tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20433842.post5959856127193669465..comments2024-03-07T12:57:35.296-05:00Comments on Varieties of Unreligious Experience: PrescriptivismConrad H. Rothhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01916542057749474124noreply@blogger.comBlogger12125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20433842.post-61240476378166029962008-06-08T09:11:00.000-04:002008-06-08T09:11:00.000-04:00Alors, M. Toussenel, a somewhat more intelligent c...Alors, M. Toussenel, a somewhat more intelligent comment this time, thankfully.<BR/><BR/>"The distinction between "fewer" and "less" is perfectly logical."<BR/><BR/>It may have its basis in logic, but the fact that people get by without it, and with the greatest of ease, indicates that there is no particular logical argument for enforcing the distinction. The fact that we happen to mark this distinction is, ultimately, arbitrary, in the sense that we could just as well not have done.<BR/><BR/>"The burden of proof is upon you to demonstrate why such "innovation" is "good"."<BR/><BR/>Oh, assuredly, but I meant merely to indicate my own aesthetic preferences. Of course you can't prove that linguistic innovation is good.<BR/><BR/>I fail to see why 'stiff' and 'pedantic' are weasel words.<BR/><BR/>As for a putative dichotomy between innovation and rule-following, there is certainly a conceptual dichotomy between these two forces--but as I tried to indicate, one can certainly do both, albeit rarely within the same phrase or word.Conrad H. Rothhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01916542057749474124noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20433842.post-68577952425063167152008-06-07T10:10:00.000-04:002008-06-07T10:10:00.000-04:00"By 'completely arbitrary' I did not mean to imply..."By 'completely arbitrary' I did not mean to imply there were no constraints, merely that there is ultimately no logical jusification for it".<BR/><BR/>To give but one instance to refute your statement, the distinction between "fewer" and "less" is perfectly logical. It reflects a judgment that it is logical and worthwhile to distinguish individually numerable objects from objects that are quantifiable by volume or weight. One may quibble with the judgment (that is, the value of the particular logical distinction), but there is nothing "completely arbitrary" about it.<BR/><BR/>With regard to the "good" innovations that I gather you would find in the likes of Ebonics and ghetto-speak, I would suggest that the burden of proof is upon you to demonstrate why such "innovation" is "good". Those of us who feel otherwise do not need to prove a negative.<BR/><BR/>As an aside, to hear the descriptivists speak, one would think that 20th-and 21st-Century changes in language usage, which are mostly mistake-driven, were comparable to those of the Elizabethan period. It makes me laugh, albeit a bit sadly.<BR/><BR/>I do, however, agree with you about the following, although I would excise the weasel words "stiff" and "pedantic":<BR/><BR/>"There is a sort of stiff, pedantic elegance in this avoidance, or in the use of 'with whom', or in the pronunciation 'flaxid', an elegance that no amount of grammatical or historical analysis could possibly diminish. It takes self-command to speak and write in this manner—a self-command I respect".<BR/><BR/>That's right. Speaking and writing in this way involve holding oneself (and others) to a standard; they involve self-discipline and challenge. <BR/><BR/>You seem, however, to assume a false dichotomy between upholding these standards, on the one hand, and linguistic innovation, on the other. I see no justification for this assumption.<BR/><BR/> I also wonder, who is to say what is "outmoded"? Post-Structuralist perspectivism can cut both ways, you know.<BR/><BR/>In addition, you make the rather dubious assumption that local vernaculars and dialects embody linguistic innovation. To assert that they ever do is debatable; to assert that they "always" do is simply ridiculous. <BR/><BR/>At the end of the day, descriptivism, to me, is merely another manifestation of Nietzsche's concept of slave morality, which is the dominant morality of our day. It reflects a frantic race to the bottom, a form of the disease of neophilia; or, to put it another way, of that great logical fallacy of modern times: <I>Post hoc, ergo hoc melius</I>.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20433842.post-61517191253737841652006-10-30T22:49:00.000-05:002006-10-30T22:49:00.000-05:00"BAKH-(l)ais."
