This is just like the languages thread, except it's in English.

I dont think I've ever heard of anyone using the word 'addicting' in place of 'addictive'. Doesn't sound right really.

Lazy grammar...

what's your position?  If you recognize that prescriptive grammar is a myth, why do you still use words like "proper" or "grammatically correct"?

Let me lay it out for everybody.  There IS NO external standard by which grammar can be judged to be "technically correct."  ANYONE who tells you there is is being fooled.  Every single usage book telling you English sentences shouldn't end in prepositions and things like that is a pack of lies.  That "rule," as an example, as well as the split infinitive "rule," was made up out of whole cloth by Robert Lowth in 1762.  All these rules are just academic fabrications.  They don't have anything to do with English.  Free your mind.  As a professional linguist, it always pisses me off when I see people arguing about grammar.

 

Originally posted by canned eggs:
Lazy grammar...

what's your position?  If you recognize that prescriptive grammar is a myth, why do you still use words like "proper" or "grammatically correct"?

Let me lay it out for everybody.  There IS NO external standard by which grammar can be judged to be "technically correct."  ANYONE who tells you there is is being fooled.  Every single usage book telling you English sentences shouldn't end in prepositions and things like that is a pack of lies.  That "rule," as an example, as well as the split infinitive "rule," was made up out of whole cloth by Robert Lowth in 1762.  All these rules are just academic fabrications.  They don't have anything to do with English.  Free your mind.  As a professional linguist, it always pisses me off when I see people arguing about grammar.

So where can we get standards if we're not allowed to use ones that are made up? Considering that made up describes all language, how are we supposed to communicate coherently without a set of universally held forms?

I agree that "grammatically correct" is a misnomer, but "proper" really isn't. Propriety has never been a scientific absolute; it changes as the culture that holds it evolves.

Bi yerr argyoomint, therr shood bee no speling standerds eetherr, sints weer aparentli supozed to "free our minds". Az long az the poeent getz acroz, hoo kairs abowt speling? Itz al maed up aneewai.

Unfortunately I don't have the most current Oxford Unabridged dictionary, although I COULD use a new one because my dictionary is from the early nineties.

 

Originally posted by Pikka Bird:
Well, if the TV show caused someone to be addicted to something else, then 'addicting' would be perfectly valid. But was this what we were trying to get across in the first place?

No, the point that was trying to be made was that the TV show in and of itself was addictive, therefore addicting is the incorrect word to use.

 

Originally posted by LAN.gnome:
  So where can we get standards if we're not allowed to use ones that are made up? Considering that made up describes all language, how are we supposed to communicate coherently without a set of universally held forms?

I agree that "grammatically correct" is a misnomer, but "proper" really isn't. Propriety has never been a scientific absolute; it changes as the culture that holds it evolves.

Bi yerr argyoomint, therr shood bee no speling standerds eetherr, sints weer aparentli supozed to "free our minds". Az long az the poeent getz acroz, hoo kairs abowt speling? Itz al maed up aneewai.

1) Don't argue with me.

2) Don't use spelling as a straw man.  Spelling is externally standardized.

3) There are standards for "correctness" in language.  Everyone knows "Me want hat the" isn't English.  These standards are internal.  Part of knowing a languages is having a set of intuitions about what's in it and what isn't.  Trying to impose external standards made up by dictionary writers and pundits means a) breaking the internal rules that already exist in English, like "you can end a sentence with a preposition," and b) making the (errant) claim that verifying whether or not something is part of the English language involves reference to language-external facts.  This is the first thing you learn if you study linguistics, and why they don't teach people linguistics in schools is beyond me.

 

Originally posted by aslate:
The point is, if there are rules, where do they end? It was determined by some person that you can't end sentences with infinitives, ok then, that's the way it should have technically been done. But since languages change and evolve, rules can be added and subtracted. Now with that split-infinitives rule as an example, it may be grammatically correct, but if that's in common usage, then the rule is null and void. The rule may exist because no-one's removed it, but if no-one follows it, then who cares? It's like those stupid laws that have never been revoked, they just sit there and are never applied.

That is not the point at all.  Are you paying attention?  The rule against splitting infinitives is bullshit, that can't just be determined by some person, that's not the way it technically should have been done, it's not grammatically correct, and any pretension to invent any such rule is equally facile.

 

Originally posted by Squeaky:
Whats really funny when people start saying "lol" in everyday situations like my friend started doing. It was so funny seeing someone going "lol" everytime he wanted to laugh... what a loser.

haha. poor Jeff.

 

Originally posted by FilthyCrab:
If, on the other hand, the language is changing in order to be cooler (i.e. ghetto-ization or adopting sk8ter-kid-speek), I would suggest this is a bad change and should be avoided.

Fo Shizzle, b01.

The English Language is on the verge of fragmentation in many ways. Many people seem to be trying to reinvent it in the style of their own particular subculture. Most people make up their own wordage for some thing, at some point, for some reason or other. All people communicate at differing levels... and it seems that only those able to communicate on the more intelligent levels would keep their language pure. Not that it's only idiots who go around saying things like "Fo Shizzle", and "w00t, I am teh 1337!" Sadly, we all fall into this trap at some stage or other.

