Teacher Discussion Forums

I noticed just now that although Geoffrey Pullum was so very articulate, eloquent and oh so cool in his "Everything is correct" versus "nothing is relevant" Language Log article (which I believe was first mentioned on Dave's here:
http://www.eslcafe.com/forums/teacher/v ... 4434#14434 ),

he and Arnold Zwicky seem to be getting their knickers in a right old twist over 'among the dead in one incident in Iraq today were two American troops'.
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/language ... 01923.html

I can't personally see what the fuss is about. They seem to be forgetting that if we needed to distinguish a group, we could always say [Two squads/platoons/regiments/divisions] of [troops/soldiers/US military personnel] or, indeed, Two dozen/hundred/thousand/?million troops/soldiers; and who's going to confuse this use with that in slogans like 'Support our troops'? What's wrong (confusing) about the new countable use of the (formerly?) plural noun?

Pullum defines a Boy Scout troop but neglects to define what 'a troop of American soldiers in Iraq' is exactly (in fact, he says at the start of his article that 'I'll tell you how that noun (troops) is in my variety of English: it's a plural-only noun that doesn't take cardinal numerals', which is a bit confusing in light of his later "discussion" that I just alluded to ).

Myself, I simply think that the exact number of people killed is what we are seeking to process, and it doesn't really matters whether we call this number soldiers, troops or a whole army of however many thousands of troops I mean soldiers I mean troops . You have to wonder if that Zink guy (mentioned at top of LL article mentioned at first link above) wasn't right about Pullum being a prescriptivist all along, when Pullum is now refusing to accept the usage of NPR, President Bush etc (well OK maybe we should be allowed to quibble with any Bushisms ).

This hardly seems anything like the experience I had in hearing that surgeries (meaning, 'medical operations') is an attested form in American English (it seemed to come as a bit of a surprise to Sidney Landau too, the editor of the Cambridge Dictionary of American English, and author of Dictionaries: The Art and Craft of Lexicography (Second Edition)).

I thought it was very odd that people were not simply using 'operation(s)' - He's gone into hospital for an (a...) operation/?surgery (on his...)/??a surgery > ??He's had five surgeries this year alone. But I would not deny that to say 'a surgery' or 'two surgeries' would be wrong; in fact, it is, when you think about it, quite logical and a good way to cut down on the number of words we need to use (or learn, if ESL students), and presumably the uncountable use is also (still) available in the lexicon of people who use the newer, countable form: Surgery/having a surgery is always dangerous. (That being said, I am glad sometimes to be British ).

Maybe some linguists know their language too well to let it go, to simply let and leave it be?

Apparently people are now also saying things like '100,000 forces', which really does sound rather silly (at least 'soldier' and 'troop' are somewhat "humany"). What is 'one force'? Sounds like an "abstract" concept from a physics textbook!
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/language ... 01929.html

I fail to see wnat you find unusual about Pullum's article.

He came across a usage he had not seen before, and after further research has found it is indeed quite common. Happens all the time.

Stephen Jones wrote:I fail to see wnat you find unusual about Pullum's article.

He came across a usage he had not seen before, and after further research has found it is indeed quite common. Happens all the time.

Well, I don't know, Stephen, maybe the unusual thing was the fact that a guy who'd written a great stonking grammar like the Cambridge one hadn't come across what seemed a fairly widespread usage (wasn't unfamiliar to, and didn't faze me, and I haven't written a grammar). Also, the fact that Pullum used phrases like 'I'll tell you how that noun is in my variety of English: it's a plural-only noun that doesn't take cardinal numerals', and 'I'm not prepared to say there's a mistake on anyone's part involved here, because some of these nouns show a bit of variation, but I'm surprised at the way this is catching on (I believe I have heard the usage from President Bush, which may explain the way journalists are picking it up)', and so on (my bold). Then, there was the fact that Zwicky remarked 'Geoff Pullum complains...', which led me to agree, thought I must admit I concentrated more on Pullum's article than Zwicky's (because I think Pullum is generally the better writer, at least as far as his LL contributions go).

