[OT, grammar and punctuation] Use of commas in US and British style?
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Pielorinho
Iron Fist of Pelor
Tarchon, beautifully written! You expressed my position better than I have.
Bran, I think we approach the language from terribly different positions. You say that the word "children" is a mistake made by undereducated mooks. I ask: mistake according to whom?
In other words, who controls the reins of language? Who determines what is correct and what is incorrect? When is a change to language okay, and when is it not okay? Is any grammatical change necessarily incorrect in the beginning? For how many years must a "mistake" be made consistently by most speakers of the language before it becomes "correct"?
As for me, I don't think the concept of "mistake" is useful when looking at language: even a child who says, "I thinked I sleeped good last night," is communicating a thought. Instead I think of efficiency, power, and aesthetic as the important qualities that language can possess: the child who says, "I thinked I sleeped good last night," is not communicating efficiently, because her listeners will pay more attention to the unusual words she used than to the message she relayed.
I suppose you disagree, but I am unclear on who you believe is the arbiter of correctness in language.
Daniel
PS If any of y'all are interested in descriptive grammar, you could do much worse than reading a book by Daniel Pinker -- I recommend especially Words and Rules, a fascinating look at how humans form language.
Bran, I think we approach the language from terribly different positions. You say that the word "children" is a mistake made by undereducated mooks. I ask: mistake according to whom?
In other words, who controls the reins of language? Who determines what is correct and what is incorrect? When is a change to language okay, and when is it not okay? Is any grammatical change necessarily incorrect in the beginning? For how many years must a "mistake" be made consistently by most speakers of the language before it becomes "correct"?
As for me, I don't think the concept of "mistake" is useful when looking at language: even a child who says, "I thinked I sleeped good last night," is communicating a thought. Instead I think of efficiency, power, and aesthetic as the important qualities that language can possess: the child who says, "I thinked I sleeped good last night," is not communicating efficiently, because her listeners will pay more attention to the unusual words she used than to the message she relayed.
I suppose you disagree, but I am unclear on who you believe is the arbiter of correctness in language.
Daniel
PS If any of y'all are interested in descriptive grammar, you could do much worse than reading a book by Daniel Pinker -- I recommend especially Words and Rules, a fascinating look at how humans form language.
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Saeviomagy
Adventurer
Pielorinho - what's your stance on 133+ 5P33|<? Do you consider it a viable part of the english language? What about so-called ebonics?
If forces to maintain a language as it currently is, without unneccesarily redifining it, do not exist, then what is to stop it changing overnight? And if such overnight change does occur, how is it possible for someone to learn the language or interact with the people who've made the changes when they've been taught some other variation? Students who speak ebonics supposedly have serious problems when they go to school or university (just do a quick web search), directly caused by their inability to communicate in what is generally accepted as english. Dialects should be considered in a negative light for this reason - speaking a dialect of a language which is sufficiently different from the originating language defeats the purpose of speaking that language in the first place. Avoiding dialectizing (which is probably not a word - anyone help me here?) of a language can only be done by attempting to follow the existing rules of that language. Thus, any misspelling or misuse of a word should be corrected.
In days of yore, there wasn't really a solid concept of what the english language consisted of. Prior to the dictionary, people spelt words how they believed they should be spelt, and thus a lot of words are spelt in really wierd ways. Now we have multiple dictionaries. They tend to agree most of the time. In those cases where they don't agree, using the definition given in one of them is probably sufficient. Using childrens isn't. Accepting it's use will lead to the same unnecessary childer-children mistake that was previously made. History is there so we can learn from it and not repeat our mistakes.
If forces to maintain a language as it currently is, without unneccesarily redifining it, do not exist, then what is to stop it changing overnight? And if such overnight change does occur, how is it possible for someone to learn the language or interact with the people who've made the changes when they've been taught some other variation? Students who speak ebonics supposedly have serious problems when they go to school or university (just do a quick web search), directly caused by their inability to communicate in what is generally accepted as english. Dialects should be considered in a negative light for this reason - speaking a dialect of a language which is sufficiently different from the originating language defeats the purpose of speaking that language in the first place. Avoiding dialectizing (which is probably not a word - anyone help me here?) of a language can only be done by attempting to follow the existing rules of that language. Thus, any misspelling or misuse of a word should be corrected.
