Word Crimes

[AlejandraDD]

This thread has become too tl;dr for me, but have you ever stopped to consider how senseless and ridiculous the English language "rules" are?

[Skippy]

This thread has become too tl;dr for me, but have you ever stopped to consider how senseless and ridiculous the English language "rules" are?

This sentence is pretty awesome.

[Wolfman]

Something interesting I learned about commas.

[The Sporkman]

An "attempt to normalize" is not a mistake. But nice try.

What would you call a mistake then? Most things I see labeled as mistakes are attempts to normalize. A person who uses "thunk" as the past particle of "think" is trying to normalize a set of irregular verb paradigms. A person who uses "it's" as a possessive is trying to normalize the use of "'s" as a possessive marker. A person who spells "'ve" and "of" the same way is trying to normalize the spelling of the "əv" phoneme. A person who adds a silent "l" to the word "could" is trying to normalize the irregular verb paradigms that began as "cann/cuþe," "wille/wolde," and "sceal/sceolde." A person who adds a silent "s" to the words "island" (from the Anglo-Saxon "iegland") and "aisle" (ultimately from the Latin "ala") is trying to normalize their spelling with the unrelated Middle French "isle" (from the Latin "insula").

My main point was that you insist on calling them "artificial" in a derogatory way, even though you then admit their usefulness and necessity.

I did not intend to use "artificial" in a derogatory sense. "Artificial" and "natural" language are linguistic terms. Natural languages are "naturally" arising cultural phenomena. A completely illiterate person with completely illiterate parents with no formal education has an implicit, unconscious understanding of how to conjugate verbs and decline pronouns in the language they've been exposed to from birth even if they don't know what a verb or a pronoun is. People had been speaking incredibly complex and consistent languages for thousands of years before anyone had the idea of studying language in a formal or systematic way. When a standardized dialect with consciously agreed upon and enforced rules which aren't necessarily descriptive of every natural dialect within a region is established for formal or official purposes, and the majority of people begin consciously learning the rules of that dialect at school instead of unconsciously at home, it can be labeled as artificial, because it is not perfectly descriptive of anyone's own native dialect. All written language is technically artificial. That isn't a bad thing.

"Could" did evolve, but adding the "l" was not misuse. It was purposeful.

What common "mistake" isn't purposeful? If someone says, "thunk," they're making a purposeful prediction based on other paradigms. They're using a form that "sounds right" to them. When people started putting an "l" in "could" and an "s" in "island," they did it because it "seemed right" to them. Or is something only not purposeful if it's done in ignorance of the standard? Why is something done in ignorance of the etymology okay, then?

And this is where I think you misunderstand prescriptivists. We don't want to stop evolution and force everything to stay the same. But we do want to preserve the rules that foster clarity. "Could of" is a big problem because you can't just replace "have" with "of" and say that's the way it is now. "Have" (in this case) is part of the past participle form of a verb. So if we accept "I could of been a contender," we have to accept "I of been to the top of the mountain" as well. All because of a mistake in translating verbal communication to written form? No thanks.

People already say "I've" and "I 'ave," which could conceivably be spelled "I of." Merriam-Webster actually lists "(h)əv" as the second standard pronunciation of "have," and "əv" is their first listed pronunciation of "of." Even if you don't like that particular usage, the two examples you gave could still be spelled differently because they are in fact two different forms of the verb. "I have" uses the first-person singular simple present form, and "could have" uses the bare infinitive form, originally "hæbbe" and "habban" respectively. "Of" could be listed as an acceptable alternative to the latter form only. In any case, there's no ambiguity once something is common. In context, the "of" in "I of been to the mountain top" could only mean one thing, and if that usage became common, no one would bat an eye at it.

And after typing that, I noticed that M-W already lists "of" as a common but nonstandard verbal auxiliary with the meaning of "have" frequently used in "representations of uneducated speech." So it's common enough to be listed and grammatically classified by lexicographers but not yet common enough that it's devoid of a negative cultural connotation. But it's only a matter of time before that changes. "Ain't" is no longer listed as nonstandard by the lexicographers themselves, and their usage note states, "Although widely disapproved as nonstandard and more common in the habitual speech of the less educated, "ain't" is flourishing in American English."

Or do you think a child can be completely isolated from society from birth and still emerge ten years later with a ten-year-old's grasp of the native dialect?

Of course not. I don't know why you keep jumping to that notion. A child who's lived to the age of ten without being exposed to human language and having never interacted with other people would have very likely missed quite a few developmental thresholds and be incapable of ever learning to speak.

What I'm saying is, our brains have evolved to be very, very good at recognizing grammatical patterns and acquiring language rules unconsciously and passively. No one has to write a formal grammar textbook about a language for its rules to exist or to be passed down.

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And now I'm tired and I don't want to argue anymore and everyone's sick of reading this. I was just trying to clarify some points about modern linguistic consensus, and defend descriptivism as the most useful approach to actually studying and learning about language. Labeling an observed pattern as wrong and dismissing it before even trying to analyze and understand it is a hindrance to scientific discovery. But that's not what you're trying to do anyway. Presciptivism is a wonderful and practical tool for learning the popular, fashionable, and socially advantageous grammatical etiquette you need to get ahead in society and for promoting a useful standard for formal interaction among diverse groups of people. Descriptivism is a great scientific tool for furthering our understanding of how language works by analyzing the ways in which it is actually used in an objective way.

[Skippy]

Labeling an observed pattern as wrong and dismissing it before even trying to analyze and understand it is a hindrance to scientific discovery.

This is the part I'm going to address, because I don't feel like going over the other stuff again. We disagree. We disagree on what constitutes a mistake vs. purposeful adaptation. We disagree on what it means to teach. So it goes.

But your conclusion that I haven't analyzed and attempted to understand the pattern of "could of" is wrong. I know exactly what is happening when people write that. They are making a mistake, and M-W is right to assign a negative connotation to it. Its eventual acceptance, if that's what happens, will lead to further confusion as I've already addressed.

But that's not what you're trying to do anyway. Presciptivism is a wonderful and practical tool for learning the popular, fashionable, and socially advantageous grammatical etiquette you need to get ahead in society and for promoting a useful standard for formal interaction among diverse groups of people, but it does very little to further our understanding of how language works.

You're right. And I have nothing against studying how language works, so you can stop defending your choice to pursue it. I have a problem with those who study how language works and then decide that because people talk differently than they write, it means rules of grammar are elitist or discriminatory.

[TMBJon]

"Could of" is obviously wrong. Give up, other side of the argument!

[weird_el]

Could've is ONLY a contraction of could have. I have never heard "could of" even as a colloquialism.

[algonacchick]

It irks me when I see people write "could of". They're just writing what "could've" sounds like to them. These people are friends of mine, too. I corrected one of them recently, and posted the "Word Crimes" video on her page. Her excuse was "I can't help it if I write how I talk". Really? She took the video down. I love her dearly, and she's one of the first people I met when I moved to Algonac, but grrr!

[Skippy]

Could've is ONLY a contraction of could have. I have never heard "could of" even as a colloquialism.

Where do you live and when can I move there?

[algonacchick]

True dat, Skippy. It is sad that I hear people actually say "could of" instead of "could've". I will say, I didn't hear that when I lived in Warren. It was only after I moved to Algonac that I did. I've been here going on 31 years. I moved here after my daughter Laura was born. If she were still with us, she'd be 30. Her birthday was December 1st. She passed away March 22, 2002. She was only 18. Miss you, girl.