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

"You" is formal, Pat.

A little bit of French, German, or in fact almost any foreign language (the usual kind, I must exclude pidgen etc) would have sufficed to give a better idea of the uses between thou and you. It is only in English where this distinctionis no longer made. And foreigners think its great.

Mind you, I overheard an American girl on a plane recently saying that she uses the formal "Sie" for everyone when speaking German, so she doesn't put her foot in it anywhere. That is not correct - it offends people you would normally use the informal "du" if you address them in the formal fashion. But that's not the subject of this conversation, which I am thoroughly enjoying. If I didn't already feel so at home around here, I would have felt I'd come home now.

"Thou/thee" is singular and informal; "you/ye" is plural and formal.

--Cooper

Don't take this the wrong way but... Oi! I take exception to your lampooning of my perfectly reasonable comment concerning how words get into dictionaries, Trillian's Child. A bit of a generalisation it is I agree, but a fair summmery.

How do you think it works? I mean, the alternatives would be some governing body saying, "Oh, we don't seem to have a word which describes that Friday feeling. We must remedy this situation! Open the hotline to the OED this minute!" Or the dictionary makers themselves, of course could spot an opening and...

But dictionaries try to catalogue words already in use, right? So presumably the OED (or whatever) doesn't actually make the words up itself (likewise the 'Governing Body', which doesn't exist in Britain, and doesn't seem to have been very helpful when it applied its little grey cells to the German situation). I suggest they have some method of collating new words which appear and monitoring others to take into account shifts in meaning.

I also can't imagine that a word not in general usage (in some sector of society) which, included into the dictionary, would therby rise in popularity. Ergo, (well maybe not, but...) the words are already popular before they go in. Perhaps it is my use of "...used alot..." you don't like. Well here is what I meant:

Probably they take a cross section of the various forms of language output available to them. Newspapers, TV, radio, academic journals etc etc. I expect they apply some sort of algorithm. X hits over Y amount of time equals a new word. Before you complain that newspapers etc etc are not a true reflection of the language that we the people have a habit of bandying around, I would agree (if anything they are a bit behind the times). But short of bugging the local pub (although...). The Colonel's Maddonna example is a perfect case: if you release a word into the public domain (it helps to have a high profile) and people start to use it in the places where the OED is taking samples from then, well, in it goes.

Take 'acid rain' though. Aparrently coined sometime in the 19th century, it was used so sporadically until (I dunno) the 1970s/1980s that it only then became worthy of a dictionary entry. See. Not a lot of people used it, it didn't get in. A lot of people used it, it did get in. Perfectly simple.

Though I agree you could argue the actual sampling process. Possibly the dictionaries even accept reader suggestions, and then do a bit of reaserch (ie, they take a cross section of the various forms of...).

I also maintain that it is a similar case with grammar, referencing (again) the fact that even the most anal grammarian seems to have acepted that you can't force people to say "If I were...". Enough people say/write "if I was" and grammar handbooks are forced to include it as to do otherwise would be pointless, given that there is no definitive ruling body for the English language.

Regarding the actual topic under discussian here I do have a few points (I bet you are all eagerly anticipating them too ). But I'll boil it down to one or maybe two teensy things.

I can't spell. You may have noticed. I do try. Have been trying on and off for years (mostly on now, as it is part of my job), but really I have come to the conclusion that there are natural spellers and then there are not. I admire the natural spellers with all my heart, but I am never going to join their ranks and so, in the interests of actually posting something without having spent ten minutes wrestling with a dictionary, which, given that my shonky connection will probably have kicked me off the site for the rest of the afternoon, will mean I have wasted my time in writing anything in the first place. Likewise punctuation and a certain amount of elegent turning of phrase.

Solnushka, may I make a suggestion? Instead of wrestling with a dictionary, try using the spell check in another program on the computer? My spelling isn't the best either... but I keep a MS Works document on my desk top just to open up, and spell check things in. And because I've used the MS spell check so much, I've gotten very good at working with their thesaurus because sometimes the spell check doesn't recognise the word I'm trying to spell, so I instead toss a synonym out for it to chew on, and spit out the correct word after a little bit of looking. I've found this to be sometimes easier than looking up in the dictionary.

