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Grex > Agora35 > #153: Computer references changing written language? |  |
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| Author |
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| 25 new of 151 responses total. |
mcnally
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response 50 of 151:
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Nov 17 00:38 UTC 2000 |
re #48: when you're referring to yourself as the object of the sentence
rather than the subject, "my wife and me" is correct, not "my wife and I."
You can test this by applying the "remove the extra person rule" suggested
above to see that "the only time I do that is when I'm talking about I"
sounds wrong compared to "the only time I do that is when I'm talking about
me.." (unless you be Rasta, mon..)
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ric
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response 51 of 151:
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Nov 17 01:09 UTC 2000 |
*fart*
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jerryr
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response 52 of 151:
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Nov 17 03:38 UTC 2000 |
i think anyone that doesn't encourage standard english grammar from their
children are crippling them as far as having the tools to succeed in the real
world as they grow older and face making a living in the real world.
messing about on a bbs or using street slang with your posse on the playground
are fine as long as the child is aware that such language is purely
recreational.
no matter how much knowledge they possess they may never get a chance to shine
if everyone who listens to them speak perceives them to be a moron who can't
speak their native language.
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brighn
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response 53 of 151:
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Nov 17 04:20 UTC 2000 |
Before using terms like "wrong" wrt grammar, it is best to define the context.
When writing for a business or otherwise professional audience, it is grossly
inappropriate to write "Me and my wife were talking the other night." OTOH,
it's fine to say that, and ok to write it in more informal contexts.
Professional writing is a dialect of English. As such, it should be treated
like one -- there are settings in which it is the most appropriate means of
communication, and settings in which it sounds completely out of place.
Perhaps the striking difference between professional writing and any other
dialect is that there are few who speak it naturally; most have to learn it,
although many learn it from exposure rather than explicit teaching.
Language is extremely powerful, and how you speak, write, and even perceive
language can be used as a tool or a weapon. We'd like to think that language
doesn't matter that much, that it's fine to be casual, but using slang and
sloppy language in a business setting is like wearing a t-shirt and jeans to
a board meeting... you will be treated as the bumpkin you are, for not knowing
the rules, just as you will be scoffed at for showing up at a goth bar in a
three-ppiece (non-black) suit.
In other words, what jerry said.
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gelinas
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response 54 of 151:
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Nov 17 04:28 UTC 2000 |
One thing: "although many learn it from exposure rather than explicit
teaching." That's true of *all* language. Efforts to teach a second language
that ignore this truth often fail.
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brighn
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response 55 of 151:
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Nov 17 04:29 UTC 2000 |
True enough.
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other
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response 56 of 151:
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Nov 17 21:03 UTC 2000 |
re resp:53
Haven't been to a Grex board meeting lately, have you? ;)
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birdy
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response 57 of 151:
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Nov 18 03:32 UTC 2000 |
I try very hard to speak as I write since it's good practice and makes me
sound more intelligent. ;-)
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bdh3
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response 58 of 151:
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Nov 19 04:56 UTC 2000 |
Does it work?
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remmers
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response 59 of 151:
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Nov 20 15:05 UTC 2000 |
Me, I mostly agree with folks and stuff.
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janc
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response 60 of 151:
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Nov 20 16:01 UTC 2000 |
I agree with folks, but have difficulty really meeting minds with stuff. I
need to work on my mediation some more.
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mcnally
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response 61 of 151:
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Nov 20 18:08 UTC 2000 |
Meditation might be more useful than mediation if that's your goal.
Or was that just an example of disagreement with "stuff": in this
case a disagreement between you and your keyboard? :-p
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jep
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response 62 of 151:
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Nov 20 18:22 UTC 2000 |
re all the comments objecting to what I said in #42:
Kids do not learn grammar from being told "don't say 'Me and Joe', say
'Joe and I'." They learn grammar from the people around them, beginning
with their families in the early stages of their lives, and continuing
with their friends and classmates in their elementary school years. I
expect they'll be perfectly comfortable with using formal speech in
formal settings, but less 'correct' grammar in settings where other
people use that kind of grammar.
I once heard my older boy, then about 7, say something along these
lines:
"I think Christmas is fun, whups, I mean 'I'm *like* Christmas is fun".
At home we would say "I think Christmas is fun." However, at school,
all of his friends would say say "I'm like" instead of "I think". He
"corrected" himself to sound like his friends. He was practicing
fitting in, and not concerned with correct formal grammar. That's
perfectly fine. Also, it is beyond my control. He *is* going to fit in
with his friends. I can battle about it forever, if I want to be
fighting with him that long, but that's all I'm going to accomplish.
He'll know what's correct in formal settings, just like I do.
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ric
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response 63 of 151:
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Nov 20 18:35 UTC 2000 |
Yeah, but usually you say "I'm like" as a predecessor to something you said
or thought *at the time*...
It's more like saying "I said" or "I thought"...
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pfv
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response 64 of 151:
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Nov 20 18:36 UTC 2000 |
If people jump off a bridge, it does NOT follow that YOU should jump off a
bridge.
