Posts made by tonyshowoff

@DustinB3403 said in Random Thread - Anything Goes:

@tonyshowoff said in Random Thread - Anything Goes:

@scottalanmiller said in Random Thread - Anything Goes:

@tonyshowoff said in Random Thread - Anything Goes:

@scottalanmiller said in Random Thread - Anything Goes:

@tonyshowoff said in Random Thread - Anything Goes:

@scottalanmiller said in Random Thread - Anything Goes:

@tonyshowoff said in Random Thread - Anything Goes:

The point is unregulated languages are vastly worse than regulated ones. English is an example of it when it comes to both grammar and spelling, where you can even have idiotic teachers spit out grammar books in the 50s claiming "no split infinitives" and some people say "of course, that's totally true!"

But English DOES have an academy, and it caused many of those problems because it was the source of many.

No it does not.

It does, the US founded one in the 1700s.

Are you talking about American Academy of Language and Belles Lettres? That hasn't been operational since the late 1700s.

No, Merriam Webster, as an example, produces current works from it.

That's a private company though.

It is now, but it's touted as being the authority on what is and isn't an actual word of the English language.

Eventually twerking may become a proper word in the English language if it makes it into that book.

The only official academy which has ever existed is the American Academy of Language and Belles Lettres which hasn't existed since the early 19th century. Any other claims are basically self-appointed, non-government sponsored entities which is something anyone can say. Merriam-Webster never held the position, they just think because they took over after Noah was dead that they have the same authority he had, and he really didn't have much of any because in his lifetime his dictionary wasn't very popular.

@Obsolesce said in Random Thread - Anything Goes:

@tonyshowoff said in Random Thread - Anything Goes:

@Obsolesce said in Random Thread - Anything Goes:

Another reason English lacks behind other languages.

I don't think that's a good demonstration of how English "lacks behind" other languages, considering even most other Germanic languages alone the reflexive pronoun(s) tend to be the same word no matter what making certain sentences very ambiguous. I think one of English's neatest things is the possessive pseudo-case of 's, which works a bit easier than genitive case in many languages because you can chain them, but is a hell of a lot more clear than a reverse list of "de", which at least in the case of Indo-European languages is the opposite direction of how speech tends to run.

Plus also the -ing ending is one of the best aspects that almost every other Indo-European language lacks or has to achieve in a complex manner which itself is also potentially vague. One of the problems is that -ing is also the ending for gerunds and some other things.

English's biggest problems are:

1. The spelling system is one of the worst in the entire world, certainly worst in the western world, even beyond French. Funnily a lot of people who speak only English will say "but things are spelled the way they sound." No. At least French has a consistent way to "decode" (read) sounds and know what they are even if they can be hard to "encode" (write). /u/ may be written u, ou, et al but it still is essentially always pronounced /u/. English is broken both with encoding and decoding, though it's rough to write out all the reasons why.
2. The dropping of singular familiar "thou" leaving only "you" and there's several historical reasons for this, but it's a pain in the ass anyway. Which ironic is that new plurals like "y'all" have been created but they make you sound like a hick or like you're pretending to be endearing and you assume everyone else doesn't see through it. The exception of course is if you speak AAVE (ebonics) and it's apparent, or you speak some version of English from the South East.

Languages don't tend to lack or gain a whole lot of features, they make up with them with syntax, grammatical forms, stress, all sorts of things. Sort of like how people tend to view AAVE as a simplified or dumbed down version of General American where in fact it may not have some of the same grammatical properties GA has but it gains its own which in turn are sometimes ambiguous to whitey.

In Swedish for example, there are specific pronouns for exactly these instances.

For example:
She is drinking her coffee.

(her own coffee)
Hon dricker sitt kaffe.

(another woman's coffee)
Hon dricker hennes kaffe.

Yes the only reflexive pronoun like this you get in English is -self, herself, himself, myself, etc. Though Swedish with sitt (sina, sin) is interesting because it at least follows gender, where as even in some other Germanic languages like, well, German, they don't at all, but people make up for it by using the definite article of the same grammatical gender. It's a language hack I guess.

@scottalanmiller said in Random Thread - Anything Goes:

It isn't official and has no say. Anybody can start a language academy. I could start my own French academy right now. It would mean as much as this.

True but the French Academy still has vastly more say then you do or your academy, same goes with the Spanish crown or other ones outside Spain that are associated. The biggest issue is getting people to follow it, there's various ways to do that but it really depends on all sorts of things.

Thru is used as a joke, though, through and through.

