http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2009/06/22/grammar-is-not-fun Comments On: Grammar Is Not Fun by Paul Constant en-us Copyright 2009 The Stranger. All rights reserved. This RSS file is offered to individuals, The Stranger readers, and non-commercial organizations only. Any commercial websites wishing to use this RSS file, please contact The Stranger. webmaster@thestranger.com (The Stranger Webmaster) Tue, 24 Nov 2009 00:00:01 -0800 Tue, 24 Nov 2009 23:30:00 -0800 Foundation http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss
Direct and indirect object pronouns 4 life.
Posted by hillside_hoyden]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2009 23:17:45 -0700 The Stranger I very much agree with your point that all languages have rules (even newfangled forms written on computers, guys!!)

re: the quote,
"[In english] there's a rather clever and fairly regular mechanism at work, and one which still gets the vast majority of words pretty much correct. It's not to modern tastes, but by no means as broken as people think." (Mark Rosenfelder)
I should probably take the time to find out more about where this guy's coming from, but it sounds a little half-baked, doesn't it? I can't see where anyone could say English does anything with "the vast majority of words," and especially not with "a...fairly regular mechanism."

English spelling, not "grammar" as others thankfully pointed out, is based upon kind of a mishmash of mechanisms. My position - and please, anyone qualified, feel free to critique this - has been that most commonly languages with spelling conventions that are regular in their relation to pronunciation differ from languages like English in that the spellings of their words have been standardized to match the current pronunciation (and take into account borrowings from various sources) at some point not too far in the past.

If you think English spelling is far out, try Tibetan, where the word for moon is spelled zLa-ba and pronounced more or less (varying widely depending on dialect) something like ndawa... and that's not even an irregular spelling. It's just that the spelling conventions have never been updated, as far as I know, in the history of the language.

Similarly, English still has spellings like "knight," and most spellings have never even been updated to keep up with the Great Vowel Shift that happened centuries ago. That's how we ended up with the weird diphthong pronunciation that we call a "long i" while virtually every other European language pronounces i as something like what we call ee: words like ice, for example, used to be pronounced like eess. The pronunciation has changed while most spellings haven't, plus we have words from a variety of sources.
Posted by jw36]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2009 21:49:47 -0700 The Stranger Posted by RainMan]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2009 20:50:18 -0700 The Stranger Posted by Regina]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2009 20:28:07 -0700 The Stranger Sigh. I wish this myth would die. All languages have rules (i.e. grammar). Otherwise they wouldn't be languages. Just sequences of symbols.
Also, while English spelling has many idiosyncrasies, it's actually not that bad: "[In english] there's a rather clever and fairly regular mechanism at work, and one which still gets the vast majority of words pretty much correct. It's not to modern tastes, but by no means as broken as people think." (Mark Rosenfelder)

@6:
There is no way that "95 percent of people who use 'English' are not native speakers of it". Use some common sense: Americans alone make up 5% of the world's population. If your statement were true, then the rest of the world would (1) speak English and (2) not be native speakers of it.
Posted by Indy]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2009 20:19:52 -0700 The Stranger Posted by amazonmidwife]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2009 19:32:37 -0700 The Stranger
And, Fifty-Two-Eighty, I studied linguistics with courses in computer-related linguistics, but I can't get my head what this really means:

But as we move towards a world where 99.9% of all written interaction occurs via computers, most all of the rules will probably become worthless anyway. I still haven't figured out how the hell people are actually going to communicate with each other once that happens, but it sure looks like it's happening at a pretty high rate of speed.

Sure, languages change over time -- that happens everywhere, with or without computers. Why would we end up with no rules at all from people using computers to convey their words?
Posted by jw36]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2009 19:16:34 -0700 The Stranger Posted by josh]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2009 18:31:51 -0700 The Stranger Posted by care bear]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2009 16:35:35 -0700 The Stranger Posted by latifah]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2009 16:27:15 -0700 The Stranger
In fairness, though, I can't pronounce a lot of the French/Cajun/Creole names I encounter, either.

And the rule is not so much a rule as a guideline. I think if it is taught that way, and exceptions are pointed out, it can be useful. I still say it to remind myself how to spell words like receive.
Posted by Sheryl]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2009 16:15:47 -0700 The Stranger Posted by stinkbug]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2009 16:14:52 -0700 The Stranger
But as we move towards a world where 99.9% of all written interaction occurs via computers, most all of the rules will probably become worthless anyway. I still haven't figured out how the hell people are actually going to communicate with each other once that happens, but it sure looks like it's happening at a pretty high rate of speed.
Posted by Fifty-Two-Eighty]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2009 16:12:17 -0700 The Stranger Posted by the rest of the whole world]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2009 16:04:06 -0700 The Stranger
This be good.
Posted by Will in Seattle]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2009 15:55:33 -0700 The Stranger
But you can't seriously mean that it "has value because it is one of the few language rules that most people remember." Can you???
Posted by jw36]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2009 15:51:08 -0700 The Stranger Posted by Jenny from the Block]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2009 15:46:53 -0700 The Stranger Posted by devilsmoke]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2009 15:46:33 -0700 The Stranger
Does that mean that 'fallacies' is pronounced 'phalluses' in the UK? How unfortunate...
Posted by Critical]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2009 15:38:58 -0700 The Stranger Posted by Simac]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2009 15:30:20 -0700 The Stranger