On 29/05/05, Chad Perrin perrin@apotheon.com wrote:
On Sun, May 29, 2005 at 07:36:27PM -0700, Mark Williamson wrote:
Although you'll probably complain now that it's not "authentic" and that you can't judge anything with it, I have replaced the "special" characters with their not-so-special equivalents (keep in mind though that the original used thorn, eth, and aewhateveritscalled):
Say what? If you're so convinced you know what my opinions are and how I'll respond, perhaps you should just write a bot with my name and have a conversation with that instead of me.
If I knew a programming language, perhaps I would. But that would probably be an enormous waste of time.
"Ne sorga, snotor guma; selre bith aeghwaem thaet he his freond wrece, thonne he fela murne. Ure aeghwylc sceal ende gebidan worolde lifes; wyrce se the mote domes aer deathe; thaet bith drihtguman unlifgendum aefter selest."
In modern spelling, that would be (keep in mind though that the words were pronounced differently - 'sorga', although equivalent to the modern 'sorrow', was actually pronounced 'sore-gah'):
"Not sorrow, (snotor) (guma); (selre) be each that he his friend (wrece), than he full mourn. Our each shall end (gebidan) world life; work se the must doom are death; that be (drihtguman) (unlifgendum) (selest)"
List of words without cognates: Snotor = wise; guma = one; "sel" is an adjective meaning "good" so "selest" is "best"; wrece = avenge; gebidan = pray; se = the; drihtguman = ??; unlifgendum = ??; selest = best.
All of that seems to indicate positive evolution of the language.
"Positive"? What do you mean?? That "snotor" just plain doesn't make sense as a word meaning "wise"? That phonetic spelling is bad (that is actually how those words were pronounced at the time - the spelling used in the original _is_ phonetic)? Or something else that makes more sense?
I'm surprised you didn't try to make a case for "evolution" of the language by way of the sort of inclusionary modifications that are popular with strict descriptivists, since that seems to be your point. Of course, I never said that the language doesn't change according to the whims of descriptivists, or that it doesn't change at all: only that A) it shouldn't change because some radio-friendly song popularizes a particular corruption of the language and
See, "corruption" is where I believe you're wrong, and what is essentially the problem between descriptivists and prescriptivists (more like proscriptivists).
You characterise all those letter-droppings and corruptions of perfectly good existing words and improper usages which got the language from Proto-Indo-European all the way to Modern English as "good" and "making sense", yet anything that occurs _now_ is bad, ignorant, "corrupt", and "incorrect". Except, of course, the things that happened before you were born, which you accept as prized innovations (contractions, for example - they save oh-so-much time! the fact is that contractions have always been used, they have just been kept to speech most of the time)
The simple fact is that prescriptivists, in any language at any time, have been saying the same thing. You can find it in the Appendix Probi - it's _bad_ to use anything other than the most proper Latin! But then through the magic of language change, the same language one-and-a-half millenia later is being praised by French prescriptivists as the most logical language ever, and they want you to use it a certain way that would've given the author of the Appendix Probi a heart attack because it's such an abomination of Latin.
The same thing with Sanskrit: Panini would've had a fit if he had been told that Sanskrit would become, through a series of complex changes, such "incorrect" "corruptions" of his perfect logical favourite language as Hindi, Bengali, Gujarati...
And finally with English. The writers of Beowulf were probably not prescriptivists, but they would've told you that the language we're using today is most certainly not "Englisc" as they knew it, or if it is it is a nasty vile corruption of it. Not just the spelling - no, to them our grammar, syntax, and usage of foreign words would sound like a foreigner's poor attempt at producing coherent speech.
B) a given example of linguistic "evolution" you presented only looked like it differed by way of spelling changes.
So, o snotor guma, work you use such sel words at least once a decade in your English speech and writing as "bearn", "wrece", "drihtguman", "gebidan", or "unlifgendum"?
Modernising their spelling doesn't help much either, seeing as they have no cognates in modern english and quite simply can't be modernised.
And unless you're absolutely numb in your blain, you must've noticed the dramatic syntactical differences as well as the fact that words had case endings in Old but not Modern English??
Now that you are so sure that Old English is only incomprehensible because of the way it's spelled, let's see how you handle some respelt Chaucer:
When did I say that?
Just now - "a given example of linguistic "evolution" you presented only looked like it differed by way of spelling changes."
Oh, but that was *after* I sent my e-mail, was it not? But you said it, nonetheless. Just as I told you you would.
Also, there's the use of the pronominal triplet he - him - hir meaning actually they - them - their. And words which you probably don't know at all (at least not in such a normal sense) such as "anon" which means "forthwith", and you wouldn't say "befell that" but rather "it befell that" or "it so happened".