Note also that Pullum has added some blather about "correctness conditions" in his additional notes, like people (yes, reporters are people too) should necessarily always be aware of what the correctness conditions are for the language they might freely use at any point in time. (I personally would prefer a reporter to use what comes naturally and get the news rather than delay through consulting their Cambridge Grammar over every last word, especially when a dealine is looming. This would also have the added bonus of providing linguists with natural rather than always too "polished" data with which to work).

Of course, it is great that linguists are around to make us aware of what the "correctness conditions" might be for a certain population, but I feel in this case Pullum was speaking before he had done much if any research. That is, of course, excusable, if the purpose is just to make up column space or keep the contributions going on a blog, but you could forgive the general reader for wondering if a trace of prescriptivism was creeping into things. An expert might well disagree with me or take me to task, in which case, fine; I too am ultimately just trying to make polite, and, dare I say it, hopefully interesting conversation here. I'm sorry that none of this remotely interested, or was of any surprise to, you at least, Stephen.

I'm afraid that after getting round to reading Pullum, (despite my resolution to spend more time with my Chinese chatrrom buddies!) I also find it all rather mundane.

The two postions are not insane. Only the utterly free-for-all postion is insane, claiming that anything a "native speaker" says (and what is a native speaker, in the end?) must absolutely be correct, that mistakes are impossible.

Prescriptivists, on the other hand, merely try to hold the speakers to a model of speaking which has past its sell by date (although some may occasionally sometimes mistakenly create rules which never were). They do not like to see languages moving on, and the urge to resist that is natural in my view, because growing ignorance of the standard due to a lack of education is sometimes the agent of change. Larry slapped Revel (who was aware of the convention!) for writing "Alright", remember, but because many high school kids do not know that "all right" used to be the norm, they probably usually write "alright". Is Larry being a pedantic old nelly in this case? It is only a matter of opinion - have things gone so far with "alright" that it is now part of standard written English? If nobody risks being a pedantic old nelly, sticking their neck out and saying "this is not the standard!" then there will be no standard English to help a publisher or broadcaster decide what most of the world will be able to understand. Nobody will die due to that, but communication will be more difficult.

In my opinion, British people are more likely to wrinkle their noses at unusual things than Americans, and make a fuss. That is why new coinages like "the winningest team" tend to come from the States, where the prescriptivist sentiment, the slapping down of the initially non-standard creations of the swinish multitude, is less fashionable. British English moves just a little slower.

From my NODE (thought I'd check):

alright adjective, adverb, & exclamation variant spelling of all right.

usage: The merging of all and right to form the one-word spelling alright is not recorded until the end of the 19th century (unlike other similar merged spellings such as altogether and already, which date from much earlier). There is no logical reason for insisting on all right as two words, when other single-word forms such as altogether have long been accepted. Nevertheless it is still considered by many people to be unacceptable in formal writing. In the British National Corpus around 5 per cent of citations for the two forms are for the one-word form alright.

So, yes, Larry is a pedantic old nelly, because it seems to be just a spelling mistake (and one that has probably caught us all out, until such a time as we make a special effort to note the "correct" version, which might differ according to whichever form a person views as being more logical. Me, I'd be tempted to go for "consistency" here).

The above is quite different from e.g. 'maybe' versus 'may be', isn't it.

In my opinion, British people are more likely to wrinkle their noses at unusual things than Americans, and make a fuss. That is why new coinages like "the winningest team" tend to come from the States, where the prescriptivist sentiment, the slapping down of the initially non-standard creations of the swinish multitude, is less fashionable. British English moves just a little slower.

Woodcutter has evidently never crossed swords with a US copy editor, or read Louis Menand, or Swunk or White. I also wonder how many US colleagues he has ever taught with.

