This post is somewhat tangential to feminism, but I think it still addresses an important issue and one that’s always been hanging around in my mind.
Okay, so my friends know that I am absolutely obsessed with grammar and words. If you mix up your “your” and “you’re” I may gently correct you or mock you mercilessly (the latter really only being directed at my equally grammar-obsessed friends).
However, when it comes to being judgmental, there are things I like to keep in mind: primarily that education is a privilege. Not many people are lucky enough to go through as many years of schooling as I have, nor have access to the thousands of books that I’ve read, and so naturally, I can’t expect them to use the same vocabulary I’m accustomed to. Additionally, I have plenty of friends whom I love dearly, are very bright, and make no claims that they can spell anything at all. Spelling and grammar themselves are not hallmarks of intelligence.
Nonetheless, there are times in which I don’t find it petty to call out someone else for committing an egregious English crime. For example, there is a particular commenter who claims educational superiority, yet doesn’t know the difference between “succession” and “secession.”* Or people who complain obnoxiously on Facebook about other folks speaking their native languages without managing to use their own native language (English) without mangling it terribly. If there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s hypocrisy, especially when it’s over something regarding education. If you’ve had the privilege of graduating college, then you absolutely should have a basic command of your language before proclaiming that everyone else needs to learn it first. If you’ve had the privilege of graduating college, and you’re condescending to someone who has not reached that level of education, then you absolutely should be able to converse intelligibly.
These people also have the unfortunate tendency of thesaurus abuse, a la what is explicated in an excellent and timely Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal cartoon. Do I have a love for flowery prose? You bet! But for goodness sake, if you’re going to use it, use it right. Don’t mar the beauty of words by botching them for your vain quest of false educational superiority.
Well, that’s all I’ve got for now. Back to your regularly scheduled rants with my next post.
*Well, looks like this person has gone and trolled about four of my posts, conveniently ignoring this one–doesn’t matter though, because I saw that she’s finally fixed the spelling. Guess she was too busy hating on college kids to worry about things like using the right word.
Jul 04, 2011 @ 12:02:01
This. So much this. I have a reputation among my friends for being chief of the grammar police and the founder member of what my family calls “The Pedants’ Society”, but in the past few years I’ve tried to hold back, because of my growing awareness that grammar pedantry is too often a wielding of education/class/ability privilege.
Also, if you’re a lover of language, you’ll surely find that different dialects and different sociolinguistic strata are at least as rich and delightful as “the Queen’s English”.
Jul 04, 2011 @ 12:53:35
I feel ya! But I think it’s important to distinguish between the auto-pilot of correcting our friends, families and peers versus the automatic assumption some people make that those who speak/write differently must be less intelligent. I never correct grammar/spelling out of malice, only out of a slightly overenthusiastic sense of helpfulness. However, when people like the aforementioned folks in the post start ranting about how immigrants are ruining English/young folks are inferior because all they know is chatspeak, then my hackles get raised and I want to be like, STFU I’m a student AND an immigrant–don’t you make assumptions about other people, and ESPECIALLY don’t correct me when you can’t even do it yourself!
Jul 06, 2011 @ 03:45:08
“Heh, well, I was pretty merciless on this person because she’s been going around making very ignorant comments on both my intelligence and that of my friends’. ”
Um. Cyn. That last ‘? You don’t need that. You already took care of possession when you said, “and that of”. The friends in this case is a simple plural.
I’m just saying…
Jul 04, 2011 @ 23:40:36
I admit I am a bit of stickler when it comes to commonly-confused words, and I’m not as kind as you. Anyone who mocks me for being stupid for any reason is thereafter subject to me editing all hir facebook posts or written/oral statements.
That said, I am totally behind you on the fact that grammar/spelling has little to do with intelligence, and more to do with education. I have a little resistance to the way English is commonly spelled/abbreviated and to meaning-drift these days, which comes both from wanting to be privileged in having other people understand me easily, but also from the loss of what I think are really neat words (if nauseous was still used to describe something that made you feel sick, for example, how much sweeter is that than another synonym for feeling sick?!). I’m working on my resistance though, because it’s unfair… :/
Jul 04, 2011 @ 23:55:52
Heh, well, I was pretty merciless on this person because she’s been going around making very ignorant comments on both my intelligence and that of my friends’.
