NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #27/NN_1992_27.iso/spool/alt/usage/english/8751

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From: [e-mail] (Chris Malcolm)
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
Subject: Re: quite unique
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 22 Nov 92 17:59:39 GMT
References: <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]>
Distribution: alt
Organization: Edinburgh University
Lines: 241

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Roger Lustig) writes:
>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Chris Malcolm) writes:
>>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Roger Lustig) writes:
>>>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Chris Malcolm) writes:
>>>>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Roger Lustig) writes:

>>I meant simply that a language user, when reading or hearing some
>>novel usage, will choose whether or not to adopt it. I was
>>recommending that this choice be made on linguistic grounds, rather
>>than, for example, that it was observed in the speech or writing of a
>>high status person.

>Either way would require a *conscious* choice.  I've never seen any
>evidence that people learn new words thatway most of the time, or make
>their usage choices that way, any more than a child learning its first
>language makes a set of notecards as it goes along.

Who are you arguing with? I never said most people made conscious
choices most of the time; I suggested that if more people made
conscious choices it would be better for the language. There is also
plenty of socio-linguistic evidence that your presumption that
adopting the usage of a high status person must involve a conscious
choice is false, as almost any elementary textbook will explain.

>>is the British adoption of the US spelling "program" to designate a
>>computer program, and the specialisation of "programme" for such cases
>>as "programme of research".

>Are the Brits demonstrably better off for having created this distinction?

They think so; that's why they did it.

>The distinction certainly didn't come about *because* there was confusion.

It came about because lots of British writers noticed an opportunity
to avoid a confusion they had experienced.

>It came about because there were thousands of American books and papers
>on computers.

That provided the opportunity. The choice was whether to follow Us
usage, to stick witht UK usage, or to exploit the possibility of a
distinction. Hundreds of writers spontaneously and independently took
the opportunity to make the distinction, in order to avoid the
ambiguities which had sometimes troubled them, and hundreds more
appreciated and approved of the change, and adopted it themselves.

>>>>If too many language users are simply sheep who
>>>>thoughtlessly propagate every fresh mistake and confusion, then the

>>>Can you show me that there exists one such person on the planet?

>>There are plenty of posters to this net who have supported novel
>>usages which add no extra capability to the language (being synonymous
>>with and no more economical than existing expressions), and which

>That doesn't make them sheep.

That's what _I_ meant by sheep. You are confusing disagreement with my
point of view with distaste for my metaphorical use of "sheep".

>I'd like to hear about
>some of these coinages that were created for no reason.  I've never
>encountered one.

US English is full of coinages that have arisen simply by the
propagation of mistakes. I do not regard that a good enough reason --
on its own -- to justify a new usage.

>Examples?  I've never encountered a new word or meaning that diminished
>the language.

"I could care less"; imply/infer confusion, loose/lose confusion,
diffuse/defuse confusion. As a general point, it is impossible in
postings to the US to make points which depend on specific spellings,
because US readers will never pick them up. For example, I sometimes
write "my spelling mistakes are intensional", but it is largely wasted
on a US readership, who need to have it pointed out to them that
"intension" means something different from "intention", and is not
simply a misspelling.

>Neither process hurts our language, which is certainly as capable of
>subtle expression today as it ever was.

Spelling is a simple and obvious example.  Writers who enjoy word play
often use deliberate misspellings to point to furher elaborations of
meaning. The paradigmatic over-the-top example is Finnegan's Wake.
Readers who can't spell simply miss the point. US readers and writers
are on average worse spellers than British, and to that extent their
written language is blunter.

*>>and whose support [of a usage] consists of no more than "other people do
*>>it so why shouldn't I?"

*>Well? Why shouldn't they?  That's the justification for using the
*>language in the first place, and for using every word in it.  Because
*>other people speak it, because other people use those words.

That is exactly what I mean by sheep. No doubt if you were a lemming
you would swim off into the sea and drown with the others, secure in
your democratic rectitude.

>>The confusion of "infer" and "imply" into
>>synonyms has recently been defended on just these grounds. That's what
>>I mean by "sheep" in this context.

>So, can we no longer express ourselves? Is there really a lot of
>ambiguity due to this "confusion"?  Have oyou encountered a sentence
>in which the speaker/writer's meaning was truly unclear?  Where it
>was not obvious from the context?

Yes, often, especially in posting from the US. A spelling case in
point is lose/loose and break/brake. I can't read autos.tech without
frequently having to do double-takes and decide from the context which
word the author intended. Usually it is clear, but it does slow down
the reading speed; in some cases one has to pause and reflect for a
few seconds; and sometimes there is a genuine ambiguity.

