From: roger@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Roger Lustig)
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
Subject: Re: "Grammar"
Date: 24 Aug 92 02:16:36 GMT
Organization: Princeton University
Originator: news@nimaster

In article <1992Aug23.052204.29875@news.columbia.edu> gmw1@cunixa.cc.columbia.edu (Gabe M Wiener) writes:
>In article <1992Aug23.001620.6708@Princeton.EDU> roger@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Roger Lustig) writes:

>>10 items, no more, no less. 

>Fewer.

>>I didn't say "fewer than 25."  I said "25 or less."  And the evidence is
>>out there in the usage surveys and everywhere else: people just don't
>>say that.

>Fine.  If you want to make it "25 words or less <writing>," be my guest.

A far more generous attitude than some people here have displayed.

>That doesn't change the checkout situation.  I wouldn't cry if someone
>used fewer in this case either.

Nor I.  But, again, I entered this discussion right around the time
people were weeping and railing against "less.."

>>I've *always* argued for correctness and standardness.  I've just
>>accompanied those arguments with an insistence on reasonable definitions
>>of those things.  Specifically, I have asked for situation-dependent,
>>dialect-dependent definitions of correctness, and usage-based defnitions
>>of "Standard."

>Or, if enough people use it, it must be good?  

What's "good" got to do with it? If enough people use it, it's what
people use.  And the language is what people use, not some abstract
code.

>I don't buy it.  Mass appeal of an error doesn't make it right.

What error?  You keep doing this, Gabe, and it's bullshit every time.
By what standard of correctness do you call it an error?  

>>You named three sources, and since retracted one.  I've actually *cited*
>>a few, and will post several more when I get a chance.

>As if that's going to accomplish anything...

Ah.  I see.  You're the *only* source of information about correct
English usage.  Facts, studies, reasoned discussion -- all this has no
bearing on the Truth (tm) dispensed by the Gabe.

>>>I still don't see the benefit of *not* speaking or writing well as much
>>>as possible.

>>Good point, but you've left out the same step as you always do:
>>demonstrating that S&W's strictures are in some Platonic or functional
>>way "better."  Until you can do that, don't say "as well as possible"
>>and think that it's an automatic justification of any one usage guide,
>>or all of them, or even of a single point in one.  

>>Give me some *reasons.*  

>You know, it's kind of funny.  You've been repeating the claim that since
>a) people have been doing X for a long time, b) the rules prohibiting X
>were invented well after the fact, c) X is part of the language and there's
>no denying it, it is therefore pointless and inappropriate to try to drum
>X out of the language.  

You forgot

d) it's never worked yet (trying to drum it out)

e) the best speakers and writers do and have done it

f) there's no pressing need to change

>Assuming arguendo that we accept that, we have a
>few problems, namely that we no longer have any distinction between what
>is good, correct prose and what is sloppy.  I don't buy it.

Sloppy?  That implies some damage being done by use of the wrong word or
inflection.  I've *also* asked you to tell me what the damage is, i.e.,
to justify your use of "Sloppy."  

Or, if you will, define your standard of neatness.

As usual, the standard is Gabe.  What Gabe likes is good and standard;
what anyone else does, unless it's Gabe's way, is sloppy.  

You say "we no longer have any distinction."  Demonstrate to me that we
*had* this distinction, and that it was reasonable.

>I'm reminded of some article I read in an anthropology text some years ago.
>Basically, the writer was ranking on the political correctness movement,
>and I was inclined to agree with his argument.  It went something like this.

>  - The PC movement has, among its tenets, a belief that those cultural
>    beliefs that are central parts of a foreign culture, even though they
>    are not ours, are at their core, good.  

 False to begin with, especially the notion that there's a "political
correctness movement" to begin with.  Suffice it to say that many of the
people who are accused of being PC (which is just about everybody) don't
believe any such thing.

>It is wildly inappropriate
>    and 'ethnocentric' for us to try to drive those things out of a
>    culture and make them more like us.

I'd like to see some evidence that

a) lots of people say that and believe it as aglobal rule

b) they are the leaders of some movement

c) that the masses who supposedly follow them believe these things

>  - For thousands of years, Japanese samurai warriors would test the
>    sharpness of their blade by cutting off the head of a passerby.

So?  Has anyone specifically endorsed this practice?  This is, at best,
a straw man argument.  At worst...

>  - Although it could be said that, "Well, that's their culture, and
>    they've been doing it that way for thousands of years, and who are
>    we to change it?"

Nu?  Do they say that?

>Well, the fact is that we *do* characterize certain behaviors as good and
>bad.  Educated people know that it isn't exactly kosher to chop the heads 
>off passersby, just as educated people make judgments about what is and is
>not proper English.  The argument of "It's been done by the best for a long
>time, and it's part of the culture, so it's ludicrous to eliminate" doesn't
>exactly cut it.

Cut what?  Heads?

Gabe, this is distressing, especially since *you* are the one trying to
enforce a doctrine of "correctness," and can't even tell us *why* you
consider certain things correct.  They just are.

Next, could you perhaps tell me who's lost their head over less/fewer?

That is to say, what moral wrong is committed in order for your analogy
to be valid? 

This is really sad, Gabe.  

>>>And some have a hard time believing that ad copywriters would put
>>>"1/3 less calories" on a packaging.

>>Only because schoolteachers nagged *them* about it.  Nobody had to teach
>>me in school that "me am here" is wrong.  

>But many people had to be taught that "me and my friends..." is wrong.

Indeed, because it's a *dialect* issue.  In colloquial English, it's
*not* wrong.  Say it on the street and it's fine.  Say it on the dais
and it's wrong.  That distinction must indeed be learned.

>That's why we teach grammar...so students can learn what the standard
>forms are. 

Right.  But that doesn't mean that all other dialects are suddenly
"wrong" in all cases.

>>When I look back on all the crap I learned in high school...

>Hope you're enjoying the retrospective

In technicolor^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H Kodachrome.

>>Oh, no.  *Quite* different.  The separation of subject from verb matters
>>quite a bit, linguistically speaking.

>Linguistically speaking, perhaps.  Grammatically speaking, however, the
>error is one of a) improper word order, and b) wrong pronoun case.

*snore* Grammar is a portion of linguistics.  Careful study of grammar
tells us *Why* and How* and *where* the error occurs.  The two cases
("Me am here" "me and Bill are here") are quite different in their
erroneousness wrt Standard English.  And correcting them is done in
entirely different ways when teaching the language.

Roger
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english