That is an interesting essay. For me, Raymond’s arguments don’t really stand up. This is the core of his argument that the “popular usage” position, apparently common among linguists, is not well-grounded:
At the bottom of it, for most people, is the belief that popular usage always wins in the end, so why fight it? But this isn’t actually even remotely true; as far back as Middle English, academic grammarians imported Latin and French words into English wholesale, and they often displaced more popular “native” words. The anti-populist effect of class stratification has been taken over in our time by mass media, especially television and movies, which have enormous power to ratify minority usages and pronunciations and make them normative.
It misses the fact that the academic grammarians and mass media he mentions are an influential part of the popular-usage process, not in opposition to it. News networks don’t announce that their usages are normatively correct: it is (a certain segment of) the population who make that argument.
If there’s no distinction to be made between elite prescription and mass usage, then what is the point of appealing to “common usage via Google” at all? By your argument, I’m just as much an “influential part of the popular-usage process” as the Google results that were being used as an argument against my position. Either there is a distinction between common and elite usage, or there isn’t. If there is, we can argue about which is more important in what circumstances. If not, then we’re back to arguing about function and ambiguity.
No, there is a distinction here, but it’s not between common and elite usage. It’s about whether the authority is normatively correct even when the people disagree. If an authority is against a usage and most people continue using it, most linguists (holding the “popular usage” position) will be for that usage. If an authority is against a usage and most people are also against it (whether influenced by the authority or not), most linguists will be against it.
I’m just as much an “influential part of the popular-usage process”
Yes! If you’re influential, that is. Google certainly is.
If an authority is against a usage and most people continue using it, most linguists (holding the “popular usage” position) will be for that usage.
ESR’s argument is precisely that this is not true; that linguists will generally not approve of a popular usage as against an elite usage when, and only when, the elite usage is less ambiguous. Do you have any data (anecdotes will do, that’s what he’s basing his assertion on) that shows otherwise?
If I told you that most linguists think that Strunk and White is a load of crap, would that help? Or how about that most linguists I know will happily admit that these days there’s little or no difference between “fewer” and “less”, or complementiser usage of “which” and “that”, because the vast majority of people don’t make a principled distinction between the two? I’m pretty sure I’ve also heard at least one of them using “less” in a classroom context that prescriptively ought to have been “fewer”
(Actually, I’m not sure if there was ever a really principled distinction between fewer and less—it seems like one of those things that teachers have always been complaining about our misuse of)
Well, “most linguists” is a phrase that really cries out for some Wiki tags. “Citation needed”, “who”, and “weasel words” come to mind. That aside, I do not see what Strunk and White has to do with it; they were giving advice on writing style, not on how to express yourself un-ambiguously. As for fewer and less, and which and that, I don’t see where these gave rise to any actual precision of language. Saying ‘fewer people’ is not actually needed to inform you that people are countable; you already know that. So the alleged additional information is redundant. Which is, indeed, why people don’t bother with the distinction, and why linguists merely catalog the usage. Your examples are quite different both from the original “not all are/all are not” distinction, and from the ones in the essay, and thus don’t actually carry your point.
You did not give anecdotes; you made assertions. There’s a difference. If I say “Person such-and-such, who is a linguist, told me this-and-that”, this is anecdotal evidence that linguists hold such a position. If I say “Most linguists think”, that is assertion.
I see. In that case, let me rephrase: every member of the class of linguists that I am aware of, including but not limited to the ones on Language Log, the ones at my old department and the ones at my current department, think that Strunk and White and other similar prescriptivism is a load of crap and are in favour of usage-based grammaticality.
I also request that any subsequent comments I make in this thread be downvoted, because I am clearly having problems disengaging.
Again, what do Strunk and White have to do with it? They were giving advice on writing style, saying “If you say it this way your readers will like your writing better”, not “This is the correct way to say it”. Now perhaps they gave bad advice, it is a point on which reasonable men might differ, but what of it? To beat up on Strunk and White may be popular, but it has nothing to do with prescriptivism in linguistics.