I’ve only recently come to terms with my privilege with respect to knowing when to use “who” vs. “whom” or “this is she” and not “this is her” or “me” vs. “I.” If someone’s got a very articulate, well thought out post/remark and messes one of those things up, I’m probably going to keep my mouth shut because it doesn’t take away from the comment. However, more often than not, such a person is one who says “no allowed” and “succession” instead of “secession” in the same breath as calling me an unintelligent college kid. Then that person is out of luck, because now we’re all aboard the judgement train. Though sometimes I’ll refrain from telling them about their grammar errors to their face because then I’m accused of being petty (which isn’t quite fair–it’s definitely fair game to point out someone’s inability to tell the difference between two very different words when that person’s argument hinges upon calling you an idiot). Anyway, where was I? I’m with you on words–absolutely love them, and love that there are subtle differences between them. I’m a native speaker of Mandarin Chinese as well, and the dearth of synonyms has always disappointed me. Take “big” for example–depending on what I want to connote, I can say huge, humongous, gigantic, enormous, massive, etc. Don’t have that in Chinese. Of course, there are plenty of other awesome things about the Chinese language, but I’m a vocab-phile (logophile?)
Jul 05, 2011 @ 05:56:40
I studied Chinese in college – it’s a trade off in terms of vocabularic (I maded a word!) nuance and some absolutely awesome modes of expression, I thought.
Jul 05, 2011 @ 03:25:56
“Or people who complain obnoxiously on Facebook about other folks speaking their native languages without managing to use their own native language (English) without mangling it terribly.”
I think it’s problematic to say that people that don’t follow the rules of prescriptive grammar are somehow not using English correctly. It just seems… horribly insulting to state that people that don’t follow the “correct” grammar and spelling rules, are “unintelligible” or are “mangling English”.
What is this post but pretty much saying “gosh, it’s okay when some poor uneducated person is unintelligible. They can’t help but mangle our language. But you people that went to college? You should do better.”
I mean, listen to what you’re saying.
“If you’ve had the privilege of graduating college, then you absolutely should have a basic command of your language before proclaiming that everyone else needs to learn it first.”
I mean really? So people that don’t speak “properly” don’t have a basic command of English, their native language? And people that are uneducated and don’t know the prescriptive rules also don’t have a basic command of their native tongue? But that’s okay because they’re uneducated so they’re not expected to? Talk about condescending to lesser educated people… You don’t even question that the English you speak is the superior, best English that other people should aspire to. Gosh, it couldn’t be that someone college-educated accepts the English language mannerisms of uneducated people as equally correct and usable.
And if you’d like to nitpick my grammar, go right ahead. I’m a high-school drop-out. I’m certainly not claiming educational superiority.
Jul 05, 2011 @ 18:17:03
Sorry the post came across this way–it wasn’t meant to. I’m sorry that my tone was confusing and led you to conflate my meaning. What I meant to do, I guess, was to compare educational discourse with day-to-day speech. I’m not perfect–there’s plenty of errors I make in my writing/speech. But I’ve been lucky enough to have access to a ton of books and learn a ton of words, and it bothers me when they aren’t used right by people who could care less that they have this privilege. Again, apologies if I sounded condescending–I really didn’t mean to. I have no desire to nitpick your grammar because you do not fall under the aforementioned categories of people.
Jul 06, 2011 @ 02:46:20
Snob. And she burned you bad. I would get rid of this article if I was you. It shows your true colors.
Jul 06, 2011 @ 02:50:53
“Sorry the post came across this way–it wasn’t meant to. I’m sorry that my tone was confusing and led you to CONFLATE my meaning.”
“I’ve only recently come to terms with my PRIVILEGE with respect to knowing when to use “who” vs. “whom” or “this is she” and not “this is her” or “me” vs. “I.”
Classic. Just classic! I can’t stop laughing! My sides hurt!
Really, I must share this one. Hope you don’t mind… I will ensure to give you and your blog full credit!
Jul 06, 2011 @ 02:45:39
Lasciel, Isn’t CYN peachy? here are some comments on her blog- all directed to me, a conservative. And nary a word from fair Cyn. Of course, they all AGREE with her snooty liberal opinions! I’m the dummy she is making such kind reference to (*gasp*- a hanging participle! Help me, Cyn!)
