Coincidence? My girlfriend and I were just talking about non-native speakers, as in your story of that native Japanese speaker's use of 'own', and how we understand what they're trying to say even though it misses the mark. I tend to doubt that AI will ever be that flexible for a number of reasons not the least of which is that silicon circuits are not evolved neural circuits. With enough tweaking AI will seem to 'understand' but will not even be close to that five-year old.
Sorry, "Billy & me are going..." sounds either ignorant, lazy, or defiant and wholly wrong. I would definitely think less of the person (assuming they were a native speaker). And as far as Obama's solecism, my guess is that he thought using I sounded more intelligent, and was hoist on his own petard
It is not lazy, ignorant, etc... it is a dialect of English and consistent use of pronouns by case is a class signifier. Misusing pronouns, as is rampant in common use, creates a glass ceiling such that people will not advance in some careers and not know why. This is why teaching "correct" usage in school is so important. I once heard it referred to as having one's intellectual fly down. Since most public school teachers do not understand or use academic English, their students do not learn it either, which is sad. It is important not to conflate a person's dialect with intelligence or knowledge. There are many high earning or status careers which do not require academic English, such as President of the United States. Using colloquial English makes candidates more relatable to the public. I grew up with academic English in the home so it just feels like fingernails on a chalkboard to me when I hear pronoun abuse. William Saffire once did a fabulous grammatical analysis of a presidential debate. To those of us who grew up with academic English there is nothing natural about people saying "Me and my friends went..." It sound awkward and strange. I also grew up with /than/ as a coordinating conjunction and not a preposition so it takes the nominative case, but the language evolved and even dictionaries have changed so I stopped correcting my children and got with the program, but I can't use the objective case after /than/ myself as it sound funny to me.
I disagree with John on this one, too. There's a big difference between "Billy and I went to the store" and "President Bush invited Michelle and I," mainly that you'd never say "Me went to the store" or "President Bush invited I." I might be misunderstanding his argument, though, and I didn't re-listen before writing this. I think it might be about what we should consider clear use from others, though. I don't really see a point in quibbling with people about their speech or writing that I'm able to understand (although 10-year-old me definitely wouldn't agree). "Myself" has become a really big culprit now, too. I think people use it wrong so often because "me" sounds so simple that it can't possibly be correct, but it usually is. (Edit: I'm leaving the "wrong" as is because "wrongly" sounds stupid, even though it's probably technically correct.)
Try "incorrectly" if you're looking for an adverb.
The episode is mainly about the difference between "descriptive" and "prescriptive" grammar. The latter is what we're taught in school and is an attempt to standardize the language with rules that are often based on arbitrary notions of style and logic. Owing to its high status, much of the logic has been historically gleaned from Latin, even though Latin grammar has very little to do with English grammar on the ground. Descriptive grammar, which is the grammar that is of interest to linguists, relates to the way people actually speak. Nominative "you and me" is quite common in the spoken language. Nominative "me" by itself isn't -- in fact, it sounds like Tarzan. Thus we can say with regard to English grammar that "Billy and me went to the store" is grammatically correct while "me went to the store" is not grammatically correct.
The distinction then between "Billy and me went to the store" and "Billy and I went to the store" is not one of correctness, but formality.
This is what John was after.
I would contend that there is a further shade of nuance between nominative "you and me" and objective "you and I" that John does not address here. The latter form is almost certainly influenced by prescriptive grammar itself and is what we would call an overcorrection. It falls into the same category as things like "spelling pronunciation" where a speaker might pronounce the silent letters of the spelled word in an attempt to sound more formal. Since these are paralinguistic factors -- they derive from the written language -- I don't think it's entirely fair to gloss objective "you and I" as a natural part of English grammar.
Thanks, Eli. I mostly left it as is and commented on it because I thought it was interesting that "wrong" in that case felt both correct and incorrect to me, partly because of what you're talking about. There's something about "use it wrong" that's different than "use it incorrect." I'd also never say "use it rightly," though I'd naturally say "use it correctly." I think the difference must be one of formality and not correctness, as you say. Rightly and wrongly seem like stilted language to me in a way that correctly and incorrectly don't.
Misuse of myself is extremely annoying as it is reflexive and extremely easy to use correctly. Sentence diagramming could clear this up. As to what sounds natural, that depends on where a person grows up and in what family. John is right about this being fairly arbitrary.
Some adverbs are irregular and don't take an ly at the end. I would have to look that up. I would generally use wrong as an adjective, ans in "He is wrong" implying the person is in a substandard state of being. I am going to have to give this some thought. My family used to go around and around about this kind of thing.
Cara, please forgive me for pointing out your use of singular "they" in the comment above. Rest assured, however, that it has no bearing on what I think of you!
This, like nominative "me", is another example where the prescriptive grammar we learn in school is at odds with the way we actually speak English.
So? "Shakespeare"--esp. William of Stratford, that ignorant & illiterate lout who is _wrongly_ supposed to have been the author of many a famous play and poem--Hamlet, Macbeth, etc.-- never had a standard English grammar book. That school-boy had a grammar but it wasn't either consistently known, understood or used _even_ by the best educated of that time.
So, pointing to "Shakespeare" as any sort of precedent-setting model is vanity itself and anachronistic vanity at that. The _real_ author of "Shakespeare's" works was an accomplished scholar of Greek, Latin, and French --as well as English.
He had the most impeccable of poetic "licenses." We _don't_.
