LL-L "Morphology" 2002.03.08 (03) [E]

[Lowlands-L]

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 L O W L A N D S - L * 08.MAR.2002 (03) * ISSN 189-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
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From: "John M. Tait" <jmtait at wirhoose.co.uk>
Subject: LL-L "Morphology" 2002.02.26 (06) [E/S]

Ed Alexander wrote:
>
>Although the Me and George form is extremely prevalent in local Canadjun
>dilect, it is still a real "low class" indicator.

This is really the point, isn't it - these variations are not so much
indicators of what is 'correct' as what is perceived as being 'polite'.
'And me' has become perceived as impolite even when it is classically
correct, and 'and I' as polite even when it is classically incorrect. The
acceptable grammar of standard English is therefore changing in the
direction of public perception and contrary to classical grammar, in the
same way that non-standard dialect forms are eliminated as being impolite.

Personally, I hardly ever use the form 'and I' in speech, even when I am
speaking English rather than Scots, and even where it is classically
correct. I only use it in writing, and perhaps if I'm speaking to someone
with a suitably 'posh' accent. It's not that I don't know where it 'should'
be used, or that I couldn't if I wanted to - it's that the register which
uses the form is one which I associate with people like my mother in law,
who is over seventy, comes from Glasgow, and says things like 'Senta Claus'
and 'Hev you seen my hendbeg?' The same thing goes for e.g. 'whom' (I would
say 'who will I give it to?' rather than 'to whom shall I give it?') and so
on.

There is here, I suspect, a consciousness of 'talking posh' and 'talking
street'. My social status and general attitudes predetermine me to 'talk
street', whereas the attitudes of others (at the risk of being non-PC,
especially mothers bringing up their children) predetermine them to 'talk
posh'. This often results in people telling their children to speak in a
way they don't themselves speak, or making an effort to speak in a way they
don't themselves find natural - resulting in hypercorrections.

A good example of this tendency in Shetlandic is the familiar singular 2nd
person pronoun _du_. Traditionally, this was used much as in many European
languages (except that it was not used to address parents, whereas parents
used it to address children.) For some time, there has been an increasing
tendency for some families - again, especially mothers - to use only the
'you' form in the family, with the result that the children - especially
girls - grow up using the 'you' form only. Thus, from both the 'you' and
'du' forms having a separate role within an integrated language the 'you'
form is increasingly perceived as being polite, and the 'du' form as
impolite, or 'street'. This means that more girls - who are probably more
inclined to follow the speech of their mothers - use the 'you' form and
more boys the 'du' form, and that both use their preferred form to
everyone. I was aghast, on a recent visit to Shetland, to hear a young boy
use 'du' when addressing his Grandfather! My sister in law, on the other
hand, uses 'du' only to animals.

John M. Tait.

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