“Jay makes no sense, gives poor argument (‘it’s my opinion’ is not, and never will be, a coherent and valid discussion point. It’s a 12-year-olds argument) and his Random Capitalisation makes me laugh”- Emotional Cynic
“If he wasn’t a douche, he never would have put up the billboard either…he’s a douche who wants to humiliate his ex girlfriend
.”- Andie
“Do we all hate your posts? yes. “- Sam
“Sorry I can’t moderate comments fast enough for you. I actually have two jobs and work full time, so sometimes I don’t have time to attend to trolls.”- Cyn
“Who names themself “The Rat”??”- Sam
“when you post stuff like this, no one wants you here. “- Kelsey B.
“”This comment is super productive!”- Kelsy B.
” You act like a homophobe, you get called a homophobe”- Cyn
” Anyway, get a life SLR, you should be ashamed of your ignorance, and particularly ashamed of your lack of restraint. Peace out”- David
” I will also exercise my blog right to keep it free from nonsense.”- Cyn
” And I desperately hope that commentator is, in fact, a troll. Because I like to think most people know better than to say those things seriously”-sarah
Lasceil, it is MY nonsense she is speaking of. It is I! The Misspeller of words. Oh, the SHAME of it all! Because I don’t agree that a baby isn’t human until its born and don’t think a 4 month old fetus who can feel pain should have its legs & arms ripped off. And because I don’t think a woman should be proud to be called a ‘slut’. That’s the kind of ‘nonsense’ she wants to wipe off her blog. Well, geee wizzz. I misspelled ‘secession’ and put a ‘u’ in place of the ‘e’! *gasp* Oh, the shame, the shame. How will I EVER live with myself?
I guess I am not trying to impress people inasmuch as I am trying to make a point. Something Ms. Snooty here doesn’t pay enough attention to (oops! ANOTHER hanging participle, Cyn! Oh NOOOOOO! what WILL we do??) This article is a real doozy! A real peach. I invite you all to comment on my article, “Secession or Civil War- The time is near.” It has been reposted over 20 times by other people. Apparently, they like the CONTENT.
Cyn can’t handle opposition. Plain and simple. So all she can do is mock. And let her friends mock. Her education? Give me a break- Where do you go to college Cyn? I went to West Point. I received a Vice Presidential nomination to go. I got straight A’s. But I don’t NEED to IMPRESS. I just like politics. EXCUUUUUUUUSE ME! Little miss perfect here is SOOOOOOOO educated. Man ALIVE! Watch OUT! She LOOOOOVVES the MELOOOOOODY of the English language. She is a marvel without equal. Why she can elucidate, enunciate and eradicate until the cows come home!!! Wow. I’m darned impressed!
What a SNOB
Jul 06, 2011 @ 15:10:41
I have to agree with Lasciel on this. I’m a grammar and usage enthusiast myself, and I pride myself on knowing the rules of prescriptive English. But I’m also aware that pretty much all spoken and written language follows rules. There are just different sets of rules for different dialects. Also, language constantly changes, and the rules change.
The idea that someone isn’t using words “right” doesn’t make much sense from a linguistics perspective. For example, if I were to write, “Your blog is comprised of many fine posts,” that would make perfect sense to almost any English speaker reading it. The meaning is clear. Yet according the rules of prescriptive English usage, my use of “comprise” is a clear malapropism. “Comprise” used to mean “contain” or “be made up of,” as in “The whole comprises the parts.” So if I’m going to be prescriptive I’d have to write, “Your blog comprises many fine posts.”
If I stick with the first version of the sentence, am I mangling the English language? Is my statement incoherent? Does it betray a lack of basic command of the English language? I don’t think so.
My point is that the privilege of being educated is NOT the privilege of knowing the correct use of “its” and “it’s.” It’s NOT the advantage of recognizing malapropisms which less fortunate, less educated folks might miss. No, the privilege of being educated is the privilege of recognizing that language is a living beast which takes many forms and constantly changes. Being educated means we recognize how prescriptive rules about “correctness” have been used as a cudgel to reinforce class segregation and class oppression for centuries.
You can’t just pick up that cudgel and use it on only the select groups whom you designate as deserving it, then put it down and claim to have the courtesy to use it on others. Either you embrace the class hierarchy reinforced by language policing, or you reject it. It doesn’t matter the political views of those whose language you’re policing.
Although, I’ll grant you, when people specifically make a big deal about how educated they are, it can be kind of fun to call them out on “mistakes.” But that’s not because they’re wrong, or because they’re mangling the language. It’s just because they’re hypocritical.
