Re: He/She/?

Nik Taylor wrote:

> Tom Wier wrote:
> > That, of course, begs the question:  what is "sounding educated"?
>
> Speaking in such a way that other people think you're educated.
> Impossible to define more exactly than that, since it's a matter of
> other people's perception.  But, some things can be stated pretty
> clearly, using "ain't" or a double negative isn't "sounding educated",
> gives people the impression of "being uneducated".
My point was that you can't simplify things like that.  If a person who
has, say, a PhD in linguistics and anthropology uses singular they, and,
say, often uses "there's" for plural predicate nominatives, would you
think them uneducated?  No, of course not.   And, I know you yourself
use "there's" almost consistently, without regard to pluralization (at least
in so far as your emails and chatting style are indicative of anything), and
yet you do not at all come across as uneducated -- quite the contrary.

I think if there's anything to "sounding educated" at all, it has little to do
with grammatical features of syntax or morphology and much more to
do with lexical breadth -- people who use "paroxysm" or "prolix" would
do a lot more to make people think their educated, or even pretentious,
even if they regularly use plural "there's" or singular "they".

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