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submitted 4 months ago by fossilesque@mander.xyz to c/science_memes@mander.xyz

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[-] candybrie@lemmy.world 14 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

You can want it all you want. It's just not reality. And pretending like it is isn't helpful to people trying to learn the language.

[-] dream_weasel@sh.itjust.works 11 points 4 months ago

We don't have to be silly with descriptivism either. Of course languages evolve over time, but speakers also make mistakes that should still be corrected to keep language cohesive. It's the difference between change in body shape from evolution, and an isolated growth that probably shouldn't exist. We use a different word for that second one: cancer.

You gotta have both IMO. Not too rigid, not too flexible.

[-] Themadbeagle@lemm.ee 7 points 4 months ago

I really hate the idea of saying corrected in this context. There is really no right and wrong in language iself. Standardized language is not some "correct" way to speak, but a common guide to try to help an individual be understood by more people. Someone not following standard is not wrong, just maybe difficult to comprehend due to not following convention. I think in one off mistakes that are hard to understand, it is better to thinking in terms of asking for clarification. In more consistent problems of understanding, I think explaining (which is not the same as correcting) to them a more conventional way of speaking to easy future communication is the best path.

Also equating individuals unique linguistic quirks to cancer is gross.

[-] dream_weasel@sh.itjust.works 8 points 4 months ago

You can pick a word besides ”correct" but it means sort of the same thing either way: we are moving individual variations of language toward the collective standard.

Languages all have categories of words, general rules for how those categories are applied, exceptions to the rules, and idiomatic parts to name a few. Misconjugating a word is not evolution of language, it is a mistake. Mismatching count is also a mistake. Mixing direct and indirect object pronouns is a mistake. The risk is not "i don't understand you", it is rather that I did understand you, but what I understand is not what you mean. You can call it a "unique linguistic quirk", but if it leads to people misunderstanding you it's a mistake. And yeah, pushing mistakes under a rug of " it's descriptivism" is just as gross as any allegory to runaway cell growth.

If everyone understands you and its not a perfectly grammatically correct construction and lots of people start to use it, sure this is evolution of language. Every deviation is not that.

[-] tigeruppercut@lemmy.zip 6 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

In one sense, native speakers literally can't make mistakes (unless they're drunk/tired or stumble over a word or something like that). For example, misconjugation is not a mistake-- it could just mean that the word wasn't popular enough in their dialect to have a rigid conjugation, so usually this means that an irregular verb is falling out of use. A verb like abide is uncommon enough that its past participle form abidden has fallen out of use, and the simple past abode also has the acceptable abided, mostly because not enough people use it to maintain the same conjugations. So in a certain group of people with the same dialect, using abode is actually less effective at communicating than abided (I had to look up the conjugation for this, as I'd never heard abode outside the noun meaning home).

As for the direct and indirect pronouns (I assume you mean subject vs object pronouns), natives often use different pronouns in coordination (using an "and" to join two pronouns) than they would alone. It's very common to hear "jim and me went to the store" whereas only a tiny fraction of those speakers would say "me went to the store". Although no one would misunderstand (like they might with the verb conjugation above) a "jim and me" vs "jim and I", people can hear the difference in register, and in certain situations a less formal register is more appropriate than informal. This doesn't make those speakers wrong, and I don't think it even changes the communicated meaning, as you said with "what I understand is not what you mean."

Because no one has ownership of what's absolutely correct, a lot of this stuff falls under the purview of register, and therefore we have prestige dialects. So language "mistakes" just become another way to separate classes of people, because for a long period of history the only people with any power sounded one way, and they decided it sounded "better" than what other people sounded like. Those distinctions are less rigid these days, but I don't think we can say they've gone away entirely.

As an aside, if you'd like to discuss countable vs mass nouns, I had a bit of a dive into those when I tried to teach them to an EFL class and I'm still not sure how to explain a lot about certain aspects of the topic, but things weren't nearly as simple as I thought before I started talking about it at the front of the classroom.

[-] dream_weasel@sh.itjust.works 3 points 4 months ago

So you understood most of what I meant, but we missed slightly. I agree that irregular verbs might be misconjugated or that they may tend back toward regular conjugations (see for example "to plead" in the legal sense, or "to hang" in the execution sense), but I specifically meant mismatched count. As a stickler, I would sometimes put lack of use of subjunctive or adding it unnecessarily (though the second is pretty uncommon) in the realm of a mistake but that could be because I like it and hate to see it fall out of use.

Also yes that's what I was meaning for indirect and direct object pronouns (to/for whom vs who, or maybe more simply him/her/me vs he/she/I). Here you could also include "myself" or "themselves" or the slightly less natural sounding "themself". I was trying to craft an example of creating a misunderstanding in English but it didn't work as well as it does in Spanish for example where you can accidentally create reflexive verbs with a different meaning. I suppose though you are right: these are not mistakes a native speaker can really make because they have the knowledge that the word is changing.

For countability, I assume you mean the question of less vs fewer, and when you might pluralize words like ”water" and when you don't. That is indeed an interesting topic.

Prestige dialects are not an example of a direction I would like to go, but as a counter I really appreciate that French DOES have the French academy to decide what is proper and what is not.

Im an American, I only speak one language natively because there's not exactly a variety of spoken languages in the Midwest. Since high school though I've been "collecting" languages though and am passably conversant in a few. My wife's extended family is all in France so French has been an important skill to develop. For me, the fact is that "deviations" from the book usually result in losing track of the meaning or losing track of the conversation. English is already hard enough without adding even more irregularity, so I tend to lean in on being precise and I think it's a worthwhile effort. It is a real source of stress when the shoe is on the other foot.