The Americans are much more likely to insist on rules that never existed than the British are. Look at Louis Menand's review of Lynn Truss where he accuses her and Frank Field of sloppiness because neither follow the style rules he happens to prefer. I suggest he takes a look over at the job discussion forum where Americans and Canadians insist that "suggested she went" is a British abomination and that I need English lessons from Mexican teachers if I tell my students it is perfectly correct in British English. You can find a fair number of other examples of this kind of prejudice of you look around the forum.

Now America will produce more linguistic innovation, if only because there are so many more speakers of American English, and their innovations will spread much more quickly tnan those of minority national standards. Also there are certain areas, such as turning nouns into verbs, where US English is much more likely to modify than British English. In general however, the oppostion of many British speakers is merely the result of initial unfamiliarity. And in terms of lexicography it is the British who have devised all the corpus based works of reference. Indeed the 'American Heritage Dictionary' is the only American dictionary that even has a usage panel.

British linguists produce "The Cambridge English Grammar" and "A Contemporary Grammar of English", the two standard descriptivist refernce works. The Americans produce the "Chicago Manual of Style". (Mind you the most influential sociolinguists are all American - Labov, Fishman and Ferguson).

The byu site gives 8329 for 'alright' and 637 for 'all right'. Google gives 2,700,000 for 'alright' and 12,900,000 for 'all right'.

A very interesting mismatch.

It is given as a legitimate alternative spelling in the SOED. Merriam Webster says the one word spelling appeared in 1887, 75 years after the two word form had reappeared after a 75 year absence and the "American Heritage Dictionary" says that is is a non-standard form, and suggests that the reason is that it appeared much later than other forms such as altogether or already, which is another way of saying that pedants didn;t rule the roost in late medieval times

Stephen Jones wrote:The Americans are much more likely to insist on rules that never existed than the British are. Look at Louis Menand's review of Lynn Truss where he accuses her and Frank Field of sloppiness because neither follow the style rules he happens to prefer. I suggest he takes a look over at the job discussion forum where Americans and Canadians insist that "suggested she went" is a British abomination and that I need English lessons from Mexican teachers if I tell my students it is perfectly correct in British English. You can find a fair number of other examples of this kind of prejudice of you look around the forum.

You're right, that's an interesting thread (since you got involved on it, anyway!).

Now America will produce more linguistic innovation, if only because there are so many more speakers of American English, and their innovations will spread much more quickly tnan those of minority national standards. Also there are certain areas, such as turning nouns into verbs, where US English is much more likely to modify than British English. In general however, the oppostion of many British speakers is merely the result of initial unfamiliarity.

Yes, BE speakers will probably be more aware of GA norms than vice versa.

And in terms of lexicography it is the British who have devised all the corpus based works of reference. Indeed the 'American Heritage Dictionary' is the only American dictionary that even has a usage panel.

Yes yes yes! It's great to be British sometimes.

British linguists produce "The Cambridge English Grammar" and "A Contemporary Grammar of English", the two standard descriptivist refernce works. The Americans produce the "Chicago Manual of Style". (Mind you the most influential sociolinguists are all American - Labov, Fishman and Ferguson).

What about Biber et al? Surely that is now the descriptivist reference (from a British publisher) - or does a smelly Yank or two heading the list of authors (even though it also includes Mr Annelid Bloodsucking Worm) mean it's automatically disqualified from consideration?

I got the idea (from somewhere, can't remember exactly where) that Lord Quirk was too lazy or doddery to go dust off his actual SEU paper slips - mind you, he probably had enough experience with the data to write a grammar off the top of his head and with his eyes shut (not that he actually did that - he had co-authors for a start to keep him awake and alert).

I used to have a really cheap (licensed!) copy (45 Renminbi, that's under 4 quid) of the CGEL, but due to its size and weight, I had to leave it in China. I should go back sometime and try to pick up another copy...

Four quid for the CGEL is pretty good. I've just paid $160 for it, including shipping, and I'm going to need to get another for Sri Lanka. Let's hope there's a cheaper Indian version.

I've not seen or used the Longman's Grammar. I suppose I'll have to get it sooner or later; I'll see if I can get a cheap Indian version first.