Jul 05, 2011 @ 11:47:14
here-here. good post. as someone who writes for a living… i feel you! interviewing people is something i do every day… and i’m very aware when i’m being censored to… ie: someone using random big words to create an impressive soundbite. it’s irritating. irritating-plus. but so is having to repeat simple dialogue to a coworker. repetitively. on something simplistic. and never getting anywhere. ah, english language. you complex whirlwind… i’m peachy keen with liberal uses of the english language. really. but the minute someone sticks me with a comma splice or misuse of “its” and “it’s” i, on occasion, hit the crazy fan.
Jul 06, 2011 @ 03:39:28
Toosoxy, you have more class in one little finger than Cyn here.
Jul 06, 2011 @ 03:41:18
btw, Cyn. I never read this most amazing article till tonight. I didn’t understand your reference earlier about my ‘succession’ misspelling until tonight. too funny.
Jul 06, 2011 @ 03:44:02
“Heh, well, I was pretty merciless on this person because she’s been going around making very ignorant comments on both my intelligence and that of my friends’. ”
Um. Cyn. That last ‘? You don’t need that. You already took care of possession when you said, “and that of”. The friends in this case is a simple plural.
I’m just saying…
Jul 06, 2011 @ 15:16:49
I am SO glad that I never purported to be PERFECT in my ‘NATIVE’ tongue! thought I’d help you reach your elitist goals:
startledoctopus
Jul 04, 2011 @ 23:40:36
I admit I am a bit of stickler when it comes to commonly-confused words, and I’m not as kind as you. Anyone who mocks me for being stupid for any reason is thereafter subject to me [as opposed to 'my'] editing all hir [as opposed to 'her'] facebook posts or written/oral statements.
That said, I am totally behind you on the fact that grammar/spelling has little to do with intelligence, [no need for the comma] and more to do with education. I have a little resistance to the way English is commonly spelled/abbreviated and to meaning-drift these days, which comes both [where is the 'and'?] from wanting to be privileged in having other people understand me easily [how is this a privilege?], but [and?] also from the loss of what I think are really neat words (if nauseous [needs apostrophes] was still used to describe something that made you feel sick, for example, how much sweeter is that than another synonym for feeling sick?!). [what? one of the worst sentences ever constructed] I’m working on my resistance though, because it’s unfair… :/ [take the speck from your own eye first, oh elite one.]
Reply
Cyn
Jul 04, 2011 @ 23:55:52
Heh, well, I was pretty merciless on this person because she’s been going around making very ignorant comments on both my intelligence and that of my friends’. [don't need the apostrophe-not possessive] [this is slander- I never spoke about your intelligence- you need to LIE to make your point.]
I’ve only recently come to terms with my privilege [OH BROTHER!] with respect to knowing when to use “who” vs. “whom” or “this is she” and not “this is her” or “me” vs. “I.” If someone’s got [you mean 'HAS'] a very articulate, well thought out post/remark and messes one of those things up, I’m probably going to keep my mouth shut [OH, THE BLESSINGS SHE GIVES] because it doesn’t take away from the comment. However, more often than not, [comma not needed- unless you want to connect 'however' with 'such'. one comma after 'however' does the trick!] such a person is one ['such a person is one' WHAT?] who says “no allowed” and “succession” instead of “secession” in the same breath as calling me an unintelligent college kid [LIAR]. [I have to defend myself here. I never said she was 'unintelligent'- I said she was a BRAT!] Then that person is out of luck, because now we’re all aboard the judgement train. Though [ALTHOUGH] sometimes I’ll refrain from telling them about their grammar errors to their face [needs a comma here] because then I’m accused of being petty (which isn’t quite fair [CAUSE SHE IS SO SMART IN COMPARISON] [need another comma here]–it’s definitely fair game to point out someone’s inability to tell the difference between two very different words when that person’s argument hinges upon calling you an idiot [Again, I said BRAT]). [New paragraph]Anyway, where was I? [IN LA-LA LAND!] I’m with you on words–absolutely love them, and love that there are subtle differences between them. I’m a native speaker of Mandarin Chinese as well, and the dearth of synonyms has always disappointed me. [OH, THE MISERY! THE DEARTH OF SYNONYMS!] Take “big” for example–depending on what I want to connote [CONNOTE- as opposed to 'SAY'- talk about Thesaurus ABUSE!], I can say huge, humongous, gigantic, enormous, massive, etc. [Subject?] Don’t have that in Chinese. Of course, there are plenty of other awesome things about the Chinese language, but [why the use of 'but'? You being a vocab-phile negates the awesomeness of the Chinese Language? awkward. Try restructuring.] I’m a vocab-phile [forgot your period] (logophile?)