As for the wiki tags, Language Log provides some examples. I don’t think these examples have to include the precision aspect of the question to support the claim that Raymond is over-reaching in his attack on the “popular usage” position.
Perhaps you’ll find this interesting, it touches on how language works and corrects your apparent misconception that it’s all about usage:
http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=737
That is an interesting essay. For me, Raymond’s arguments don’t really stand up. This is the core of his argument that the “popular usage” position, apparently common among linguists, is not well-grounded:
It misses the fact that the academic grammarians and mass media he mentions are an influential part of the popular-usage process, not in opposition to it. News networks don’t announce that their usages are normatively correct: it is (a certain segment of) the population who make that argument.
If there’s no distinction to be made between elite prescription and mass usage, then what is the point of appealing to “common usage via Google” at all? By your argument, I’m just as much an “influential part of the popular-usage process” as the Google results that were being used as an argument against my position. Either there is a distinction between common and elite usage, or there isn’t. If there is, we can argue about which is more important in what circumstances. If not, then we’re back to arguing about function and ambiguity.
No, there is a distinction here, but it’s not between common and elite usage. It’s about whether the authority is normatively correct even when the people disagree. If an authority is against a usage and most people continue using it, most linguists (holding the “popular usage” position) will be for that usage. If an authority is against a usage and most people are also against it (whether influenced by the authority or not), most linguists will be against it.
Yes! If you’re influential, that is. Google certainly is.
ESR’s argument is precisely that this is not true; that linguists will generally not approve of a popular usage as against an elite usage when, and only when, the elite usage is less ambiguous. Do you have any data (anecdotes will do, that’s what he’s basing his assertion on) that shows otherwise?
If I told you that most linguists think that Strunk and White is a load of crap, would that help? Or how about that most linguists I know will happily admit that these days there’s little or no difference between “fewer” and “less”, or complementiser usage of “which” and “that”, because the vast majority of people don’t make a principled distinction between the two? I’m pretty sure I’ve also heard at least one of them using “less” in a classroom context that prescriptively ought to have been “fewer”
(Actually, I’m not sure if there was ever a really principled distinction between fewer and less—it seems like one of those things that teachers have always been complaining about our misuse of)
Well, “most linguists” is a phrase that really cries out for some Wiki tags. “Citation needed”, “who”, and “weasel words” come to mind. That aside, I do not see what Strunk and White has to do with it; they were giving advice on writing style, not on how to express yourself un-ambiguously. As for fewer and less, and which and that, I don’t see where these gave rise to any actual precision of language. Saying ‘fewer people’ is not actually needed to inform you that people are countable; you already know that. So the alleged additional information is redundant. Which is, indeed, why people don’t bother with the distinction, and why linguists merely catalog the usage. Your examples are quite different both from the original “not all are/all are not” distinction, and from the ones in the essay, and thus don’t actually carry your point.
You ask for anecdotal evidence and then demand citations when given some? I’m tapping out of this conversation for good.
You did not give anecdotes; you made assertions. There’s a difference. If I say “Person such-and-such, who is a linguist, told me this-and-that”, this is anecdotal evidence that linguists hold such a position. If I say “Most linguists think”, that is assertion.
I see. In that case, let me rephrase: every member of the class of linguists that I am aware of, including but not limited to the ones on Language Log, the ones at my old department and the ones at my current department, think that Strunk and White and other similar prescriptivism is a load of crap and are in favour of usage-based grammaticality.
I also request that any subsequent comments I make in this thread be downvoted, because I am clearly having problems disengaging.
Again, what do Strunk and White have to do with it? They were giving advice on writing style, saying “If you say it this way your readers will like your writing better”, not “This is the correct way to say it”. Now perhaps they gave bad advice, it is a point on which reasonable men might differ, but what of it? To beat up on Strunk and White may be popular, but it has nothing to do with prescriptivism in linguistics.
As for the wiki tags, Language Log provides some examples. I don’t think these examples have to include the precision aspect of the question to support the claim that Raymond is over-reaching in his attack on the “popular usage” position.