It's nice to see that occasionally grammatical rules that make sense become more widely used.
"That make sense" - can you give me, please, some examples of grammatical rules YOU enforce that are nonsensical? Or do you believe that they all make sense?
Like any believer in any religion believes that his is the one true path, the only RIGHT religion, any prescriptivist from any language at any time believes that the form of the language HE promotes makes the most sense, and would like to beat to a pulp with a pencil those future prescriptivists who would say differently.
Other than those examples, to point out that prescriptivism changes... contractions are much more widely accepted today than perhaps a century ago.
I'm not sure what you're trying to say.
You would probably have no problem with the sentence "A girl riding on a bus", but it is quite 'wrong' because it 'should' read "A girl riding on an omnibus". You probably have no problem with "Zoology is fun", but I do. It 'should' be (and I would write it as) "Zoölogy is fun" (dieresis on the second o because it is pronounced separately - it's not z+eulogy, it's zoo+ology). You would have no problem with "A trip to the zoo" but it 'should' infact be "A trip to the zoölogical garden". This isn't having to do with the dieresis so much as the usage of "zoo" rather than the more 'proper' "zoölogical garden" which nobody would expect today.
Since when did I express a problem with contractions and abbreviations?
You never did. That's exactly my point. Had you been a prescriptivist of yesteryear, you would've. But you're not. So you don't. What was once illogical, ignorant, and incorrect, is now greasing the wheels of communication without invalidating the more lengthy and precise terms from which they're derived.
They grease the wheels of communication without invalidating the more lengthy and precise terms from which they're derived.
If I said "I go store tomorrow in blue bus with Jenny", that would certainly be more compact than "I'm going to go to the store tomorrow in the blue bus with Jenny", and in that way it would grease the wheels of communication without invalidating the more lengthy and precise rules from which it was derived, but would you allow it or would you look down your nose at it and scoff at its ignorance, lack of education, etc etc etc?
On the other hand, I am a little disappointed that in cases where longer terms are appropriate people have chosen to eschew accuracy without any particular good reason. Then, of course, other people have chosen to chronicle the abbreviated terms as "official" parts of the language. The word "zoo" was, orginally, an abbreviation of "zoological [noun]" (modify spelling as necessary to make it strictly accurate, using the correct character set -- which I apparently don't have installed on this computer). A dictionary reference to "zoo" as a slang term is appropriate when zoo enters common usage, and ultimately removing the "slang" reference might be appropriate as well, but including (for instance) reference to "imply" as a synonym of "infer" in the dictionary is absolutely NOT appropriate. Given a couple decades, however, it might end up being an accepted synonym for a significant portion of the population because dictionary editors have started making unironic reference to this supposed synonymous meaning.
"because" dictionary editors have? In a century, imply will probably mean the same thing as infer even according to the most conservative of prescriptivists, and the fact that they once meant what they supposedly do now (I must admit, I use them "correctly" and am irritated when they're used "incorrectly", but I am irritated with my irritation because I know it's silly since language change is natural) will be an interesting footnote in the long history of English.
That's a brief explanation of how your attempted characterization of my intent missed the mark, and how I actually feel on the matter. I want accuracy and precision, not stultifying adherence to tradition.
Like this sentence because not long but still accurate? (Do you like this sentence, because it is not long, yet it is still accurate?) Maybe hate because ungrammatical? (Maybe you hate it because it is ungrammatical?) This show why prescriptivism silly - say discard unnessecary good, but only if discard unnessecary already (This shows why prescriptivism is silly - you say that discarding "unnessecary" things is good, but only if they've already been discarded)
Those example maybe not good, not that much shorter but if en.wikipedia use like this, save much space. (Those examples may not be good examples because the simplified versions aren't that much shorter, but if en.wikipedia were to adopt this usage, it would save a lot of space.)
Essentially, as far as I'm aware, prescriptivism is about defining the language according to its rules, and descriptivism is about defining the language according to the way people who don't know, or ignore, the rules use it. As far as I'm aware, neither one is trying to say that the language did or did not evolve from any given set of standards, though they may say that it should or should not have evolved the way it did.
No, it's about who is competent.
Presciptivism takes those nose-in-the-clouds approach and says that only people who study "rules" which are not based on modern usage "know the rules of the language", while descriptivism takes the down-to-earth approach and says that any native speaker who is fluent in the language "knows the rules of the language".
If a person didn't "know the rules of the language", they'd simply not be able to use it at all. Rules of language are fluid and are defined by actual usage, whether you like it or not. Prescriptivism is just a little behind the curve and takes quite a while after usage becomes popular before accepting it.
Mark