The main problem is ignorance. The stupid people actually believe that they are using a legitimate extension of our language. For example, try telling a moron that the sentence "We where going to the pub." contains a spelling error. 

In the long run, intelligence will prevail, and stupidisms will die out. Only to be replaced by more stupidisms.

It's just annoying that we have to suffer the current flock of stupidisms whilst they are present.

Hmmm. This should probably go in the Rant Thread. I'll link to it from there.

 

Originally posted by canned eggs:
 1) Don't argue with me.

Oh, blow out your ass.  We do plenty of arguing here about subjects we're not experts in; why should this be any different?

 

Originally posted by canned eggs:
2) Don't use spelling as a straw man.  Spelling is externally standardized.

Obviously. What I'm asking is why external standardization by a small group of intelligentsia is acceptable in one case and not another. Nothing you've said has clarified that.

 

Originally posted by canned eggs:
3) There are standards for "correctness" in language.  Everyone knows "Me want hat the" isn't English.  These standards are internal.  Part of knowing a languages is having a set of intuitions about what's in it and what isn't.

If I'm guilty of setting up a straw man, you're certainly guilty of making some sweeping generalizations here. Everyone has some innate knowledge of a languages correctness? Bullshit.

First off, syntax varies wildly from language to language; nobody has an innate understanding of all of them. You know the one you were taught. It gets so ingrained into you that even the very order of concepts in a sentence in a foreign language is confusing.

Secondly, if everybody has this grammar intuition, why do so many people talk like fools? Because they're (a) uneducated, or (b) ignorant. It's a failure to absorb of be exposed to external knowledge of a language's nuances that's the root of the problem.

 

Originally posted by canned eggs:
I'm sure your graduate degree in linguistics is from just as reputable an institution as mine, so I won't challenge your credentials, professor.

I never said I had one. That doesn't deny me the right to argue my opinion, no matter how ill-informed, ignorant, and incorrect it may be. Since most high schools, mine included, don't offer anything in the way of linguistics courses, I simply have no way of knowing whether or not what you say is accurate (the internet isn't the greatest respect-building forum). I don't have the education or experience; if I get some, maybe my opinion will change. But in the meantime...

You stink
LAN.gnome's great
Deal with it   

Edit: Besides, if I'm going to be debating, I'd much rather be the less-informed one. It's more of a challenge, more satisfying, and I even stand a chance of actually learning something.

 

Originally posted by canned eggs:
Two books I recommend on the subject are Steven Pinker's The Language Instinct and Mark Baker's Atoms of Language.  These really ought to be high school level textbooks, in a just universe.  Get all that bullshit out of people's heads.

If they're accessable to a newcomer, I'll hunt those down and get what I can from them. Honest. I love the application of language (a Journalism major ought to); I just don't know anything about the science of it.

At least you finally found a use for your fancy degree, eggie.

 

Originally posted by VelourFog:
It's a cartoon message board, not a graduate thesis.

Oh yeah...  Well, speak for yourself.
 

Originally posted by VelourFog:
At least you finally found a use for your fancy degree, eggie.

Yeah, I find I have to clean less gunk out of the mouse if I don't put it right on the desk.

Canned Eggs, you're great. I wish I had taken more linguistics classes than I did. That topic's always fascinated me.

There's a reason I'm the Spelling Nazi and not the Grammar Nazi, and there's always some smartass trying to trip me up who will say something along the lines of "Oh yeah, you think you're so great? Well, YOU JUST ENDED YOUR SENTENCE WITH A PREPOSITION!" That's a big pet peeve of mine.

Also annoying are the people who, in a botched attempt to appear more intelligent, misapply some grammatical 'rule' they think they heard somewhere that goes against all conventions of the language. An example of this:

John went to the circus with Jane and I yesterday.

Why would anybody say something like that? Even if you aren't familiar enough with English grammar to be able to explain the difference between the subject of a sentence and the object of a preposition, it should still sound totally wrong to you if English is your native language. But I see that kind of thing often.

There's evidence that natural language is context-free. 

And KAH, my point is, if it sounds bad to a native speaker, it's not "correct."  Some pundit can't just tell you how your own language works.  For me, "snuck" sounds better than "sneaked,"  but I think both of them sound OK.  Like "dived" and "dove."

It's incorrect to use "scared" in a sentence such as "I was scared."  The grammatically correct sentence is "I was frightened."  You scare a person, you do not get scared.

It is one of my many duties of life to get the word 'spermulate' into the dictionary and everyday use. Spread the word and say it proudly in place of any nouns, verbs, adverbs, adjetives that could use a little sperming up.

 

Originally posted by M0le:
It is one of my many duties of life to get the word 'spermulate' into the dictionary and everyday use.

In order to help you with your goal, could you please give us an example of a good time to use this word?

Thanks DrThunder88, now I feel strangely enlightened.