Re: THEORY: Natural language change (was Re: Charlie and I)

Sally Caves wrote:

> > But the history of language academies and mass education and
> > other such forms of formal socialization have had a horrible
> > trackrecord when it comes to getting people to use the forms
> > they insist are correct.  L'Academie Francaise certainly hasn't prevented
> > many French people from borrowing English words like "weekend"
> > or "teeshirt", nor has there *ever* been a strong tendency even
> > among hyperliterate English speakers to not split any ol' infinitive
> > they want to [ :) ].  Indeed, I'd say it's much the opposite:  that language
> > changes on its own, from the ground up, and formal grammars are
> > for the most part encapsulations of one person's or group's own,
> > often arbitrary, decisions about what language should be like (much
> > of English prescriptive grammar).
>
> Exactly.  The Royal Academy had long been trying to "ascertain" the
> English language; Jonathan Swift tried to make it certain, petrified,
> unchanging, and was laughed at for his efforts.  But the Grammarians
> came close.
I've wondered several times how someone with an intellect like
Swift could make such statements... one might expect more
rigorous intellectual analysis than that.  But, unfortunately perhaps :),
intellectuals are people too. Anyone reading Jefferson's _Notes
on the State of Virginia_ would probably be quite astounded how
readily he generalizes about Negroes' body odor being linked to
their intellectual capacity -- Intellectualism isn't the cure for the
world's ills, as we all carry our, sometimes intense, biases.

But I guess Swift's comments about language also have as much to
do with societal biases as personal ones.  The Age of Reason's
obsession with a clockwork universe, in which the Deity set
everything up to work just so, with all its false dichotomizations
and overgeneralizations, was really quite popular for, oh, a century
or two after Newton.  It's sad that a worldsystem like that took two
World Wars and the death of nearly 100 million people before
a little balancing pessimism  -- or even realism -- could creep in.

> And sigh as I will, I think the "lie/lay" distinction is going to be
> snuffed out within my lifetime.
Oh, I don't doubt it.  I've been watching the distinction between
the present perfect and the simple past tense in my area
of the country for a while, and I think the preterite is slowly edging
the present perfect out.  I remember distinctly a couple months
ago hearing someone at the elevator in the complex where I live
saying "Did you do your homework yet?", where I'd reflexively say
"Have you done your homework yet?" -- the whole way up to my
floor I could think of nothing else. Such incidents are now not
infrequent in my experience.

> > * (and, as Nik has already clarified, it's a good question how much
> > in decline it really is.
>
> It's not a matter of decline, because non-standard English has always
> been at the very center of rules about standard English.
I think there has also been an increased recognition of the importance
of linguistic tolerance in those who become teachers nowadays.  At least
a third or so of the people in my linguistics classes must be English majors
who're taking linguistics as their minor.  As these people are exposed to
descriptive rather than prescriptive worldviews, one might think they feel
less of a need to tell their schoolchildren "right" from "wrong", because
they know it's arbitrary anyways.

> > Certainly my experience in the public education
> > system was not without a good and more or less steady dose of formal
> > prescriptive grammar.)
>
> Me too.  But we're a minority.  I guess I'm back!  Teonaht has had to be
> put on hold.  How is everybody? <G>  How is Matt liking his semester in
> Wisconsin?  <G>
> sally
Well, it's great to have you back! Personally,  I think the list
isn't the same without you and Ray, among others.  :-)

=======================================================
Tom Wier <artabanos@...>
ICQ#: 4315704   AIM: Deuterotom
Website: <http://www.angelfire.com/tx/eclectorium/>
"Cogito ergo sum, sed credo ergo ero."

Denn wo Begriffe fehlen,
Da stellt ein Wort zur rechten Zeit sich ein.
   -- Mephistopheles, in Goethe's _Faust_
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