Is it a lexical error?

[William]

1) The function of police is to stop crime.
2) The function of thieves is to commit crime.

How can I categorize this type of error?

[Duncan Powrie]

As the mistake seems to lie in the omission of "the" before "police", I guess most of us would say the error is grammatical, or notional etc, rather than being "lexical" (perhaps because we are accustomed to viewing lexis as being more about "content" words, drawn from "open" classes - where there would be more room for inappropriate choice(?) etc).

Ultimately we are talking about (native-speaker?) linguistic FACTS, and to omit "the" before police serves no useful purpose here and merely serves to distract, and is possibly due to the writer (?) "avoiding" or not knowing such linguistic facts.

We can of course divide and "count" the monolothic institution of the police e.g. "(The) 10 policemen/women/officers (who) were injured" (putting the officers into a relative clause serves to put them back into a set, vs. other sets!!) or, "Police forceS".

Maybe students who become familiar with these kind of examples will see why the "the" is necessary (=serves a useful function) in a "corrected" version, and come to realize that the morphology of "police" vs "thief/thieves" is the limiting factor and reason.

[lolwhites]

I have heard the term "police" used as shorthand for "police officers", as in two police came round, or in newspaper headlines (e.g. Car bomb kills two police in Northern Spain - The Guardian) but I wouldn't recommend putting it in an essay!

The function of thieves is to commit crime sounds very odd to me. It seems to imply that thieves have some sort of official contract/job description which specifies that they have a duty to commit crime. Grammatically, it's hard to think of a rule that's being broken, but lexically it's a mess. In fact, I'm not too sure about giving a person a "function" - it seems very impersonal to me.

[Duncan Powrie]

Good point about "Two police came round", Lollypops - we can add "men" or "officers" etc, or assume they will be understood if we don't mention them explicitly! I guess William would prefer to have this kind of grammatical error pointed out...

I agree with you totally about the thieves sentence sounding odd, but whilst it is lexically a mess, is it an actual "(lexical) error"? We can understand what is being "said", especially since it mirrors, complements and contrasts with the "police" sentence. If somebody actually wrote or said these sentences, maybe they were seeking stylistic "balance" or something?

But I guess you are ultimately right about the semantics involved: institutions have functions, but there is something fundamentally odd and anti-humanistic about saying individual (thieves) have (or should have) a function or role to play.

[Stephen Jones]

Both sentences are perfectly correct. They are counterbalanced, wittily.

NOw, it is also possible that the elegance and wit were arrived at mistakenly, but let's give the guy the benefit of the doubt.

[lolwhites]

I would say that the sentence The function of thieves is to commit crime is wrong in the same way as Chomsky's famous sentence Colourless green ideas sleep furiously. Gramatically it's fine, and in a specialist context it might be OK, but I feel there's some sort of semantic clash going on with function and thieves.

In the context of a society where the headline Thief required to commit crime is not a typical advertisement in the Situations Vacant column of the local newspaper (at least not in mine, thankfully), the sentence The function of thieves is to commit crime seems unnatural to me. I suppose a sociologist or criminologist writing about Deviancy Theory for a specialist journal might say it, though.

[LarryLatham]

I'm with Stephen on this one. Chomsky's sentence is nonsense (just as he meant it to be) because of the juxtaposition of opposing concepts.

William's sentences above are completely sensible to me. And I quite agree with Stephen's assessment that they counter each other in a witty way.

What may be bothering you, lolwhites, is that you see "function" as something applied for a 'positive' purpose, whereas others of us apply it on a broader scale, allowing for more sinister employments.

Larry Latham

I have a feeling, though, that William originally posted thinking that there was an error here to be corrected. He may be unsatisfied with those of us who find his sentences totally acceptable. It will be interesting to read his reaction to all of this.

[lolwhites]

It's not that I take "function" to mean a "positive purpose"; after all, the function of a landmine is to kill or maim people but that doesn't strike me as very positive. I see its meaning more as something along the lines of "job" or "role" but I wouldn't tie it to a person with a name. I'd be very put out if my boss told me my "function" was to teach; it'd make me sound like a robot. If she told me it was my "job", it'd sound better to me (though it would hardly come as a revelation!). We can talk about the "function" of the President or Prime Minister, but doesn't that refer more to the offices themselves than George W Bush or Tony Blair personally?

