Bad Language?

[vison]

Those of us who are native English speakers don't always realize what a treasure we have as a birthright.

English is vibrant, alive. No Academy stifles us. We can adopt any orphaned word we want, we can ignore what we think are archaic rules, we can watch the language change on a daily basis. But none of that will hurt English. It might annoy some of us, but it won't matter.

English is, they say, one of the hardest languages to learn to speak. I disagree. It might be difficult to learn to speak perfect English, but it is easy to speak it simply: and still make yourself understood.

Say: "I hungry" and English will feed you. Say, "I tired" and English will give you a bed. Say, "I love you", and English won't care about first person singulars or the future perfect tense, English will know what you mean.

*applauds self*

[nerdanel]

Anthy, I took your point. But then, as the chief starring-out culprit myself...

I've been starring out profanity here and there on HoF for months - I think the first time was several months ago, in the Parlour thread, with regard to certain law school exams. Since no one ever said anything, I figured that "here and there" starring out was probably okay as long as it wasn't in every other word or post. So I did it, again, from the inception of this discussion - again without comment from anyone - and I wasn't so much trying to be defiant or annoying as...I didn't think it was a big deal, to do it occasionally. Then, when the discussion shifted to whether people who use the "F word" are somehow hindered in their communication or unable to communicate as creatively, I was a little annoyed, and more so because I really wasn't in a good frame of mind this past weekend. So I, too, thought to use humor with that post of mine to which you responded, Anthy - saying that for "connoisseurs of the F word," it was quite a versatile linguistic device, if you will. Again, I was intending to be silly more than anything else, although upon reflection, I can see how that particular form of silliness doesn't comport well with the overall tone of HoF.
I think it was after Anthy's response to me that my posts in this thread generally got more forceful/assertive and also began to go over the top (for HoF) in the use of the starred-out "F word" - in that I was no longer using it to make any point, but just for the simple heck of it. Again, this was primarily because I was in a poor frame of mind, but also because some of the issues being discussed are near and dear to me (like the issue of "parental blackmail" - i.e. "If you don't do X, I won't pay your tuition" - a song and dance that I get to hear about every couple of weeks). In addition, I just found out that a friend of mine was diagnosed this month with HIV, which means that I was and am, IRL, drawing on a rich and varied selection of profanity to express my feelings. That, too, made me feel more defensive towards the "anti-profanity" crowd, if you will.

So all of this combined to produce some posts (which had their fair share of starred out profanity) that were not in keeping with the tone or spirit of the rules here at HoF, about which I feel badly. All of which is my long way of saying, in the appropriate parlance for my generation, "My bad." I think I will follow Voronwë's lead and confine my swearing primarily to the car from here on out.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Nel, you have once again shown your quality - the very highest.

My sincerest sympathies regarding the news about your friend; that is certainly a more then valid justification for not just using extreme profanity but for influencing your mood overall. Many :hug:s

[baby tuckoo]

In Greek, "sophis" refers to one able to make subtle distinctions. You can hate or respect the sophist according to your cant.

"Moros" refers to one of no sense. "Moronic" comes from this, as may the insensitive angel Moroni.

The word "sophomore" is a blend of the two. A "sophomore" is a wise fool. He/she has just enough sense to get into serious trouble.

Of course the language comes first and the rules later. English is a Germanic language that has had a Latin then a French net thrown over it, and both of those languages were more developed and rule-bound than the barely literary Anglo-Saxon.

In their attempts to put the common language into a common form, the priests under Augustine (8th Cent) and the accountants under William the Bastard did their best to organize the rules of expression for this foreign (and crude, they thought) tongue. But the people wouldn't stop speaking it.

Old English bent to the pressure to become literary and adopted many of the "rules" of the learned foreigner. Even after if became literary, the people bent their vowel sounds to sound more sophisticated, some think to imitate the French of the courtly class. So long "O" moved slightly forward to "oo" and eventually it moved high (by Shakespeare's time) to "meet".

Pronunciation is just fashion. But word choice and word order are what make sense, and we all want to make sense. So there have to be some rules of engagement and an order of babble.

