links for 2010-07-13

1. There is a way to cure your gut without going to the doctor – it is called the GAPS diet. We’ve been on it for the last several months with amazing results.

2. Of course, sometimes the reason an individual unnecessarily pronounces a hard consonant is because that person’s conditioned to do so as a result of speech pathology to overcome a lisp or delayed language development.

3. WWCE? What Would a Caveman Eat? Not refined sugars, not mammal lactate. The Caveman Diet!

4. Interesting about the often thing. I think I often pronounce the ‘t’, but not always. And I think part of the reason I pronounce it is because I’ve been deliberately trying to overcome my casual propensity to soften the t’s in certain other words (as most Americans do) — “inneresting” instead of “interesting,” “swiffly” versus “swiftly”, etc. It never occurred to me that “offen” is the correct pronunciation.

5. Comptroller?

   :-o

6. On the topic of the Toyota crashes — you’re correct that faulty accelerators don’t discriminate between the young and the old, but elderly driver error by itself also shouldn’t discriminate between Toyota and, say, Honda, or GM. There needs to be some sort of explanation about why there hasn’t been a rash of elderly Ford drivers accidentally flooring their accelerators instead of their breaks before I think we can say we’ve solved this particular mystery.

7. To quote the great John Prine “often is a word I seldom use”

8. There needs to be some sort of explanation about why there hasn’t been a rash of elderly Ford drivers accidentally flooring their accelerators instead of their breaks before I think we can say we’ve solved this particular mystery.

   I’m inclined to turn that on its head: Has there been a rash of Toyota accidents of this nature? More have been reported on, but I’m not aware of any data showing that the Toyotas in question are involved in more such accidents than any other make and model of vehicle.

9. On the naming of colors… this vaguely reminds me of the “endian” arguments of CPU design a decade or two ago. Is the BALLOON red or is it a RED balloon. My emphasis in all caps is meant to indicate the aspect of the object I am focusing most on now… and both statements put it in big endian order (the thing I care about most goes in front with the additional data trailing).

   I wonder two separate things: 1) are all people focused on the same aspects equally or do some gravitate towards an importance on color whilst others consider color a less significant attribute and 2) this report seems to indicate that “endian-ness” matters and that people have an easier time understanding big-endian word order; unlike postal addresses which are in little-endian order (most significant part last).

10. Scott: You may also find it interesting to note that adjectives themselves have a specific order as well, based on “intrinsicness”. Is it a big, red balloon or a red, big balloon?

11. Adjective order was something that really surprised me when my wife first told me about it. In English, there are seven different categories of adjective which must come in the following order preceding the noun:

    Opinion
    Dimension
    Age
    Shape
    Color
    Origin
    Material

    It’s funny to learn what you already know operationally. It made me feel much worse for people learning English as their non-native language.

12. I have recently noticed that, Ben—just in the past few months—and I’m amazed that there’s an actual cognitive order for them. Just plugging in some variables, it’s really clear that there’s sense to that. For example:

    a Dutch, rubber, round, new, tall, well-made, red toy

    versus:

    a well-made, tall, new, round, red, Dutch, rubber toy

    The first just sounds like a listing of random adjectives to me—I have no idea where it’s going, especially when spoken aloud. “Toy” is a surprise at the end. But the second one (other than being a touch too descriptive) definitely makes sense.

    I’d love to know how this varies between English-speaking cultures (if at all).

13. Waldo, how do you conclude, in regards to pronouncing the t in the word “often,” that “[i]t turns out that it’s not regional, and it’s not erroneously pretentious–it’s just wrong.” I didn’t pick up on the “just wrong” conclusion in the piece you linked to, and, moreover, I’m aware that there is very nearly no such thing as “just wrong” when it comes to language. If numbers of people do it, it’s not wrong–it’s merely a variation.

