A confession to make....

[conuly]

Although I do dislike prescriptivism, the reality is that my normal dialect is actually very close to Standard American English. I even use the subjunctive, and the word whom. It's tragic :(

When I say things like "youse guys" or "djusk' a" or the random Latin, I'm doing that consciously because I want a more interesting idiolect.

I'm sorry for misleading people.

*sniffles*

Well, that's done. Now we can forget it ever happened, okay?

Oh, and something else - just because prescriptivism is evil does NOT mean that I have given up the right to thwomp you all seriously for saying something nonstandard (if I think that's what you're trying to do). If you don't want to be corrected, you should say so, because I hate to see something that's very nearly standard, but not quite. So if you're typing standard english, standard english, standard english, between him and I, standard english - expect me to yell and change the I to a me. And explain why. Ad nauseam.

Thank you.

Again, let's just forget this ever happened.

*runs off*

Comments

[ladyshrew.livejournal.com]

Ugh. "Him and I" drives me insane too.

The reason I "prefer" standard English is because I want rule-breaking to make *sense*. Rule-breaking only has power if there is a standard and there is a meaning behind the rule-breaking.

I suspect, from this post, that you may be of a similar mindset but are approaching it from a different angle.

[conuly]

Nah, not really. I don't see it as rule-breaking UNLESS you're trying to speak SAE and failing. That irritates me.

I do see the purpose of a standard dialect. I don't, however, agree with the way ours is set up (sorry) nor with the idea that standard = correct. That irritates me a LOT.

[ladyshrew.livejournal.com]

Ok, I think we're going to have to define a few things in order to have this convo. heh.

When I say I "prefer" it, I just mean I prefer it in those who think they're trying to speak it. Dialect is something quite different. They have their own governing rules that work just as nicely and can be just as expressively beautiful as any other language. Still, they are governed by a set of rules which may or may not have anything to do with the "standard." These rules, like those of standard English, guide people in their understanding of that dialect; and when the rules are broken, it grabs attention.

Thus, when I say I "prefer correct English," I mean that if you're speaking Standard English (or think you are), I'd prefer that you do so "correctly" by its rules. Because, as I think we agree, you just won't convey your meaning properly if you don't play by the same rules (and by "play by the same rules," I mean break them only when you mean to in order to convey a different meaning).

[dkmnow.livejournal.com]

Erm...I still dunno wotthehell "djusk' a" means, but I ain't tradin' my cantankerous grammaw fer' nobody fer' nuthin'!

Nohow!

:-p

[conuly]

Djusk' a = until. It's Walloon.

[dkmnow.livejournal.com]

M'kay. Thanks.

:-)

[moroveus.livejournal.com]

When I say things like "youse guys" or "djusk' a" or the random Latin, I'm doing that consciously because I want a more interesting idiolect.

Fo' shizzle my bizzle. I'm a closeted language maven too.

[conuly]

It's okay. We can get through this.

[wakasplat.livejournal.com]

Is your spoken English as perfectly standard as your written English would be if you didn't change it on purpose?

(Do most people learn those almost as two separate languages?)

[conuly]

Very much, yes.

My mother is an intellectual snob, and an editor. So I speak as I was raised, and... well... that's Standard.

[conuly]

And yes, yes they do.

[wakasplat.livejournal.com]

Okay, that makes sense. Spoken language, even when I was ostensibly better at it, was nowhere near as standard as my written language. (It was a hodge-podge of dialects, some standard some not, and seriously annoyed many teachers who still couldn't find anything to fault in my written work.) I was told — by someone trying to defend how I was harassed by a particular teacher around my (in)ability to speak "properly" — that most people write exactly how they speak, and therefore the teacher must have been afraid I'd write like I spoke.

[push-the-limits.livejournal.com]

I thought it would have been "he and I."

[lakidaa.livejournal.com]

that's what I was taught too.

bwarg.

[wakasplat.livejournal.com]

Since they're objects of a preposition, it'd be "him and me". At least I think that's why it's that way.