It is mostly the Latin rules that have trickled down. In many cases (no pun), they don't make any but academic sense. They haven't all won; English uses the objective case as the object of pronouns, Latin langs use the nominative (with some irregulars.)

But don't worry. We are far from rule-bound. The people always outrun the academics, and so they should. The English had until recently a caste system of language ("In America they haven't used it for yeeuhs") that stratified society. The lower classes showed the most imagination and life and, as it should, the changes in language crept up from below. Dictionaries simply follow the people. These acknowledged that the people had the power.

In the Colonies this has been less of a caste question. Hell, our prezzy speaks backyard, and so did our last.

Don't fret over the presence of the language analyst. baby tuckoo is on your knee, not over your shoulder. Some of us just like to know "how" in addition to "what".

Yes, ax and ala, language is a puzzle of the finest sort. We don't always understand each other, even in a common lang. The solution requires logic . . . fuzzy logic.

Computers can't translate; computers can't generate. They are not even close.

Humans generate language.

Ask me at the m00t and I'll tell you about Noam Chomsky's real contribution to culture. It ain't his politics.

On second thought, don't ask me. Just buy me a warm bottle and bounce me on your knee.

Uh-oh, I just had a vowel shift. Will someone change my daippy?

[Frelga]

English is, they say, one of the hardest languages to learn to speak. I disagree. It might be difficult to learn to speak perfect English, but it is easy to speak it simply: and still make yourself understood.

Who's they? They must be the they who ONLY speak English and pride themselves on the accomplishment.

Of course, if you want a logically organized, easy to learn language with few exceptions, you need Hebrew.

English is the second easiest of the languages I ever attempted to speak or read. I hear it's because English is what came out of the food processor when Anglo-Saxons and Normans threw their Germanic and Latin derived languages together and hit Blend. The result was a bit chopped and mixed-up but easy to learn and understand. Plus you get at least two words for every concept, one from each side.

Slavic languages are pretty much made out of exceptions. But the swear words are more varied and entertaining (she deftly returned her post to the original thread topic).

[Ethel]

What I've heard from non-native English speakers is that... it's easy to learn, easy to speak, and impossible to spell.

[baby tuckoo]

*Regrets earlier verbosity. Should edit self to at least half length of original. Should be pithy. That's the ticket.*

[Impenitent]

Don't worry your itty head about it; chances are, you'll learn as you grow.

[nerdanel]

Thanks for understanding, V.

[anthriel]

English is, they say, one of the hardest languages to learn to speak. I disagree. It might be difficult to learn to speak perfect English, but it is easy to speak it simply: and still make yourself understood.

Who's they? They must be the they who ONLY speak English and pride themselves on the accomplishment.

As tempting as it is to agree with this, I have to say that many of my friends who have had to learn English as a second language have complained bitterly about it. Perhaps it's just the challenge of learning ANY second language? Nothing will ever make as much sense to you as the language in which you were raised.

Or, perhaps, a language simliar to the one in which you were raised. One of my good friends was raised in Vietnam, and I have tried quite earnestly to learn a few phrases in her native tongue... but I just STINK. I absolutely cannot hear the differences in words that she hears. Vietnamese is apparently very dependent upon the "tone" in which you say the word, a concept mostly lost in English (the English example she uses to compare to Vietnamese is the word "read" in English, which can be present tense or past tense depending upon the context... and it is also pronounced differently, although spelled the same).

Of course, if you want a logically organized, easy to learn language with few exceptions, you need Hebrew.

Isn't Hebrew a Germanic language? That would make sense, then... German is the only other language I have ever tried to learn, and I fell in love with ITS logic. But then again, any kind of logic just plain makes me purr.




baby t, I very much enjoyed your post! There is history, here, and I have always enjoyed history.

[yovargas]

*giggles at the image of a purring Anthy*

[Primula Baggins]

I think you're thinking of Yiddish, Anthy. Which is indeed Germanic.

Hebrew is quite different! I remember, when I was five or so, finding my father's old Hebrew textbook from seminary and asking him why the cover was on the back and how did he tell all those funny marks apart?

[vison]

As tempting as it is to agree with this, I have to say that many of my friends who have had to learn English as a second language have complained bitterly about it. Perhaps it's just the challenge of learning ANY second language? Nothing will ever make as much sense to you as the language in which you were raised.