Jul 06, 2011 @ 20:41:26
me [as opposed to 'my']
‘Me’ is perfectly acceptable. It starts an accusative construction found not only in English (where it may be declining in popularity in favor of adjectival constructions, but it still acceptable under the parameters of the language, especially in the more fixed written English) but Attic and Latin (to name only languages that are known to me and in which it is found).
hir [as opposed to 'her']
‘Hir’ is a gender-neutral equivalent to ‘him’ and ‘her’. Personally, I’m a fan of singular ‘they’ for the gender-neutral pronoun, but it is still an acceptable word, and used in precisely the correct manner.
Concerning commas: Many rules for commas are optional. Saying that there is no need for a comma doesn’t mean a whole hell of a lot. Yes, some uses of commas are ungrammatical, but commas have always been the most grey area in English grammar. Some people use very few. Some people use a lot. Neither philosophy is better than the other.
Apostrophes are not actually necessary when attempting to bring focus to a word. Grammar prescriptivists like to act as if they are, but a simple look at written English in history makes it clear this is not the case.
There is nothing wrong with the sentence internal to the parentheses.
Why are you trying to insert ‘and’ at locations where it is not necessary?
The rest of your stuff essentially degrades into Caps Lock raging and fails to talk about grammar or spelling, instead focusing, on the rare moments when you focus at all, on verb choice. Luckily, English has many different verbs that can be used to portray, demonstrate, or get across similar ideas, so your whining lacks substance there.
All in all, this was a very shoddy attempt at being a grammar prescriptivist.
Jul 07, 2011 @ 00:01:20
“Apostrophes are not actually necessary when attempting to bring focus to a word. Grammar prescriptivists like to act as if they are, but a simple look at written English in history makes it clear this is not the case.”
Yet the whole point of this blog post was that educated people should have to follow prescriptivist rules, or they’re mangling the language and being unintelligible. And that educated people that don’t follow prescriptivist rules should have no opinions on language policy in the U.S.
If you don’t believe that prescriptivist grammar is somehow superior to colloquial/descriptive grammar, then how can you believe that people that don’t follow prescriptive rules should somehow be unworthy of expressing their opinions on subjects? Why is knowledge of prescriptive grammar a requirement to discuss language policy?
Jul 07, 2011 @ 00:25:34
There is prescriptive and there is descriptive. The way I read Cyn’s posting, the third paragraph was an act of self-flagellation concerning prescriptivist tendencies.
The rest I fail to see as similar. Language is for communication. It is subject to change over time, but without losing the ability to communicate ideas. Grammatical errors that entirely muddle the sense of a statement are grammatical errors, with or without the presence of grammarians. Your/You’re, Their/There/They’re, and spelling one word as a completely different word are such errors, as the reader need surmount the writing in order to understand (although it is worth noting that misspelling of words as other words [or even as something not previously a word], over time and spread well through a population can ultimately make it a legitimate sense, which prescriptive grammarians would deny). English, and every other language, has inherent (not immutable) rules that dictate how it is spoken and written. That some non-standard formations are not wrong does not mean I could get away with speaking Object Verb Subject.
Jul 07, 2011 @ 17:18:48
You’re in over your head here.
Jul 06, 2011 @ 22:55:52
Interesting reading but a bit past my simple mind. Sticking to what’s understandable for me:
I’m not sure that education is a privilege. A free education at someone else’s expense is a privilege; an Abraham Lincoln mostly self-education doesn’t seem to me to be a privilege, rather a hard-earned accomplishment. That shifts any resulting responsibilities around some, doesn’t it?
No more am I sure that an educated American these days should have acquired the degree of mastery you have demonstrated and propsed for the use of English. That sets a pretty high standard in a time when the K-12 teaching of English is so demonstrably deficient for so many and any number of college majors emphasize so many things other than nicities of usage of the language. And in looking for typo’s in my prose, kindly note that my deficient vision must be added to any list of my linguistic failures.
The end of this for me is, I suppose, that if someone disagrees with me on some point of common interest, it would seem more productive to point to their errors of fact or conclusions rather than to the-as you say, tangential- matter of usage. Were I an nuclear engineer say, my exegesis thereupon might be poorly phrased grammatically but technically quite correct, nor woudl that be uncommon these days. Gramatical and spelling errors appear even in the local newspaper without reducing the news value.
