~ (UNCLASSIFIED)

[Tom Zurinskas]

These are bad ones!  And there aren't any good ones?  Not a single good rule out there?   I think we could think of a few.


Tom Zurinskas, USA - CT20, TN3, NJ33, FL5+
see truespel.com


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> Date: Sat, 21 Feb 2009 19:49:45 -0500
> From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU
> Subject: Re: ~ (UNCLASSIFIED)
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: Laurence Horn
> Subject: Re: ~ (UNCLASSIFIED)
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> At 12:27 AM +0000 2/22/09, Tom Zurinskas wrote:
>>It would be nice if these linguistic classes have some subject
>>differenciation (generally). After the Monty Python guy directed the
>>person to the right door he said "stupid git", whatever that means.
>>
>>Writing a dictionary is descriptive, but then for anyone reading
>>them prescriptive. Below you say.
>>
>>> Except that your advice is highly prescriptive, while linguistics (not
>>> to mention history) has pretty much demonstrated that that approach
>>> doesn't work.
>>
>>This kind of statement is worthless without examples. Got any?
>
> Dennis Baron's book _Language and Good Taste_ is a good place to
> look. Prescriptivists have been fulminating over issues for
> centuries, often the same issues, without success. Don't say "I
> will", say "I shall" for the simple future. Don't say "you were",
> say "you was" (at least for the singular). Don't say "ice cream",
> it's illogical; should be "iced cream". Don't use "object" as a
> verb, that's a barbarism. (Similarly for most denominal verbs now
> extant.) Don't say "Who did you see?", should be "whom". Don't end
> sentences with prepositions or begin them with "and" or "but". Don't
> use words in anything other than original meaning--"tuition" doesn't
> refer to money, but to teaching. "Nice" means 'discriminating' (or is
> it 'stupid'?), not 'pleasant'. "Aggravate" doesn't mean 'annoy',
> only 'weigh down'. Do I really need to go on? I'm sure the
> phoneticians could provide similar examples of how not to pronounce
> words, and why we should pronounce them in the right way (which
> nobody now does). I believe it shouldn't be that hard to find
> additional examples--in the thousands.
>
> LH
>
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