That has been my experience as well. I know people who first spoke Hungarian, Polish, Vietnamese, Laotian, Italian . . . . and that's just on our street . . . . and they all complain to this day that they had an awful time learning English. My Hungarian neighbour said French was a snap, compared to English and the rest of them utter variations on that remark, all saying that it was the hardest language to learn. They mostly speak more than two languages, and I am always ashamed of my inability to speak anything but my mother tongue. Makes me feel so back-woodish.

We had a young feller boarding with us for some years who was born in Switzerland. His "mother tongue" was Romansch, he spoke Swiss German (and regular German), French, Italian, and Spanish. He also spoke beautiful English, but he always whined about how difficult it was to learn, he said, "There are no rules in English!!! I never know where I am!" (Made no sense to me, but there you are.)

My first French teacher was an Italian. He was the absolute definition of a polyglot, a remarkable, remarkable man who spoke every European language, including Finnish and Basque. He said himself that he had a very unusual knack for learning languages. He only taught school here for a year or so until he got his license to practice psychology in Canada and then we heard about him for years, he had a popular radio program and wrote a number of books. He, too, commented that he had found English a little tougher than most, although at that point he was working on learning Japanese and was having a wonderful time. "Something new!" he said.

I guess it depends on your point of view. The thing with English is, although a lot of people get annoyed about it, it is the lingua franca these days.

[Primula Baggins]

English certainly is the lingua franca in science. In some fields where the English-translation version of foreign-language journals used to lag months behind the originals, the English "translation" journal is now where most papers appear first!

[axordil]

English doesn't brandish its rules openly, like German or Latin. It keeps them at the ready, though, within reach, so that unwary students can be bludgeoned with them at a moment's notice. Usually when attempting to use the subjunctive.

[truehobbit]

And at the pace language evolves, by the time the grammarians figure out the pattern, it will have changed!

Exactly, Anthy!

And because this is so, I guess one can understand that they sometimes turn from descriptive to prescriptive ("It-took-us-ten-years-to-figure-out-this-rule-so-don't-you-go-bloody-changing-it-now!!!" )

I've always thought that English seems easy at the beginning (no declensions, no conjugations - yeah!), but then gets really, really, really hard (concept of tenses that are both past and present, special forms for doing something now, one word that can mean twenty different things, and five words that all mean basically the same thing, though with subtly different shades of meaning...).
French, by contrast, is very hard to learn at the beginning (conjugation in all tenses differing according to what kind of verb you have, pointless word gender and adjectives having to agree with their noun in case, gender and number, silly contractions, which mean that you in fact need four words to say "today"...) - but once you've mastered those there seems not much more behind.

I think German is a happy medium between the two.

But, then, I'm biased.


Today, a student asked me if I was a native English or German speaker. Go me!

And as to what people have trouble with in English - in a beginners' course yesterday two people complained that there were too many short words in English!

It is amazing how many short words there are in English, but I'd never thought that would be cause for complaint.
But come to think of it, if I try to look at what I'm writing here from a (German) outside observer's position, I do feel the text could do with a "Rechtschutzversicherungsgesellschaft" here and there.

[Primula Baggins]

Have I ever mentioned that I love German?

[axordil]

And so did Mark Twain, enough to write an essay on it, in which he decalred how awe-inspiring it was...or something like that.

I did learn more about conjugation and declension from German than from English, but then, most of ours has collapsed into word order after the matter of good analytic languages everywhere.

[Maria]

What does "Rechtschutzversicherungsgesellschaft" mean, anyway?

[Primula Baggins]

At my son's college convocation we heard Steven Pinker give a rather wide-ranging talk. One of the things he discussed is how we remember and use words—that for regular verbs in English we have only one word to store, plus a widely applicable rule, whereas with irregular verbs each bit has to be remembered separately. I think this is what my kids were agonizing over in Spanish verb forms. English is so much easier once you absorb the rules: you just have to slap together those little verbs to say "had been going," "would have been singing," "will have walked." In many other languages that would all be done with verb endings.

Edit:

What does "Rechtschutzversicherungsgesellschaft" mean, anyway?

At a guess, "insurance company for legal protection"?