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

*Subscribes but keeps extremely quiet*

>>Isn't the correct length of skirt 'as short as possible'?

In the same way that the correct form for trousers is 'as tight as possible'!



(Oh, sorry, this is a no-smiley thread, isn't it?)

>> This is of course due to loose, paradoxically DISconnected way the internet evolved as a medium for mass communication.

This differs from spoken English how?


>> There is no single, central, overarching authority like Johnson's dictionary, Fowler's Abusage, or the Academie Francaise.

Which brings me to one of my central tenets about English grammar, and grammar in general: grammar is essentially DEscriptive, it is a model of how the language functions with observations about failures in that function. However, the 'rules' of grammar are often used PREscriptively. This is ok when they are accurate, but all to often the rules of grammar are based on a flawed model of the langauge. Take the split infinitive, for example: the rule that one should never split an infinitive works fine in Latin where it is actually impossible to split an infinitive, but applying that prescriptively to English is a failure of the model. It is not only possible to split an infinitive, it is also done on a regular basis.

Don't get me wrong, the rules of grammar are important, but the reason they are important is because they enable one to communicate without ambiguity. To be honest, I can see no other purpose for them. Am I wrong?

B

I can find no flaw in your argumebt.

"the reason they are important is because they enable one to communicate without ambiguity. To be honest, I can see no other purpose for them. Am I wrong?"

'Fraid so.

Please tell me what, *grammatically*, is wrong with this sentence:

Yesterday I shot an elephant in my pyjamas.

(How he got in my pyjamas I'll never know. ©Groucho Marx, 1928)

I'm not sure if it's possible to have a language which permits communication without ambiguity. If there is one, it's probably lojban: http://www.lojban.org/

But English, and probably most other languages, derive a degree of their power from that ambiguity. Imagine how barren literature would be if you were only able to say precisely what you meant. That way lies Newspeak.

Grammar is a unifying force. It prevents us from all devolving into mutually uncomprehending tribes. The reason there'll never be a standard grammar of internet English is that netizens WANT to be mutually uncomprehending tribes - unless they want something else, in which case there's standard English.

As for: "This differs from spoken English how?"

One pretty important way - timescale. Spoken English evolved from perhaps half-a-dozen important roots (Latin, Greek, Germanic, Norse/Danish/whatever, French, and presumably some Celtic roots) over a period of a couple of *thousand* years. Internet English has developed from more influences than you can shake a stick at over the course of a little more than a single decade. Sure, some of the conventions were in place on Usenet in the 70s and 80s - I typed my first smiley in about 1985. But it only went mainstream some way into the nineties.

And the nxt bg tng is of course the bane of the h2g2 user over the age of 12, txtspk. Five years old, if that? Pretty different, I think. I could be wrong. It's late. I haven't thought it through.

Goodnight.

H.

Well I haven't thought it through either, which is why I asked the question.

In fact there is an element of having my cake and eating it in my post anyway, because I say that grammar is a descriptive model of a language, and then I say that the purpose of the rules of grammer is to prevent ambiguity. Bugger! (Incidentally, 'reduce' or 'help us reduce' ambiguity would be more accurate).

Ben
*disappearing to work out how to square these particular circles*

By "spoken English" one presumes tha means the dialect spoken in the Home Counties?

No. I meant spoken English - everything from gangsta-rap to the English spoken in India (where there are more speakers of English as a first language than in any other country) and back again.

B

*Unintentional* ambiguity. That was what I meant. Intentional ambiguity is a wonderful thing. Hell, dammit I am a poet, I use ambiguity and nuance as tools. But equally, I can think of few things more pernicious than unintentional ambiguity. The rules of grammar help us avoid unintentional ambiguity.

I really am too tired to think this through right now.

B

Sorry Ben. I thought that was what you meant. My question was addressed to the person who didnae think "spoken English" evolved in a loose, paradoxically DISconnected way.

Because I live in a different time zone from most of you, I find nice bundles of postings to survey every time I return. Because I am a pedantic EFL teacher, I would want to insert more punctuation in almost everything I've just read. Because I value your on-line friendships and, in the main, I can understand what you mean - I think, I have refrained.
However, commas and ands? Correct written Brit English doesn't put a comma before 'and'; correct written American English does.
I also think that the main reason for adhering to grammatical rules is that unintentional ambiguity is lessened. Moreover, there are too many examples of posts on h2g2 which have lead to offence via misunderstanding.