[Gllug] [OT] speaking French in France

[Dylan]

On Thursday 09 Sep 2004 17:19 pm, Nix wrote:
> On Tue, 7 Sep 2004, dylan at dylan.me.uk stipulated:
> > On Tuesday 07 Sep 2004 19:43 pm, Doug Winter wrote:
> > <SNIP>
> >
> >> I heard it on Radio 4, it must be true!  Unfortunately I've just
> >> checked and you appear to be correct, at least according to the
> >> OED and alt.usage.english.
> >
> > My advice would be to ignore the vase majority of what you read in
> > that resource - speaking as a linguist, that is.
>
> Which resource? Not Radio 4, obviously (unless you've found a way of
> reading it),

Well, I could simply ask the BBC for transcripts.

> but are you suggesting ignoring the OED, or a.u.e.? 

Well, the OED is notoriously conservative and proscriptive, but 
generally sane and accurate.

<rant>

a.u.e, however, seems to be populated by the sort of pedants who write 
to the Times (or should that be The Times?) complaining that they can 
no longer use the word "gay", or that there was a split infinitive in 
the editorial. IMOSVHO, it is a forum for stylistic opinionism. In 
principle it is no better than the MS Word "Grammar Checker" - which 
is, in reality, no more than a style checker, and a bad one at that.

To a significant extent, it is the influence of such opinions, and 
others, which has led to the dire state of literacy in the English 
speaking world - an adherence to out-dated and completely discredited 
ideas that some languages can be superior to others, and that the form 
of a language can be actively codified and 'improved'. This is not just 
my opinion, it is the opinion of the vast majority of researches and 
practitioners in the field.

</rant>

All languages, and English in particular, are undergoing an 
unprecidented period of development. English will change more in the 
next 100 years than it has in the last 500 - indeed, it will  be well 
on the way to having split into a new sub-family.


Dylan

-- 
"I see your Schwartz is as big as mine" 
                                  -Dark Helmet
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