Re: Way off list for wordsmiths

["Patricia M. Godfrey" priscamg@xxxxxxxx]

David B. Kronenfeld wrote:
> "Correct" is a funny term. As an anthropologist and linguist I tend to
> ask for and accept my native speakers' judgements about correctness.

That assumes that speakers have some awareness of the genius of
the language they are speaking--a steep assumption after 50 years
of illiterate teachers. (Nemo dat quod non habet. And apologies
to any teachers who are not illiterate.)
> But, here, the first two English systems I described both have
> significant histories. One, I think, comes out of civil law while the
> other, I think, comes out of religious law.
The first is almost certainly common law. The differences between
civil (i.e., law derived from the principles of the Roman
jurisconsults and the Code Justinian, the basis for law on the
European continent and in the state of Louisiana) and canon law
turn on how one counts degrees of kindred, which is not exactly
the same as the difference between 1st, 2d, and 3d cousins or the
number of removes.
> My third system (no "first", "second", "third", etc. modifiers to
> "cousin") has no official precedents, but seems to express the knowledge
> of many of my students.

Or their ignorance. Look, when people hear words used, but have
never had their traditional meaning explained to them, they will
make up meanings, just as they make up etymologies. As there is
folk etymology, so there is folk semantics.
> reflects the importance (or
> non-importance !) of the relevant distinctions to the world of their
> experience.
>  The distinctions of genealogically driven inheritance
> and/or degrees of relationship which were important in the culture from
> which the first two systems came seem not much relevant to their
> lives--maybe because there isn't that much to inherit, maybe because
> they aren't going to get it from collateral lines anyway.

That is no doubt true. But I hate to think that the only reason
for knowing the precise degree of cousinhood of someone was the
possibility of inheriting from him or her. And in fact another
important reason is that Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox
Christians are forbidden to marry cousins who are too closely
related. I don't have the current Code of Canon Law here, but it
used to be 1st cousins for RCs and out to 3d or 4th for Orthodox
(this comes up, IIRC, in Russian novels). Though, as a glance at
the family trees of the Catholic and Orthodox dynasties of Europe
will show, dispensations or exercises of "economy" (the Orthodox
term) could be obtained.

--
Patricia M. Godfrey
priscamg@xxxxxxxx