Are you visiting us from the past or does your sobriquet conceal your age? I suppose you lie in wait for the mention of Shakespeare's name to trot out your fringe anti-Stratfordian theories, but you miss the point entirely. The issue hangs not on poetic license or the works of a particular author, but rather the fact that singular "they" appears consistently in the written record since the fourteenth century (not long after the emergence of plural form), and we can infer from this and our modern observation of the spoken language that the gender-neutral third-person pronoun is an essential and well-established part of descriptive English grammar. Prescriptivists, whose stylistic predilections are frozen in time, have long assailed this usage, and in their futility are better suited than I to the charge of anachronistic vanity.
People who claim that proper language usage--"prescriptivism"--isn't important and that anyone's manner of speaking and writing is just as good, just as validly correct and proper as anyone else's--since there are no real "rules" of speech and grammar--are lying to themselves and to others to whom they make such claims. Everyone is something of his or her own language "prescriptivist" or just doesn't care at all about how the language is used and, so, repeats whatever happens to be heard most often. The essential factor about usage is whether one speaks and writes haphazardly and ignorantly or from an informed and careful awareness.
If you just don't care, then why are you even listening to McWhorter's blog or reading and commenting here?
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For further consideration:
Building a Bridge to the 18th Century
Professor Postman talked about his book, "Building a Bridge to the 18th Century: How the Past Can Improve Our Future", published by Knopf. (1999)
No one here is advocating for a linguistic free-for-all, and you may have noticed that I eschew the informal stylings in question in my own writing, but I respectfully submit that you are conflating grammaticality with decorum and eloquence, and that even in the measure of eloquence there is some debate to be had. Returning to singular "they" as an example, one could argue that forcing English speakers to use the masculine third-person pronoun obscures the subtle nuance of indeterminate gender, and is less expressive as such. I am not making that argument here, but neither will I endeavor to stake an absolute claim for truth and virtue in the prescriptive form.
If you are at all familiar with John's work, you will know that he, like Postman, celebrates the literacy and erudition of the 19th century and mourns the modern decline of the written word (see "Doing Our Own Thing: The Degradation of Language and Music and Why We Should, Like, Care"). Unlike Postman, he focuses less on technology, attributing much of the change to American attitudes around formality beginning in the 1960s. At the same time, and with a deep understanding of the social and evolutionary forces that inform language status and literary traditions around the world, he makes a clear distinction between the craft of formal language and the grammar of natural language.
Had you approached me earlier with any semblance of etiquette, you might have found that we share many Enlightenment sensibilities, including a respect for the rhetorical arts and the value of objective truth. Where we differ perhaps is on the notion that language evolves toward some kind of poetic ideal, and that linguistic structures that run counter to this ideal are inherently flawed.
..."conflating grammaticality with decorum and eloquence, and that even in the measure of eloquence there is some debate to be had. Returning to singular "they" as an example, one could argue that forcing English speakers to use the masculine third-person pronoun obscures the subtle nuance of indeterminate gender, and is less expressive as such. I am not making that argument here, but neither will I endeavor to stake an absolute claim for truth and virtue in the prescriptive form." ...
When someone tells me he's "not making an argument" which, as a matter of plain fact, he's just fininshed spelling out, then I know I'm dealing with a disingenuous opponent in a discussion.
Grammatically correct usage is, fleeting and exceptional cases where the usage springs not from ignorance but from a deliberate and informed choice apart, all but identical with what I suppose you mean by "decorum" in spoken and written expression.
Of course I "noticed" that you "eschew" blah, blah, blah. I'm supposed to "notice" that. You mean for that to be "noticed" because it matters to you that others not take you for a grammar-ignoramous. When you depart from correct forms, you do that (in all but a rare occasion in which you've forgotten or overlooked some fine point of good grammar--and this happens to most of us) to serve some intended effect. That's essential to having a command of the language. It's what distinguishes those who both care _and_ know what they're doing when writing and speaking from those who, while they might have come to care under different circumstances, arrive at the point where they can't choose to do either--cannot, that is, except by some _emphasis_, not by "force", by emphasized example on the part of others who do know better, "choose". It's that care for emphasized example which, in your posed and ill-conconceived stance on what's just dressed-up grammar snobbery, you dismiss; it's apparently impractical to expect of others something better than the ignorant usage the sort with which you're so careful not to let yourself be associated.
We both know damn well that language evolves and that it always has--and rivers flow and they always have; both languages and river courses with occasional flood are part of nature's way. But those facts don't stop you from distinguishing between a river which runs within its banks and one which overflows them, and they don't stop you from calling the latter a "flood" or preferring being spared all manner of harm from what is a flood-by-any-other-name.
You made an anachronistic appeal to a time which has nothing to do with present circumstances and you did that to excuse what you try to deny you're obviously doing here: making excuses for _others'_ indecorous use of good grammar by ignorance even when I pointed out that those old examples were much worse than beside the point--they make the point: there is an important distinction between those who _today_ can and do choose to depart for purposes of poetic eloquence from a long-established standard English and those who cannot because they know no better.
..." a deep understanding of the social and evolutionary forces that inform language status and literary traditions around the world, he makes a clear distinction between the craft of formal language and the grammar of natural language."
Baloney. We're talking about a clear distinction between the "status" of informed good usage and a general degradation through ignorant neglect of that. Your "the grammar of so-called 'natural language' is a junk idea. There's no such thing as 'natural language' in this context. We're dealing with what is by necessity deliberately contrived and _taught_.
Many millions of people don't abuse "they" as a singular pronoun as is done today unless they have been _instructed_ to do that by schooling and by widespread doctrinaire stupidity coupled with lazy ignorance--all of which is beneath you but, care for others' being taught to know better is "above" you.
Is it your claim that singular "they" arises from either cognitive deficiency or misinformed instruction? Would you care to substantiate that?
Is it your further contention that every single instance of singular "they" in the historical record represents an exercise in poetic license? How do you know this? And, even if it were true, what would it prove besides the fact that writing is at best only an approximation of -- and typically divergent from -- the spoken language?
