"mere mistakes"

[Alexey I. Fuchs]

At least, no more akstericks in the fuckin'-word during this discussion
here. Seems to me hypocrisy. They dont use no asktericks in Webster, I saw
it there.

Pardon my French.

                                                        Alexey


On Wed, 6 Oct 1999, Dennis R. Preston wrote:

> I'm not sure how to deal with this diatribe against language legislation by
> expert bodies (which is generally universally ignored as quaint bullshit)
> which goes on to apply pet-peeve legislation at the individual level.
>
> Of course the history of every language is more than a little firmly rooted
> in "mere mistakes." Since I am a native speaker of "I like to fuckin'
> died," I was intrigued by the transportation of the "infinitive marker"
> (which it isn't) from "like to" to "about" in the expression. Those who are
> not intrigued by "mistakes" like these (and the underlying grammar which
> licenses them) are missing out on all the fun (not to mention the science).
>
> This does not mean, of course, that us linguists do not have ordinary
> feelings which reflect our own life experiences, and these little
> prejudices are fun to read. I jot them down in the interest of language
> attitude and folk linguistic research all the time.
>
> dInIs
>
>
>  >> Isn't anyone bothered by "exetera"?
> >>
> >
> >I guess it becomes a puristic argument similar to a meeting of anonymous
> >alcoholics. People who are fond of the language are always bothered when
> >other people talk incorrectly. But we are helpless, for if you hear
> >"exetera" around, it will be "exetera" and not the old good Latin "et
> >cetera." When I was younger, I was furious about "kofe" (russian "coffee")
> >being colloquially used in neutrum. It has to be masculine, I knew it, I
> >heard it in my family, I read it in books. A couple of years ago a
> >freaking "language academy" introduced a new "law," allowing (sic!) people
> >to regard "kofe" as neutrum. Those for whom language was merely means of
> >communication were celebrating - they did not have to fight themselves
> >anymore. What academy can introduce laws for language which is a form of
> >existence and a living body (at least, for me)?
> >A couple of further examples. The german-whatever-academy for a long time
> >now tries to get rid of es-zet, a gothic letter sounding like "ss" in
> >English. They also try to eliminate "ph" in Greek words and substitute
> >simple "f" for it. It is normal, it is orthography, nothing more, nothing
> >less, but why does it have to be artificial?
> >A construct "I about to fucking died" appeared recently on the list. It
> >does not have to be studied (maybe, just noted). It has to be eliminated.
> >A person using such a construct does not suggest an interesting usage of
> >grammatical and lexical units, he is merely mistaken. For me, it is
> >disgusting (though I do not possess exemplary knowledge of the English
> >language myself).
> >On the other hand, one can do nothing about that. I can bring more
> >examples from Hebrew with its poor lexicon heading to the huge gap which
> >already exists in Arabic between the spoken language and the literature,
> >but the efforts to stops this process are probably vain. The language will
> >"develop." For me, a consolation is that the good old language does not
> >die. It may not be spoken, but it is in the books.
> >I vainly hope that the "language academies" will rather die while standing
> >than live on their knees, "legalizing" "I about to fucking died" instead
> >of supporting propoer language education. This may decelerate the process
> >of language degeneration and stimulated deterioration.
> >
> >Of course, "exetera" bothers me.
> >
> >                                                        A.Fuchs
> >
> >P.S. "Don't afraid. Everybody must dead." is my favourite movie quotation.
>
> Dennis R. Preston
> Professor of Linguistics
> Department of Linguistics and Languages
> Michigan State University
> East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA
> preston at pilot.msu.edu
> Office: (517)353-0740
> Fax: (517)432-2736
>