Pedants' Paradise

[kernelbogey]

Somewhere a few years ago I encountered someone (in a service role, but I can't remember exactly what and where) whose response to 'Thank you' was invariably 'You're more than welcome'. I always thought Eh?

[Serial_Apologist]

Somewhere a few years ago I encountered someone (in a service role, but I can't remember exactly what and where) whose response to 'Thank you' was invariably 'You're more than welcome'. I always thought Eh?

Whenever I've told people "You're more than welcome to stay here, if you're in Town", my offer has never been taken up!

[french frank]

What's a dictionary for? Interesting sidelight on the 1961 edition of Webster's Dictionary which provoked an outcry by "avoiding a prescriptive approach to 'proper' English usage".

From The Atlantic: "These vitriolic responses came as a shock to the Merriam staff, who were accustomed to thinking of themselves as essentially harmless … Many American readers, though, didn’t want a nonhierarchical assessment of their language. They wanted to know which usages were "correct", because being able to rely on a dictionary to tell you how to sound educated and upper class made becoming upper class seem as if it might be possible. That’s why the public responded badly to Webster’s latest: They craved guidance and rules."

When a Pedant becomes Unpedantic.

[Serial_Apologist]

What's a dictionary for? Interesting sidelight on the 1961 edition of Webster's Dictionary which provoked an outcry by "avoiding a prescriptive approach to 'proper' English usage".

From The Atlantic: "These vitriolic responses came as a shock to the Merriam staff, who were accustomed to thinking of themselves as essentially harmless … Many American readers, though, didn’t want a nonhierarchical assessment of their language. They wanted to know which usages were "correct", because being able to rely on a dictionary to tell you how to sound educated and upper class made becoming upper class seem as if it might be possible. That’s why the public responded badly to Webster’s latest: They craved guidance and rules."

When a Pedant becomes Unpedantic.

Notwithstanding aspirational considerations, whether or not there should or can be guidance and rules governing written or spoken English seems to be covered by an unspoken general agreement supporting permissiveness, on grounds that changes are natural, gradual, and are in any case unpreventable.

[french frank]

Notwithstanding aspirational considerations, whether or not there should or can be guidance and rules governing written or spoken English seems to be covered by an unspoken general agreement supporting permissiveness, on grounds that changes are natural, gradual, and are in any case unpreventable.

Yes, I wouldn't at all accept that the reason for people sticking to rules is because they want to be seen to be doing 'the right thing' for some reason. And there's a difference between permissive and permissible, as also between prescriptive and descriptive.

Language evolves. Rules are not 'for ever'. There is no reason at all why what is considered 'correct' today, will be considered correct in fifty years time. We may be taught that something is correct. We may continue to observe the rule and consider the usage as correct. But if you consider the rules of language usage unchanging, right or wrong for ever - you are wrong. And probably keep your short socks up with suspenders. And wear grandpa vests.

[oddoneout]

Yes, I wouldn't at all accept that the reason for people sticking to rules is because they want to be seen to be doing 'the right thing' for some reason. And there's a difference between permissive and permissible, as also between prescriptive and descriptive.

Language evolves. Rules are not 'for ever'. There is no reason at all why what is considered 'correct' today, will be considered correct in fifty years time. We may be taught that something is correct. We may continue to observe the rule and consider the usage as correct. But if you consider the rules of language usage unchanging, right or wrong for ever - you are wrong. And probably keep your short socks up with suspenders. And wear grandpa vests.

This set me wondering when I came across what I see as a mistake several times in recent weeks, namely 'unchartered' used instead of 'uncharted' as in unknown territory. As with the increasingly common 'foul swoop' rather than 'fell swoop', I assume it is the product of a mishearing which gets into print or broadcast media and is subsequently copied uncritically. I would tend to view such examples as accidental changes, which may become common usage, (especially once those of us who prefer the 'correct' version are no longer in a position to lead by example!), rather than evolution.
Related to this, can anyone tell me whether 'envision' is the American version of 'envisage'? It appears to mean the same but is increasingly used where I would have expected 'envisage'. Again, the more it is used the more it becomes the accepted form, but in this case not a mistake but influence from elsewhere - evolution rather than accidental change?

[vinteuil]

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondegreen

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[gurnemanz]

Yes, I wouldn't at all accept that the reason for people sticking to rules is because they want to be seen to be doing 'the right thing' for some reason. And there's a difference between permissive and permissible, as also between prescriptive and descriptive.

Language evolves. Rules are not 'for ever'. There is no reason at all why what is considered 'correct' today, will be considered correct in fifty years time. We may be taught that something is correct. We may continue to observe the rule and consider the usage as correct. But if you consider the rules of language usage unchanging, right or wrong for ever - you are wrong. And probably keep your short socks up with suspenders. And wear grandpa vests.