Finally, since you pose it above, I return the question to you: if you think his ideas (and those of the larger linguistics community) are junk, then why do you subscribe to John's podcast?
because, if, in fact, J.McW. does subscribe to a general so-called natural language theory--something which I don't know but which might be the case--I consider that, despite that, he still has a good many interesting things to say and there are enough of them so far that it's worth the subscription fee.
Re. these:
"Is it your further contention that every single instance of singular "they" in the historical record represents an exercise in poetic license? How do you know this?
The historical record is too large and my familiarity with it too circumscribed for me to state that as being, in my opinion, a categorical fact. What I can say, however, are my reasons for tending to think this is likely so to a very great extent:
It's clear from the historical record which survives (and little intuitive reason to doubt) that, the further one delves into the past's surviving written record, the more, in general, that we're dealing with the products of a relatively marked elite class--the nobility and, after them the wealthy merchant class which, in some important instances, were even better educated formally than were many of the nobility. Prior to the late 1300s, a great many in the noble class were neither very interested in book-learning nor in any particular need to be themselves literate. That gradually changed and, just after the clergy's predominance, the wealthy merchant class and the nobility came to have a larger and larger place in what was higher education. In any case, documents were produced by the literate whether as hired scribes or as the superior management and nobility over them. (1) As a conjecture, it's safer to suppose that the world prior to Chaucer's time was less rather than more standardized in its spoken and written English and that is my assumption, too. From the time of Chancery records forward, the record is beyond question in demonstrating that spoken and written English gained in standardization--however large the persisting but gradually diminishing illiterate class.
"And, even if it were true, what would it prove besides the fact that writing is at best only an approximation of -- and typically divergent from -- the spoken language?"
Beside proof of that, it lends support to the belief that written eloquence follows rather than leads spoken eloquence in English--and the same is very likely true in other literate languages. There is of course a certain basis, however circumstantially biased it may be, for the fact that those who learn early to speak well are also those who tend to do better in school and, in turn, tend to develop better and more grammatically proper habits in written expression. The parents who'd correct their children's errors of spoken English are also the parents who'd correct their children's errors of written English--as mine did throughout my youth--in the same way and for the same reasons that children who grow up in homes where one or both parents are avid readers are also more likely to themselves become avid readers. If, after learning the most basic speech as an infant, a toddler and five to eight year old does not learn from his parents or guardians a good standard of spoken English then, from the age of three to sixteen, he has extra hurdles to overcome in learning a very good standard of written English and these same parents or guardians are less likely to be able to give him the kind of help at home which other much more literate parents can give their children. This strikes me as part of a common sense understanding of the world of the past, present and future.
(Note: this final posted version has gone through several revisions and may not reflect the first version received in your mail's "in-box")
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(1) "The Emergence of Standard English" by John H. Fisher, University Press of Kentucky (1995)
"A Concise Dictionary of Middle English from A.D. 1150 to 1580" by Mayhew and Skeat (2017)
"Prescription and Tradition in Language: Establishing Standards across Time and Space" (Multilingual Matters, No. 165)
by Ingrid Tieken-Boon van Ostade (2016)
"For to speke Frenche trewely: the French language in England, 1000 - 1600; its status, description and instruction"
by Douglas A. Kibbee (1991)
"Learning Languages in Early Modern England" , by John Gallagher; (2019)
"Merchants of Innovation: The Languages of Traders" (Studies in Language Change [SLC]), by Esther-Miriam Wagner (2017)
"The English Dictionary from Cawdrey to Johnson, 1604-1755"; by Dewitt T. Starnes; (1946)
I am not arguing against literacy. I think it goes without saying that the value of literacy is much greater than its impact on our ability to learn and reason; indeed, it is a cherished hallmark of our culture and modernity at large. And this is not to imply that purely oral cultures do not possess realms of eloquence -- they do, and they maintain higher registers within the spoken language specifically for this purpose -- but we agree on the underlying point that the advent of writing and the development of formal grammatical structures takes us beyond what is possible in the preliterate world.
While I also concur with your views on the nature of the early written record -- that English writing was confined to a literate few, first the clergy, then the nobility and wealthy merchant classes -- I do not follow your logic in concluding that any forms they used that were centuries later deemed to be non-standard, must have been employed at the time with the deliberate intention of flouting their own prescriptive rules.
You did not respond to my first question above, which, I believe, is at the core of our disagreement. To state it again in different terms, why does something like singular "they" persist in the spoken language, even among the highly educated, even when they have been told by their cultural authorities that it is wrong? My answer, if you'll permit me, is that it continues to crop up because it fills a void in the language. In fact, new grammar emerges this way all the time, and is particularly evident in young languages like creoles. Some of the grammar fits neatly within existing prescriptive rules; some of it does not. In the latter case, it is invariably met with derision by the gatekeepers of propriety, but this does not make it inherently wrong or ungrammatical, and indeed with time it may come to be accepted as standard in even the most formal of capacities.
"... My answer, ... it continues to crop up because it fills a void in the language. In fact, new grammar emerges this way all the time, and is particularly evident in young languages like creoles. Some of the grammar fits neatly within existing prescriptive rules; some of it does not. In the latter case, it is invariably met with derision by the gatekeepers of propriety, but this does not make it inherently wrong or ungrammatical, and indeed with time it may come to be accepted as standard in even the most formal of capacities." ...
As you have done, I could pose a question or two to you:
What else do you dispense with beside the matter of not troubling any longer about singular and plural pronoun distinctions? There is, behind this, a larger question: what ought we to care about regarding language usage and why? What _do_ you defend? And what else are you prepared to see go by the wayside in a general indifference to an understanding of English grammar and good usage merely because it has become too difficult to interest people raised on "WhatsApp"?
