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It it time to give up on grammar, punctuation, spelling, etc.?

It doesn't mean that, though. Natural languages are not systems of formal logic.
Don't be silly!

Either you did do something or you did nothing.
Either you did do something or you didn't do anything.

You might be illogical but that doesn't mean that language has to be. One shouldn't have to try and figure out whether somebody is employing a double negative or they are using one negative to reinforce another.

BTW if I have to deal with a child who has done something wrong then I already know what they have done and that they are lying if they deny it.
 
The standard may be arbitrary, but it's still a standard.

And maintaining arbitrary standards for the sake of maintaining arbitrary standards is obviously very, very important to a lot of people.

That doesn't mean that you can throw the entire grammatical structure and spelling conventions of English right out the window.

Okay why is every suggestion that being pedantic about language isn't necessary almost always countered with some variation on "But we can't throw out all the standards?"

It's fundamentally impossible for a language to "not have standards." Languages by definition are self correcting. Do people really think communication is going to stop and everyone is going to start talking in their own personal gibberish if there isn't a self appointed "Protector of the Legacy of Strunk and White" ruling class keeping all the peasants' thees and thous in line?

The language would get along just fine without anyone intentionally taking it upon themselves to police other people's grammar and sentence structure.

Fuzzy though they are, they are still useful. Case in point: you, JoeMorgue, are still applying them in your own writing.

Because this is the internet where, as theprestige noted, it seems like 95% of the population is unemployed Vulcan robot English teachers on Aderall who bring their red pens into every discussion and I just don't want to hear it.

I mind my P & Q because I just don't want discussions to be hijacked into some self appointed Robert Lowthe pontificating, not because it adds any clarity or efficiency or beauty to the language.

At times it seems like Language Pedantics is so popular because it allows the pedant in question to be pedantic in every discussion, not just ones in which they have enough knowledge of the topic to be pedantic about the topic itself.

And being pedantic all the time about everything is the dream of a lot of people.
 
Don't be silly!

Either you did do something or you did nothing.
Either you did do something or you didn't do anything.

You might be illogical but that doesn't mean that language has to be. One shouldn't have to try and figure out whether somebody is employing a double negative or they are using one negative to reinforce another.

BTW if I have to deal with a child who has done something wrong then I already know what they have done and that they are lying if they deny it.

And again this is one of those things that you have to have a pretty broad lack of knowledge as to how languages work to really get worked up about.

Double Negatives aren't even a thing in most languages. In most languages (the so called negative-concord languages) multiple negatives in the sentence just make a stronger negative, their affect is cumulative, not directional.
 
fashion_police_and_grammar_police.png


This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 License.

This means you're free to copy and share these comics (but not to sell them).
 
> fashion police not wearing non-prescription spectacles. :rolleyes:

this cartoonists has no idea what he's on about.
 
They're not literally the same people, most likely.

eta: And MikeG and I agree: It's pedantry, not pedantics.
 
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Don't be silly!

Either you did do something or you did nothing.
Either you did do something or you didn't do anything.

You might be illogical but that doesn't mean that language has to be. One shouldn't have to try and figure out whether somebody is employing a double negative or they are using one negative to reinforce another.

That's the thing, though: Nobody has to figure it out. The understanding arrives intuitively in small children as they learn speech. It even arrives intuitively, as in my case, among adults learning foreign languages.

It's silly to treat natural languages, with their idioms and figures of speech, as systems of formal logic.
 
That's the thing, though: Nobody has to figure it out.
That's what you say now but I'm not so sure that you would say "anything goes" when you are misunderstood.

Rules of spelling and some rules of punctuation may be arbitrary but learning to communicate ideas clearly is not. As I have always been taught, "As sentence must make sense".
 
It's fundamentally impossible for a language to "not have standards." Languages by definition are self correcting. Do people really think communication is going to stop and everyone is going to start talking in their own personal gibberish if there isn't a self appointed "Protector of the Legacy of Strunk and White" ruling class keeping all the peasants' thees and thous in line?