The trouble is that people get drilled into them. The whole "Don't say me an'" thing.

Then they don't realize that "He and I went to the store" is grammatical in standard American English but that, for instance, "They got pizza for him and me" is also standard and "They got pizza for he and I" would be wrong. The rule has gotten so drilled in that a lot of people go the opposite way now.

(At least I think I got all that right. It's been awhile since I've read an English textbook.)

[conuly]

You're completely right. It irritates me that people hypercorrect. That's even worse than being prescriptivist, hypercorrection. *shudders*

[ladyshrew.livejournal.com]

If the pronouns were being used as the subject, then yes. If the pronouns are being used as the direct object, then it's "him and me."

[conuly]

It depends on how you're using the phrase. Lakidaa is the correct one.

If I say "the book fell between the two of us", I also have to say "the book fell between him and me".

It's still the objective pronoun, even if you divide it like that.

I can't see how I'd use them as the subject, but I'm sure there's a way.

[conuly]

Oops, that's ladyshrew, not lakidaa. My apologies.

[rachelkachel]

Okay, random question that vaguely relates to the subject at hand (ie grammar).

Is it all right to say "I can't tell the difference between all of them" or should it be "I can't tell the difference among all of them" or something else entirely? The second just sounds wrong, but that could be because it's never used. The first one seems illogical because normally between is only for two things...

Argh!

[conuly]

If we're being prescriptivist about it.... *shudders*

I'd recast the sentence. Between is only supposed to be used for pairs, not more than that, so it can't be used with the phrase "all of them", and you're right, among sounds wrong. Instead, I'd say something like "I can't see where they're different from each other" or something like that, which is stilted but correct.

[cumaeansibyl.livejournal.com]

I'm actually a prescriptivist -- oh, am I ever -- but I like using colloquialisms and pieces of dialect and words from other languages in my speech and my casual writing. Like ladyshrew said, that stuff has more power if you normally speak or write SAE. I ain't one of them people what normally talk all wrong, so people notice it when I do.

I'm only really prescriptivist when it comes to formal writing. I don't care how people talk, and I'll ignore grammar violations in casual writing unless they're truly awful and grating, but if someone hands me a paper or an op-ed article to edit I am going to kill that fucker dead. In such cases, I'm concerned with the current academic standard, not the evolution of English or valuing other modes of speech or any of that language-is-free-like-a-butterfly stuff, because your average prof wants to see you write like a serious academic-type person.

[ladyshrew.livejournal.com]

Ugh. "Him and I" drives me insane too.

The reason I "prefer" standard English is because I want rule-breaking to make *sense*. Rule-breaking only has power if there is a standard and there is a meaning behind the rule-breaking.

I suspect, from this post, that you may be of a similar mindset but are approaching it from a different angle.

[conuly]

Nah, not really. I don't see it as rule-breaking UNLESS you're trying to speak SAE and failing. That irritates me.

I do see the purpose of a standard dialect. I don't, however, agree with the way ours is set up (sorry) nor with the idea that standard = correct. That irritates me a LOT.

[ladyshrew.livejournal.com]

Ok, I think we're going to have to define a few things in order to have this convo. heh.

When I say I "prefer" it, I just mean I prefer it in those who think they're trying to speak it. Dialect is something quite different. They have their own governing rules that work just as nicely and can be just as expressively beautiful as any other language. Still, they are governed by a set of rules which may or may not have anything to do with the "standard." These rules, like those of standard English, guide people in their understanding of that dialect; and when the rules are broken, it grabs attention.

Thus, when I say I "prefer correct English," I mean that if you're speaking Standard English (or think you are), I'd prefer that you do so "correctly" by its rules. Because, as I think we agree, you just won't convey your meaning properly if you don't play by the same rules (and by "play by the same rules," I mean break them only when you mean to in order to convey a different meaning).

[dkmnow.livejournal.com]

Erm...I still dunno wotthehell "djusk' a" means, but I ain't tradin' my cantankerous grammaw fer' nobody fer' nuthin'!