Or, put another way, how much hangs upon a survuving interest in literature? And why should anyone who cares nothing for the distinctions between singular and plural pronouns ever care about literature before 2000? Few if any of those who are ignorant of the disctinction even know that a singular use of "they" can be found in "Shakespeare" and, if anything, they'd care even less for that fact than they do about their own grammatical ignorance.
You claim that you're "not arguing against literacy" but you might as well argue against it. For it certainly does not any longer "[go] without saying that the value of literacy is much greater than its impact on our ability to learn and reason" or that ..."indeed, it is a cherished hallmark of our culture and modernity at large". It simply isn't--not to the overwhelming majority of the public. You're in a special and very small class of people who are intellectually interested in these matters. When you dispense with the distinctions between singular versus plural pronouns, you're bringing _no one_ with you into that realm of interest. Rather, you suggest that there's a world of other detail in good (old-style) grammatical knowledge, understanding and usage which could equally well be left behind--and shall be left behind as this view gains more and more adherents. Intended or not, your message shall be very, very well understood as, "Nothing in grammar use matters at all. Nothing. Do whatever you please--including, especially, doing nothing at all--taking no effort about how you speak or write. It doesn't matter."
So, what _does_, what _ought to_ "matter" to the great majority of us? Because now you live in a tiny specialist realm where language and grammar use matters and, outside of that, it does not.
RE: ..."You did not respond to my first question above, which, I believe, is at the core of our disagreement. To state it again in different terms, why does something like singular "they" persist in the spoken language, even among the highly educated, even when they have been told by their cultural authorities that it is wrong? My answer, if you'll permit me, is that it continues to crop up because it fills a void in the language."
I did reply to your point about the use of "they" as a singular pronoun. (And in the interim between my latest post & this one, I said to myself, in reflecting on this discussion with you: "He's going to raise the singular 'they' once more and fail to see the point of my reply.")
But of course you're permitted to restate your arguments, to resist and dispute mine, to choose to prefer, after all, your view of the matter. However that may be, I'll elaborate once more just a bit because this next wasn't expressly stated--I thought that it was clearly implied in what I'd argued.
So, your rejoinder, again, goes:
"... why does something like singular 'they' persist in the spoken language, even among the highly educated, even when they have been told by their cultural authorities that it is wrong?"
For a number of reasons which are intricately woven together in the fabric of contemporary life as we have it here. It's interesting and instructive enough to tease these threads apart and see them in some better relief.
Now, to emphasize the point, we're discussing "even the elite"; we stipulate that everyone else socially-speaking, "inferior" to this elite, is omitted for the present purposes.
What passes for the educated elite has, in relative terms, degraded in the extent and quality of literary knowledge and facility from what it was in the height of England's or pan-Europe's intellectual enlightenment. This period has only approximately designated limits for its term; for our purposes here, for Italian culture, it can be dated from about the 1450s down to the 1620s or spanning the lives of people from Lorenzo Valla and Ludovico Ariosto to Paolo Sarpi. Giambattista della Porta and Anton Francesco Grazzini are among the most important figures in this pantheon. In English culture, the period spans the period from the 1490s (John Colet) at the early end down to the 1630s (John Donne). These centuries corresponded, not by mere coincidence, with what may be thought of as humanism's high-water mark. A knowledge of Latin among intellectuals--which corresponded to the cultural and social elite-- is one of the features which distinguishes it from all later periods down to the present--though not everyone had anything like an equal mastery; then, as always, there was a range of competency in scholarship. Still, comparing our averages with those of these centuries, our times compare poorly in humanist letters.
Unfortunately, as Neil Postman has understood and explained so well social and technological evolution are not "additive" in their innovative influences, they're "ecological": they fundamentally alter the environment's character rather than merely adding or subtracting something from a status quo ante. We cannot "go back" to the worlds which Valla, Grazzini, Bacon or Donne knew even if we began to restore a compulsory high level of competency in Latin in higher education. We should still inhabit a mass-media culture and that, with Latin "added" would be nothing like earlier eras.
This is no excuse for giving up on literate culture or resigning one's self to leaving large swaths of students out of all understanding of and appreciation for a high standard of competency in spoken and written English. We still can, because we not so very long ago actually did, succeed in educating the general public in a much better use of English, more grammatically well-informed and aware; and this would somewhat raise the standards of spoken and written English to something a bit closer to what was commonly known from the 1920s to the 1950s in the U.S. and Britain.
On pronouns, isn't there an important distinction to be made between nominative "you and me" and objective "you and I"? While the former occurs naturally and is quickly acquired by children, doesn't the latter arise as an *overcorrection* to the prescriptive rule John describes? I would imagine this is evidenced by frequency of occurrence, with nominative "you and me" being far more regular. My intuition also tells me that objective "you and I" occurs more often in formal speech, as in the clip of the president, or when the speaker is otherwise carefully watching his words. This distribution only serves to reinforce the prescriptive rule, even though it is based on a fiction.
Does anyone know if there is data that supports this, or an historical/comparative analysis of the Germanic first person pronoun that sheds some light?
On adjectives, does anyone else have trouble arranging the modifiers (soy, non-fat, decaf, grande, etc.) in their Starbucks order? And does anyone else find the following syntax, as commonly found in Wikipedia entries, odd?
Coincidence? My girlfriend and I were just talking about non-native speakers, as in your story of that native Japanese speaker's use of 'own', and how we understand what they're trying to say even though it misses the mark. I tend to doubt that AI will ever be that flexible for a number of reasons not the least of which is that silicon circuits are not evolved neural circuits. With enough tweaking AI will seem to 'understand' but will not even be close to that five-year old.
