NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #27/NN_1992_27.iso/spool/alt/usage/english/8783

Internet Message Format | 1992-11-23 | 10.6 KB

Path: sparky!uunet!mcsun!uknet!edcastle!cam
From: [e-mail] (Chris Malcolm)
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
Subject: Re: quite unique
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 23 Nov 92 18:23:13 GMT
References: <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]>
Distribution: alt
Organization: Edinburgh University
Lines: 234

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

[Lustig]
>>>The distinction [between "program" and "programme" in British English]
>>>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.

>Find me one such writer.

Me. And among my work colleagues are others.

[M]
>>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.

>I take it, then, that you've talked with them?

Not with _all_ of them of course, but over the years I have discussed
the issue both verbally and in writing with quite a number; and I have
seen, over the years, without participating, many discussions of the
issue in the UK computer trade and scientific press. It has even been
debated a few times in this group.

>(Even if you had, ex post facto rationalization isn't always a good
>way of determining actual motivation.

Quite so; but there is no doubt at all in the case of those who were
presented with the arguments, decided they agreed with them, and vowed
to adapt their usage to follow. This has even happened in public view
on the net, although on a computer group rather than this one.

----------------

>I know of no case in which
>thousands of people actually perceived an ambiguity and felt they
>had to change their spelling to fix it.

It seems that what you really mean is that you are sufficiently
sceptical of the occurrence of anything like this that whenever
someone gives you an example -- such as the one above -- you find ways
to dismiss it.

----------

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

>It also doesn't mean that they "thoughtlessly propagate every fresh
>mistake and confusion."  I repeat: can yu show me one person on the
>planet who does that?

You really have an extraordinarily limited understanding of language.
As I have repeatedly pointed out, I would like people to make more
conscious choices, and am calling people sheep to the extent that they
don't, i.e., to the extent that they thoughtlessly propagate mistakes
etc.. The absolute and extreme case of a sheep would be someone who
always did this without exception. My argument no more requires such a
paradigm to exist than that mathematics requires the real existence of
asymptotes, or that the word "exact" implies the real existence of
impossibly perfect precision.

And as I have repeatedly said, this news group has plenty of examples
of people who have not only claimed the existence of such thoughtless
behaviour, but have supported it, such as you.

------------

[M]
>>A year ago I reviewed a book written by a US journalist about the
>>future of intelligent computers. .... These mistakes so severely occluded
>>the meaning of the book that I recommended that the edition be
>>scrapped and re-issued in corrected form.

>Your point?  Somebody outside their technical comptetence wrote something
>that  showed them up.  Big deal.  Velikovsky confused hydrocarbons
>with carbohydrates.  That says nothing about language, and everything
>about Velikovsky.

Here we go again. I provide an example of mispelling spoiling meaning,
and you say "this isn't _really_ misspelling, it's technical
incompetence." Just as when I gave examples of language change which
refute points you have made, you say "that isn't _really_ language
change, because it is a language change produced by education/economic
factors/etc. and they don't count.

----------------

[M]
>>>>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 assume your conclusion: that lowered average reading skills *are*
>a language change.  Slick definition, but no good in the long run; after all,
>average reading comprehension in Swift's time was lower still.

How does that invalidate either my point or my presumption? I simply
gave an example of a recent case where a public perception of change
for the worse coincided with an objectively measured change for the
worse. I provided this example simply because you denied that such an
example existed. The fact that in an even earlier time language skills
were worse doesn't seem to connect with the topic under discussion.
Perhaps you could explicate the elided steps of your argument?

--------------------

>>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?

>No circle at all.  We have different definitions of "language change."
>I mean neologism, new usage, new constructions.  You seem to include
>changes in reading habits, pedagogy,social status, etc.

I do not include any of those things. Read what I said, and read what
you said again. I include in "language change" changes _caused_by_
education, etc; you specifically exclude changes _due_to_ such causes.
I agree that a change in education is not itself a change in language.
I say that _if_ a change in language is produced by a change in
education, then such a change is a perfectly proper language change.
You say that language changes due to education do not count.

You still have not answered my question: why not?

--------------------

[M]
>>>>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.

That's one of the important planks in my argument, Roger. Read it
again, more slowly. Because they couldn't read, and didn't have TV,
they told and listened to lots of stories; and got very good at it.

>>>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;

>Almost all of this came from the tiny literate class, and from a
>few major cities (which weren't that large, either).

Not so. You may be surprised to discover that even in those days
Christianity had reached the peasants in their villages and there were
churches to which they went on Sunday :-) Of course the priests were
literate and the peasants not; but the point is that the peasants
understood the sermons, sermons which used sufficiently complex syntax
and argumentative threading that modern congregations wouldn't
understand them, and very few modern priests would be capable of
writing them.

>>>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.

>I meant what I said.  Try bringing your nose back down to where you
>can read what I write.  There were many who DID NOT EXPECT to understand
>all parts of the play to which they had purchased admission.

I supposed that you did not mean that, since it is so indirect a claim
as to be barely relevant to the argument. The only thing that matters
is whether people understood or not. Some of those who expected not to
understand will have been surprised to discover that they did
understand; and some of those who expected to understand, and who
believed that they understood, would be mistaken. I'm sure you have
accompanied both categories to Shakepeare plays.

But I was wrong, it seems. Foolish though it is, you actually did mean
what you said. I apologise for my mistake.

-----------

[L]
>>>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.

>Wel, that *settles* it, doesn't it.  To hell with linguistics.  To hell
>with the psychology of language.  To hell the with the practice of great
>speakers and writers through  the ages.  If you don't like a usage, just
>insult its users, and to hell with all we know about language and its
>uses and its history.

I'm sure that many people reading the above paragraph will need to
check the nesting of ">"s to find out whether this is something said
by someone about you, or by you about someone; recent postings to this
group have contained similar examples of both.

----------------

>And to hell with the fact that nobody ever said the preposterous things you
>wish to put in my mouth.  If you think I have said that "one should not
>expend any conscious effort," then you really need to learn to read a
>little more closely.

It takes two to tango. Has it ever occurred to you that perhaps you
need to learn to write a little more clearly? Recognising that written
language is not just a derivative form of spoken language might help.

--
Chris Malcolm    [e-mail]          [phone]
Department of Artificial Intelligence,    Edinburgh University
5 Forrest Hill, Edinburgh, EH1 2QL, UK                DoD #205