h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

(No, I'm joking really) However, if you DO go into teaching EFL , you will also find yourself laying down the law on what's correct and what's not for the the first couple of years of any course. It's great when you get proficiency level students when you CAN talk about what is, rather than what should be.
I would want 'different from' rather than 'different to' (Latin background and BOF)
I would also like the typos 'compex' and 'You are'nt' eliminated and I desperately want to know the name of the obsolete tool
Basically I think I'm convinced that descriptive grammar is for native speakers and advanced foreigners, but that beginning EFL is rather prescriptive.

That's very true, and indeed is the case for pretty well any FL instruction. Imagine trying to teach English as the way it is, rather than some strict, arbitrarily chosen 'standard'... you'd never be able to mark a students paper wrong, because there's a good chance you'd be able to say "Well, for almost everyone that's ungrammatical, but there's a farming community in the South-west of Nebraska for whom that is entirely standard, so I'll give you a tick." Besides which, learning a reasonably standard and regular form of any language, let alone English, is hard enough without introducing all the variations too early

Just a note on the first-person *I amn't... aside from any value of prescriptivism, it's just plain annoying to say, and would most likely reduce to *I am't --> I am (or would, if that wasn't already the positive construction.) One suggestion put forward is simply I ain't... the construction is already in use, is easy to say and fills a void. On the other hand, "ain't" is already non-standardly used for *all* persons and numbers of the negative form of the verb 'to be', so maybe it's already too far gone.

Hi and Your Highness

Thanks for the comments. Interesting. The reason I have been backward in responding is not bitter resentment (biggrin> but personal ignorance. I have only just discovered the 'notify me of posts' button! Anyway, I've pressed it now, so I should be a bit more responsive.

One thing about the Pre vs Desc article - I think in view of your comments I should have some kind of section dealing specifically with the usefulness of Presc G to those learning English as a second or foreign language and the relative values of one or other set of rules and conventions.

Just quickly on the *amn't* question - I agree that it is rarely heard (at least, in the UK!) and a more difficult form to pronounce than *ain't*. Perhaps a better example would be something I must have heard about 100 times on the TV last night, *I don't got to go!* (*adopts fake heavy Italian-American accent and hunches shoulders* So I watch too many gangster films! So sue me, you f**k!)

Spiff

Hi and Your Highness

Thanks for the comments. Interesting. The reason I have been backward in responding is not bitter resentment (biggrin> but personal ignorance. I have only just discovered the 'notify me of posts' button! Anyway, I've pressed it now, so I should be a bit more responsive.

One thing about the Pre vs Desc article - I think in view of your comments I should have some kind of section dealing specifically with the usefulness of Presc G to those learning English as a second or foreign language and the relative values of one or other set of rules and conventions.

Just quickly on the *amn't* question - I agree that it is rarely heard (at least, in the UK!) and a more difficult form to pronounce than *ain't*. Perhaps a better example would be something I must have heard about 100 times on the TV last night, *I don't got to go!* (*adopts fake heavy Italian-American accent and hunches shoulders* So I watch too many gangster films! So sue me, you f**k!)

Spiff

Hi, Spaceman Spiff!

I really like this prescriptive vs. descriptive entry.

I'm fascinated by the little point others have picked up on - I use "amn't" as an abbreviation about as often as I use "isn't", and it never occurred to me that it might be considered either unusual, or hard to pronounce. But then I am a speaker of what can be described as Hiberno-English, and it differs in many little ways from from Standard English!


Azara

Hi Azara,

thanks for that. The fact that their are different views on the *amn't* thing expressed in this thread is interesting and really illustrates the *whole point* of the difference between the two approaces. Do other people use one form or another? Have people ever suggested that some personal form is *wrong* and you *shouldn't* say it that way? Come on, I wanna know!

Just something that has popped into my head (I can't have it buzzing around in there all day, so I'll have to 'purge' it now!) - did anyone read 'The Bumpkin Billionaires' in ... er ... well, in one of those comics that I used to read. Not the Beano, I don't think. Maybe the Dandy (sorry if this means nothing to non-UK readers, they are 'kids' comics with the likes of Dennis the Menace and Desperate Dan).

Any road up, the BBs were 'simple country folk' who wanted nothing more than a 'simple country life' only they had absolutely stacks of cash. Every week they thought of some cunning way to get rid of all their unwanted wealth, only to be thwarted by their bank manager or some hugely unlikely co-incidence.

Right, this time, back to the linguistic point! They always used to say things like 'I bain't to sure about that' or whatever.

The point being the 'I be not' instead of 'I am not' and then the magnificent short version - I bain't!

Any others?

Spiff

Hi

finally fixed the typos mentioned above. The only one that I think is arguable is the quibble over 'different to'. I wasn't going to change it but then I reread it and decided that it was (as you said) a question of preference. I realised when reading the sentence aloud that *I* also prefer 'from' in this context.

I guess it is an illustration of the subject matter. There must be some terribly clever name for this kind of situation but I can't think what it is. Any offers?

IIRC, "I amn't" was around in the dim and distant past, and did indeed quickly reduce to "I ain't". This then carried merrilly on for several centuries, until the prescriptive grammarians of the 18th (19th?) century deemed it ungrammatical and it lost ground to "I'm not".

-Martin