Oh, and I think someone had said something about the spell check on the computers making people lazy (I'm too lazy and go back and look who said it! ) I think that the way people currently use spell check on computers, it does make them lazy, but when used correctly, as a safty net to make sure everything's spelled correctly, and catch stupid mistakes, it is a helpful thing. But it seems that most people don't even make an effort to spell anything correctly before they hit spell check, so the spell check on the computers only makes things worse. Maybe if teachers made students write out more thinngs to be turned in, and then graded on grammar and spelling, as well as the idea that's being written about, students will realize it's in their best interest to make an attempt to spell stuff correctly.

I wonder if anyone will be able to write anymore in the future, it seems that more things are being typed up instead of being written, and math is being done more and more on calculators. It'll be amazing if anyone will be able to write on paper with a pen or pencil or even figure out what 2 + 2 equals without typing it on a calculator! I don't even know if I can remember how to graph inequalities, because my math class requires us to have a graphing calculator, and it seems we have to do more work on that than on paper! But what happens if the calculators screws up, and the replacement isn't an arm's reach away? Do we have to drop everything, go out and buy a new in order to finish figuring out whatever it was we were calculating? And I know two years ago, I had been taking the same course, and we had to draw out all the inequalities on our own. I hate Trig, I didn't want to have to retake the class, but a d- for a semester grade is not acceptable! I wish that they'd made Trigonometry it's own full year course, and left algebra II by itself so that I wouldn't have to sleep through the class, and do practically nothing to get a good grade, then strugle through the trig again... *sigh* American Schools are stupid!

Well, I'll wrap this up for now... I've complained enough.

Saturn Girl

When I was in school (it doesn't feel like it was very long ago, but my 10-year reunion is on the horizon), you couldn't get away with leaning on technological crutches. English classes would give you essay assignments to take home, but they'd also give you ones that you had only the class period to crank out, written on paper. And the math classes would give you graphing problems with your calculator taken away. So even though I know how to do this stuff with technology, I also know how to do it without it.

Colonel Sellers, who took Trig and Algebra II in two different years.

I don't know about natural spellers, but I can see your point. I've always been able to spell - I remember there were two of us in the highest spelling group at school, and the teacher had to invent new groups for us. Oh, and I never bothered learning my spellings and still got them all right, whilst N.H. learned his and didn't

However, whilst I can spell, I'm bloody hopeless at maths... What's differentiation? What's an imaginary number? Arrrrgh...

I think the secret of correct grammar and spelling is to read a lot. Then by habit you pick up spellings and the nuances of grammar. Unfortunately, this has its problems - my parents wind me up about how I used to talk about "Sir Goowiyun", "Alestrelot" and "chayoes" ("Sir Gawain", "Aristotle" and "chaos")...

I read a lot, and as I have picked up bits and pieces of grammar, and spelling, I've learned more from learning German, and correcting my own spelling errors in stories, or having them corrected, and rewriting whatever it was that I'd written before... you should see how many drafts of my stories I have... and I have a total of two stories that are offically finished (unless someone finds a mispelled word in one of them) and I have two that are basically finished in idea, plot, and such, I'm just ironing wrinkles out of them.. Reading a lot does help with spelling, grammar, and such, but I think it's helps more with expanding one's vocabulary, more than anything else. I have a wider vocaulary than most people in my class grade, and I'm also not one of the students with the best grades in my classes. I refuse to parrot back exactly what the teacher said, just so I can get an A, I usually give my oppinions, expand on whatever it is, and take too much time to do the assignment, therefore not getting the assignment done, and not turned in on time, if at all, because they more often than not give us the assignment assuming we'll copy from our notes, doing a little reagngement of words, so it doesn't look like we're copying, since they're always saying that they don't want us to copy from anything, even though that's what gets us the best grades. Hypocrisy at it's best (worse?). Those of us who actually try to really do the assignment as they tell us to do it, do not have time, especially if we want to have a life outside of our school work!

