<- file stat 97aue.html -> AUE (alt.usage.english) is my favorite NetGroup after the .stat. groups. Originally, I found it educational about easy, grammatical points that I only thought that I knew. Other people, too, come to it as language pedants, who are sure that what they learned in 5th grade must be true (aah, read a while before you post). It continues to be educational in a more general, cultural way. Mostly, I find it entertaining; I hope that others may like it, too. Here are thoughtful comments about AUE, and English usage.

correctness in language

=======================Brian J Goggin, 28 Jan 1997==========aue From: bjg@wordwrights.ie (Brian J Goggin) Newsgroups: alt.usage.english Subject: Re: Bidness was Re: Warshington Lines: 189 Message-ID: <32ee08f7.78270706@news.eunet.ie> On Tue, 28 Jan 1997 12:38:10 GMT, bbattin@ix.netcom.com (B.W. Battin) wrote: >A question for you. Why do you and some others in this group find the >idea of correctness to be such an anathema? I had expected this group >to a bastion of correctness, defending the language at every turn, >seeking excellence in all aspects of English usage and pronunciation. Hi. Hope you don't mind a response from A N Other as well. I'm taking the liberty of intruding my own views, partly because I think you sometimes get an unduly rough time here and partly because, some years back, I'd probably have felt as you do. In my case, it was probably the result of my schooling. Teachers spent a lot of time pointing out the One True Way of writing, pronouncing, spelling, constructing or whatever. If you were a Good Student, you were good at remembering and using the True Way. And after going to a lot of trouble to master it, I resented any suggestion that the One True Way wasn't necessarily the Only Way. I just _knew_ that you shouldn't split infinitives and that those who did so were displaying their ignorance. Pointing that out gave me a sinful pleasure. Three different things helped me to change my mind. First, I came in (one-way) contact with people who studied the language: I listened to radio programmes about English usage. (We have a couple of them in Ireland; I don't know whether they're common in the US.) These programmes often featured phone-ins: people with beliefs like mine would ring in and, in effect, ask for support for their view that standards of English had gone to the dogs because others were ending sentences with prepositions or putting their apostrophes in the wrong places. At first, I resented what I felt to be supercilious academics who responded by saying that, in fact, there were different views, or that the practice in question was a relatively recent one or that a particular construction had such-and-such disadvantages. I felt that it was all very well for such academics, but if they were changing the rules on us, why hadn't they consulted us, or at least warned us about forthcoming changes? To this day, I still dislike any academics who seem to despise amateurs with an interest in English usage. I liked Steven Pinker's book "The Language Instinct", but I thought his chapter on "The Language Mavens" was obnoxious academic smart-assery (although it may be part of a US debate that I don't know about). The language belongs to all of us, and users like you and me are entitled to take an interest in it, even if our knowledge is less than that of the full-time specialists. I'd feel happier if they joined in the debate with the rest of us, instead of pronouncing from on high. And joining in is just what the academic contributors to AUE do: sharing their knowledge with the rest of us. I've been so impressed that I'd even like to quote a couple of sentences from John Lawler's home page: (John, my apologies: this quotation would be OK within Irish copyright law, but I don't know about yours. If I've done wrong, I'm sorry.) "I've been concerned for a long time about an American linguistic dilemma: on the one hand, Americans are really mystified about language, in my opinion much more so than people in most other countries; there are a lot of reasons for this, but it's a fact. On the other hand, American linguistics, which ought to be doing something to remedy this situation, has become increasingly irrelevant to everything, including language, over the past few decades; there are a lot of reasons for this, too, but it's equally true and equally depressing." John comes and helps; he loses me some of the time, but he (and others) make me realise how much I don't know ... and how much I do know that just ain't so. That realisation led me to start buying more books; that was the second step in changing my mind. The last time I measured, I had 19 feet of shelf-space devoted to books on English, as well as the OED on CD-ROM. Some of the books are for reference; others I've read from start to finish. Even a traditionalist (or perhaps I should say an eccentric) like Fowler devotes a lot of space to exploding superstitions: again, things I thought I knew that just weren't so. I focus less on academic works (my degree is in Economics, not in English) and more on usage guides and dictionaries: books in which I can check what's right and what's wrong ... or what's acceptable and what isn't. I'll come back to that point. The third step in changing my mind was the realisation that Irish usage differs from British usage. Most of the books available here are British, but