Re: Death of the English Language

[David Auerbach auerbach@xxxxxxxx]

The other philosophical subtext (or, rather, *an* other) is the distinction between descriptivist and prescriptivist accounts of English (or any other language for that matter.) Linguists working on the syntax and semantics of natural languages are, by and large, engaged in a non-normative enterprise. Moreover, they would fall on the floor laughing if you told them some of the "rules" of English pushed by the run-of-the-mill prescriptivist. By now, I imagine, it is well-known that such "rules" as never ending a sentence with a preposition and prohibitions against split infinitives are simply nonsense.
What isn't nonsense, as long as it isn't mistaken for the actual grammar of English as she is spoke,
are style books. (Which isn't to say that style books are free to make any rules; just that it is
good to have consistent and justifiable rules in those contexts where style books make sense.)
Also on the normative front, it makes sense to resist diachronic alterations of meaning, where those
alterations are motivated by ignorance, sloppiness, etc. and not by usefulness, gap filling, etc.
I'm thinking here, as did the OP, of "begging the question", whose misuse I find
distressing and depressing.




David Auerbach                           auerbach@xxxxxxxx
Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies
NCSU
Raleigh, NC 27695-8103

On Oct 17, 2010, at 12:44 PM, Carl Distefano wrote:

>
> Reply to note from flash  Sun, 17 Oct 2010 12:29:59
> +0200
>
>> http://encyclopediadramatica.com/Grammar_Nazi
>
> Amusing article. There's no doubt that people who gratuitously
> correct other people's grammar are tedious sorts, and I think the
> hyperbole about Nazis is mostly a colorful way of saing "Back off!".
> The philosophical subtext of "grammar Nazi", though -- the notion
> that "standard" or "educated" English implies totalitarian control
> -- would make an interesting essay topic, which might be framed by
> the observations that (1) the Western system of university education
> is descended from a regime in which a few Latin-speaking monks
> produced, and were the designated keepers of, a discrete body of
> canonical texts, and (2) the future of education is in doubt absent
> broad agreement on what comprise the core attributes of an educated
> person. This "totalitarian" notion springs, evidently, from the view
> that the Internet is, and should be, an anarchic environment with no
> organizing principle beyond its underlying protocols -- a view for
> which I have some sympathy, especially given the current assault on
> Net neutrality. Yet surely the "Nazi" trope is fundamentally
> meretricious. When a thousand flowers bloom, the smell of manure is
> hard to avoid.
>
> Let me hasten to add that the correction of grammar or syntax in any
> language, human or otherwise, in this forum is completely
> appropriate, on-topic, and established by custom and usage of many
> years' standing. If you attempt to do so, however, you had damn well
> better be right. Otherwise, no soup for you!
>
> --
> Carl Distefano
> cld@xxxxxxxx
>
>