ellis@spar.UUCP (Michael Ellis) (06/21/85)
>>Does anyone have information on the success of attempts of >>"conscious" linguistic change? -- Henry Pollard > >The removal of the double negative from English was such a conscious >change. It is now considered "bad grammar" to say things like "I don't >like none of the things in that basket"... -- Ed Gould Some native peculiarities that have survived centuries of suppression by prescriptive grammarians include: 1. split infinitives: to proudly go 2. `prepositions' at end of sentences: who did you give it to? 3. singular they/their/them: each person must pay their own way These somehow refuse to die... -michael
rob@ptsfa.UUCP (Rob Bernardo) (06/24/85)
In article <351@spar.UUCP> ellis@spar.UUCP (Michael Ellis) writes: >>>Does anyone have information on the success of attempts of >>>"conscious" linguistic change? -- Henry Pollard >> >>The removal of the double negative from English was such a conscious >>change. It is now considered "bad grammar" to say things like "I don't >>like none of the things in that basket"... -- Ed Gould > I have heard (but am not sure I believe) that the "in'" pronunciation of the "-ing" verb ending was the standard pronunciation at some point in history, but that the "ing" pronunciation was taught in schools as the correct pronunciation by hypercorrect teachers. ['Hypercorrrect' is a term used by linguists to denote a 'bending over backwards' in the mistaken use of a certain linguistic habit as the historically original or "proper" way of speaking.] From what I remember learning in socio-linguistics, it seems to me that the easiest way to get people to make a linguistic change is to associate the desired linguistic habit with desired self-image. It used to be that the middle class would often adopt linguistic habits they believed to be those of the upper class. -- Rob Bernardo, San Ramon, California ihnp4!ptsfa!rob {nsc,ucbvax,decwrl,amd,fortune,zehntel}!dual!ptsfa!rob