Jonathan, I have the definite susp..."BAKH-(l)ais."<br /><br />Jonathan, I have the definite suspicion you're making fun of me, but I must confess that I don't get it. If so, chalk one up for yourself.<br /><br />If you're being serious, on the other hand, then I don't understand why you would render the latter syllable of 'bacchae' as '(l)ais', but by all means: conscious adherence to a particular pronunciation for the sake of euphonics is perfectly legitimate. A friend of mine doggedly insisted on 'hal-ISS-i-on' as a pronunciation of 'halcyon', which I applauded.<br /><br />It's laziness I don't like.Conrad H. Rothhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01916542057749474124noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20433842.post-46585237541995434042006-10-30T22:18:00.000-05:002006-10-30T22:18:00.000-05:00Look---I don't believe in pronouncing "bacchae" co...Look---I don't believe in pronouncing "bacchae" correctly. It sounds too much like how my fellow rustics refer to their state crop. I prefer to go with something like "BAKH-(l)ais."Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20433842.post-35888270919663231972006-10-30T16:46:00.000-05:002006-10-30T16:46:00.000-05:00"Less has been used with plural nouns since, I'm q..."Less has been used with plural nouns since, I'm quoting, "the time of King Alfred.""<br /><br />Quoting what? Naturally, the grammar of Old English has little relevance for that of Modern English--still, I can readily believe that "the best authors" have all used 'less' for 'fewer'. That doesn't make it sound OK to my ears.<br /><br />"The best pedantry is that independent of any actually existing fact about the world, however."<br /><br />Not sure this is true (I'm assuming you were not being sarcastic... perhaps you were); the best (linguistic) pedantry is certainly independent of any actually existing fact about the common usage of words; but <em>not</em> independent of any actually existing fact about <em>cultural perceptions</em> of the usage of words.Conrad H. Rothhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01916542057749474124noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20433842.post-79677524239854291132006-10-30T16:05:00.000-05:002006-10-30T16:05:00.000-05:00Less has been used with plural nouns since, I'm qu...Less has been used with plural nouns since, I'm quoting, "the time of King Alfred."<br /><br />The best pedantry is that independent of any actually existing fact about the world, however.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20433842.post-25478917059472380992006-10-30T13:05:00.000-05:002006-10-30T13:05:00.000-05:00Yes, I'm a real pain the arse; but I make up for i...Yes, I'm a real pain the arse; but I make up for it.Conrad H. Rothhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01916542057749474124noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20433842.post-40225969524024407932006-10-29T22:15:00.000-05:002006-10-29T22:15:00.000-05:00Come to think about it, language is probably a lot...Come to think about it, language is probably a lot more personal than it appears: you know Shakespeare's characters by the way they speak, their diction, their choice of vocabulary. In that, it is perhaps like a lot of aesthetic experience: the language of X tells us something about him/her and is cause of immediate like and dislike. And while socio-economic and class issues are usually evoked to explain it, I think there is more to it than that: we are interested to know whether a person is decorous or gregarious, sensitive or happy-fellow-well-met, bookish or action-oriented and so forth. Perhaps when we correct someone's speech it isn't so much on account of universal standards of conduct as our own; and what fits (or does not fit) with who we think they are. You may correct the cunnada, but I doubt you bother to correct the librarian's senior assistantwhatshisname: and in this you are right, correcting a person can be a sign of our respect for them, our care for their image.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20433842.post-53763379767887745352006-10-29T21:48:00.000-05:002006-10-29T21:48:00.000-05:00I don't know that that I can think of good example...I don't know that that I can think of good examples of good and bad innovation in language (my English isnt that good and i dont feel proprietary about it). But I think there are very good examples in certain arts. In pottery, for example, a cup you cannot drink from is not much of a great innovation; it is a bad innovation if it is also nothing good to look at. It has something to do with the way all created objects (vocabulary included) fit into our life, our brains, and all the other creations with which we surround ourselves.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20433842.post-62676239540406825512006-10-29T20:47:00.000-05:002006-10-29T20:47:00.000-05:00Thanks. By 'completely arbitrary' I did not mean t...Thanks. By 'completely arbitrary' I did not mean to imply there were no constraints, merely that there is ultimately no logical jusification for it. I agree, choices constrain each other--perhaps that will be a fruitful subject for another post, either by you or by me.<br /><br />Re: innovation, if you want to define it broadly, then just talking random nonsense is innovation. But I meant more systematic and coherent innovation, and I think that's valuable. How/where would you draw the distinction between good and bad innovation?Conrad H. Rothhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01916542057749474124noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20433842.post-83902582424453677692006-10-29T20:35:00.000-05:002006-10-29T20:35:00.000-05:00and two words on innovation: it is good if it wor...and two words on innovation: it is good if it works. and, secondly, not all innovation is equally hard/admirableAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20433842.post-57766184561706273002006-10-29T20:29:00.000-05:002006-10-29T20:29:00.000-05:00Conrad
I really enjoyed this; its a rare man who...Conrad<br /><br />I really enjoyed this; its a rare man who stands up for etiquette; it is along he lines of a post i have been writing these 3 months, only better. you do the standing up well. <br /><br />But i wonder just how completely arbitrary is the completely arbitrary; the rules of taste are rules after all; perhaps it is abritrary to choose one set over another (i am not sure that it is; imagine rules of etiquette which allow public defacation?), but once you choose one all sorts of things follow -- once the choice is made all arbitrariness evaporates. sorry, the thoughts are confused and half-baked. i need to work on them some more. <br /><br />i am always glad to stumble upon a post which does this to me -- brings forth the amorphous thoughts in a difficult to make sense of torrent. so i suppose i owe you thanks.<br /><br />btw, i had no idea flaccid was really flaxid. 10 years into my English education i was surprised to find just WHERE the stress in the word ascertain falls (weird).Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com