Nohow!

:-p

[conuly]

Djusk' a = until. It's Walloon.

[dkmnow.livejournal.com]

M'kay. Thanks.

:-)

[moroveus.livejournal.com]

When I say things like "youse guys" or "djusk' a" or the random Latin, I'm doing that consciously because I want a more interesting idiolect.

Fo' shizzle my bizzle. I'm a closeted language maven too.

[conuly]

It's okay. We can get through this.

[wakasplat.livejournal.com]

Is your spoken English as perfectly standard as your written English would be if you didn't change it on purpose?

(Do most people learn those almost as two separate languages?)

[conuly]

Very much, yes.

My mother is an intellectual snob, and an editor. So I speak as I was raised, and... well... that's Standard.

[conuly]

And yes, yes they do.

[wakasplat.livejournal.com]

Okay, that makes sense. Spoken language, even when I was ostensibly better at it, was nowhere near as standard as my written language. (It was a hodge-podge of dialects, some standard some not, and seriously annoyed many teachers who still couldn't find anything to fault in my written work.) I was told — by someone trying to defend how I was harassed by a particular teacher around my (in)ability to speak "properly" — that most people write exactly how they speak, and therefore the teacher must have been afraid I'd write like I spoke.

[push-the-limits.livejournal.com]

I thought it would have been "he and I."

[lakidaa.livejournal.com]

that's what I was taught too.

bwarg.

[wakasplat.livejournal.com]

Since they're objects of a preposition, it'd be "him and me". At least I think that's why it's that way.

The trouble is that people get drilled into them. The whole "Don't say me an'" thing.

Then they don't realize that "He and I went to the store" is grammatical in standard American English but that, for instance, "They got pizza for him and me" is also standard and "They got pizza for he and I" would be wrong. The rule has gotten so drilled in that a lot of people go the opposite way now.

(At least I think I got all that right. It's been awhile since I've read an English textbook.)

[conuly]

You're completely right. It irritates me that people hypercorrect. That's even worse than being prescriptivist, hypercorrection. *shudders*

[ladyshrew.livejournal.com]

If the pronouns were being used as the subject, then yes. If the pronouns are being used as the direct object, then it's "him and me."

[conuly]

It depends on how you're using the phrase. Lakidaa is the correct one.

If I say "the book fell between the two of us", I also have to say "the book fell between him and me".

It's still the objective pronoun, even if you divide it like that.

I can't see how I'd use them as the subject, but I'm sure there's a way.

[conuly]

Oops, that's ladyshrew, not lakidaa. My apologies.

[rachelkachel]

Okay, random question that vaguely relates to the subject at hand (ie grammar).

Is it all right to say "I can't tell the difference between all of them" or should it be "I can't tell the difference among all of them" or something else entirely? The second just sounds wrong, but that could be because it's never used. The first one seems illogical because normally between is only for two things...

Argh!

[conuly]

If we're being prescriptivist about it.... *shudders*

I'd recast the sentence. Between is only supposed to be used for pairs, not more than that, so it can't be used with the phrase "all of them", and you're right, among sounds wrong. Instead, I'd say something like "I can't see where they're different from each other" or something like that, which is stilted but correct.

[cumaeansibyl.livejournal.com]

I'm actually a prescriptivist -- oh, am I ever -- but I like using colloquialisms and pieces of dialect and words from other languages in my speech and my casual writing. Like ladyshrew said, that stuff has more power if you normally speak or write SAE. I ain't one of them people what normally talk all wrong, so people notice it when I do.

I'm only really prescriptivist when it comes to formal writing. I don't care how people talk, and I'll ignore grammar violations in casual writing unless they're truly awful and grating, but if someone hands me a paper or an op-ed article to edit I am going to kill that fucker dead. In such cases, I'm concerned with the current academic standard, not the evolution of English or valuing other modes of speech or any of that language-is-free-like-a-butterfly stuff, because your average prof wants to see you write like a serious academic-type person.