Vocabula

[Dennis R. Preston]

I bet he ain't nearly as a-skeert of ignernce as I am.

dInIs

>In a message dated 6/17/2003 4:50:35 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
>pulliam at IIT.EDU writes:
>
>>  I also think that many people feel very threatened by language change
>>  and variation.  You can see this in the TVR's motto, which appears to
>>  be based on a real, if unfounded and therefore illogical, fear that
>>  the language changes taking place around us are some sort of vanguard
>>  of social and cultural change--for the worse.
>
>
>I am not the least fearful of language change though I am fearful of
>ignorance, and only the honest among you will concur that much
>language change is due
>to exactly that.
>
>I imagine, though, that the principal reason for the vituperative (and ad
>hominem) attacks against me is that people who have spent their lives studying
>linguistics are infuriated when someone dares say, in effect, that
>how they see
>things is largely nonsense. No one likes to be told, even implicitly, that
>they have wasted their lives.
>
>By the way, Halpern and I have agreed that his July response to Trudgill's
>June Vocabula article will be made freely available to ADS members. Do stay
>tuned.
>
>
>
>
>
>Robert Hartwell Fiske
>Editor and Publisher
>The Vocabula Review
>www.vocabula.com
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--
Dennis R. Preston
Professor of Linguistics
Department of Linguistics & Germanic, Slavic,
      Asian & African Languages
Michigan State University
East Lansing, MI 48824-1027
e-mail: preston at msu.edu
phone: (517) 353-9290