The language would get along just fine without anyone intentionally taking it upon themselves to police other people's grammar and sentence structure.
Ah, so it's not grammar you have a problem with, it's grammar nazis. Why didn't you just say so?

As a self-confessed grammar nazi I will call someone on their language only when I feel that it is impairing understanding or readability, or when I think it is amusing to do so.
 
I'm a language pedant but to soothe my mental affliction, and to avoid joining the grammar Nazi party (which I know, given my character, I would be sorely tempted to do), I study linguistics (as an amateur) and learn foreign languages (lots of foreign languages) instead.:D
 
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As a self-confessed grammar nazi I will call someone on their language only when I feel that it is impairing understanding or readability, or when I think it is amusing to do so.

You can do whatever you want, I hardly have a way of stopping you.

I just don't see being pedantic about something for which the "official" version is so inconsistent as to be one step short of random all that useful of an endeavor.

Maybe, maybe not. It is no excuse for having a language that is inconsistent with an era that demands critical thinking.

Then surely you correct people on "proper" grammar that causes confusion as much as you correct them on "improper" grammar, right? You also fight with the same vigor against English's massively confusing spelling rules right?

Right?

And really the "One True Skeptic" card as an excuse for arbitrary language pedantics?
 
Then surely you correct people on "proper" grammar that causes confusion as much as you correct them on "improper" grammar, right? You also fight with the same vigor against English's massively confusing spelling rules right?

Right?

And really the "One True Skeptic" card as an excuse for arbitrary language pedantics?
It is hardly surprising that somebody who thinks that logic is irrelevant can not tell the difference between arbitrary rules and logical structure.
 
Maybe, maybe not. It is no excuse for having a language that is inconsistent with an era that demands critical thinking.

A what that does what now?

Besides, figures of speech and critical thinking are entirely compatible. Most human beings do both at the same time without difficulty. A few humans really do struggle with figures of speech in rational thought. These are usually people with cognitive or behavioral variances that the rest of us consider an impairment to normal function.
 
It is hardly surprising that somebody who thinks that logic is irrelevant can not tell the difference between arbitrary rules and logical structure.

Please explain to me the "logical structure" of the English language.

People do get that "What we are used to" is no equal to "logical" right?
 
It is hardly surprising that somebody who thinks that logic is irrelevant can not tell the difference between arbitrary rules and logical structure.


Language ain't math*. News at eleven.






*yeah, yeah, I know, I know. It's Maths! No it ain't. It's Mathematics abbreviated to Math. Some countries insist on putting the "s" back on for some reason.
 
You can do whatever you want, I hardly have a way of stopping you.

I just don't see being pedantic about something for which the "official" version is so inconsistent as to be one step short of random all that useful of an endeavor.
But there are "official" rules. Just because some rules are inconsistent doesn't mean that they all are.
 
Please explain to me the "logical structure" of the English language.

People do get that "What we are used to" is no equal to "logical" right?

I agree. It has a rough structure, mostly, though it isn't based on any logic. In other languages it's not uncommon for (for example) adjectives to agree with the noun in number, gender and maybe even case. For example:

La voiture rouge
Les voitures rouges


It's also common to see different word orders, so the above would translate directly as The car red and The cars reds. There is no logic whatsoever in saying, in English, The red car, it's just the way we happen to do it and using the French word order would just sound weird and create a lot of confusion.

Incidentally, one 'jump' in the use of English that confuses me is the tendency to say (e.g.) "That thing is broken. It needs repaired". When did that arrive on the scene, or is an American English usage that I'm only just starting to notice?
 
It's also common to see different word orders, so the above would translate directly as The car red and The cars reds. There is no logic whatsoever in saying, in English, The red car, it's just the way we happen to do it and using the French word order would just sound weird and create a lot of confusion.
It is not illogical to transpose adjectives and nouns. A plural adjective seems a little strange to me but not something to argue about.

It is probably illogical to use an adjective to describe a dichotomous word ("you are so fired") but since it doesn't change the logical meaning of a sentence I can live with it.
 
It is not illogical to transpose adjectives and nouns. A plural adjective seems a little strange to me but not something to argue about.

