Re: Bostonites. *ZAP*

Into the dragon's mouth marched the three hundred...

On Thu, 25 Mar 1999 09:58:36 -0500 Brian Betty <bbetty@...> writes:
>Brian Betty wrote: [the pretentious using words like misusification]
>It raises more than just -my- hackles when people say
>things like 'we've got to be proactive.' I know many people who hear
>that
>trite phrase and wince. It means NOTHING.
Okay, here I agree with you. It is indeed terribly annoying when people
make grammatical mistakes in the process of trying to inflate their egos.
And bureaucratic jargon would also drive me nuts, I'm sure, if I were
actually subjected to it in the workplace (now I just think it's funny).
But beyond this...

>To
>answer your question: well, then, why don't we just all abandon all
>speech
>standards. We'll just talk how we like. Coherency doesn't matter at
>all.
>We'll take no pride in our speech, we'll just babble.
Whoa, whoa, whoa! This isn't what Tom suggested! He never said we should
get rid of rules altogether; he was referring to *prescriptive* rules.
The capability for language is something that's hard-wired into humans'
brains; it's really quite impossible for us to well-intentionedly use it
incorrectly. The language of a hick who says, "I ain't got no bread in
the house" is in no way inferior to that of a nobleman who uses perfect
prescriptive grammar. For that's what the grammar we learn in school is:
by the time our teachers are yelling at us about bad linguistic habits,
we're already experts, masters of our tongue--in school we just learn
arbitrary rules set out by British nincompoops in the 18th century who
thought that English would be more elegant if we pretended it was Latin.
I'm all for teaching people a standard and demanding that it be observed
in writing: we need that in our society, and in that context it's fine to
rant about bad usage, &c.; what I object to is the idea that those who
can't or don't adhere to prescriptive rules are somehow "wrong."

As to the idea that people who don't obey those prescriptive rules have
no "pride" in their tongue...that doesn't even bear discussion. I'm
hoping you weren't serious. :)

>Some rules, yes. But to say that all the rules used to teach Standard
>English are useless and should be tossed because some dead white guy
>invented them is a buncha bantha-fodder.
But the basic fact is that the real rules of language don't *need* to be
taught; we can prove that by the tens of thousands of years that human
language existed before writing and a formal understanding of grammar
developed. Except, of course, insofar as we require a standard; in this
capacity I'm all for it...but we need to have the awareness that it is
just that.


Peace, yes?

----------
Josh Brandt-Young <neonwave7@...>
http://geocities.com/Athens/Aegean/6073/
"After the tempest, I behold, once more, the weasel."
(Mispronunciation of Ancient Greek)

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