Certain rules are EXPECTED; certain rules WORK - standalone or as
exceptions; and, the rest is horseshit. If you really feel you need to
generate a NEW RULE, then I am sure that yer peers ("yer") can manage
to keep you on ther "straight and narrow".
There are lots of "acceptable processes", but Eubonics and AOL-speak ain't
one of them.
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pfv
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response 65 of 151:
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Nov 20 18:39 UTC 2000 |
Oh..
I sghould also point out that education no longer, (it snarled
with me years ago), teaches wtf the punctuation MEANS and is FOR.
And, if they ain't teachin' that it MEANT and IMPLIED pauses and
breaths: they is WRONG.
(Find an English Teacher that can manage Olde Englische)
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ric
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response 66 of 151:
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Nov 21 00:57 UTC 2000 |
(You know, I hate the whole "jump off a bridge" analogy.. of course I'm not
going to jump off a bridge just because someone else did.. that's fucking
dangerous!)
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birdy
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response 67 of 151:
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Nov 21 01:23 UTC 2000 |
I don't have my English teaching certificate yet, but I can manage Olde
English just fine. =)
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katie
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response 68 of 151:
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Nov 21 01:24 UTC 2000 |
Actually, if enough people jumped before you, it wouldn't be such a
bad fall.
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polygon
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response 69 of 151:
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Nov 21 03:15 UTC 2000 |
No one ever taught me punctuation or grammar. Nor did I consciously go
out and learn it on my own.
I have some sense of what nouns and verbs are, but not what "preposition"
means. Apparently prepositions are "little words" of some kind. I don't
really care.
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birdy
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response 70 of 151:
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Nov 21 03:43 UTC 2000 |
<smirk>
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mdw
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response 71 of 151:
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Nov 21 04:35 UTC 2000 |
Knowing how to use nouns, verbs, and prepositions is part of knowing a
language, and there are indeed two ways to learn it: through immersion,
and through a formal class. Generally immersion is best, but a formal
class does have certain advantages.
Proper punctuation is part of written literacy, and that is one of the
things people generally do learn through a formal class. Immersion
doesn't work nearly as well for this because one doesn't usually get the
sort of immediate nit-picking feedback necessary for immersion learning.
Knowing how to use prepositions is certainly something one can learn
without ever having conscious knowledge of what they are, but being able
to recognize a preposition may make it easier to do proper punctuation,
or to learn a foreign language. For instance, without a knowledge of
prepositions, the sentence "I give to the dog a biscuit" sounds like
something a non-native speaker might say, that will sound wrong to most
native speakers. Someone who has gone through a course of grammer will
be able to say that sentence is a "<subject> <verb> <indirect object>
<direct object>" and that either the <direct object> needs to come
before any <indirect object>s, or in some cases, the preposition can be
deleted if the right word order is used: "I give the dog a biscuit". As
native speakers, most of us learned all this stuff well before we
learned what year it was, even if we couldn't articulate what we knew.
However, being able to apply proper punctuation to the sentence "I gave
the dog a small dark biscuit before breakfast" isn't quite so obvious
and being able to defend that decision really does require some
knowledge of grammar.
I hate to think what sort of schooling Larry got. I remember *years*
worth of drill in prepositions, nouns, adverbs, Isadora Duncan, and all
that. I can't say that it all stuck, and I still think there's got to
be a better way to do it all, but what stuck does seem to have been
useful. This is certainly one of the things that makes me really
despair of there ever being any real hope for public education, however
much I might like the idea in the abstract.
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rcurl
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response 72 of 151:
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Nov 21 07:02 UTC 2000 |
Larry, just don't forget that prepositions are little words that *always*
go where the end of the sentence is at.
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flem
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response 73 of 151:
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Nov 21 16:16 UTC 2000 |
(I still think language immersion is a fad.)
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polygon
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response 74 of 151:
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Nov 21 17:01 UTC 2000 |
Re 71. My eyes glaze over. Direct object? Indirect object? I don't
have time for this stuff. More than that, I resist it. I don't want to
know. There's no space in my head for it.
I have written a tremendous quantity of prose in my time. Since I started
BBSing in 1983, I have probably written at least a few lines just about
every day. I write it, I change it, I read it again, I revise it, I keep
working on it until it sounds good to me. Grammar is never the problem:
I'm striving for the right meaning, the right cadence, the right tone. My
first draft is often angry and rude, and I revise it into a semblance of
calmness and civility.
I'm not normally called on to "defend" my choice of word order or syntax.
I suppose I would make a poor English teacher, because I would have
trouble articulating why one sentence sounds good to me and another
doesn't. I would also make a poor bricklayer, a poor surgeon, a poor
television newscaster. Fortunately, I don't have to do any of those
things.
I have written for publication, and never once have I gotten into any
discussion with editors about direct objects or prepositions.
I think memorizing those rules and definitions may be helpful to some
people. That's fine for them. It doesn't work for me.
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