Sorry, "Billy & me are going..." sounds either ignorant, lazy, or defiant and wholly wrong. I would definitely think less of the person (assuming they were a native speaker). And as far as Obama's solecism, my guess is that he thought using I sounded more intelligent, and was hoist on his own petard
It is not lazy, ignorant, etc... it is a dialect of English and consistent use of pronouns by case is a class signifier. Misusing pronouns, as is rampant in common use, creates a glass ceiling such that people will not advance in some careers and not know why. This is why teaching "correct" usage in school is so important. I once heard it referred to as having one's intellectual fly down. Since most public school teachers do not understand or use academic English, their students do not learn it either, which is sad. It is important not to conflate a person's dialect with intelligence or knowledge. There are many high earning or status careers which do not require academic English, such as President of the United States. Using colloquial English makes candidates more relatable to the public. I grew up with academic English in the home so it just feels like fingernails on a chalkboard to me when I hear pronoun abuse. William Saffire once did a fabulous grammatical analysis of a presidential debate. To those of us who grew up with academic English there is nothing natural about people saying "Me and my friends went..." It sound awkward and strange. I also grew up with /than/ as a coordinating conjunction and not a preposition so it takes the nominative case, but the language evolved and even dictionaries have changed so I stopped correcting my children and got with the program, but I can't use the objective case after /than/ myself as it sound funny to me.
I disagree with John on this one, too. There's a big difference between "Billy and I went to the store" and "President Bush invited Michelle and I," mainly that you'd never say "Me went to the store" or "President Bush invited I." I might be misunderstanding his argument, though, and I didn't re-listen before writing this. I think it might be about what we should consider clear use from others, though. I don't really see a point in quibbling with people about their speech or writing that I'm able to understand (although 10-year-old me definitely wouldn't agree). "Myself" has become a really big culprit now, too. I think people use it wrong so often because "me" sounds so simple that it can't possibly be correct, but it usually is. (Edit: I'm leaving the "wrong" as is because "wrongly" sounds stupid, even though it's probably technically correct.)
Sean,
Try "incorrectly" if you're looking for an adverb.
The episode is mainly about the difference between "descriptive" and "prescriptive" grammar. The latter is what we're taught in school and is an attempt to standardize the language with rules that are often based on arbitrary notions of style and logic. Owing to its high status, much of the logic has been historically gleaned from Latin, even though Latin grammar has very little to do with English grammar on the ground. Descriptive grammar, which is the grammar that is of interest to linguists, relates to the way people actually speak. Nominative "you and me" is quite common in the spoken language. Nominative "me" by itself isn't -- in fact, it sounds like Tarzan. Thus we can say with regard to English grammar that "Billy and me went to the store" is grammatically correct while "me went to the store" is not grammatically correct.
The distinction then between "Billy and me went to the store" and "Billy and I went to the store" is not one of correctness, but formality.
This is what John was after.
I would contend that there is a further shade of nuance between nominative "you and me" and objective "you and I" that John does not address here. The latter form is almost certainly influenced by prescriptive grammar itself and is what we would call an overcorrection. It falls into the same category as things like "spelling pronunciation" where a speaker might pronounce the silent letters of the spelled word in an attempt to sound more formal. Since these are paralinguistic factors -- they derive from the written language -- I don't think it's entirely fair to gloss objective "you and I" as a natural part of English grammar.
Thanks, Eli. I mostly left it as is and commented on it because I thought it was interesting that "wrong" in that case felt both correct and incorrect to me, partly because of what you're talking about. There's something about "use it wrong" that's different than "use it incorrect." I'd also never say "use it rightly," though I'd naturally say "use it correctly." I think the difference must be one of formality and not correctness, as you say. Rightly and wrongly seem like stilted language to me in a way that correctly and incorrectly don't.
Misuse of myself is extremely annoying as it is reflexive and extremely easy to use correctly. Sentence diagramming could clear this up. As to what sounds natural, that depends on where a person grows up and in what family. John is right about this being fairly arbitrary.
Some adverbs are irregular and don't take an ly at the end. I would have to look that up. I would generally use wrong as an adjective, ans in "He is wrong" implying the person is in a substandard state of being. I am going to have to give this some thought. My family used to go around and around about this kind of thing.
Cara, please forgive me for pointing out your use of singular "they" in the comment above. Rest assured, however, that it has no bearing on what I think of you!
This, like nominative "me", is another example where the prescriptive grammar we learn in school is at odds with the way we actually speak English.
You're correct, Eli and I plead guilty to having stupidly succumbed to that woke use! I should have written she or he.
Thank you for reminding me to eschew this barbarism!
It's hardly barbaric -- or woke, as it were. In fact, singular "they" has been around since Shakespeare.
So? "Shakespeare"--esp. William of Stratford, that ignorant & illiterate lout who is _wrongly_ supposed to have been the author of many a famous play and poem--Hamlet, Macbeth, etc.-- never had a standard English grammar book. That school-boy had a grammar but it wasn't either consistently known, understood or used _even_ by the best educated of that time.
So, pointing to "Shakespeare" as any sort of precedent-setting model is vanity itself and anachronistic vanity at that. The _real_ author of "Shakespeare's" works was an accomplished scholar of Greek, Latin, and French --as well as English.
He had the most impeccable of poetic "licenses." We _don't_.
Are you visiting us from the past or does your sobriquet conceal your age? I suppose you lie in wait for the mention of Shakespeare's name to trot out your fringe anti-Stratfordian theories, but you miss the point entirely. The issue hangs not on poetic license or the works of a particular author, but rather the fact that singular "they" appears consistently in the written record since the fourteenth century (not long after the emergence of plural form), and we can infer from this and our modern observation of the spoken language that the gender-neutral third-person pronoun is an essential and well-established part of descriptive English grammar. Prescriptivists, whose stylistic predilections are frozen in time, have long assailed this usage, and in their futility are better suited than I to the charge of anachronistic vanity.
