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<blockquote data-quote="Pielorinho" data-source="post: 396710" data-attributes="member: 259">Tarchon, beautifully written!&nbsp; You expressed my position better than I have.Bran, I think we approach the language from terribly different positions.&nbsp; You say that the word &quot;children&quot; is a mistake made by undereducated mooks.&nbsp; I ask:&nbsp; mistake according to whom?In other words, who controls the reins of language?&nbsp; Who determines what is correct and what is incorrect?&nbsp; When is a change to language okay, and when is it not okay?&nbsp; Is any grammatical change necessarily incorrect in the beginning?&nbsp; For how many years must a &quot;mistake&quot; be made consistently by most speakers of the language before it becomes &quot;correct&quot;?As for me, I don't think the concept of &quot;mistake&quot; is useful when looking at language:&nbsp; even a child who says, &quot;I thinked I sleeped good last night,&quot; is communicating a thought.&nbsp; Instead I think of efficiency, power, and aesthetic as the important qualities that language can possess:&nbsp; the child who says, &quot;I thinked I sleeped good last night,&quot; 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.DanielPS 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.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Pielorinho, post: 396710, member: 259"] 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 [b]Words and Rules[/b], a fascinating look at how humans form language. [/QUOTE]

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