Two surgeries for two troops

[Stephen Jones]

Why fluffy hamster has chosen the article as an excuse to make a gratuititous attack on Pullum is beyond me.

I also don't really follow revel's follow up. Prescriptivists in the UK are in a defensive minority, and associations such as that for the defense of the Queens English are treated as midly absurd examples of British eccentricity.

In the US the same so-called rules are treated seriously and taught by many High School teachers who should know better, and if you want top marks on the SATS you have to play a guessing game about the examiners' prejudices. The idea that anybody can make up their own rules is no doubt American; as it is also grounded in American tradition that they can then abuse their position of power to force all others in their community to follow them, regardless (and irregardless ) of whether the rule actually has any backing in the corpus.

It is in the US that attacks on your individual linguistic freedom are much stronger, and have been so for over eighty years, pre-dating McCarthey as well as Bush (and being just as prevalent or even more so amongst so-called 'liberals' as amongst the traditionalists).

[fluffyhamster]

I'd hardly say what I wrote was a "gratuitous attack", Stephen. I was simply intrigued by how somebody who had written such an interesting LL article ("Everything is correct" versus "nothing is relevant", which we both alluded to in the 'Why do we teach prescriptive grammar?' thread) could then go on to use quite foreceful language (see the bold higlighting I used in quotes on the page 1 of this here thread) condemning what is almost certainly an attested and acceptable usage...not that I particularly want to bring Mr P to task over this, or anything else, for that matter; it's just, when he is being humorous, you can tell, and he didn't seem amused but rather irritated by the "errant" usage he'd come across. (You still don't see a slight contradiction in all that, Dr Jones?).

Basically, I wrote the thread because I am interested primarily in how the language is used, in how it changes over time, and in how people conceptualize things; I'm not really interested in how people think language is or should be like, and this disinterest (uninterest?) extends even to the views of prominent linguists, even if I might seem to be dishing them sometimes when I choose to use their observations as a springboard for some of my own.

[Stephen Jones]

I fail to see how he's condemming the usage. Perhaps you could read the article again and try and explain what leads you to that conclusion.

[fluffyhamster]

I don't have time right now to re-read the article, but let's suppose you're right and Pullum isn't quite "condemning" the usage. What, then, would you say he was trying to say exactly or imply about it, Stephen?

If he wasn't muttering dark things about (decrying? bemoaning?) it then perhaps the whole usage should've been allowed to pass without any comment at all (or, at least without comments or insinuations of the sort that Pullum seemed, to me anyway, to be making).

Anyway, I'll re-read the article soon and tell you if my "reading" of it has changed since the time I first read it, though I doubt if it will have that much (but who knows, I could've missed something that you didn't, or totally misunderstood it all, Stephen - that happens sometimes with most people ).

By the way, I'd just like to say for the record that in resurrecting this thread with my "Further proof" post (towards the end of page 1), I was being decidedly tongue-in-cheek: I respect Pullum and enjoyed his "butt-crack" article a lot.

[revel]

Good morning all.

I have to admit that when there is irony floating about in the atmosphere I am sometimes transported back to the ninth grade classroom where Mrs Lindsey tried to get us to understand such concepts as irony or faith as reflected in English literature (Charles D¡ckens and Shakespeare, not Hawthorn and Faulkner). And when people from the UK speak to me, I'm not always sure what they mean. However, though my use of "bashing" was perhaps extreme, as no one was bashing no one else, I quote the following sentences that sound oh-so-much like someone looking down their nose at someone else:

"British people are more likely to wrinkle their noses at unusual things than Americans, and make a fuss." (Britbashing)

"The Americans are much more likely to insist on rules that never existed than the British are." (Yankbashing)

"....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." (Britbashing/Yankbashing/Canadabashing) (even Mexicanbashing!)

"And in terms of lexicography it is the British who have devised all the corpus based works of reference." (Is this really true? Have the Americans done absolutely no corpus based investigation? In this case, they deserved to be bashed with this The British have devised all while the Americans only have one dictionary with 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)." (Ooo, Ahh, how wonderful those British linguists, how short-sighted those Americans -- who aren't even linguists, the advisory board of the Chicago Manual of Style only lists one person as being part of the Department of English of the University of Chicago....are we comparing bananas and apples here?)