Yes. I don't. It doesn't. They aren't.
People who claim that proper language usage--"prescriptivism"--isn't important and that anyone's manner of speaking and writing is just as good, just as validly correct and proper as anyone else's--since there are no real "rules" of speech and grammar--are lying to themselves and to others to whom they make such claims. Everyone is something of his or her own language "prescriptivist" or just doesn't care at all about how the language is used and, so, repeats whatever happens to be heard most often. The essential factor about usage is whether one speaks and writes haphazardly and ignorantly or from an informed and careful awareness.
If you just don't care, then why are you even listening to McWhorter's blog or reading and commenting here?
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For further consideration:
Building a Bridge to the 18th Century
Professor Postman talked about his book, "Building a Bridge to the 18th Century: How the Past Can Improve Our Future", published by Knopf. (1999)
https://www.c-span.org/video/?153953-1/building-bridge-18th-century
Interview with Neil Postman,
author of "Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology" (1992)
https://www.c-span.org/video/?31627-1/technopoly
No one here is advocating for a linguistic free-for-all, and you may have noticed that I eschew the informal stylings in question in my own writing, but I respectfully submit that you are conflating grammaticality with decorum and eloquence, and that even in the measure of eloquence there is some debate to be had. Returning to singular "they" as an example, one could argue that forcing English speakers to use the masculine third-person pronoun obscures the subtle nuance of indeterminate gender, and is less expressive as such. I am not making that argument here, but neither will I endeavor to stake an absolute claim for truth and virtue in the prescriptive form.
If you are at all familiar with John's work, you will know that he, like Postman, celebrates the literacy and erudition of the 19th century and mourns the modern decline of the written word (see "Doing Our Own Thing: The Degradation of Language and Music and Why We Should, Like, Care"). Unlike Postman, he focuses less on technology, attributing much of the change to American attitudes around formality beginning in the 1960s. At the same time, and with a deep understanding of the social and evolutionary forces that inform language status and literary traditions around the world, he makes a clear distinction between the craft of formal language and the grammar of natural language.
Had you approached me earlier with any semblance of etiquette, you might have found that we share many Enlightenment sensibilities, including a respect for the rhetorical arts and the value of objective truth. Where we differ perhaps is on the notion that language evolves toward some kind of poetic ideal, and that linguistic structures that run counter to this ideal are inherently flawed.
This is amusing:
..."conflating grammaticality with decorum and eloquence, and that even in the measure of eloquence there is some debate to be had. Returning to singular "they" as an example, one could argue that forcing English speakers to use the masculine third-person pronoun obscures the subtle nuance of indeterminate gender, and is less expressive as such. I am not making that argument here, but neither will I endeavor to stake an absolute claim for truth and virtue in the prescriptive form." ...
When someone tells me he's "not making an argument" which, as a matter of plain fact, he's just fininshed spelling out, then I know I'm dealing with a disingenuous opponent in a discussion.
Grammatically correct usage is, fleeting and exceptional cases where the usage springs not from ignorance but from a deliberate and informed choice apart, all but identical with what I suppose you mean by "decorum" in spoken and written expression.
Of course I "noticed" that you "eschew" blah, blah, blah. I'm supposed to "notice" that. You mean for that to be "noticed" because it matters to you that others not take you for a grammar-ignoramous. When you depart from correct forms, you do that (in all but a rare occasion in which you've forgotten or overlooked some fine point of good grammar--and this happens to most of us) to serve some intended effect. That's essential to having a command of the language. It's what distinguishes those who both care _and_ know what they're doing when writing and speaking from those who, while they might have come to care under different circumstances, arrive at the point where they can't choose to do either--cannot, that is, except by some _emphasis_, not by "force", by emphasized example on the part of others who do know better, "choose". It's that care for emphasized example which, in your posed and ill-conconceived stance on what's just dressed-up grammar snobbery, you dismiss; it's apparently impractical to expect of others something better than the ignorant usage the sort with which you're so careful not to let yourself be associated.
We both know damn well that language evolves and that it always has--and rivers flow and they always have; both languages and river courses with occasional flood are part of nature's way. But those facts don't stop you from distinguishing between a river which runs within its banks and one which overflows them, and they don't stop you from calling the latter a "flood" or preferring being spared all manner of harm from what is a flood-by-any-other-name.
You made an anachronistic appeal to a time which has nothing to do with present circumstances and you did that to excuse what you try to deny you're obviously doing here: making excuses for _others'_ indecorous use of good grammar by ignorance even when I pointed out that those old examples were much worse than beside the point--they make the point: there is an important distinction between those who _today_ can and do choose to depart for purposes of poetic eloquence from a long-established standard English and those who cannot because they know no better.
..." a deep understanding of the social and evolutionary forces that inform language status and literary traditions around the world, he makes a clear distinction between the craft of formal language and the grammar of natural language."
Baloney. We're talking about a clear distinction between the "status" of informed good usage and a general degradation through ignorant neglect of that. Your "the grammar of so-called 'natural language' is a junk idea. There's no such thing as 'natural language' in this context. We're dealing with what is by necessity deliberately contrived and _taught_.
Many millions of people don't abuse "they" as a singular pronoun as is done today unless they have been _instructed_ to do that by schooling and by widespread doctrinaire stupidity coupled with lazy ignorance--all of which is beneath you but, care for others' being taught to know better is "above" you.
Is it your claim that singular "they" arises from either cognitive deficiency or misinformed instruction? Would you care to substantiate that?
