Re: On prescriptions and misunderstanding: was can/may

MJR = Mark J. Reed (me)
SC = Sally Caves

SC> Heh heh heh!  Thanks, Mark.  Alignment indeed.  :) I think when we all start
SC> apologizing to each other it is definitely an indication of overeating (and
SC> overworking) at the holidays! :)

Ehh, could be, Rabbit.  Could be. :)

MJR> It is not true, however, that some - by no means all! - of the rules
MJR> of "proper" English were not based on observation of actual use?  I
MJR> believe several were added in an attempt to make it more Latinlike,

SC> Of course!  The split-infinitive is one of the rules I break all the time.
SC> Efforts to avoid it sometimes produce barbarous results:  "He was quick
SC> vehemently to deny..."

I pretty consistently move the adverb after the verb rather than in
front of it in those cases; "to deny vehemently" sounds better. :)

SC> But I don't break the double negative, which was also, probably, a
SC> decided upon rule.

It's very situational, but I do break it.  Especially in conjunction
with "ain't".

SC> And I do think that in the long history of a language's development
SC> that there are many cases where a group of (or even single) individuals
SC> have consciously shaped the language, as in Turkish for instance.

No doubt!

SC> Prescriptively or not.  Shakespeare is a good example.

Hm.  When I think of literary coinage I tend to think of Carroll, not
Shakespeare.  I had no idea that he invented the word "obscene", for
instance.  Very interesting!

MJR> I would, in turn,  disagree that mastering English discourse is in the
MJR> same category as learning English as a native language.

SC> I would say, rather, that it occupies different parts of a continuum,
SC> because we often "master" English discourse through reading, which has
SC> components in it of the intuitive process of language we get at an earlier
SC> age.

A good point I hadn't considered.  The early intuitive acquisition method does
continue to be used over time.

MJR> As with any other second language, it can cause interference with
MJR> the native language,

SC> How?

By bleeding over.  I often find myself automatically doing things like
avoiding split infinitives and dangling prepositions and whatnot even when
making casual office banter.   To some extent those rules have taken
over and applied themselves to my "natural" native English as well.

SC> I don't find that the one register interferes with the other at all.

Maybe it's just me, then. :)

SC> What I disagree with is the identification of preschool English as the
SC> authentic one ("English itself").

What I was trying to avoid is the notion - which I am, again, not
attributing to you! - that people who have little or no education (and
therefore, presumably, only speak the English they learned intuitively
starting as babies) speak "bad" English.   Indeed, as you inferred from
my earlier message, I think you can make a case that what they speak is
instead, in some sense, a more authentic "English", as it is the living
language of a generation, relatively unencumbered by rules left over
from prior generations.  Being more authentic doesn't make it "better",
any more than uneducated doesn't make it "worse".  Nor do I think
those leftover rules are a bad thing - but whatever their value, they
are in some sense artificial add-ons to the base language.

SC> Perhaps we agree more than we differ, actually.

I suspect so.  :)

-Marcos

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