In days of yore, there wasn't really a solid concept of what the english language consisted of. Prior to the dictionary, people spelt words how they believed they should be spelt, and thus a lot of words are spelt in really wierd ways. Now we have multiple dictionaries. They tend to agree most of the time. In those cases where they don't agree, using the definition given in one of them is probably sufficient. Using childrens isn't. Accepting it's use will lead to the same unnecessary childer-children mistake that was previously made. History is there so we can learn from it and not repeat our mistakes.
I love it!
HAHAHAHA! I love this thread! I have laughed so many times just skimming it (love the references to "the Princess Bride" too
)
Yes, "ATM machine", "PIN number" et al annoy the hell out of me too.
I prefer "NPCs" to "NPC's" - nice try with the leaving out of letters thing, but if you're going to be consistent, that would be "N'P'C's"
I think people may be just using "irregardless" when they really mean "irrespective" - it's like the earlier accidental use of "ubiquitous" instead of "ambiguous", a word is close to what you want but you can't quite remember it exactly, so you go with what IS in your brain.
"Rouge" I think is just people typing quickly on a keyboard and the timing just isn't quite right. I type "teh" for "the" all the time and don't always spot it in time, and I suspect we're noticing it less because Word etc automatically corrects a lot of that sort of stuff nowadays.
"I would like to thank my parents, God and Ayn Rand" just means he (or she) would like to thank all three. If they meant that God and Ayn Rand were his (or her) parents, that would be an appropriate use of the colon - "I would like to thank my parents: God and Ayn Rand."
I love ampersands, but only use them in paired words. "D&D", "Rick & Sarah" (if Rick & Sarah are a couple), "M&Ms".
I don't put a comma to separate the last two elements of a paired list, but would use it if it isn't actually a list but a pause between two joined but not necessarily related sentences. See my use of the commas before the "but"s in the sentence I just wrote!
I thought sarcasm was delivered mainly in how you said something rather than what someone literally said. Hence it is a lot harder to be sarcastic here in cyberspace than in real life.
I must say that I love spelling words with "s" rather than "z" - "conceptualisation" rather than "conceptualization". But I can live with the latter. But the US/British one I REALLY don't like is the dropping of the "u"s from words like "honour", "colour" and "flavour". "Honor", "color" and "flavor" just seem too truncated to me, visually speaking
I have friends from the country who pronounce "ask" as "arks". I don't correct them, I know what they mean, and it's a charming part of the character (note the use of the comma as a pause in that list of items that itsn't really a list of items).
I also wish people would use the apostrophe correctly, especially when it seems so simple to me - will "- is" make sense? "It is" can be shortened to "it's".
There's an enormous difference between the denotation of a word and its connotation - "orgy" may be literally a
"wanton party", but it's got a very strong sexual connotation. Interestingly, at what point does a word become so strongly identified with its connotatation that it becomes the denoted meaning and the previous denoted meaning becomes an "archaic usage"? (Again, note - "with it is connotation" doesn't make sense in the above sentence )
Hahahahaha! I love it! have I said that already?
[Edit: I knew it was a colon and not a semi-colon - D'OH!!!]
HAHAHAHA! I love this thread! I have laughed so many times just skimming it (love the references to "the Princess Bride" too
)Yes, "ATM machine", "PIN number" et al annoy the hell out of me too.
I prefer "NPCs" to "NPC's" - nice try with the leaving out of letters thing, but if you're going to be consistent, that would be "N'P'C's"
I think people may be just using "irregardless" when they really mean "irrespective" - it's like the earlier accidental use of "ubiquitous" instead of "ambiguous", a word is close to what you want but you can't quite remember it exactly, so you go with what IS in your brain.
"Rouge" I think is just people typing quickly on a keyboard and the timing just isn't quite right. I type "teh" for "the" all the time and don't always spot it in time, and I suspect we're noticing it less because Word etc automatically corrects a lot of that sort of stuff nowadays.
"I would like to thank my parents, God and Ayn Rand" just means he (or she) would like to thank all three. If they meant that God and Ayn Rand were his (or her) parents, that would be an appropriate use of the colon - "I would like to thank my parents: God and Ayn Rand."
I love ampersands, but only use them in paired words. "D&D", "Rick & Sarah" (if Rick & Sarah are a couple), "M&Ms".