Thank you for the courtesy of inviting responses!
Jul 07, 2011 @ 00:27:55
@Lasciel: the point, which you missed, is not that educated people need to follow prescriptivist rules, or that they mustn’t have opinions on language policy in the US. The point was hypocrisy. I quote “you absolutely should have a basic command of your language before proclaiming that everyone else needs to learn it first. If you’ve had the privilege of graduating college, and you’re condescending to someone who has not reached that level of education, then you absolutely should be able to converse intelligibly” Please note the qualifiers.
Jul 07, 2011 @ 12:46:21
The point may be hypocrisy, but at least in one case, Cyn has used an analogy that doesn’t hold up. If she had said that people should be bilingual before they tell other people to become so, that would be correct and I might even agree with that (after all, if one has never bothered learning a language to fluency, one wouldn’t know how difficult it can be). When people want others to learn English, most want them to be able to communicate, not to produce some flawless, grammatically perfect sentences.
Your qualifiers just show that you miss *my* point entirely. In the 2nd bit you bolded, Cyn was implying that people that make prescriptive grammar and spelling mistakes are NOT capable of conversing intelligibly. Which just is not true. Just because you don’t know when to use “whom” you are probably not going to have trouble communicating with a grocery clerk. Just because you cannot spell “neighbor” doesn’t mean you can’t have a fine conversation with your neighbor.
Jul 07, 2011 @ 13:05:12
@E: you said it yourself: Language is for communication. It is subject to change over time, but without losing the ability to communicate ideas.. You also said that you can’t get away with speaking Object-Verb-Subject, but if the point of language is communication, then you probably could be understood with it in many instances.If you went into a McDonalds and said “Bic Mac want I. Coca-cola small-sized want I also ” you’d get some funny looks but I get you’d get your little cola and Big Mac, assuming you had money. (You can always try this out if you’d like…
) I don’t know if you could easily discuss nuclear physics that way, but to act as though you’d always be unintelligible because you’ve switched up the word order just isn’t true.
Jul 07, 2011 @ 15:02:37
Only because English retains, to a degree, the declination of pronouns. Try it with normal English nouns.
‘Sally hit Tom’.
‘The dog walked the man.’
‘The Ten Commandments gave God to Moses.’
Doesn’t work so much, outside of a handful of specific cases. Since the best it can do is communicate the same as the standard (which I would argue is still untrue, as those ‘funny looks’ are indications of some [perhaps very small] lack of immediate comprehension), this in the smallest fraction of cases, and since in most other cases it produces something entirely unintelligible, it can never arise in natural language. It is, thus, wrong, without any grammatical authority to proclaim it so.
Jul 07, 2011 @ 19:44:25
“this in the smallest fraction of cases, and since in most other cases it produces something entirely unintelligible, it can never arise in natural language.”
Not true. It may be the rarest of the word order sets, but object-verb-subject occurs naturally in several languages.They make it work, and we could as well. You act as though if everything is not perfectly precise than it is wrong–and yet there are many high-context languages out there where things are often vague or left unsaid. English tends to be very low-context, which is why you seem to expect everything to be spelled out for you. Don’t apply your experiences with English to how all languages work-or even how English can work.
Jul 07, 2011 @ 20:49:36
So you entirely missed the point that I was talking about English, and only English, even though I was quite clear about that in each of my comments?
Thanks, I know about different word orders and different languages. Just because OVS is grammatically sound (or even dominant or standard) in another language does not mean it is grammatically sound in English. It isn’t, and, once more, this rule is naturally belonging to the language (i.e. English). Other languages have rules natural to them that also prohibit certain constructions.
Jul 07, 2011 @ 22:44:23
So you entirely missed the point that I was talking about English, and only English, even though I was quite clear about that in each of my comments?
No where did you make that apparent. So much for the crystal-clear communication that is supposedly a result of strictly following your so-called natural English rules. Then again, it must have been my mistake:
Language is for communication. It is subject to change over time, but without losing the ability to communicate ideas.
I didn’t realize you meant language=English. Though you did say:
English, and every other language, has inherent (not immutable) rules that dictate how it is spoken and written.
Wait, what? I thought you had only written about English, and yet here you are mentioning other languages in your previous statement.. whoops!
Jul 07, 2011 @ 22:45:13
Oh, and this prior comment was in reply to E’s most recent. I guess this blog limits comment-nesting at 4 or 5 responses.