Pedants' Paradise

[teamsaint]

Yes Jean. Slow was certainly one of those many cases where confusion has been caused by the 17/18th-Century Latin Grammar Police adding -ly where it wasn't required. Now we can say "I'll go slow now" as well as "I'll drive slowly, there's a 50 limit ahead", where slow and slowly are both adverbs. But Shakespreare could only have said "I'll drive slow, there's a 50 limit ahead". Which would have been quite remarkable in itself, of course.




I've just noticed this FF, sorry. "Go slow" is actually adverbial (and old) rather than an idiom.

A real shame you are 30 years too late to sell that idea to the Pythons......

[jean]

Surely the 'rules' are essentially descriptive rather then prescriptive. With the principal exception of Esperanto, spoken languages evolved,and continue to evolve organically, rather than a set of rules being constructed and then words invented to follow those rules.

The 'rules' are of several kinds, though.

The 'rules' we were all taught at primary school - Don't split amn infinitive, don't end a sentence with a preposition, and (for some, apparently) adverbs always end in -ly are prescriptive by their nature, and while they may be derived from the way English actually works, they may derive only from attempts by grammarians wedded to Latin to make English behave in the same way.

But all language is rule-governed, and these are 'rules' of a different sort, not imposed from without. Identifying the 'rules' speakers actually use is what linguists do These two senses of 'rule' need to be understood and differentiated.

[jean]

As I understand it (it was many years ago that I studied all this) deep structure rules are the hard-wired syntax which we master intuitively as babies and which governs the way human language behaves and generate the sentences that emerge on the surface in the form of the words of a specific language. Where the deep structure rules operate at an unconscious level and are fixed, the surface structure is much more changeable (all languages do indeed change historically) and can be the subject of both prescriptive and descriptive grammar.

I wrote my post before I saw this.

I don't even think you even need to invoke Chomsky to account for the difference between prescriptive/descriptive, explicit/implicit. In fact he becomes rather a stumbling-block when you have to account for the fact that the 'rules' change, since by definition the 'deep structure' of the language doesn't.

(And of course what is understood implicitly by the native speaker and described by the linguist becomes a prescription when the language is being taught to a non-native speaker.)


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[Pabmusic]

A real shame you are 30 years too late to sell that idea to the Pythons......

Isn't it? "Nobody expects the Latin Grammar Police" - can you imagine?

[ahinton]

While we're on the subject of "going slow(ly)", it occurs to me that an offshoot of this particular neck of the pedantic woods might manifest itself in the question as to the difference, if any, between "slowing up" and "slowing down", although I'm unsure what, if anything, the Latin Grammar Police might have to say about that one...

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

While we're on the subject of "going slow(ly)", it occurs to me that an offshoot of this particular neck of the pedantic woods might manifest itself in the question as to the difference, if any, between "slowing up" and "slowing down", although I'm unsure what, if anything, the Latin Grammar Police might have to say about that one...

Or that between "flammable" and "inflammable"? I would expect that the chances of getting to the bottom of such matters are both fat and slim.

[amateur51]

Isn't it? "Nobody expects the Latin Grammar Police" - can you imagine?

I believe I've just seen french frank and jean getting measured up for their costumes, Pabs

[jean]

...an offshoot of this particular neck of the pedantic woods might manifest itself in the question as to the difference, if any, between "slowing up" and "slowing down" although I'm unsure what, if anything, the Latin Grammar Police might have to say about that one...

If I'm one of them, my answer would be not much... it's an oddity like breaking up and breaking down, explicable largely by the fact that as they move into the realms of metaphor, prepositions tend to lose the specific physical meanings they started out with.

[jean]

Or that between "flammable" and "inflammable"?

That one's easy - the prefix in can both negate the word it's prefixed to, and can mean towards.

It's the second meaning which should be understood in inflammable, but the possibility that someone might suppose the first instead means the word is ambiguous and had better be got rid of.

(I would love to continue this discussion but sadly I shall not be able to, because I'm going away and have never managed to make this board function in any comprehensible way on my mobile!)

[Pabmusic]

Or that between "flammable" and "inflammable"? I would expect that the chances of getting to the bottom of such matters are both fat and slim.

There is a (sort of) answer to this one. This is quite interesting and shows the confusion that can arise:

http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-fla3.htm

Of course, a true pedant should insist on the "correct" meaning, and to hell with safety!

[ahinton]

If I'm one of them, my answer would be not much... it's an oddity like breaking up and breaking down, explicable largely by the fact that as they move into the realms of metaphor, prepositions tend to lose the specific physical meanings they started out with.

Indeed - although one presumes you to have intended "the specific physical meanings out with which they started"...

[amateur51]

That one's easy - the prefix in can both negate the word it's prefixed to, and can mean towards.

Ah the distinction between that which is easy and that which is convincing


(I would love to continue this discussion but sadly I shall not be able to, because I'm going away and have never managed to make this board function in any comprehensible way on my mobile!)[/QUOTE]Is this your Cumbrian break jean? I hope it goes well, if so

[Don Petter]

Indeed - although one presumes you to have intended "the specific physical meanings out with which they started"...

Careful! Miss can rap a fearful ruler on those knuckles ...

[jean]

Indeed - although one presumes you to have intended "the specific physical meanings out with which they started"...

If one presumes that, one has not been paying attention to anything I have written, I am mortified to discover!

[jean]

(I would love to continue this discussion but sadly I shall not be able to, because I'm going away and have never managed to make this board function in any comprehensible way on my mobile!)

Is this your Cumbrian break jean? I hope it goes well, if so

No, that was last week (and Stile Antico were wonderful) - this is France.

Ah the distinction between that which is easy and that which is convincing

You really should be convinced, you know, because that explanation - easy as it may be - is also correct.