Is it your further contention that every single instance of singular "they" in the historical record represents an exercise in poetic license? How do you know this? And, even if it were true, what would it prove besides the fact that writing is at best only an approximation of -- and typically divergent from -- the spoken language?
Finally, since you pose it above, I return the question to you: if you think his ideas (and those of the larger linguistics community) are junk, then why do you subscribe to John's podcast?
..."why ... subscribe to John's podcast?"
because, if, in fact, J.McW. does subscribe to a general so-called natural language theory--something which I don't know but which might be the case--I consider that, despite that, he still has a good many interesting things to say and there are enough of them so far that it's worth the subscription fee.
Re. these:
"Is it your further contention that every single instance of singular "they" in the historical record represents an exercise in poetic license? How do you know this?
The historical record is too large and my familiarity with it too circumscribed for me to state that as being, in my opinion, a categorical fact. What I can say, however, are my reasons for tending to think this is likely so to a very great extent:
It's clear from the historical record which survives (and little intuitive reason to doubt) that, the further one delves into the past's surviving written record, the more, in general, that we're dealing with the products of a relatively marked elite class--the nobility and, after them the wealthy merchant class which, in some important instances, were even better educated formally than were many of the nobility. Prior to the late 1300s, a great many in the noble class were neither very interested in book-learning nor in any particular need to be themselves literate. That gradually changed and, just after the clergy's predominance, the wealthy merchant class and the nobility came to have a larger and larger place in what was higher education. In any case, documents were produced by the literate whether as hired scribes or as the superior management and nobility over them. (1) As a conjecture, it's safer to suppose that the world prior to Chaucer's time was less rather than more standardized in its spoken and written English and that is my assumption, too. From the time of Chancery records forward, the record is beyond question in demonstrating that spoken and written English gained in standardization--however large the persisting but gradually diminishing illiterate class.
"And, even if it were true, what would it prove besides the fact that writing is at best only an approximation of -- and typically divergent from -- the spoken language?"
Beside proof of that, it lends support to the belief that written eloquence follows rather than leads spoken eloquence in English--and the same is very likely true in other literate languages. There is of course a certain basis, however circumstantially biased it may be, for the fact that those who learn early to speak well are also those who tend to do better in school and, in turn, tend to develop better and more grammatically proper habits in written expression. The parents who'd correct their children's errors of spoken English are also the parents who'd correct their children's errors of written English--as mine did throughout my youth--in the same way and for the same reasons that children who grow up in homes where one or both parents are avid readers are also more likely to themselves become avid readers. If, after learning the most basic speech as an infant, a toddler and five to eight year old does not learn from his parents or guardians a good standard of spoken English then, from the age of three to sixteen, he has extra hurdles to overcome in learning a very good standard of written English and these same parents or guardians are less likely to be able to give him the kind of help at home which other much more literate parents can give their children. This strikes me as part of a common sense understanding of the world of the past, present and future.
(Note: this final posted version has gone through several revisions and may not reflect the first version received in your mail's "in-box")
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(1) "The Emergence of Standard English" by John H. Fisher, University Press of Kentucky (1995)
"A Concise Dictionary of Middle English from A.D. 1150 to 1580" by Mayhew and Skeat (2017)
"Prescription and Tradition in Language: Establishing Standards across Time and Space" (Multilingual Matters, No. 165)
by Ingrid Tieken-Boon van Ostade (2016)
"For to speke Frenche trewely: the French language in England, 1000 - 1600; its status, description and instruction"
by Douglas A. Kibbee (1991)
"Learning Languages in Early Modern England" , by John Gallagher; (2019)
"Merchants of Innovation: The Languages of Traders" (Studies in Language Change [SLC]), by Esther-Miriam Wagner (2017)
"The English Dictionary from Cawdrey to Johnson, 1604-1755"; by Dewitt T. Starnes; (1946)
I am not arguing against literacy. I think it goes without saying that the value of literacy is much greater than its impact on our ability to learn and reason; indeed, it is a cherished hallmark of our culture and modernity at large. And this is not to imply that purely oral cultures do not possess realms of eloquence -- they do, and they maintain higher registers within the spoken language specifically for this purpose -- but we agree on the underlying point that the advent of writing and the development of formal grammatical structures takes us beyond what is possible in the preliterate world.
While I also concur with your views on the nature of the early written record -- that English writing was confined to a literate few, first the clergy, then the nobility and wealthy merchant classes -- I do not follow your logic in concluding that any forms they used that were centuries later deemed to be non-standard, must have been employed at the time with the deliberate intention of flouting their own prescriptive rules.
You did not respond to my first question above, which, I believe, is at the core of our disagreement. To state it again in different terms, why does something like singular "they" persist in the spoken language, even among the highly educated, even when they have been told by their cultural authorities that it is wrong? My answer, if you'll permit me, is that it continues to crop up because it fills a void in the language. In fact, new grammar emerges this way all the time, and is particularly evident in young languages like creoles. Some of the grammar fits neatly within existing prescriptive rules; some of it does not. In the latter case, it is invariably met with derision by the gatekeepers of propriety, but this does not make it inherently wrong or ungrammatical, and indeed with time it may come to be accepted as standard in even the most formal of capacities.
P.S. Re.:
"... My answer, ... it continues to crop up because it fills a void in the language. In fact, new grammar emerges this way all the time, and is particularly evident in young languages like creoles. Some of the grammar fits neatly within existing prescriptive rules; some of it does not. In the latter case, it is invariably met with derision by the gatekeepers of propriety, but this does not make it inherently wrong or ungrammatical, and indeed with time it may come to be accepted as standard in even the most formal of capacities." ...
