Nobel Prize for Archaeological Grammar

[Jonathan Lighter]

Sounds normal (albeit nonstandard) to me.

  JL

Beverly Flanigan <flanigan at OHIO.EDU> wrote:
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Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Beverly Flanigan
Subject: Re: Nobel Prize for Archaeological Grammar
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Just one more example of acc. used for nom.--surprising even to me: On NPR
this morning, a female commentator (name?) reported that "Her and her
husband" (or father, or whatever--can't recall) had to do something or
other. This isn't hypercorrection in the usual sense of the word; it's
typical colloquial speech probably used under the pressure of a brief
unscripted news report from the field. I heard something similar from my
Linguistics department chair recently, come to think of it, and my grad
students do this often in colloquial speech.

Beverly

At 06:39 PM 8/23/2007, you wrote:
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>Sender: American Dialect Society
>Poster: Laurence Urdang
>Subject: Re: Nobel Prize for Archaeological Grammar
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>
>Of course it is, Ron. See my reply.
> Larry
>
>ronbutters at AOL.COM wrote:
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>Poster: ronbutters at AOL.COM
>Subject: Re: Nobel Prize for Archaeological Grammar
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>
>But isn't this exactly what the word HYPERCORRECTION means? What is YOUR
>definition, Larry?
>
>Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Laurence Urdang
>
>Date: Thu, 23 Aug 2007 05:43:16
>To:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>Subject: Re: [ADS-L] Nobel Prize for Archaeological Grammar
>
>
>My remark about hypercorrectness was not aimed at sophisticated observers
>like Horn, and all I meant was that some commentators regard the change of
>"He gave it to Tom and me" to "He gave it to Tom and I" as
>hypercorrection, when it is nothing more than correction. It is almost as
>if some grammar policeman instructed younger speakers that if they were
>going to say "me," they ought to change it to "I" in order to play it safe
>and speak "correctly." I have no statistics, but I'd guess that the "I"
>substitution occurs more frequently (or only?) when there is a compound
>object: I have never heard, "Give it to I," "It belongs to I," etc.,
>though, of course, anything is possible.
>Grammatically, of course, there is nothing "wrong" about putting Tom after
>me: that is usually a mere matter of politeness, which children are not
>longer exposed to---let alone taught---these days.
>L. Urdang
>
>Laurence Horn wrote:
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>Sender: American Dialect Society
>Poster: Laurence Horn
>Subject: Re: Nobel Prize for Archaeological Grammar
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>
>At 6:49 AM -0700 8/22/07, Laurence Urdang wrote:
> >Of course dived is "far older" than "dove": the verb dive is what is
> >called a "weak" verb (amongst those who know anything about general
> >or comparative linguistics), hence does not change internally but
> >adds the "weak" marker of the past, namely, "-d," "-ed," or some
> >other dental sound.
> > I am getting very tired of those who label "correct" as
> >"hypercorrect" as if there were (that's a contrary-to-fact
> >subjunctive, folks) some stigma attached to being correct.
>
>I don't understand this objection. The only way I've seen
>"hypercorrection" used is as applied to forms that are not normally
>taken to be "correct" at all, such as (from our recent discussion)
>"Give it to Tom and I". It's not that there's a stigma associated
>withe being "correct" (even assuming prescriptivist norms), but that
>the _motivation_ for using such forms (as opposed to "Me and Tom gave
>it to you", which is neither "correct" nor "hypercorrect") is the
>speaker's worry that the form that would normally have been chosen
>(e.g. "Give it to Tom and me/to me and Tom") is incorrect ('Don't say
>"me and Tom", say "Tom and I"!') and that the unnatural or artificial
>("Tom and I") form should be chosen instead. Similarly for
>phonological examples (e.g. the inserted /r/ between vowels, e.g.
>"the idear of it", in non-rhotic dialects.) Am I missing something?
>
>LH
>
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