Why are you so against Quirk? His books were the standard for thirty years, and many would still say they are the standard>

Heh I'm not against Quirk...I'm just jealous of him THE B*STARD! That knighthood was mine I tell you, mine!! (for services to Dave's).

Actually Biber et al openly acknowledge the debt they owe to Quirky et al, and the LGSWE is closely based in terms of terminology at least upon the GCEL (apparently - like I say, I left my copy of the latter in China without having had a chance to get that familiar with it. It's certainly a more daunting book than the LGSWE - so I really think you'll enjoy the newer offering from Longman, Stephen! ).

If you think I'm lacking North American company, you don't know much about Korea!

Of course there are several reasons why American English would spread faster than British, and there seems to be a tradition of pernickety columnists stateside. All the same, the average American sportscaster, for example, revels in using popular terminology, more than a British counterpart would. And broadcasting/publishing is the key (notice how Jane Austen, 200 years ago, is very familiar, while Shakespeare, 200 years before her, uses wildly different forms of the language).

Anyway, it's just my hunch, and I was hoping to wind some Americans up, not Mr.Jones!

Further proof that Mr Pullum doesn't know his ass from his elbow (or indeed his butt from his butt-crack):
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/language ... .html#more

Good morning all.

Don't know if I've been stirred up or not. The silly American bashing or Brit bashing that one or the other engages in over linguistic topics is beyond me. It's that silly list of "Differences between British and American English" that some adult students pull out and ask to have defined. This American says "Who cares? You have a lot of other things to concern yourself with without getting caught up in revolutionary rancors." Sometimes it sounds to me like the Brits are still offended at all that wasted tea tossed into Boston harbor and the Yanks are, as usual, insensitive to whatever the Brits might think.

Perhaps it's the monarchy thing. Americans don't have a Queen's English to emulate. We certainly don't want to change our standard every time we change president, taking on the regionalisms for four years, or eight and then learning new ones when a new guy (or gal, watch out for Hillary!) wins the post. A dictionary is only as good as the person using it and the purpose it was intended for. A grammar overview or intense study is only as good as its capacity for making us understand better. Mr Jones certainly could list some respected American linguists or grammarians or dictionary writers. His mentioning of Style books is to be noted, and the existance of so many is the fruit of a general philosophy that splashes onto all aspects of USA life: that anyone can be boss, anyone can make their own rules, and when more than one person begins following those rules then you have a community, a state, a church, a school, a university, a business, a cult....this idea of "freedom" is rapidly being replaced by fear of terrorism and its consequences, so perhaps we will see the standardization of American English "according to Bush", perhaps American English will lose the "freedom" to make nouns verbs or adverbs objects or long-drawn-out vowel sounds complete utterances.

Anyway, though I have lived for years outside of the influence of the USA, voluntarily exiling myself from their adolescent way of looking at reality, I would ask that someone who knows better than I spoke up a bit as well, not to defend the Yanks (god forbid, they have tanks to defend themselves, they don't need grammars or dictionaries) but rather to bring the Brits down a rung.

peace,
revel.

Hmm, revvers, you not feeling yourself today? There hasn't been much, if any, American-bashing on this thread that I can see. SJ's implicit championing of British lexicography is to my mind warranted, and who really takes what Strunk (how long has he been dead now?!) and White at all seriously? (Were you aware of the potential irony when you said (the proliferation of) such books in the US proves that 'anyone can make their own rules (up)'?! LOL.

So, I hope the (us?) Brits can be left in peace near the top rungs of the linguistic ladder.

If the prescritivists anywhere/everywhere could ever deign to follow the crowd, and also sometimes even their own instincts too, then perhaps that 'community' would become more of a reality, at least linguistically)...but I suppose even the prescriptivists are entitled to their ' "freedom" of speech'.

I wouldn't worry about American English becoming too regulated (at least, not in anything other than the PC-sense): the French have their Academememe, but even they can't stop the changes that are taking place in "their" language.