As you have done, I could pose a question or two to you:
What else do you dispense with beside the matter of not troubling any longer about singular and plural pronoun distinctions? There is, behind this, a larger question: what ought we to care about regarding language usage and why? What _do_ you defend? And what else are you prepared to see go by the wayside in a general indifference to an understanding of English grammar and good usage merely because it has become too difficult to interest people raised on "WhatsApp"?
Or, put another way, how much hangs upon a survuving interest in literature? And why should anyone who cares nothing for the distinctions between singular and plural pronouns ever care about literature before 2000? Few if any of those who are ignorant of the disctinction even know that a singular use of "they" can be found in "Shakespeare" and, if anything, they'd care even less for that fact than they do about their own grammatical ignorance.
You claim that you're "not arguing against literacy" but you might as well argue against it. For it certainly does not any longer "[go] without saying that the value of literacy is much greater than its impact on our ability to learn and reason" or that ..."indeed, it is a cherished hallmark of our culture and modernity at large". It simply isn't--not to the overwhelming majority of the public. You're in a special and very small class of people who are intellectually interested in these matters. When you dispense with the distinctions between singular versus plural pronouns, you're bringing _no one_ with you into that realm of interest. Rather, you suggest that there's a world of other detail in good (old-style) grammatical knowledge, understanding and usage which could equally well be left behind--and shall be left behind as this view gains more and more adherents. Intended or not, your message shall be very, very well understood as, "Nothing in grammar use matters at all. Nothing. Do whatever you please--including, especially, doing nothing at all--taking no effort about how you speak or write. It doesn't matter."
So, what _does_, what _ought to_ "matter" to the great majority of us? Because now you live in a tiny specialist realm where language and grammar use matters and, outside of that, it does not.
RE: ..."You did not respond to my first question above, which, I believe, is at the core of our disagreement. To state it again in different terms, why does something like singular "they" persist in the spoken language, even among the highly educated, even when they have been told by their cultural authorities that it is wrong? My answer, if you'll permit me, is that it continues to crop up because it fills a void in the language."
I did reply to your point about the use of "they" as a singular pronoun. (And in the interim between my latest post & this one, I said to myself, in reflecting on this discussion with you: "He's going to raise the singular 'they' once more and fail to see the point of my reply.")
But of course you're permitted to restate your arguments, to resist and dispute mine, to choose to prefer, after all, your view of the matter. However that may be, I'll elaborate once more just a bit because this next wasn't expressly stated--I thought that it was clearly implied in what I'd argued.
So, your rejoinder, again, goes:
"... why does something like singular 'they' persist in the spoken language, even among the highly educated, even when they have been told by their cultural authorities that it is wrong?"
For a number of reasons which are intricately woven together in the fabric of contemporary life as we have it here. It's interesting and instructive enough to tease these threads apart and see them in some better relief.
Now, to emphasize the point, we're discussing "even the elite"; we stipulate that everyone else socially-speaking, "inferior" to this elite, is omitted for the present purposes.
What passes for the educated elite has, in relative terms, degraded in the extent and quality of literary knowledge and facility from what it was in the height of England's or pan-Europe's intellectual enlightenment. This period has only approximately designated limits for its term; for our purposes here, for Italian culture, it can be dated from about the 1450s down to the 1620s or spanning the lives of people from Lorenzo Valla and Ludovico Ariosto to Paolo Sarpi. Giambattista della Porta and Anton Francesco Grazzini are among the most important figures in this pantheon. In English culture, the period spans the period from the 1490s (John Colet) at the early end down to the 1630s (John Donne). These centuries corresponded, not by mere coincidence, with what may be thought of as humanism's high-water mark. A knowledge of Latin among intellectuals--which corresponded to the cultural and social elite-- is one of the features which distinguishes it from all later periods down to the present--though not everyone had anything like an equal mastery; then, as always, there was a range of competency in scholarship. Still, comparing our averages with those of these centuries, our times compare poorly in humanist letters.
Unfortunately, as Neil Postman has understood and explained so well social and technological evolution are not "additive" in their innovative influences, they're "ecological": they fundamentally alter the environment's character rather than merely adding or subtracting something from a status quo ante. We cannot "go back" to the worlds which Valla, Grazzini, Bacon or Donne knew even if we began to restore a compulsory high level of competency in Latin in higher education. We should still inhabit a mass-media culture and that, with Latin "added" would be nothing like earlier eras.
This is no excuse for giving up on literate culture or resigning one's self to leaving large swaths of students out of all understanding of and appreciation for a high standard of competency in spoken and written English. We still can, because we not so very long ago actually did, succeed in educating the general public in a much better use of English, more grammatically well-informed and aware; and this would somewhat raise the standards of spoken and written English to something a bit closer to what was commonly known from the 1920s to the 1950s in the U.S. and Britain.
On pronouns, isn't there an important distinction to be made between nominative "you and me" and objective "you and I"? While the former occurs naturally and is quickly acquired by children, doesn't the latter arise as an *overcorrection* to the prescriptive rule John describes? I would imagine this is evidenced by frequency of occurrence, with nominative "you and me" being far more regular. My intuition also tells me that objective "you and I" occurs more often in formal speech, as in the clip of the president, or when the speaker is otherwise carefully watching his words. This distribution only serves to reinforce the prescriptive rule, even though it is based on a fiction.
Does anyone know if there is data that supports this, or an historical/comparative analysis of the Germanic first person pronoun that sheds some light?
On adjectives, does anyone else have trouble arranging the modifiers (soy, non-fat, decaf, grande, etc.) in their Starbucks order? And does anyone else find the following syntax, as commonly found in Wikipedia entries, odd?
So-and-so is an American retired actor.
Who prefers "retired American actor"?
Who did it? (It was)) Me.
To this day, I diagram sentences in my
mind.