A complicated and fascinating field replete with grey areas. On the one hand, you can surely argue that any utterance by a native speaker of a language is by definition correct, however it might appear to offend against either prescriptive or descriptive rules. There are plenty of examples of popular etymology flying in the face of academic correctness. This is the way language evolves, similar to the way in which genetic mutation (error) drives biological evolution. The ultimate criterion for judging an utterance must be how well it communicates the speaker's intention. Bad (ie ineffective) language, like an ill-adapted species, will die out. New, effective language will survive. The rules a native speaker applies are not learnt through study but acquired, mostly in infancy, and cannot as such be "wrong". In spontaneous speech we frequently come out with imperfect utterances - incomplete sentences, slips of the tongue, failure of vocabulary (through lack of knowledge, forgetfulness or whatever), hesitation, false starts, repetition, imprecision of the initial thought etc

The rules of language, as in the syntax and sentence analysis which are taught at school, are a way to make this imperfect, first draft, informal spoken form of language into something more regular and pleasing for more formal or written use and to make a standard national language devoid of regional "aberrations". (The raison d'être of self-appointed linguistic arbiters such as the Académie Française). Most of that syntactic terminology came from that which was used in the didactic grammar devised to teach Latin grammar in "grammar" schools and is still used when we teach foreign languages. This is a description of the surface level of a string of words in a specific language as distinct from a serious attempt to emulate the way that language is actually cognitively generated, ie how an impulse to communicate something which is initiated somewhere deep in our brains then somehow becomes words on the surface.

Further complication: I am not a proper scientific linguist but have always understood (via Chomsky and others) that an utterance or impulse to communicate starts on the level of deep structure. The language instinct, with universal rules common to all human beings and not specific to one language, kicks in. The final stage would be to transform that deep level blob of meaning into words of a specific language (surface structure, comprehensible to someone else). I was going to say that these are the only language rules which are immutable and "for ever", since they are hard-wired in our brains from birth and constitute that which makes us human beings (... in the beginning was the word) but even that linguistic capacity also evolved and must therefore changeable. It should be added that not all linguists accept this inborn language capacity, but it makes sense to me.

[LMcD]

This set me wondering when I came across what I see as a mistake several times in recent weeks, namely 'unchartered' used instead of 'uncharted' as in unknown territory. As with the increasingly common 'foul swoop' rather than 'fell swoop', I assume it is the product of a mishearing which gets into print or broadcast media and is subsequently copied uncritically. I would tend to view such examples as accidental changes, which may become common usage, (especially once those of us who prefer the 'correct' version are no longer in a position to lead by example!), rather than evolution.
Related to this, can anyone tell me whether 'envision' is the American version of 'envisage'? It appears to mean the same but is increasingly used where I would have expected 'envisage'. Again, the more it is used the more it becomes the accepted form, but in this case not a mistake but influence from elsewhere - evolution rather than accidental change?

I met an uncharted surveyor the other day. He was pretty upset 'cos somebody had nicked all his maps.

[Serial_Apologist]

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondegreen

.

As a pre-reading age child I always heard "All Grecians great and small" as being the second line of the famous hymn "All Things Brighton Beautiful"!

[Pabmusic]

This set me wondering when I came across what I see as a mistake several times in recent weeks, namely 'unchartered' used instead of 'uncharted' as in unknown territory. As with the increasingly common 'foul swoop' rather than 'fell swoop', I assume it is the product of a mishearing which gets into print or broadcast media and is subsequently copied uncritically. I would tend to view such examples as accidental changes, which may become common usage, (especially once those of us who prefer the 'correct' version are no longer in a position to lead by example!), rather than evolution.

It's a very common phenomenon, often coming about when a word has dropped out of common use, except in one idiomatic phrase. "Damp squib" is famously rendered as "damp squid" because few people remember squibs - I do because I'd buy some as we neared Bonfire Night. And squid are damp, after all. Likewise a "mute" point makes sense to some (especially Americans) who think it means something we don't need to discuss, rather than a topic for discussion (as you might do at an Anglo-Saxon moot, or 'meet').

Unless you are relentless at preserving these idiomatic expressions by constantly explaining what the 'fossil' word meant, then it's an inexorable process of trying to make sense of something we no longer understand, but according to what we do understand.

[kernelbogey]

As a pre-reading age child I always heard "All Grecians great and small" as being the second line of the famous hymn "All Things Brighton Beautiful"!

After Church once, aged about eight, I asked my father who Berrily was; 'Eh?'.

Well, in the Second Lesson, Jesus says 'Berrily, Berrily I say unto you....'

[oddoneout]

It's a very common phenomenon, often coming about when a word has dropped out of common use, except in one idiomatic phrase. "Damp squib" is famously rendered as "damp squid" because few people remember squibs - I do because I'd buy some as we neared Bonfire Night. And squid are damp, after all. Likewise a "mute" point makes sense to some (especially Americans) who think it means something we don't need to discuss, rather than a topic for discussion (as you might do at an Anglo-Saxon moot, or 'meet').

Unless you are relentless at preserving these idiomatic expressions by constantly explaining what the 'fossil' word meant, then it's an inexorable process of trying to make sense of something we no longer understand, but according to what we do understand.

Trouble is that the altered expressions become nonsense, so it would be better to come up with a modern equivalent to replace that which is misunderstood. For instance 'Unknown territory' would be preferable to 'unchartered territory' in my view.

[Serial_Apologist]

After Church once, aged about eight, I asked my father who Berrily was; 'Eh?'.

Well, in the Second Lesson, Jesus says 'Berrily, Berrily I say unto you....'

It's a tropical disease, isn't it???

[Bryn]

I thought they were little processed cheese triangles.