Well I meant in the sense that it's still here in some way, it's not a real one in that you wouldn't write it on your school work or business contracts. I guess unless you were talking about drive-thrus.

Spanish is It's one of the few official languages within the US.

it helps to have some sort of ethnic-national attachment to the language and specifically English and Spanish lack this outside of their originating countries. French is a bit different because of the way the French handled colonialism, so French being taught in schools in Lebanon as the every-day language still follow the French Academy, though too you get a lot of things in places were education is a problem since French doesn't lend itself to be used very easily when you're uneducated.

@scottalanmiller said in Random Thread - Anything Goes:

@tonyshowoff said in Random Thread - Anything Goes:

@scottalanmiller said in Random Thread - Anything Goes:

@tonyshowoff said in Random Thread - Anything Goes:

@scottalanmiller said in Random Thread - Anything Goes:

@tonyshowoff said in Random Thread - Anything Goes:

@scottalanmiller said in Random Thread - Anything Goes:

@tonyshowoff said in Random Thread - Anything Goes:

The point is unregulated languages are vastly worse than regulated ones. English is an example of it when it comes to both grammar and spelling, where you can even have idiotic teachers spit out grammar books in the 50s claiming "no split infinitives" and some people say "of course, that's totally true!"

But English DOES have an academy, and it caused many of those problems because it was the source of many.

No it does not. What is it?

Webster's Dictionary is the product of it. It's the official list of American English. It doesn't cover all language aspects, but many.

Actually Noah Webster tried to do a pretty OK job, it was better than Samuel Johnson who tried to make it more complex by introducing false etymologies like turning iland into island.

Not really, he intentionally skewed the language to create a new standard that was different from the known language at the time. The result is the whole world thinks that Americans can't spell or speak properly.

By removing pointless silent letters yes he did. Back then the two languages weren't in the same level of contact they are now outside of port cities. Pre-telegraph as well, there was a case to be made for a national regular spelling and grammar. There was nationalistic reasons behind it, not just linguistic ones. Teddy Roosevelt tried to take it further. And not all of Webster's changes were accepted, and basically all of Teddy's were reversed by act of Congress, hilariously.

Which weird since Congress has no say in the language.

Roosevelt had introduced 300 words to simplify, they're decent changes though there's still a lack of overall consistency to the language, there's never been a proper framework established. Nevertheless, Congress voted 142 to 25 (or there abouts) to officially not follow those changes. Some snuck through in non-official usages, one is "thru" like "drive thru"

@scottalanmiller said in Random Thread - Anything Goes:

@tonyshowoff said in Random Thread - Anything Goes:

@scottalanmiller said in Random Thread - Anything Goes:

And, like Spanish, the academy has no authority. Conceptually language academies doesn't really make sense, because they have no authority. So they state what they want a language to be, but have no control over what it is.

They standardise things, in the same way all of the conflicting dictionaries and house styles do in English, that's the point. I mean sure you can write a book in pre-20th century reforms of German and they won't stop you but there's no point to do it. The French Academy has been trying to fix issues in its spelling for quite some time and introduced some other changes recently

Right, except they don't. In the US, the second largest Spanish speaking country, it's not followed, at all. That's like twice the population of Spain!

That happens with any language outside the typical realm of national control. If Spanish were an official language of the US that'd be different, they may not follow the Spanish crown but certainly would follow their own or at least hopefully something... then again, it's the US so probably not.

@scottalanmiller said in Random Thread - Anything Goes:

@tonyshowoff said in Random Thread - Anything Goes:

@scottalanmiller said in Random Thread - Anything Goes:

@tonyshowoff said in Random Thread - Anything Goes:

@scottalanmiller said in Random Thread - Anything Goes:

@tonyshowoff said in Random Thread - Anything Goes:

The point is unregulated languages are vastly worse than regulated ones. English is an example of it when it comes to both grammar and spelling, where you can even have idiotic teachers spit out grammar books in the 50s claiming "no split infinitives" and some people say "of course, that's totally true!"

But English DOES have an academy, and it caused many of those problems because it was the source of many.

No it does not. What is it?

Webster's Dictionary is the product of it. It's the official list of American English. It doesn't cover all language aspects, but many.

Actually Noah Webster tried to do a pretty OK job, it was better than Samuel Johnson who tried to make it more complex by introducing false etymologies like turning iland into island.

Not really, he intentionally skewed the language to create a new standard that was different from the known language at the time. The result is the whole world thinks that Americans can't spell or speak properly.