14. Of course, there are two linguistic schools of thought. One is that it’s impossible for a widespread practice to be wrong, because language is how people speak, and there is no “wrong” in that sense. The other is that there are rules of speech, and just because a lot of people get a rule wrong doesn’t make it correct. Some are in the former school, some are in the latter school, and a lot of us pick the one that is convenient at any given time. Misspellings like “appearence,” “calender,” and “unfortunatly” are very common, but I don’t buy that they’re simply acceptable variations. I say they’re just wrong. Pronouncing the “t” in “often” has no parallel that I can summon to mind (as the author of the linked piece points out, “soften, listen, fasten, christen”), and it appears to be a minority practice, so I’m happy to dub it “wrong.”

    Though “just wrong” is my own conclusion, the author of the linked piece strongly implies it. That is, he explains that pronouncing the “t” is not a practice that’s tied to location or age, points out that it’s not consistent with similar words (not that English always is!), and goes on merely to say that one shouldn’t always ascribe motives to people pronouncing things strangely. And, sure, I’m down with that. But he doesn’t defend it as correct, just that the people who pronounce it wrong probably aren’t bad people. :)

15. Hurray for linguistic prescriptivism. I read an argument recently that we should allow the usage of “literally” to mean “figuratively” (e.g., “he literally lost his mind!”) since it’s becoming increasingly common for people to use it in such a way.

    No. They’re wrong. Just wrong. Blame my fascist imperialist impulses, but they need to be corrected. The line has to be drawn somewhere.

16. Hurray for linguistic prescriptivism. I read an argument recently that we should allow the usage of “literally” to mean “figuratively” (e.g., “he literally lost his mind!”) since it’s becoming increasingly common for people to use it in such a way.

    No. They’re wrong. Just wrong. Blame my fascist imperialist impulses, but they need to be corrected. The line has to be drawn somewhere.

    Yes, let’s wage war on those people who write like this!

    As is often the case, though, such “abuses” have a long and esteemed history in English. The ground was not especially sticky in Little Women when Louisa May Alcott wrote that “the land literally flowed with milk and honey,” nor was Tom Sawyer turning somersaults on piles of money when Twain described him as “literally rolling in wealth,” nor was Jay Gatsby shining when Fitzgerald wrote that “he literally glowed,” nor were Bach and Beethoven squeezed into a fedora when Joyce wrote in Ulysses that a Mozart piece was “the acme of first class music as such, literally knocking everything else into a cocked hat.” Such examples are easily come by, even in the works of the authors we are often told to emulate.

    ….

    By the late 17th century, though, literally was being used as an intensifier for true statements. The Oxford English Dictionary cites Dryden and Pope for this sense; Jane Austen, in Sanditon, wrote of a stormy night that, “We had been literally rocked in our bed.” In these examples, literally is used for the sake of emphasis alone.

    (http://www.slate.com/id/2129105)

    “1960 V. NABOKOV Invitation to Beheading iii. 31 And with his eyes he literally scoured the corners of the cell.”

    (From the OED)

    Our language is increasingly being ruined by bastards like Austin, Alcott, Twain, Fitzgerald, Joyce, and Nabokov! Some of these books were already banned — we just need to add Gatsby, Little Women, and Pride and Prejudice to the lists and our children will be safe.

    …

    In closing, language prescriptivism and worrying about the correctness of perfectly understandable language is dumb. The only benefit I can discern from it is giving educated pedants a sense of self-satisfaction.

17. Ugh. Terrible. Have to scratch my eyes out. I’ll gladly wage war against bad English, regardless of provenance. Thanks the good Lord for editors.

    In closing, language prescriptivism and worrying about the correctness of perfectly understandable language is dumb. The only benefit I can discern from it is giving educated pedants a sense of self-satisfaction.

    Clearly you underestimate the worth of a satisfied pedant while overestimating the “perfectly understandable” nature of mangled English.

18. In closing, language prescriptivism and worrying about the correctness of perfectly understandable language is dumb. The only benefit I can discern from it is giving educated pedants a sense of self-satisfaction.

    Yeah, I agree with Jon: that’s basically true, and I’m totally OK with it. :)

19. Ben C., your post made my day. I speak as an educated pedant who derives self-satisfaction from areas other than correcting people’s grammar and diction.

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