our usage differs in some (small, but sometimes significant) ways. And why shouldn't it? We're a separate country, with a different history and different influences on our language. But if we can legitimately set our own standards, why shouldn't other groups do so? By this stage, I accept that there are lots of different sets of usages, different standards if you like, used amongst different groups. I would be most reluctant to say that any individual usage, within any of those groups, was wrong. I'm even (gritting my teeth) prepared to accept some of the abominations that management consultants inflict upon us ... at least as long as they don't do it in the street and frighten the horses. In fact I even take pleasure in finding out about different usages: that's part of the joy of being in this group. And I like some of the changes to the language: new words, expressive phrases, new constructions. (Mind you, there are others I regret!) I find the language itself entertaining and interesting, but I'm very reluctant to single out any particular usage and say "that's correct and that one isn't". That applies to written English and even more so to spoken English and pronunciation: there is simply very little that can usefully be said about their correctitude. I suspect that others here share that reluctance (which I may not have described very well), so there's an unwillingness to condemn. There's also an unwillingness to be too definitive: AUE contains (as you've noticed) a lot of people who will point out just what ain't so in anything you thought was so. So are there no standards? Is anything acceptable on AUE? I don't think so. Truly's English is impeccable, as is that of several other contributors; the general standard on AUE is (refreshingly) far higher than I find in any other medium (with the possible exception ot two British magazines, "The Spectator" and "English Today"). Yes, I admit it, I make judgements about the quality of English. I don't know the proper terminology for this, but I think I can say that the standard of English here is very high, even if I'm unwilling to say that the standard elsewhere is low. Maybe, therefore, most of those contributing here are using a particular variety of English: the standard English (SE) of which David Crystal writes (in the fascinating "Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language") "SE is a variety of English --- a distinctive combination of linguistic features with a particular role to play .... The linguistic features of SE are chiefly matters of grammar, vocabulary, and orthography (spelling and punctuation). It is important to note that SE is not a matter of pronunciation .... SE is the variety of English which carries most prestige within a country .... Although SE is widely understood, it is not widely produced. Only a minority of people within a country ... actually use it when they talk. ... Similarly, when they write --- itself a minority activity --- the consistent use of SE is required only in certain tasks .... More than anywhere else, SE is to be found in print." (By the way, Tom McArthur, in the current issue of "English Today", has an article in which he suggests that there are five overlapping international standards for English: print; media; governmental, administrative and legal; commercial and technological; educational.) In a recent British newspaper article, David Crystal predicted a future in which most people would be "trilingual - masters of their native tongue, of English as spoken locally, and of standard written English." (I suppose that leaves room for native speakers of English to take up a useful extra language --- like Latin.) I think that distinction between "English as spoken locally" and "standard written English" is a useful one; I'm not prepared to condemn a local-English usage just because it doesn't match standard English --- and I'd interpret "local" to cover work-based and other non-geographical communities. Coming here, then, is an opportunity to practise something you're good at, in the company of others who are good at it too --- and who are sharp enough to keep you on your toes in several respects: the accuracy of your observations, the validity of your arguments and the quality of your English. There's a lot to be learnt from participating in AUE. There's one other point I'd like to make. My work requires me to read and (at various levels) to edit (or even rewrite) the writings of large numbers of people. Most of them have third-level qualifications; some are university academics. The more time I spend at this, the more I'm convinced that the minor points covered in the usage guides are not really that important. Such points can distract an editor from much more important issues, like whether a document has a recognisable structure, whether its arguments are coherent, whether it does what it's supposed to do --- and whether it makes sense. I'll attend to the finer points, but if I were to spend too much emotional energy worrying about them, I'd miss the more important issues. That too may be driving me towards tolerance! >This leads to a second question (with two parts.) Do you advocate >*any* standards of correctness? And if so, would you mind telling me >what they are? 1. Do not use smileys. ? bjg * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

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