response 50 of 65:

Sep 3 22:35 UTC 1992

And that is correct.
Mind you, I have no idea whatever what the Egyptians call Cairo (Egypt).
After all, the Italians say Milano.

response 52 of 65:

Sep 7 02:19 UTC 1992

Leaving Lincln to speak for himself, one point I'd want to make is that
our just agreeing to do it that way doesn't make it happen, any more than
our agreeing that pi=3 can make that true.  Certainly if we all in fact
were to change the way we used these terms, systematically in everyday
life or in some fairly consistent, more limited arena, the meanings of the
words would change.  (But it wouldn't make a tail a leg; the meanings of the
words would change so that we'd use one word for both.)

I'm pretty definite on this with "tail" and "leg".  The problem cases, the
ones that make your line of argument plausible, come up when distinctions
between terms seem insignificant (or counterproductive) in terms of the actual
uses to which we put the terms.  An example that comes to mind: a good deal
of (particularly British) academic philosophy earlier in this century was
the "ordinary language" school, which in fact attempted to argue issues
about the nature of reality on the basis of careful analysis of ordinary
usage of the terms involved.  (Very inadequate summary, enough for now.) 
Often this was quite helpful, because to some degree linguistic distinctions
DO reflect real differences.  Tails have some things in common with legs,
but in some ways table legs & dogs' legs are more alike than dogs' legs &
tails - & we have words like "extremity" available for the legs&tails group,
in this case.  But sometimes a work on philosophy would amount to nothing
more than arguing about the details of British academic English dialect.

I think I want to say that there is such a thing as correct usage & incorrect
usage.  Obviously it's relative to a language, & I believe that comes down
to dialects to.  (Note that I've argued this in terms of simple kinds of
vocabulary issues, not things like grammar; I believe that it can be treated
the same way, & it's easier to find clear examples; but anyone may dispute
that.)  Certainly correct usage may be stupid, unaesthetic, morally wrong,
or otherwise undesirable, & in such cases it may be appropriate to adopt it
anyway for the purpose of amending it.  I believe for example that those
who insist on gender-neutral language should be understood as doing this;
the insistence that masculine pronouns simply *do* refer only to males & are
therefore inadequate is plainly untrue (at least in terms of discourse 50
years or so ago) if your account is in any form that words mean what people
use them to mean or that any usage is just as (linguistically) correct as any
other so long as you can find some native speaker who talks that way.  (By
now the linguistic waters have been muddied on this issue; there are certainly
major linguistic subgroups of English in which gender terms are routinely
parsed as excluding mixed gender unless terms of mixed gender are specified.)

An issue I've been avoiding (sort of), which also underlies some of this
dispute: given that one can identify distinct languages & distinct dialects,
to what extent is it a *linguistic error* to speak the wrong language or
dialect?  This goes beyond those issues - formal & informal discourse within
one linguistic group also come into play - but here we get to whether we
should say it's *wrong* (say) to use slang, cusswords, etc. on your resume
(or in your Sunday School class, for that matter).  A vexing issue  ... &
"sometimes" is a candidate as well as "yes" and "no".  Any takers?

response 54 of 65:

Sep 10 09:20 UTC 1992

Um.  Specifically the *speaker's* intentions?  (That's surely true sometimes.)
Or does it depend on a broad context (of which the speaker's intentions are
a very important element)?

response 56 of 65:

Sep 11 16:44 UTC 1992

Well, I'll try ... something like "the language that's spoken in this
context".  The speaker's intentions (in terms of what language he's
speaking) may be at fault, because based on his expectations about what's
correct, which may be wrong.  You may intend to order in Basque at
Zingerman's, but it's a mistake - because English is what everyone else
expects & uses.  (With some languages you could get away with it anyway,
of course.)

response 58 of 65:

