prescriptivism, conventions, irony, and could(n't) care less

[Lynne Murphy]

OK, I'm taking some grief for being a prescriptivist.  I just want to
assert that I'm G'lynne'da the Good Prescriptivist, not a nasty one:  there
are plenty of Bad Prescriptivist things that I disagree with (e.g.,
anything sexist or based in misunderstandings of grammatical categories);
my prescriptivism is almost entirely limited to the written form in
specific (more careful or formal) contexts (which, I've argued here before,
deserves a standard in a way that speech does not need and cannot support);
and I recognize that there's a lot of arbitrariness in those prescriptions,
but there's a lot of arbitrariness in culture-determined behavior
generally, and I enjoy those conventions--in part because having
conventions allows you to exploit and flout them.  (Do I get the prize for
January's longest sentence on ADS?  Note that I don't necessarily count
e-mail to ADS-L as a 'careful or formal' context!)  I also recognize that
not following these prescriptions (while not flouting them either) is not a
sign of defective thinking.  But as a teacher and editor, I have a certain
respect for some prescriptive traditions, and believe that metalinguistic
awareness of them is never a bad thing.

OK, after all that, I stand by my assertions that (a) plenty of Americans
say 'couldn't care less', and (b) lots of US English teachers are
particular about this (I remember a couple of mine in particular as well as
my colleagues there).  Also, sorry Larry, but I really doubt your
supposition (if I'm understanding it correctly) that there's something
ironic about US usage of 'I could care less'.  I think it's just an
unanalysed idiom for a lot of people--which means that I do agree with you
that its phonological reduction is not really semantically damaging.  But
this means that simple phonological reduction is the whole story for why
it's lost--lexicalization (idiomatization?) of the phrase was a necessary
first step.

Now, on a tangentially related topic, I've come to realize that Englishfolk
frequently don't 'get' US ironic or self-deprecatory use of non-standard
forms and ascribe all instances to the lack of a standard (or the
'degradation' of the standard in the US).  A couple of Englishpeople have
complained to me that, while assuring me they like US English, they can't
take it that (not 'when' but 'that') Americans use adjectives where they
should use adverbs (and at least one of them expressed fear that this is
coming into US English).  The example they cite?  "You did/done good" (as
heard on 'Friends' or 'Frasier' or whatever).  Now, when I say "you done
good", there's a humor about it--it involves friendly encouragement as well
as a bit of self-consciousness about making the compliment.  Now,this is
not to say that all people use it this way, but I think there is a
difference for a lot of people in the contexts and meaning involved when
one says "you did/done good" and "you did well".  Or am I living in an
idiolectal fantasyland?

Lynne


M Lynne Murphy
Lecturer in Linguistics
School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

phone +44-(0)1273-678844
fax   +44-(0)1273-671320