By removing pointless silent letters yes he did. Back then the two languages weren't in the same level of contact they are now outside of port cities. Pre-telegraph as well, there was a case to be made for a national regular spelling and grammar. There was nationalistic reasons behind it, not just linguistic ones. Teddy Roosevelt tried to take it further. And not all of Webster's changes were accepted, and basically all of Teddy's were reversed by act of Congress, hilariously.

@scottalanmiller said in Random Thread - Anything Goes:

And, like Spanish, the academy has no authority. Conceptually language academies doesn't really make sense, because they have no authority. So they state what they want a language to be, but have no control over what it is.

They standardise things, in the same way all of the conflicting dictionaries and house styles do in English, that's the point. I mean sure you can write a book in pre-20th century reforms of German and they won't stop you but there's no point to do it. The French Academy has been trying to fix issues in its spelling for quite some time and introduced some other changes recently

@scottalanmiller said in Random Thread - Anything Goes:

@tonyshowoff said in Random Thread - Anything Goes:

@scottalanmiller said in Random Thread - Anything Goes:

@tonyshowoff said in Random Thread - Anything Goes:

The point is unregulated languages are vastly worse than regulated ones. English is an example of it when it comes to both grammar and spelling, where you can even have idiotic teachers spit out grammar books in the 50s claiming "no split infinitives" and some people say "of course, that's totally true!"

But English DOES have an academy, and it caused many of those problems because it was the source of many.

No it does not. What is it?

Webster's Dictionary is the product of it. It's the official list of American English. It doesn't cover all language aspects, but many.

Actually Noah Webster tried to do a pretty OK job, it was better than Samuel Johnson who tried to make it more complex by introducing false etymologies like turning iland into island.

@scottalanmiller said in Random Thread - Anything Goes:

@tonyshowoff said in Random Thread - Anything Goes:

@scottalanmiller said in Random Thread - Anything Goes:

@tonyshowoff said in Random Thread - Anything Goes:

@scottalanmiller said in Random Thread - Anything Goes:

@tonyshowoff said in Random Thread - Anything Goes:

The point is unregulated languages are vastly worse than regulated ones. English is an example of it when it comes to both grammar and spelling, where you can even have idiotic teachers spit out grammar books in the 50s claiming "no split infinitives" and some people say "of course, that's totally true!"

But English DOES have an academy, and it caused many of those problems because it was the source of many.

No it does not.

It does, the US founded one in the 1700s.

Are you talking about American Academy of Language and Belles Lettres? That hasn't been operational since the late 1700s.

No, Merriam Webster, as an example, produces current works from it.

That's a private company though.

@scottalanmiller said in Random Thread - Anything Goes:

@tonyshowoff said in Random Thread - Anything Goes:

@scottalanmiller said in Random Thread - Anything Goes:

@tonyshowoff said in Random Thread - Anything Goes:

The point is unregulated languages are vastly worse than regulated ones. English is an example of it when it comes to both grammar and spelling, where you can even have idiotic teachers spit out grammar books in the 50s claiming "no split infinitives" and some people say "of course, that's totally true!"

But English DOES have an academy, and it caused many of those problems because it was the source of many.

No it does not.

It does, the US founded one in the 1700s.

Are you talking about American Academy of Language and Belles Lettres? That hasn't been operational since the late 1700s.

@scottalanmiller said in Random Thread - Anything Goes:

@tonyshowoff said in Random Thread - Anything Goes:

The point is unregulated languages are vastly worse than regulated ones. English is an example of it when it comes to both grammar and spelling, where you can even have idiotic teachers spit out grammar books in the 50s claiming "no split infinitives" and some people say "of course, that's totally true!"

But English DOES have an academy, and it caused many of those problems because it was the source of many.

No it does not. What is it?

@scottalanmiller said in Random Thread - Anything Goes:

@tonyshowoff said in Random Thread - Anything Goes:

@scottalanmiller said in Random Thread - Anything Goes:

Spanish is one of the most standard, but definitely doesn't have a central authority. And the language skews like crazy.

It most certainly does.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Spanish_Academy

As a pretty bad Spanish speaker in the second largest Spanish speaking country, I can tell you, it isn't centralized. The US has an informal Spanish academy too that does things very differently from that one.

I misread what you said, I thought you said regulatory authority. You're right it isn't totally centralised but certainly at least more consistent than in English. Chile has even gone off the map a few times itself by trying to introduce totally different spellings to clear up usage of C vs Q

The point is unregulated languages are vastly worse than regulated ones. English is an example of it when it comes to both grammar and spelling, where you can even have idiotic teachers spit out grammar books in the 50s claiming "no split infinitives" and some people say "of course, that's totally true!"