It is probably illogical to use an adjective to describe a dichotomous word ("you are so fired") but since it doesn't change the logical meaning of a sentence I can live with it.

I wasn't saying it was illogical to transpose them, simply that the order is not itself based on any obvious logic.
 
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It is hardly surprising that somebody who thinks that logic is irrelevant can not tell the difference between arbitrary rules and logical structure.

It is not illogical to transpose adjectives and nouns. A plural adjective seems a little strange to me but not something to argue about.

It is probably illogical to use an adjective to describe a dichotomous word ("you are so fired") but since it doesn't change the logical meaning of a sentence I can live with it.

Oh puh-leaze! Don't make the argument that languages have or should have some inherent logical structure. If that were the case, English would not have so many irregular verbs, so many irregular plurals and so much variation in dialects.

Generally speaking, the very superficial appearance of logic comes from a process of regularization in which through use, it becomes more convenient to use regular forms, particularly of the less common words. Many if not most of the more irregular forms are of words that are far more common because the irregularities can be more easily remembered when they are used so frequently.

As for things such as "so fired" and "mad preggers" etc... these colloquialisms are used because they are more emphatic than "regular" language.

To make a boring statement of the obvious language is context-dependent. If you are teaching someone to write a cover letter for a job application, then do advise that they use a standard formal register, and advise against ambiguity unless there is some strategic advantage to it. On the other hand, if you are having a general conversation in which you want to entertain your audience then livening it up a bit with some non-standard phrases makes more sense. In those situations, you are probably not playing the language game correctly if you decide to interrupt someone's anecdote to point out that "I ain't never done no harm to nobody" actually, logically, means that they must have harmed every member of the human race at least once.
 
Oh puh-leaze! Don't make the argument that languages have or should have some inherent logical structure.
It is an absolute must. Keeping the logic out of languages is one of the ways of minimizing critical thinking or weaseling out of verbal commitments.
 
Oh puh-leaze! Don't make the argument that languages have or should have some inherent logical structure. If that were the case, English would not have so many irregular verbs, so many irregular plurals and so much variation in dialects.
It seems to me that there is a vast gap between Lojban and complete linguistic chaos.

That said, Lojban is a thing. It is a functional language. There are people who speak it. But not many.
 
Maybe, maybe not. It is no excuse for having a language that is inconsistent with an era that demands critical thinking.


How can an era demand anything?
How does the English language prevent you from (or just impede) thinking critically?
(By the way, the origin of a lot of irregular verbs is inherited, i.e. Indo-European:
springe, sprang, sprunget (DK)
springen, sprang, gesprungen (D)
spring, sprang, sprung (UK)
synge, sang, sunget (DK)
singen, sang, gesungen (D)
sing, sang, sung (UK))
 
Some people ask "why is it mouse - mice but not house - hice?"

The answer is that mouse is a Latin derivative and house is a Germanic derivative, and they take different plurals. That they rhyme is coincidence.

That said, when referring to computer peripherals I pluralise mouse in the Germanic way and pronounce it to rhyme with houses. Because it's fun to play with language.
 
Some people ask "why is it mouse - mice but not house - hice?"

The answer is that mouse is a Latin derivative and house is a Germanic derivative, and they take different plurals. That they rhyme is coincidence.

That said, when referring to computer peripherals I pluralise mouse in the Germanic way and pronounce it to rhyme with houses. Because it's fun to play with language.

I pluralize mouse (the computer type) in a unique way: "pointer thingies"

:D

ETA: Or, if context is lacking, "computer pointer thingies"
 
Again when:

A) People don't understand someone well enough to immediately sarcastically correct them

and

B) I can't point at "Official" usages of the language that are 1,000 times more objectively unclear and confusing.

I'll buy the "But we're just trying to maintain clarity!" argument.

As it stands, I don't buy it for a second.
 
Again when:

A) People don't understand someone well enough to immediately sarcastically correct them

and

B) I can't point at "Official" usages of the language that are 1,000 times more objectively unclear and confusing.

