong.  People *should* learn to write formally.
BUT THEY SHOULD ALSO LEARN THAT THEY ARE LEARNING FORMAL WRITING, and 
that this has a special relationship to their speech.

Writing is taught badly.  Many teachers can't teach people to write good
sentences -- which are basically sentences that sound good.  Most people
at Penn *speak* in complete sentences, after all.  No?  But instead, 
they teach abstract rules of grammar, and lose the habit of listening
to what one writes.

>>The English language is bigger than your idiolect.

>Yeah, and getting "bigger" every day.

In every sense.  And this has been true since the birth of English 
as we know it in 1066.

If you think that I consider errors to be part of English, you've 
misunderstood everything I said.  There *is* a formal dialect,
and knowing it is important.  But it is equally important to know
that most of the important uses of language are not, and have never
been, transacted in that dialect.  Written English is a very special
form of the language, not the only form, and certainly not the one 
that brings about changes in other dialects.  Instead, various spoken
dialects bring about changes in the written form.  (For a good example,
see that Lounsbury book I've mentioned a couple times around here; he
writes in very old-fashioned, very formal style, using constructions
and so on in ways you'd never dream of, no matter how formal things 
were getting.  Examine what's happened in the intervening century, and
you'll find that the written idiom has become much more like the spoken
one.)

And even within a given dialect, there are different styles and levels,
based on the situation.  There are situations where I wouldn't dream
of saying "ain't" and others where I'd say it or hear it unflinchingly--
to the same set of listeners, too.

Roger

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