A year ago I reviewed a book written by a US journalist about the
future of intelligent computers. Every single page had several
misspellings on it, in which a specialised technical term had been
replaced by a similarly spelt unspecialised English word with a
different meaning. In many cases the misspelling simply made the
sentence silly; but the ordinary reader might simply have been
puzzled, not knowing the similar technical term. But in many cases the
sentence made sense, in the sense of having meaning, with the wrongly
spelt word, but a _wrong_ meaning. These mistakes so severely occluded
the meaning of the book that I recommended that the edition be
scrapped and re-issued in corrected form. Sufficient other reviewers
must have made similar complaints, because I never saw the book
reviewed, or on sale in bookshops.

>A centuries-old prejudice.  IN the 19th C, every neologism
>that some writer didn't like
>was written off on the Americans, whether there was factual
>basis for this assertion or not.   Perusal of the more recent supplements
>to the OED will showthat language coinage takes
>place about as fast in the British Isles as it does here.

I suspect you are arguing with some generalised opponent rather than
with me. I have tried to make it clear to you that I have _no_
objections to neologisms, I _like_ neologisms, I often invent them
myself; all I disapprove of are _dumb_ neologisms.

>>>Ah, here we go.  Funny, but this argument has been made in every century
>>>that there's *been* an English language, and especially the last four.
>>>Swift was absolutely sure that English was going to the dogs ...
>>>yet we can read his prose without trouble or dictionaries.

>>Not true. Swift is often used, and has often been used, in Englih
>>language comprehension tests, and the proportion of today's British
>>schoolchildren who can understand it is definitely less than a few
>>decades ago.

>Is this due to language change?  (Hint: unlikely.)  Probably has
>to do with the educational system (sorry to hear you're having the
>same problems we are) and the economic upheavals of the last generation.

You seem to have decided that changes in language use which are due to
changes in the educational system ot the economy shouldn't be counted
as language changes. You seem to suggest that the only kind of change
in language use which is _really_ a language changes is one which is
_due_ to language change. Perhaps you could explain this strangely
circular notion?

>>>And on and on; most people feel that English has been declining since
>>>their schooldays.

>>In the UK they seem to be right. Most educational researchers agree
>>that both the used and comprehended vocabularies of teenage UK
>>schoolchildren is less, and their ability to understand and use
>>complex sentences poorer, than it was in the time of their parents.

>What has this to do with the state of the language?  That sounds more like
>an indictment of the schools.  Or perhaps of TV.

What has declining vocabulary to do with the state of the language???
Once again you seem to imply (so I infer :-) [I hope you agree that
swopping these two words round significantly changes the meaning!]
that language changes due to school doesn't count -- but this time you
include TV influence as not counting either as a proper change! Just
what kind of language changes _do_ you allow; and why do you disallow
language changes due to certain kinds of influence, such as school,
TV, and (I presume) the industrial revolution?

>>And you are
>>quite wrong about people not taking stands on linguistic grounds in
>>those days. Shakespeare was no isolated linguistic giant. Not only
>>were there many well-educated word-coiners at work in the literary
>>arena of his time, the common people of the time were capable of
>>understanding much more complex language than they are today, and the

>Evidence for this?  Most of the common people couldn't read.  A large
>portion of them never left their village or town, and never heard
>complex language in the first place.

The evidence for this exists in a variety of forms: sermons of the
time; comments on public reception of the sermons; diarists recording
overheard arguments; attempts at transcription of the stories of story
tellers; etc. You didn't have to leave your village to hear complex
language, because when there was no TV and no reading, what people
often did in the evening was tell stories. Not surprisingly, some got
very good at it, and most got very good at listening to these extended
monologues, just as kids today are very good at understanding the
story-telling conventions of TV and film. Travelling story-tellers,
singers, and mummers were common and popular. Given the greater
dependence of the people of the time on extended monologue as the
major form of entertainment, it would in fact be surprising if they
_hadn't_ been better at it than people of today.

>Again, I'd like to see some evidence for this aspect of Merrie England.
>The wordplay in Shakespeare is *not* evidence; his audience included
>many who did not expect to get this or that passage.

I presume you meant "...many who could not be expected...". That kind of
syntactical confusion is common in US postings.

>>>> ... sheep who suppose that any usage employed by some people somewhere
>>>>is by that fact alone justified as a usage which cannot be criticised.

>>>Excuse me, but do you know anyone who fits the latter category?

>>Not personally, but I do see them posting to this newsgroup. That's
>>why I started this argument.

>If you ever see another such posting, forward it to me.

You said it yourself in this posting I'm replying to. I quoted it
above, and have marked it with asterisks.

>At the same time,
>explain to me how people who take an interest in language to the extent of
>arguing the acceptability of a word qualify as sheep.  They are, after
>all, expending far more conscious effort on language than do most people.

Expending conscious effort in defending the position that should one
should not expend any conscious effort is an ovine philosophical position.
--
Chris Malcolm    [e-mail]          [phone]
Department of Artificial Intelligence,    Edinburgh University
5 Forrest Hill, Edinburgh, EH1 2QL, UK                DoD #205