I don't put a comma to separate the last two elements of a paired list, but would use it if it isn't actually a list but a pause between two joined but not necessarily related sentences. See my use of the commas before the "but"s in the sentence I just wrote!
I thought sarcasm was delivered mainly in how you said something rather than what someone literally said. Hence it is a lot harder to be sarcastic here in cyberspace than in real life.
I must say that I love spelling words with "s" rather than "z" - "conceptualisation" rather than "conceptualization". But I can live with the latter. But the US/British one I REALLY don't like is the dropping of the "u"s from words like "honour", "colour" and "flavour". "Honor", "color" and "flavor" just seem too truncated to me, visually speaking
I have friends from the country who pronounce "ask" as "arks". I don't correct them, I know what they mean, and it's a charming part of the character (note the use of the comma as a pause in that list of items that itsn't really a list of items
).I also wish people would use the apostrophe correctly, especially when it seems so simple to me - will "- is" make sense? "It is" can be shortened to "it's".
There's an enormous difference between the denotation of a word and its connotation - "orgy" may be literally a
"wanton party", but it's got a very strong sexual connotation. Interestingly, at what point does a word become so strongly identified with its connotatation that it becomes the denoted meaning and the previous denoted meaning becomes an "archaic usage"?
(Again, note - "with it is connotation" doesn't make sense in the above sentence )Hahahahaha! I love it! have I said that already?
[Edit: I knew it was a colon and not a semi-colon - D'OH!!!
]
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PIN Number can be forgiven because well, pin is an actual word, it could conceivably be confused, can’t really defend ATM Machine, but you know it’s a common ‘mistake’ so I tend to just ignore it, I most likely do it myself. Pet Peeves are all about getting in a tizzy over nothing so it’s kind of interesting having people debate whether their pet peeve is valid.
Anyways, I could care less, and I've got to go put the childrens into bed.
Anyways, I could care less, and I've got to go put the childrens into bed.
ichabod
Legned
Saeviomagy said:
Language doesn't change over night because it is partially hardwired into our brains. If language did change so fast that it became unintelligible before cultures could adapt, it certainly would have shown up as a problem long before now.
I did a quick web search. It indicated that the problems ebonics speakers have are more due to their dialect being treated as wrong, instead of different. Both in Europe and America the experience seems to be that accepting the validity of so-called dialects (which are usually classified for political and social reasons rather than linguistic ones) while simultaneously teaching what the standard is, tends to better prepare students for academic and professional situations that require a standard form of the language.
Language will change, you can't stop it. If you try you will just end up with the same problem. You will have a standard form of the language that no one uses in practice, which will be unintelligible to significant portions of the populations.
Pielorinho
Iron Fist of Pelor
Saeviomagy said:
First, leet speek annoys me, but I recognize the purpose it serves. I'll get back to that in a minute.
Forces do exist to maintain a language as it currently is: if I change how I talk too drastically, then you'll have trouble understanding me. If my goal is to communicate to you (which is usually the goal of someone using language), then I'll fail in my goal if you can't understand me. Next time I speak, I'll be more conservative in my word and grammar choice, so that you can figure out what I'm saying.
At the same time, there are forces that exist to change a language. One of those forces is the creation of new words to capture novel or non-novel meanings. "Internet" captured a novel meaning: prior to the creation of the word, no single word described the distributed worldwide network of computers that we've come to know and love.
"Flammable" captured a non-novel meaning: it means precisely the same thing as "inflammable." However, it served a highly useful purpose, inasmuch as it made communication more efficient. Many people, on hearing the word "inflammable," assumed it was analogous to "inconceivable": that is, something inflammable could not be burned. Using the word "inflammable" was often an impediment, sometimes a deadly impediment, to communication.
"Flammable," then, entered the language to capture the meaning of "inflammable." Prescriptive grammarians objected to the word, since they saw no problem with the word "inflammable" (children whose pajamas had caught on fire were not, apparently, a problem; their parents should have received a better education). Descriptive grammarians generally hailed the new word, however, as it facilitated the main purpose of language: communication.
Leet Speek is an exception to the general goal of using language: it deliberately obfuscates meaning, limiting comprehension to a select group. As such, it accomplishes its goal by deliberately spelling words in a very nonstandard fashion. In the process it annoys me; I suspect that is another goal of its users.
Daniel
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