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[Sashadroogie]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17762034

[johnslat]

Dear Sasha,

This pretty much sums up the reality:

"The rules are, there are no rules
Don't let someone misusing a word ruin your day, says George Lakoff, a professor of linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley. "These ideas of rules came about in the 19th Century, when there were rich people who wanted to know how to talk better and other people who decided they wanted to make money teaching them," he says.

Though it's useful to have understood definitions for clarity's sake, if the masses decide that a word has a common meaning, that's what the word means - no matter what the elite say. (At least in the US and the UK; France has an academy dedicated to codifying language).

There is value, says Geoff Nunberg, in pointing out misconceptions and explaining the definitions of some words - for instance the difference between literally and figuratively. "That's a process of becoming conscious of the language," he says. "It's a useful distinction." At a certain point, purists do need to cede lost causes, understanding that language is constantly evolving."


I already tell my classes to forget about "whom"

Who/Whom Whom is on the way to becoming as archaic as "thou" or "thee", says John McIntyre, the night editor at the Baltimore Sun newspaper. It was his letter to the AP that prompted the change to "hopefully". "It's pretty much gone in spoken English and is increasingly abandoned in written English. You can see how precarious it is because when people use it, they often misuse," he says. "Increasingly it makes sense not to bother."

http://www.gocomics.com/pearlsbeforeswine/2012/04/07


Interesting article - thanks for posting.
Regards,
John

[johntpartee]

I'm peeved. Disinterested should NOT mean not interested. I will NEVER accept this. Uninterested would be easier to take. Would still make me cringe, but the other one nauseates me.

[johnslat]

Dear johntpartee,

It's abundantly clear that you are NOT a disinterested commenter - nor are you uninterested.

How about "whom" - where do you stand on "whom?" (which is a pretty funny sentence.)

Regards,
John

[johntpartee]

When "who" is used incorrectly in print, it bugs me a little. Less so when spoken.

[johnslat]

Dear johntpartee,

Ah - me, too (or should that be "I, also?") How about "less people," which seems to be the choice of more and more people. Is "fewer" doomed?

Regards,
John

[johntpartee]

Hope not. "Less people"? EEEEWWW!!!!

[Glenski]

"Hopefully" is practically gone from spoken English??? Since when? I hear it a lot.

[johnslat]

Dear Glenski,

Hopefully, "hopefully" has many, many more years of life left. It's not that "hopefully" is disappearing; it's that the "incorrect usage" (which may well be the one that you hear a lot) is being "approved."

"The editors of the Associated Press (AP) Stylebook announced that after careful consideration, they had changed the usage rules for the word "hopefully".

The AP Stylebook is one of the premier guides for American writers and copy-editors, and its rules dictate how the vast majority of newspapers and magazines use words, phrases, grammar and punctuation.

Before the change, "hopefully" could only be used to mean "in a hopeful manner". ("Is dinner ready?" she asked hopefully.) Now, it can also take the more modern meaning, "it is hoped". (Hopefully, dinner will be ready soon).

Though the AP Stylebook is primarily used in the US, the question of what words can be used in which ways is a universal one. The debate about proper ways to use the English language occurs wherever English is read, written or spoken.

The use of "hopefully" is no longer as controversial as it once was, there exists no shortage of words that trigger arguments amongst language formalists."

Hopefully, this will give "hopefully" a new lease on life .

Regards,
John

[johnslat]

And the counter-attack begins ( I LOVE this article)

"The barbarians have done it, finally infiltrated a remaining bastion of order in a linguistic wasteland. They had already taken the Oxford English Dictionary; they had stormed the gates of Webster�s New World College Dictionary, Fourth Edition. They had pummeled American Heritage into submission, though she fought valiantly � she continues to fight! � by including a cautionary italics phrase, �usage problem,� next to the heretical definition.

Then, on Tuesday morning, the venerated AP Stylebook publicly affirmed (via tweet, no less) what it had already told the American Copy Editors Society: It, too, had succumbed. �We now support the modern usage of hopefully,� the tweet said. �It is hoped, we hope.�

Previously, the only accepted meaning was: �In a hopeful manner.� As in, � �Surely you are joking,� the grammarian said hopefully.�

This is no joking matter.

�We batted this around, as we do a lot of things, and it just seemed like a logical thing to change,� says David Minthorn, the deputy standards editor of the Associated Press. �We�re realists over at the AP. You just can�t fight it.�

The reaction online was swift. Small, yes � but swift.

�Some have said that Strunk would excoriate us,� Minthorn says.

No! Not . . . not William Strunk Jr., beloved and deceased co-author of �The Elements of Style.� Not Him!

Yes, Him.

�Of course, I love that book,� Minthorn says regretfully.

For decades, �hopefully� has been caught in a struggle, a pillaged territory occupied by two opposing camps. �It has the longest run of controversy,� says Ben Yagoda, a writing professor and author of �When You Catch an Adjective, Kill It.� �It�s just become a symbol of this kind of argument.�

You know these kinds of arguments. You know them well. Linguistic battlefields are scattered with the wreckage left behind by Nauseated vs. Nauseous, by Healthy vs. Healthful, by the legions of people who perpetuated the union between �regardless� and �irrespective,� creating a Frankensteinian hybrid, �irregardless.�

These are the battles that are fought daily between Catholic school graduates, schooled in the dark arts of sentence diagramming and self-righteousness, and their exasperated prey. They are fought between prescriptivists, who believe that rules of language should be preserved at any cost, and descriptivists, who believe that word use should reflect how people actually talk.

�It was an unconscious mistake,� say the descriptivists.

�You mean subconscious.�

�Well, anyways � �

�You mean anyway.�

�That begs the question. Why do you care about grammar so much?�

�No. It doesn�t! It doesn�t beg the question at all. It raises the question. It raises the question!�

�I�m going to beat you subconscious.�

It�s never about the words so much as about the world view � about believing in either the power of order or the inevitability of chaos, about the need for preservation or the need for progress. Prescriptivists are defenders of a dying faith, helicopter parents trying to keep the language in baby shoes while its feet are still growing.

As long as there have been words, words have changed. Our modern language is a mishmash of migrated semantics, full of uses that have drifted over centuries. Diligent grammarians might know that �momentarily� most correctly means �for a moment,� not �in a moment� � but do they realize that �explode� originally meant �reject,� that �handsome� once meant �easy to handle,� that �ludicrous� once meant �frivolous�? In the 1940s, it was considered vulgar to �contact� someone; respectable people knew that the correct use was �to make contact with.�

�There are terms that become shibboleths � markers of education and social class,� says John McIntyre, the Baltimore Sun editor and language blogger who was behind the �hopefully� push. � �Hopefully� is one of those. It was a harmless little adverb poking along for years and years� until people decided that it had to really mean something. Something beyond either �in a hopeful manner� or �it is hoped.�

Hopefully, a peace treaty will be reached regarding this new development.

After all, �English was created by barbarians, by a rabble of angry peasants,� McIntyre says. �Because if it wasn�t, we would still be speaking Anglo-Saxon.� Or worse, French.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/aps-approval-of-hopefully-symbolizes-larger-debate-over-language/2012/04/17/gIQAti4zOT_story.html




Regards,
John

[DebMer]

Heh heh! Love the article!