@scottalanmiller said in Random Thread - Anything Goes:

Spanish is one of the most standard, but definitely doesn't have a central authority. And the language skews like crazy.

It most certainly does.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Spanish_Academy

And it basically works with and regulates the language along with the academies of 22 other Spanish speaking countries. That's why when the digraphs CH, LL, and RR were removed as individual letters within the alphabet a few years ago, all countries went along with it. That'd never happen in an unregulated language like English at all.

@DustinB3403 said in Random Thread - Anything Goes:

Children spend over 50 percent of their youth in school and as school became mandated that time rose sharply across every demographic.

You're talking about since the rise of of education since the industrial era, and in fact fewer language changes have happened between 1800 and 2000 than happened between 1500 and 1700. So there's little evidence that is has much impact, rather it has the purpose of standardising things and slowing changes down. Slang has changed and moved around, but sounds and over all usage largely haven't.

@scottalanmiller said in Random Thread - Anything Goes:

@tonyshowoff said in Random Thread - Anything Goes:

@DustinB3403 said in Random Thread - Anything Goes:

I'd be more willing to bet that language changes occur because of a centralized / standardized school system.

Not generally, no. That isn't to say it has no impact at all, but children don't spend most of their time in schools and language changes still happen with adults, just accent changes are far more rare.

Only if the centralization or school system are complete. Very few languages have that. Only tiny ones.

It was attempted in the US at one time, a standardised accent which can still be heard as recordings of radio English, by the end of WWII this largely had stopped though because of population boom and teachers being educated faster who were using their own accents.

@scottalanmiller said in Random Thread - Anything Goes:

@tonyshowoff said in Random Thread - Anything Goes:

@scottalanmiller said in Random Thread - Anything Goes:

One of the problems with English is that informal slang usage is commonly accepted as proper over time. All languages do this some, but English has really embraced it like no other language. So what is wrong today is right tomorrow. And the language just expands and gets murky. So while to some, thou and ye are dropped, they aren't completely. And while y'all is weird and improper, it's considered proper to many.

That's what happens when there is no regulatory academy.

I think that makes it worse. Look at French, for example. Global French is not very much like the French academy. The largest French nation, the DRC, doesn't follow the academy. But because of the academy, France doesn't track French globally. But because France isn't the main focal point of the language, the academy has caused France to no longer speak standard French!

French is just crazy, but look at German, Italian, or even Spanish. Spanish does have regulation and despite even sometimes major differences such as LL pronounced /Z/ in places in Chile, it's still fairly internally consistent. It cannot be perfect, but it's vastly better than English despite wide dialect and accent differences and it's regulated by the Spanish crown

@DustinB3403 said in Random Thread - Anything Goes:

I'd be more willing to bet that language changes occur because of a centralized / standardized school system.

Not generally, no. That isn't to say it has no impact at all, but children don't spend most of their time in schools and language changes still happen with adults, just accent changes are far more rare.

@scottalanmiller said in Random Thread - Anything Goes:

@tonyshowoff said in Random Thread - Anything Goes:

What you said is a common misconception, a similar one is how some people think "thou" is formal now or at least that it has some sort of reverence when spoken because of its use in the Bible.

That's mostly because of its near exclusive use in seemingly formal settings like the Bible (as you said.) What's funny additionally, of course, is that this changes the tone of the Bible significantly (God talking informally) and that people feel that Shakespeare is somehow formal just because it is old, when in fact it was anything but formal. It was closer to fart jokes of the time.

Haha, yes. I've had to tell people this a lot more than I'd hope to have to especially as someone who is not a native English speaker: God is "thou" in the Bible because you're supposed to have a close relationship with him, and in the reverse God says "thou" in singular to everyone beneath him because, well, everyone is. Same thing with Shakespeare: friends, lovers, people speaking down to those below them, or people speaking down to their enemies he used "thou."

Speaking of Shakespeare farts, I love to point out how A rose by any other name would smell as sweet is almost certainly a poop joke because of the open sewer right outside the Rose Theatre.

@scottalanmiller said in Random Thread - Anything Goes:

One of the problems with English is that informal slang usage is commonly accepted as proper over time. All languages do this some, but English has really embraced it like no other language. So what is wrong today is right tomorrow. And the language just expands and gets murky. So while to some, thou and ye are dropped, they aren't completely. And while y'all is weird and improper, it's considered proper to many.

That's what happens when there is no regulatory academy.