I'll buy the "But we're just trying to maintain clarity!" argument.

As it stands, I don't buy it for a second.

This.

I'll mess with my kids over "can" versus "may", but I admit it's simply to mess with them, and they know that too.

Assuming you're doing people some sort of service is delusional.
 
I hate (envy) you with your analytic languages. I have to translate your gibberish to a very precise and accurate synthetic language. I just can't put five words without endings in a row... I just can't not to give a efjūsīkei about gender or plural/singular or inflection (hard to understand the latter, I understand :p, inflection, in my case, means you have a different ending even for the adverb/adjective).

and the english legal language... the language that boasts it develops all the time, suddenly frozes in phrases that would sound obsolete even to a pterodactyl
 
I hate (envy) you with your analytic languages. I have to translate your gibberish to a very precise and accurate synthetic language. I just can't put five words without endings in a row... I just can't not to give a efjūsīkei about gender or plural/singular or inflection (hard to understand the latter, I understand :p, inflection, in my case, means you have a different ending even for the adverb/adjective).

and the english legal language... the language that boasts it develops all the time, suddenly frozes in phrases that would sound obsolete even to a pterodactyl

As an elderly Brit living in Greece I struggle mightily with Greek inflections, especially the verbs. Even a fairly regular Greek verb has about 20 forms, though it seems like more and maybe is. Inflections at the end, on the front and (help!) sometimes in the middle.

At least if you get the inflection of an adjective wrong there's a fair chance you'll be understood. Get it wrong with a verb and, at best, you just said something meaningless. Or maybe a profound insult.
 
How can an era demand anything?
How does the English language prevent you from (or just impede) thinking critically?
I never knew that the double negative had such a fan club.

Ambiguity is the enemy of communication. Too often sentences are laced with double meanings. The speaker is invariably trying to avoid saying something and usually ends up saying "I didn't mean that".

I don't mind languages that are colourful or make use of superfluous adjectives of adverbs but they should not run counter to the laws of logic.
 
I never knew that the double negative had such a fan club.

Ambiguity is the enemy of communication. Too often sentences are laced with double meanings. The speaker is invariably trying to avoid saying something and usually ends up saying "I didn't mean that".

I don't mind languages that are colourful or make use of superfluous adjectives of adverbs but they should not run counter to the laws of logic.

Now, if you could just tell us what those "laws" are then we might learn something.
 
I never knew that the double negative had such a fan club.

Does it? When you say club, do you mean an organization in which its members pay to promote a common goal?

Ambiguity is the enemy of communication.

Does this abstract concept really have intentional stances towards the abstract concept of communication?

Too often sentences are laced with double meanings.

"Laced with"? I cannot imagine how this is possible!

The speaker is invariably trying to avoid saying something and usually ends up saying "I didn't mean that".

"invariably" now? By which you presumably mean that there are no situations in which the speaker is not "trying to avoid saying something"? When someone says "I didn't do nothing wrong!" They are "invariably" trying to avoid saying something? You mean they are always trying to say nothing?

I don't mind languages that are colourful or make use of superfluous adjectives of adverbs but they should not run counter to the laws of logic.

Do you mean natural languages ought to consist merely of propositions that either can be True or False (the law of excluded middle)?
 
I never knew that the double negative had such a fan club.


Nothing in my post says or implies that I'm a fan of the double negative. However, I have no problem whatsoever with the double negative in Spanish, for instance! And it doesn't really bother me in English, except when my students do it. :)

Ambiguity is the enemy of communication. Too often sentences are laced with double meanings. The speaker is invariably trying to avoid saying something and usually ends up saying "I didn't mean that".


You appear to be able to find new meanings without any linguistic reasons to do so. And I'm pretty sure that you can't blame the ambiguity of the English for your mistake.

I don't mind languages that are colourful or make use of superfluous adjectives of adverbs but they should not run counter to the laws of logic.


¡No entiendo nada! (It's not really illogical. It's just different. What actually bothers you is your own idea that it's illogical, and there's a logical solution to that problem: Get used to it!)
 
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