Re: Death of the English Language

[Harry Binswanger hb@xxxxxxxx]

I'm quite happy to have her thinking judged by this, which is indeed Rand
in a microcosm. You and I differ only in the evaluation thereof.
But I do have to wonder what you find "internally incoherent." Seems to me
very clear and straightforward.

--Harry
> Very nice. Very self-referential. Internally incoherent and free-floating
> from what we actually know about grammar. Rand in a microcosm.
> David
> Auerbach
> auerbach@xxxxxxxx
> Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies
> NCSU
> Raleigh, NC 27695-8103
>
> On Oct 17, 2010, at 3:54 PM, Harry Binswanger wrote:
>
> > All,
> >
> > "Americans are trained (through the look-say approach to reading and
> all allied, Dewey-based ideas of education) to be emotional
> approximators. The nonobjective, ungrammatical way in which people
> express themselves today [1969] is truly frightening. What has been
> systematically undercut is their capacity for objective communication.
> Americans tend to express themselves guided by feelings, not by
> thoughts. According to modern theory, there are no such things as
> thoughts; and even if there were, they could not guide us.
> >
> > "I am not a grammarian by profession. I do not know the grammatical
> rules of English by name, only by practice. But whenever I struggle with
> a sentence and finally get it straight, I bless whoever invented these
> rules and I know there is a reason behind them. If they were irrational,
> they would not survive. Sometimes grammarians do attempt irrational,
> arbitrary rules; but people do not abide by rules that complicate
> communication rather than clarify it.
> >
> > "One of the most important applications of the [proper] attitude toward
> reason is grammar. The ability to think precisely, and thus to write
> precisely, cannot be achieved without observing grammatical rules.
> >
> > "Grammar has the same purpose as concepts. The rules of grammar are
> rules for using concepts precisely. Since sentences consist of concepts,
> the whole secret of grammar is clarity and the avoidance of equivocation.
> The grammar of all language tells us how to organize our concepts so as
> to make them communicate a specific, unequivocal meaning. If you compare
> the number of concepts we have with the vastly greater number of
> phenomena we deal with and have to describe by means of those concepts,
> you will grasp the importance of grammatical sentence structure.
> >
> > "If it were not for grammar, we could have words but could not speak
> sentences. We could merely say, for example, 'Me Tarzan, you Jane.' That
> is the nature of primitive languages. Civilized languages, by contrast,
> have a grammar precisely because we deal with more than first-level,
> perceptually based concepts. If you have to deal with the abstract?-with
> abstraction from abstractions?-you must know in what order and by what
> rules to organize them in order to communicate a specific thought.
> >
> > "We were all bored by grammar in school. Memorizing rules is very dull.
> But by the time you reach college, you should realize how important those
> rules are. Therefore, if you know why we should fight for reason, and for
> the right view of concepts, then let us?-on the same grounds?-have a
> crusade for grammar."
> >
> > --Ayn Rand, The Art of Nonfiction, [extemporaneous lectures] Ch. 7,
> "Editing"
> >
> >
> >