Job Discussion Forums

[Deconstructor]

[some waygug-in]

I was just a funnin' ya.

[Deconstructor]

[some waygug-in]

Yer dern tootin' 'n let that bee a leasion unto the pygmy runts asses
outta yondern.

Niverr in mu wildernest dreemz did u thunk it shudda ottar beans sowed.

[High Plains Drifter]

[Stephen Jones]

[Stephen Jones]

With regard to the original post HPD is correct. It is a British/American distinction. The "American Heritage Dictionary" doesn't give the Britsh form, and the SOED doesn't give the American form.

[Deconstructor]

[dmb]

[Deconstructor]

[High Plains Drifter]

Stephen,

I�m amused thinking of the shudders of disgust your citation of the"American" Heritage Dictionary must have caused around the world, especially in Australia. Since when are we given credit for knowing anything about the language? I just completed a full inventory of my imagination, and while I did discover a disturbing number of figments, I�m not convinced that this is one of them. I agree that there certainly are many old wives� tales when it comes to grammar and usage�not splitting infinitives and not ending a sentence with a preposition, for example. But dictionaries are not the final arbiters of what is correct or incorrect�they describe rather than prescribe. Because a lot of people say something does not make it correct. If it did, we would have to accept as correct irregardless, snuck, chomping at the bit, I could care less, I�m adverse to, the book is entitled and nape of the neck. Egad.

[Stephen Jones]

[some waygug-in]

Isn't this another one of those ... it depends .... kind of things?

Like ..... She has a lot of hair. (a full head of hair)

Or........ The hairs on your head are numbered. (somewhere in the Bible)

cheers

[High Plains Drifter]

[Stephen Jones]

Dear HPD

If you submitted a resume containing the juvenile misapprehensions you are expounding here I probably would throw it out :)

Let's go through the points one by one.

First the "anything goes" strawman. Geoffrey Pullum answers that one much better than I can. Here's the link.http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/001843.html

Now let's go into details.
[list]Spelling is arbitrary and fixed, and so your examples of misspellings of separate and definitely don't count. The use of 'could of' as opposed to 'could have' may come into this category or it may come into the next.
The fact that millions of speakers use a construction means it is grammatically correct in their variety of English, which may not be the same as standard English. Thus double negatives are considered to be typical of non-educated varieties of English, and "I seen" is probably both a feature of a non-educated dialect used in limited geographical regions. Incidentally a large proportion of those Google hits would be entirely grammatical since they would be for constructions such as "have I seen".
It is not I who says "could care less" is the same as "couldn't care less"; it is Merriam Webster. Should I ignore its authority for that of a poster who doesn't even divulge his name and identifies himself by a poster for a Hollywood Western?

Unfortunately it is not a question of just saying anythng goes. It requires research and judgement, and some reading both of modern descriptive grammars and the general theory of social linguistics. This is unfortunately harder than simply deciding "correctness" on the basis of some inadequate set of rules you were given at school, probably from an English teacher who was merely repeaiting another inadequate set of prejudices he had received when he was at school.