saving the world

[Paul Johnston]

Fine with me, Beverly.

Paul
On Dec 3, 2006, at 11:47 PM, Beverly Flanigan wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Beverly Flanigan <flanigan at OHIO.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: saving the world
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> ---------
>
> Mr. Zurinskas, would you please stop preaching to us about how we
> "should"
> speak English?  We're linguists and dialectologists, and we don't take
> kindly to prescriptive preaching!   How are dialects "arbitrary"--
> do we
> just make them up as we go along?  And how do we stop them from
> "taking
> hold"?  Who ARE these "artificial dialectizers" who misspeak words--
> all of
> the millions of speakers of English around the world except thee
> and me
> (and not even me, apparently)?  Anything that doesn't match your
> principles
> is "not good"?  And "semplence"?  "Egyption"?  "speach"? "pear"?  I'd
> suggest you check your own spelling, or are you artificially
> changing it to
> match your own alphabetic(al) principle?
>
> I for one am getting tired of this kind of ranting on what was set
> up to be
> a neutral, objective, real-language-based listserv dedicated to the
> principles of the 100-year-old-plus American Dialect Society.  Are you
> aware of the ADS and what it stands for?  Are you a member?  Now I'm
> ranting!  But instead of ignoring these misguided missives, I'm
> going to
> renew the call of some years ago that we restrict subscription to this
> listserv to those who are paying members of the ADS or who at least
> have
> serious and unbiased contributions to make.  And I'm willing to let
> our
> moderators be the judges of that.  Anybody want to join me?
>
> At 01:07 AM 11/24/2006, you wrote:
>> The alphabetical principle holds that letters stand for sounds.
>> We find now
>> that even Egyption hieroglyphic symbols stand for sounds, and we
>> can speak
>> the writings of 5,000 years ago because of this.
>>
>> Arbitrary dialects destroy this relationship and should they take
>> hold
>> lessen the consistency of correspondence between letters and
>> sounds and make
>> English all the harder to read and learn.  Not good.
>>
>> Let's not be artificial dialectizers by misspeaking words, but rather
>> retainers of what semplence of alphabetic principle we have for
>> English.
>>
>> Tom Zurinskas, USA - CT20, TN3, NJ33, FL4+
>> See truespel.com and the 4 truespel books at authorhouse.com.
>>
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