Mar 11 07:14 UTC 1994

 It strikes me that since language is inextricably tied to culture, and that
since, in practical terms, the development of 
American Black English vernacular represents the formation of a new lauguage,
that it can be posited that there is a real divergence of culture within our
nation.  Mayhap I have the argument backward...  I think that those among the
cultural elite would call it a sub-culture, but the development of a new
language, sometimes mutually unintelligible with American Standard English
(this from personal experience living and working in NW Detroit), serves as
proof that there is a definite, separate culture in the Black neighborhoods
of the American inner city from that of the other areas of the country.
        We could argue all day about the bases for this 'culture', and whether
they are valid, or whether they are simply reflective of mass hysteria and
cultural rebellion.  The point is that yes, we should not only teach, but
require some standard form of English, in all parts of our country, since a
failure to maintain a communication standard will surely result in the 
fragmentaion and collapse of our nation as a single political entity.  But, we
should also teach in local vernacular, with local cultural influence.  This
is the essence of multiculturalism, not the sham we are presently being 
offered in which people of one group only study things they see as relevant
to their own group, and to hell with everybody else.
        We must respect and encourage the development of cultural trappings
within differing communities, especially the American Blacks.  This group is,
in my opinion, suffering from the adolescent growing pains of a new society.
There are of course individual exceptions, but what I see is the struggle to
find a cultural identity of their own, since they have been barred from being
a part of the general American culture.  We, the majority caucasian population
of the U.S., have helped bring about this situation by our failure to take a
truly inclusive attitude toward black people in our country.  The individuals
in this discussion may not be directly responsible for the causes, but since
we are the inheritors, we must be responsible for the solutions.
        It is only by working with, and accepting, this developing culture,
that we can maintain communication with it's population.  This is why I propose
the dualistic approach that I mention.  We must support this group in it's
struggle for identity, and we must make sure that we can communicate with each
other, so that we can find and work toward common goals within the framework
of a common nationality.
        This may have seemed off the point, but I think it is very relevant
to the question posed in the text of this item.
        Let's find out how best to communicate with each other in each of our
preferred ways, and let's also develop and maintain a standard so that we can
be as inclusive as possible in our necessary dealings.

response 60 of 65:

Mar 12 08:09 UTC 1994

        I love your idea about teaching and requiring the writing of various
communications intended to persuade.  (:

        I think that in my zeal, I overstated a point I wished to make.  We
need to respect the ways in which other members of our society communicate with
each other, but we also need to have a standard by which we can all talk to
each other.  I would even go so far as to say that requiring a comprehension
test of spoken and written English in order to collect aid money, renew a 
driver's license, and obtain citizenship would be a good idea.
        I think it is absolutely *vital* to the survival of our nation as a
single political entity that we maintain such a standard of communication.

response 62 of 65:

Aug 3 20:10 UTC 2000

Wow, why didn't I find this conference/item back in 92 or 93 when I
began Grexing for the first of several times?  Ah well, better late than
never.

I choose neither a descriptive nor a prescriptive stance on the utility
of teaching a particular form of the English language.  I choose a
purely subjective standard.  For me, the subjunctive mood is aestheticly
pleasing, elegant in a way that the modern usage-based alternatives are
not.  It also has utility in that it clearly differentiates between a
state of reality and a state of conditional reality,, which of course is
the purpose of the subjunctive.  Of course, I will freely use the word
subjoin as the verb form as in, "I find it much more elegant to subjoin
correctly than to use a sentence such as "If I was rich...""  I have no
idea whether or not this is an accepted word, but if it isn't then it
should be.

This begs a rather more interesting question of myself; why do I have
the aesthetic standards I have about language?  Why is ain't just ugly
to me when compared with isn't?  Why do I proclaim that if necessary, I
will be the last American to use the subjunctive mood "correctly?"  I
could list several other examples, but the question is clear.  Am I an
elitist?  If so, is this necessarily a bad thing?  Do I find the rhythms
of, for example, so-called black English jarring because of an ingrained
and unconscious racial or at least cultural bias?  All of these are good
questions for which I do not have definite answers at this time.

To skip to another thread in this item pi most certainly can equal 3. 
Pi, or rather the Greek symbol which I don't know how to produce here
has been associated with the ratio of a circle's circumference to its
diameter by convention.  There is no essential identity between the
symbol and this ratio, so it is perfectly logical for the state
legislature of whichever state it was to legislate the "value of pi." 
Silly yes, but it was strictly speaking within the possible range of the
bindings of this symbol, since those bindings are finally a matter of
human devising.

Finally, I second or third those who liked Kami's long-time-ago
suggestion about teaching various writing styles and the best times to
use them.

Hoping this has begun some discussion on this topic, I remain...

response 64 of 65:

Jan 4 20:58 UTC 2001

(Sounds right, except that English didn't lose its endings all at once.  Some
of them were lost well after the various invasions of Britain were over.  Some
of them haven't been lost yet -- -ed for past tense, -s for third person.)