And Colonel Sellers you're lucky to have been able to take it in two sperate years! I'm jealous! I'd probably be still ahead a year in math, instead of behind a year, if they'd done it the way they used to do it! Because I had been a year ahead in math, until Trig totally tripped me up, and it wasn't a long enough unit for me to be able to get help enough to bring me back to a decent grade. If it'd been a full year course, with a little work, I probably could have been able to get myself on track, or find someone else who could help me do so. Stupid American De-education system!

Saturn Girl

Ah, yes, spellchekers.

Problem one. I am technologically backward and have no idea how to open the spellchecker whilst on h2g2.

Problem two. My spellchecker is in American English. I have nothing against this, you understand, but I am British so then you would get skitzo postings where I scream from one to the other.

But I agree that they are useful when used properly, rather than instead of actually doing any work. And the use of calculators in British schools is rife too. I ended up unable to multiply 3 by 5 without a calculator. Big mistake. Russian students aren't allowed calculators in the classroom at all. And they do maths at 12 I didn't touch till 17. And they seem to cope. Tradgedy.

And you know, I blame my voracious reading habits for my bad spelling. As you will be aware, efficient readers do not read word by word, but more like five words at a time. Also, a nifty bit of resaearch has suggested that people skim along the top of words (if you cover up the top of a word you will find it harder to read than if you cover up the bottom of the word. Allegedly. The point is, that there I was, bowling along, happily adding brave new words to my vocab and failing miserably to focus on how they were actually spelled. There fore, I usually get the letters right, but in the wrong order.

A bit more enforced effort at school may have helped (no spelling tests for us!). I find it difficult to believe now, but I only found out which words I spell wrong about five years ago (ie well after I finished school and uni) when someone sat down and underlined all the words I had spelt wrong in a piece of writing. Nobody ever did that before, they just moaned about it. I found out that words I thought I could spell like 'view' and 'sentence', I coudn't. The problem is that now I still don't know how to spell 'veiw', but at least I know I spell it wrong.

A spell checker is something that a witch uses.

A spelling checker can be a help - like a calculator - but only if backed up by some knowledge.

If your calculator tells you that the answer is 10000 but the question was 10 * 10 you need to feel that the answer isn't right. Similarly, if your spelling checker offers you an alternative you need to know whether to take it, and if it lets through "there" when you should have typed "their" - both "correct" - it's no help at all.

A guy I was working with told me his spelling was improving. But all he'd done was add his habitual mis-spellings to the spelling checker's database.

Against my instincts, I do have proof that spelling CAN be learnt.

There was one village school in our area which was notorious for its bad spellers. All other schools delivered up the usual mixture to the secondary schools, but this one particular primary school seemed to have a level of spelling which was much lower than average.

My instincts tell me, however, that I was blessed with what people like to call a "photographic" memory, and I never had to revise for spelling tests or French dictation; having seen it once, I hardly ever got them wrong. This also applies to reading - although I am sure I do gloss over the words, probably just reading the tops, as you describe, I can still remember whereabouts on the page they were.

Ditto for numbers - provided I have seen them written down, I can remember them. Faces, however .... terrible! But once I know who the person is, I can reel off their address, telephone number and birthday, provided I knew them in the first place.

No teaching can make you like that. My husband sits and mumbles to himself all the time. He needs to learn things by hearing them. Although people have made a fortune out of selling books for teaching yourself memorising techniques, no one has yet found a way of helping me or my son to remember what we went upstairs for.

I ought to make my son a T-shirt saying "Here I am, brain the size of a planet ..... and I can't remember what I had for breakfast"

Oh I agree that spellng can be learnt. If you think I am bad now you should have seen me five years ago. And I am quite good at teaching it, and especially teaching bad spellers how to spell cos I have a good apreciation on the problems they are encountering. I just think that some people have a spelling bump, such as the one you describe, which helps them out. The reading thing, I must confess is one of the many excuses I've come up with over the years to try and work out why exactly I can't spell. Sometimes I even admit it is the fault of having a very lazy ill-disciplined mental arena.