As for The function of thieves is to commit crime , to me it conjours up images of someone saying "Come on! You're a thief! Go commit a crime! NOW!" Possible, but weird and probably not what the speaker intended to say. What does it actually mean to you? Can someone contextualise it for me?

Come to think of it The function of police is to stop crime doesn't convince me either. THE police would be fine (as in the institution, not an individual called PC Plod), but police? Maybe that's why I have doubts about the function of thieves, as they have yet to be institutionalised in a professional capacity (current US and UK administrations notwithstanding )

William -if you're reading this, can you let us know what you were trying to say with those sentences?

[William]

I just want to verify that the word 'function' should imply something positive or constructive. For example, it is alright to say, "The function of the red blood cells is to transport oxygen." But it is awkward to say, "The function of the cancer cells is to kill other good cells."

William

[WWW]

You're right, William !

The word "function" does seem to be misapplied.

It should not be used unless referring to a

thing that was DELIBERATELY CREATED or instituted for a useful purpose.

(useful in the eyes of its creator )


Things like Cancer and Criminals are not created. They are more like

mishaps.

Hope this helps.

[Stephen Jones]

For example, it is alright to say, "The function of the red blood cells is to transport oxygen." But it is awkward to say, "The function of the cancer cells is to kill other good cells."

Of course we're suffering from anthropomorphism here. Red blood cells are not created by a higher body, and the fact their carrying oxygen is an act of symbiosis that enables the organism (and thus the blood cells) to survive is no more purposeful than the fact that cancer cells kill the host and thus themselves.

To go back to an earlier poster the word function, normally implies a creator and a purpose. The insititution of the police was created to do something, whereas apparently criminals are individual elements who act off their own bat.

However there are many who will maintain in fact, that thieves play their role in society's elaborate game exactly as police do, and that every society defines its own outcasts. After all, if there weren't any thieves, then the police would have no one to arrest or ask for bribes off, so their very raison d'ètre would disappear.

I suspect the second sentence was a mistake, but it does (if accidentally) make a very valid observation.

[lolwhites]

Exactly, Steven. This goes back to my earlier post when I said "I suppose a sociologist or criminologist writing about Deviancy Theory for a specialist journal might say it".

[Stephen Jones]

Actually in 1872 the British Administration of India passed a law called the Criminal Tribes law, which allowed the administration to declare whole tribes criminal.

The argument the rulers of the Raj gave was that as there were tailor castes, and warrior castes, and barber castes, and fisherman castes and
Brahmin castes, then Hinduism obviously must have provided for criminal castes.

This blot on the statute book was not repealed until 1952.

[LarryLatham]

So it appears that the best answer to William's query might be: it depends. It depends on the intent of the language user. If his (or her) intention is to imply that thieves have a "role" in whatever scenario is under discussion, he may quite correctly and illuminatingly say something like, "The function of thieves is to..."

"Is it correct?" is the wrong question. The matter of correctness is not the central issue here.

The function of English teachers is to provide guidance to learners of English.

Larry Latham

[lolwhites]

William said "I just want to verify that the word 'function' should imply something positive or constructive". I think we've demonstrated that that's not necessarily the case. We've also shown that in certain contexts, his examples could be correct. How often, when a student asks you if a given sentence is correct, do you end up replying "It depends what you're trying to say"? Or, when trying to correct a student, how often do you have to ask "What are you trying to say?" before telling them what the correct sentence would be? In my experience, quite a lot, especially at Advanced levels.

Not sure about WWW's explanation that "It should not be used unless referring to a thing that was DELIBERATELY CREATED or instituted for a useful purpose". William's example of the function of the red blood cells is to transport oxygen is fine in my English, although they weren't deliberately created (with all due respect to Creationists). They do, however, have a specific purpose/job/role.

The function of people who post too often on message boards is to....