Random Thread - Anything Goes

tonyshowoff

@scottalanmiller said in Random Thread - Anything Goes:

@tonyshowoff said in Random Thread - Anything Goes:

The vast majority of major languages have language academies which control rules for spelling, grammar, and usage.

Sort of. Except languages don't have owners. So anyone can claim to be an authority and make their own changes. Now, for example, France does this and uses the law, rather than fact, to declare what words in French mean. But other countries that speak French don't follow those rules and are no more or less French than the ones in France.

America had this with the Webster dictionary. It was telling a set of made up rules, rather than the Oxford dictionary defining the language as used. That's partially why American usage of English has not drifted to the extent that British or Canadian has. But it's not an authority, it was just heavily viewed as such by the same people who promoted "anything printed by a large company as proof."

Anyone can claim authority with anything, but that doesn't make their claims equally valid at all. Language academies are backed by state power, hence when states collapse like in Roumania, rules that were set can be reversed even if it's not beneficial to do so, or the Russian Revolution, French Revolution (inherited academy from the monarchy), or in Germany it went through many states but was always backed by state power.

American spelling reforms brought by Webster were not just because, they were not just because he just made up rules and people happened to follow them, in this case these massive changes made were later backed by the state under Teddy Roosevelt, and in fact more changes were made but many were undone (again by state power), some like "thru" still exist in niche places. Until Roosevelt came along there was side by side usage of things like color vs colour, the pronunciation of "ski" as "she", and so on. Ironically it was the upper classes who stuck to the old ways and the lower classes drifted towards Webster style spelling because of how cheap his dictionaries were. Another danger of not having a language academy is allowing market forces to dictate language.

English is unique in that the authority though, typically just grammar aspects, comes from house styles and claims made by authors, but that doesn't make them all equal, nor does it mean they are all valid or should be considered. Robert Baker's fewer vs less is an example of someone without understanding of language history, without understanding of current meaning and rules, who established a suggestion (not even a rule) based on his own misunderstanding of the very generalisation he was making. To say it's more valid is to invoke authority that Robert Baker's suggestion comes from some place of any authority, and it's clear it did not.

English in America and Canada have not really drifted except on the coastal areas or areas with a lot of contact with the British or French, which is why traditionally in Boston, New York, Quebec you get huge sound changes. These changes do not exist really elsewhere aside from the /au/ and /oU/ sounds in Canada which are slightly different, but that same-difference exists in parts of some northern American states.

Changes in Britain itself were due to mixing of regional accents due to sailing and the industrial revolution, in addition to the rise of educated accents to purposely create class distinction, such as "Received Pronunciation" which is dying out anyway. These were not typical, natural language drifts that often happen.

In fact it is established academies which cope with language drift, not dictionaries, because if it were up to just dictionaries we'd be in the literal situation we are now where spelling is messed up and all grammar rules aside from innate ones are based upon claims of people who just pull things out of their ass and some, but not all, prescriptive grammarians blindly believe it has authority even though it goes against 1,600 years of language use where literally nobody at all used "fewer" in such a manner and then tried to enforce it arbitrarily later saying it makes more sense even when people still didn't use it that way without hypercorrection.

It comes from no where, it has no use (in the case of less being used for fewer), and it's based on nothing of real substance. Even rules from actual language academies that fail to make since or gain use are abandoned for the most part, they are not stuck to as though they have some sort of benefit just because we want them to, especially after 248 years of spoken language largely ignoring it. English has a history of this though: making up its own history, creating ridiculous rules, and enforcing things arbitrarily when they never had use before. That's why state backed language academies are important.

What is interesting is that American English does have a de facto ruling academic body, and it is that body that defined the usage of less and fewer.

What body is this? There are only dictionaries, house styles from newspapers and magazines, and grammar books children use. If we follow these "de facto" bodies then no split infinitive should be a rule too, except that "omfg so important" rule which was hammered into children's heads in America finally has largely been dropped because like fewer vs less it's based upon an ignorant claim by an ignorant person who claimed authority to regulate grammar. It has more to do with the creator wanting to be right rather than basing it on something correct.

And once you have shown me this de facto body please show me where they establish fewer vs less rules and also explain why people who claim to follow it, don't totally follow it, only where it's most convenient to. That's mostly a rhetorical request because such data is not likely easily available if available at all.... because there is no language academy that tracks such things.

Yes, but the general rule is that most people in any situation are wrong.

Then you're building a constructed language and dialect. I don't think anything is wrong with this in and of itself but that distinction has to be made. In fact I think there is some valid ideas with that which I will discuss in a follow up post.

That the median speaker uses basic words incorrectly doesn't make it good usage or proper language.

Defined by whom? Anyone and we just pick what we like best? That's what seems to be the approach to the grammarians writing English grammar books anyway.

Using English properly, and using "you" often confuses locals here.

I find it hard to believe people are confused by "you", unless it's you plural, unless that's what you meant and probably is.

Context is important, but isn't enough to overcome basic misunderstandings in the language.

And yet show me a single example anywhere where someone has been confused or mislead by using "less" rather than "fewer." I think my sitcom example stands, however unscientific and silly it may be.

tonyshowoff

My master thesis was on the concept of an English language academy, and I argued that America should have its own and not give a damn what Britain said about it, largely because of arguments like "whose accent?" are stupid and irrelevant, even many Indians want to speak with American accents now rather than British ones. It was more elegantly put, I just think that argument is sort of a cop out to any discussion and in the English speaking world who matters more, Britain and her countless god awful accents or America and her several god awful accents?

This isn't a new concept because originally there was an American language academy called American Academy of Language and Belles Lettres which described itself as having the purpose of establishing a unified grammar, spelling, typeset standard system for the entire country. They were biggest until the late 1820s. Thomas Jefferson was involved and years earlier Benjamin Franklin not only promoted the idea but promoted his own ideas to reform spelling to create a unique American spelling system, to be called American, not English.

I think one of the biggest mistakes made was not adopting this, because it would saved millions in education because far less time would have been used to learn spelling and more to learn essentially anything else remotely more useful. Most people who don't speak a language aside from English don't realise most languages could never have spelling bees because most things are spelled regularly, even if not perfectly. I think spelling bees are hilariously overrated and really only demonstrate that you can do what my computer can do far better. I also went into other things, unfortunately I don't have a digital form nor a scanner, but it's a boring read for probably most people.

I'm still in favour of the idea and I think that there would likely be a ruling for fewer vs less in some place in between, because Robert Baker's original suggestion is too broad and far too potentially ambiguous, because his understanding of his own generalisations were wrong. "Fewer" as a word has come into general use, but with varying meaning like "less" has, and it would be interesting to see how they could be defined and along which lines.

scottalanmiller

I'm not a fan of language academies, but I am a fan of an official language for a country. Meaning like the US should have a formal standard that education is to follow. Rather than allowing every teacher to teach my personal opinion.