NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #27/NN_1992_27.iso/spool/alt/usage/english/8602

Text File | 1992-11-17 | 7.7 KB | 167 lines

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From: [e-mail] (Gabe M Wiener)
Subject: Re: quite unique
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
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Reply-To: [e-mail] (Gabe M Wiener)
Organization: Columbia University
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Date: Wed, 18 Nov 1992 04:04:02 GMT
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In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Roger Lustig) writes:
>
>>>So we must only go by some undefined instinct?  Is that it?  No rules?
>>>No methods of deciding?
>
>>In a way, yes.  You go on the instinct of careful users of the language.
>
>Right.  I agree.  But in practice, does this mean doing what they do
>(speaking or writing) or does it mean doing what they say about
>language?

I have found for the most part that careful users of the language have a
lot of valid and valuable things to say about it.

>True enough.  But many good, forceful speakers *will* use those words,
>especially in less-formal situations.

Ah, but to anyone who is careful with their words, a word like
"irregardless" will ring out as being sloppy.  Even in less formal
situations, I doubt that you or I would use that word when there are
so many other (and better) "good" words around.  As such, since
careful speakers and writers will avoid it, it becomes a questionable
judgment.

>>I've never once claimed that my preferences are the standard.  All my
>
>But you've simply said "this is wrong" or "This is a misuse," without
>alluding to the source of your opinion in preference.

But at bottom, *everyone* knows that there are no objective realities
here.  There are no "facts" about a dynamic such as language.  My
statements of "this is wrong" or "this is slovenly" translate to
"This is something that careful, intellegent speakers of the language
would generally avoid doing, and as such is not standard and should
be avoided."  To my ears, "axe" is sloppy, as is "irregardless."  They
are errors.  My opinion.  Sue me.

>when you say "this is wrong," you imply that there is a standard
>you are using that is something other than your preference.  When
>I'm offered blue cheese, I don't say it's wrong.  I say I don't like it.

No, but if there were a specific way that blue cheese is prepared by
the most careful chefs, and some restaurant botches it, you might
say something akin to "Hey, you served the cheese wrong."

>> To me, it's a dreadful usage.  That isn't going to stop a
>>sizable population from using it, nor do I plan to spend time trying.
>
>Foolish me.  And I thought your postings here -- saying "Usage X
>is wrong" or "construction Y is a misuse of the word" were just that:
>attempts to change people's language use.

The only people who's language use I try to change are those whose
documents I am given to edit.  In that vein, I take a redliner and
strike and correct all those usages that I feel are wrong or that are
not precise enough, etc.

Had my goal in life been to reform the world's language use, I would have
gotten my degree in English instad of Music.

>Now we're cooking with gas!  You don't like these usages, and so you
>don't use them.  As an editor, you might revise text to eliminate them
>(depending on whose prose you were editing).  We're in complete
>agreement here.

Are we?  My POV has always been that what is considered "correct"
English is that which is used by careful writers and speakers, which
is generally a combination of what they were taught and what they
acquire by intuition.  As such, there are no "standards" or rules such
as what you've been beating the desk in search of.

>(btw, I had a long talk with my editor last night; he and I came
>to an agreement on their being a long list of things that we
>wouldn't do, but wouldn't edit out of other people's prose.  A
>cardinal rule of editing, according to Eric, is that one should be
>able to imagine the writer's voice.)

Obviously.  If someone is writing in the style of Black English
Vernacular, I for one am not going to make it the queen's English.

>>As you said, it should be "like nobody else."  No verb with "like."  You
>>can use a verb with "as" though.  That common error was brought to the
>>public by the old Winston commercial.
>
>Back to square one, I see.  If it's such an error, how come so many
>of the "careful writers" use it?
>I have examples from Southey, Keats, Emily Bronte,
>Dickens (in a letter), and Darwin before me; Shakespeare and Newman and
>William Morris examples are also found in OED.  Fowler says it's not
>an error, but a matter of preference, Evans and Evans add EB 11th Ed.,
>More, Sidney, Dryden, Smollett, Burns, Coleridge, Shelley, Thackeray,
>Kipling, Shaw, Wells, Masefield, and Maugham, and state that "like"
>as conjunction is always acceptable, and that those who object are in
>a minority.  Evans and Evans also note that Furnivall, the great
>scholar of the language in the 19th C, endorsed it.

For goodness sake, I was KIDDING.  No need for a whole bibliography.

>Gabe, there are different KINDS of speech, which are used in different
>situations, idfferent times and places, with different audiences.

Perhaps, but if any of the members of the audience are what we are all
calling "careful users of the language," they're going to be ticked
off by usages such as axe, irregardless, and most unique, and whatever
point you're making will be lost on them, so it is to one's advantage
to use language as well as possible.  There is a difference between
the use of words like "humungous" and the like, things which are by
their very nature characteristic of casual speech, and words like
"irregardless" which are generally considered to be incorrect.

>>>>    "I enjoyed the Symposium.  it was a unique opertunity to hear so
>>>>     many Schoenberg scholars in one place."
>>>>Now, was it just an unusual symposium?  or was it truly one of a kind?
>>>In this case, who cares?
>>YOU, I should think!
>Why?  What difference does it make?

Because if it had been an interesting symposium, I would assume you would
want to order copies of the papers.

>On the contrary, Gabe: I WANT to know why you say the things you say.
>You tell me what you think is right or wrong, but you don't tell me how
>you got there.

As I said now, and as I've said before, something is wrong in my mind
(and in my redliner) when it strikes me as something that careful users
of the language would not generally do.

>weren't you imprecise in using "Wrong" when you meant "not my style"?)

No, because very often I edit documents which are not in my style in any
way, yet contain nothing wrong.  They're just not the way I'd write.
That doesn't mean that I turn them into my style.  I do correct any
flagrant errors however.

>>"Hit yourself in the head with a
>>two-by-four" and "can't you read?" and "aren't you bright enough to
>>figure it out"....that's contemptuous.
>
>Only in self-defense, my friend -- and, as it turns out, against your
>imprecise language.  You were using mighty odd terms to express opinions
>with.

Not really, since we're dealing with a field in which there *are* no facts,
only opinions.  That anything could be taken as fact is pretty ludicrous.


--
Gabe Wiener - Columbia Univ.     "This 'telephone' has too many shortcomings
[e-mail]       to be seriously considered as a means of
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