Etc etc....I also am hard on Americans, and I am hard on Brits and I am hard on myself and sometimes hard on others here. Perhaps I am not reading your irony correctly, but it does indeed seem as if the Brits have done all of the important and useful work in Linguistics while those Yanks, well, we know what they are capable of....Leaving out their accomplishments in the field does not mean that they have not contributed.

peace,
revel.

[Stephen Jones]

The point I am making revel is that you are using the wrong stereotypes when you say British authorities are formal over language, and permickity over grammar correctness, whilst the Americans are more laid back and prepared to accept the language as is.

The truth is the opposite. The British are much sloppier with punctuation than Americans are (this is partly because they don't accept some of the 'rules' American authorities insist on , but also simply because we are genuinely sloppy). You will never be penalized in a British exam for splitting an infinitive, or using a plural verb after 'neither ... nor' , or using singular 'their'. or using 'which' and 'who' in non-restirctive clauses, all of which are considered sins when you take your SATS, even though they are as correct in American usage as they are in British usage. And the idea of a house style for publishers seems strange to the British. If a publisher wants to make rules about what should be written or not, why doesn't he write the books himself?

If anybody in the UK said that the Oxford Guide to English Usage was the work of the devil, and should be spurned by any person who wanted to form part of literate society, we would consider him mildly demented, yet you will see the same comments from Americans about Merriam Websters in the book reviews on Amazon.

My comments should be taken as a reaction to yours. You are accusing the British of the sins of the Americans and vice-versa. It is true

[revel]

Good evening.

No, I musn't be feeling myself, here I am rebutting again.

"....you are using the wrong stereotypes when you say British authorities are formal over language, and permickity over grammar correctness, whilst the Americans are more laid back and prepared to accept the language as is. "

If that is what was understood in my contributions, I was certainly writing in a totally unclear fashion.

The examples given in my second post might just be stereotypes, but they are not mine, rather, they are comments made by others on this thread. My personal experience has been working with British teachers who complain because a book uses an Americanism rather than the "correct" British word. Maybe those teachers I have met were just boors. Maybe I'm the boor. I can't argue with anything that Mr Jones says, except perhaps to point out that some of his comments seem rather generalizations, though generally true, full of exceptions. My brain tends to turn off when a sentence begins with something like "The truth is...."

"My comments should be taken as a reaction to yours. You are accusing the British of the sins of the Americans and vice-versa. It is true"

Not quite sure what is meant there, but in an effort to clear up misunderstandings, I mean to say that all sides engage in sinful behavior, sometimes the sin is the same, sometimes its different. That's all.

peace,
revel.

[woodcutter]

Yes. Those are my sins. Revel is innocent.

[Stephen Jones]

My personal experience has been working with British teachers who complain because a book uses an Americanism rather than the "correct" British word. Maybe those teachers I have met were just boors

Obviously.

What we have here are two stereotypes.

The first is the stereotype that the British look down on American usage because they have a fixed idea of what is correct, and the Americans use slang all the time and Americans are more inventive, and the second, diametrically oppoosed stereotype is that the British couldn't care less about punctutation or correct grammar, whilst the Americans are upholding standards against a tsunami of eurotrash. The first stereotype is more common, and those that propose the second stereotype (such as Brian Garner who wrote "The Oxford Book of American Usage" and myself in this thread) tend to be more apologetic about it.

I suspect you are reacting to the first stereotype rather than the second, which is causing us to be at cross-purposes.

[woodcutter]

The second stereotype is not a stereotype at all, but something you and one or two other language mavens seem to believe in an idiosyncratic way. That's why Revel finds it hard to swallow, I suppose.

Anyway, being pernickety about the small stuff is a sign of lack of education, and accusing Americans of that is just another insult really.

By the way, I must emphasize once again how warped is the impression that the people here have of mainstream British English teachers. Such people gain their positions by waffling about Shakespeare. Most of them have never been within 100 yards of a modern linguistics book. It gets on my nerves that English majors are favored for TEFL jobs over us judicious historians.