ken@ihuxq.UUCP (02/07/84)
--
Oh, about a month ago, I plunged into the grammar debate with the
battle cry, "If you can't write it right, you can't think it right."
Our friend jj took this personally for some reason, and the two of
us went a few rounds, which was fun. Soon thereafter, some twit
posted something to the effect of "Ha-ha-ha, that's bad grammar--the
proper statement is 'if you can't write it *correctly*...'" with
some irrelevant ramblings about adjectives and adverbs.
I didn't respond, since if said twit could not comprehend the
not at all subtle difference in meaning between "do it right" and
"do it correctly", there was little hope of any rational interchange.
But it got me thinking about the relationships among spelling,
grammar, and literacy. Lo and behold, yesterday I found a marvelous
snippet on that very subject. So try this out for size:
---------------------------BEGIN QUOTE------------------------------
Indubitably, the literate person is familiar with the conventions
of "correct" English and can use them or even or even fool around
with them as he chooses. Knowing the difference between "who" and
"whom" is like knowing how to finger scales; the one doesn't make
you literate and the other doesn't make you a musician. The
writer who *doesn't* know the difference between "who" and "whom",
like the musician who doesn't know how to finger scales, had
better have one hell of a lot of talent. There are such people.
They are amazing, but are not produced by schooling. Such people,
in fact, ought to stay away from schools and protect their talents.
The ordinary student has little if any talent, and if he is to
become literate he will need to know all the mechanical trivia we
can teach him. That, however, will not make him literate.
The literate person is in control of those techniques special to
writing rather than speech. He can formulate sentences that make
sense. He can choose the right word from an array of similar
words. He can devise structures that show how things and statements
about things are related to one another. He can generate strings
of sentences that develop logically related thoughts, and arrange
them in such a way as to make that logic clear to others. He can
make analogies and define classes. He can, in writing, discover
thought and make knowledge. Because he can do these things, he
can, in reading, determine whether or not someone else can do these
things. He is familiar with the technology of thinking. To accept
anything less as our definition of literacy is to admit that hardly
any of us will ever be able to think about anything. That may be
true, but to admit it is to assure it.
------END QUOTE--(Richard Mitchell, "Less Than Words Can Say")------
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..ihnp4!ihuxq!ken *** ***andrew@stc.UUCP (10/28/85)
In article <2260@iddic.UUCP> galenr@iddic.UUCP (Galen Redfield) writes: >In article <1900005@datacube.UUCP> stephen@datacube.UUCP writes: >> >>I agree. My particular choice is "mnemonic" misspelled as "pneumonic". Even >>worse, I hear it pronounced "noo-monic" instead of "nee-monic". > >I agree!! Boy, I sure hate it when I hear words pronounced >incorrectly on the net, too! ;-) Speaking of bad pronounciation, I find it exceedingly irritating when a news-reader says: ( mis-spelled to indicate pronounciation ) seketry as in "The Seketry of State" Febry as in "this Febry was the coldest on record" Libray (same complaint really) Another complaint is subject to regional variation, here in the south east of england ( a generalisation I KNOW that there is a lot of variation) they say: wenzda- whereas in the rest of the British isles one will hear the `d' as in wednzda- A lot of this is now vanishing (thank you BBC), but it is annoying when local peculiarities are broadcast as ``standard english''. -- Regards, Andrew Macpherson. <andrew@stc.UUCP> {aivru,creed,datlog,iclbra,iclkid,idec,inset,root44,stl,ukc}!stc!andrew
jbdp@jenny.UUCP (Julian Pardoe) (10/29/85)
Andrew Macpherson <andrew@stc.UUCP> writes: > seketry Febry Libray Add `pleece' (often used by the `pleece' themselves) and `sment'!!
suze@terak.UUCP (Suzanne Barnett) (11/01/85)
> A lot of this is now vanishing (thank you BBC), but it is annoying > when local peculiarities are broadcast as ``standard english''. How bland if there were no different accents to a spoken language. And who is to say that one is more correct than another? Though I agree on actually mispronounced words. I was taught that the proper way to pronounce a place or name is the same as the inhabitants or the named person (or its owners', if its an animal,) pronounces it. -- Suzanne Barnett-Scott uucp: ...{decvax,ihnp4,noao,savax,seismo}!terak!suze phone: (602) 998-4800 us mail: CalComp/Sanders Display Products Division (Formerly Terak Corporation) 14151 N 76th street, Scottsdale, AZ 85260
barryg@sdcrdcf.UUCP (Lee Gold) (11/02/85)
One non-literate strangeness I've run across was "anotherwards," which several students used because they didn't know the phrase was "in other words." I'd also like to flame the pronunciation "nukular" instead of "nuclear." Some of the most hysterical mispronunciations I've heard were in commercials. Like the one urging San Joaquin Valley listeners to drink Florida orange juice (and pronouncing the place as Ho-a-keen). Or the commercial that assured that an airline knew all about Los Angeles (pronounced Lows Anjeleez). Then there's people who mix words from several different languages and then mispronounce them. Like the newscaster who talked about the head honcho of the junta. The weirdest pronunciation mixup I've had was the time in Boston I called Information to get the phone number of Mark Swanson and was told, "I don't have a Mark Swanson at that address. I do have a Mock Swanson." Any Bostonians reading this who can tell me how to spell the name that that operator pronounced Mark. (Marc? Marque?) --Lee Gold
dave@uwvax.UUCP (Dave Cohrs) (11/04/85)
> One non-literate strangeness I've run across was "anotherwards," which > several students used because they didn't know the phrase was "in other > words." This reminds me of another phrase which I caught myself using the other day -- "a whole nuther". Luckily, now that I recognize this strangeness, I can avoid it (and keep it from spreading). -- Dave Cohrs (608) 262-1204 ...!{harvard,ihnp4,seismo,topaz}!uwvax!dave dave@romano.wisc.edu
cjh@petsd.UUCP (Chris Henrich) (11/06/85)
[]
According to linguists, the spoken language is the real
thing, and written language just bobs along in its wake. That
may be just a statement of what the linguists prefer to study
- but here is an example of how it works.
Mathematicians sometimes say or write "abuse of language"
to mean a questionable but understandable use of terms or
notations. Hence the occasional "proof by abuse of language:
... "
And now and then an undergraduate writes on a homework
set: "Proof by abusive language: ..."
Unless you speak with unnatural slowness and distinction,
they sound the same. And the mistake makes a kind of sense:
such proofs are regularly resorted to on net.politics,
net.origin, even net.religion.(gasp)christian.
Regards,
Chris
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Full-Name: Christopher J. Henrich
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