This is interesting maybe we should compare notes and work out a profile of a good speller and a bad one.

I also remember where words are on the page. Likewise music. I can hear a piece of music I've played and be able to picture the page (not in detail, though. Not enough to 'read' from it). I can never remember the name of the composer, though. Numbers I have to write down to remember them. Actually (breakthrough) words too, now I think about it. Writing things down often usually fixes them in my memory. The problem with spelling, maybe, is that my mistakes are ingrained. Faces. Great at faces, terrible with names. And I frequently forget what I went upstairs for. How is your son with spelling?

Solnushka - you can change the preferred language of your spell-checker. Open 'Word' if you use Windows; it'll run in tandem with h2g2. Just type in the word you're unsure of... sorry - of which you are unsure.

This is a conspiricy to make me give up creative spelling, isn't it?

Emily, you're right about thou/you. I was thinking of the/ye, where the 'y' in 'ye' is a transcription of the letter thorn and the pronunciation is based on the later spelling rather than the original one (which was basically the same as 'the'). Of course, it does make you wonder whether the same thing could have happened to thou/you!

The point I was originally trying to make with the thou/you thing was that words fall into, and out of, fashion, and so does their spelling. We can't just be applying inflexible rules to spelling and grammar, because that's just not how people use them. The study of language is about how people use it, not how it *should* be as decided by some self-appointed academic body.

There is nothing wrong with ending sentences with prepositions; there is nothing wrong with splitting infinitives - in fact sometimes it reads much more elegantly. These are points of *fashion*. Until recently it was simply unfashionable to do either of these, but only as a matter of snobbery: an 'us or not-us' indicator.

The history of language - particularly English - is intimately related to class structure, and that's still very much the case. Most middle- or upper-class people like to think of lower-class people as speaking poor, ungrammatical English - they laugh at constructions such as double negatives ("I ain't got no trousers") or dialectical differences ("Traasas"), and instinctively say that they are wrong. They are not. The French get along perfectly well with double negatives (ne... pas) and it is used perfectly consistently, and dialect is nothing to do with laziness or stupidity - you learn what you here around you. Chinese children have a Chinese accent.

Of course, as we've all said, there are error limits and agreed consistencies for written English, but they're only in place to distinguish what we see as 'good' and what we see as 'bad' - an arbitrary threshold. We abide by dictionaries for spelling, and quite rightly: dictionaries are compiled by gathering words from speakers and written volumes directly - they are a constantly-revised average of the whole country. But their spellings and pronounciations are changing all the time.

What is seen as 'correct' now will seem quaint and outdated in 100 years' time. If I wrote Chaucerian English in this forum, would anyone consider it 'wrong'? How about Shakespearean? And Victorian? 1940s? 'Correctness' is just a moving point on a greyscale.

A linguistics proffessor was giving a lecture.

"... and then in some languages a double negative makes a negative, although in English this would make the sentence positive. In no language, however, does a double positive make the sentence negative."

And a little voice from the back said,

"Yeah, right."

Ah - the accent all depends. I'm a Chinese child and I don't have a Chinese accent.

Damn - can't prove it though...

i've always been a good speller, i always used to geet full marks in tests in primary school wihout learning for them, but i use a spell checker to find my typing mistakes (you can tell there are quite a few of them). i never use the right fingers on the keys and i always look at the keyboard, which aparrently (sp?)() you're not supposed to. (aargh, preposition!)(or is it?). but anyway, i type a lot faster than most of my friends. but i digress.
^. .^
= ' =

Chaucerian English, more properly called Middle English, is an entirely different language from Modern English. If you wrote in Chaucerian English, you would have to abide by the rules of Chaucerian English.

If you wrote in Shakespearean English, you would have to abide by the rules of Shakespearean English.

Victorian and 1940s English are in many indices indistinguisable from Standard English today. Read some Fitzgerald and tell me if it abides by different grammatical rules.

Spoken English and written English have always been distinct. Don't confuse changes in slang with fundamental changes in the written language.

--Cooper