Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[littlefallsmets]

Problem with intent is that... people can lie about their intent.

And then all you can say is "nuh-uh!" and be responded to in a "yuh-huh!" type manner and so forth.

Not to say that there isn't a certain validity to intent, conceptually, but it's so easy taken up as a cloak by jerks that it's almost worthless in function.

[Doc]

On the other hand someone getting called racist because they used the term 'coloured' when they thought it was the least offensive option available leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Telling someone about how they are a terrible person regardless of intent is the kind of thing that fosters bad feeling and causes division between social groups.

[KeithHernandez]

Exactly. It's that damn Statler-Waldorf hypothesis, giving people ideas.

Classic. 


For what it's worth, I have heard Downs presented in a negative way multiple times.

[AugustWest]

Problem with intent is that... people can lie about their intent.

And then all you can say is "nuh-uh!" and be responded to in a "yuh-huh!" type manner and so forth.

Not to say that there isn't a certain validity to intent, conceptually, but it's so easy taken up as a cloak by jerks that it's almost worthless in function.

I think you can generally infer intent from the rest of the content. 

It's buzzword gotcha that is objectionable.

[Choop]

post-punk-abilly.

with horns.

[AugustWest]

techno-funk rumbas.

[Doc]

Straight up 80s synth-pop. Totally sincere because for them, it never got old.

[ananke]

What kind of music would the Buzzword Gotchas! put out?

Picture Tears For Fears with a marching snare drum ensemble.

[Bobby Isosceles]

Classic. 


For what it's worth, I have heard Downs presented in a negative way multiple times.

Hey, there's no way you can present Hugh Downs in a negative light.

That's ... that's so ridiculous, it's not even funny, man.

[miles]

I heard Sandra Cisneros refer to herself as a person of color this morning.

[lprkn]

Her house is purple, right?

[theinevitable]

so, I am coming really close to using "Man, this Jeff Beck album really cooks!" as an example of "hyper-white English" in this paper I am writing.

also I have a paragraph where I describe looking at a "Guide to English Grammar" sitting on my desk next to "Introduction to Government and Binding Theory" and thinking about how prescriptivist rules are based on major over-simplifications of how language works.

Also this book I am writing it on explained pretty well what the deal is with why "African-American" is preferred to "Black."

[Cioran]

prescriptivist rules are based on major over-simplifications of how language works.

All rules and explanations are simplifications. Nobody can honestly say how language, or anything else, really works.

Simplifications are created to perform functions. The criterion for accepting or rejecting a simplification is: does it deliver the goods?

In the case of prescriptivist rules of grammar, the "goods" are precision and comprehensibility in thought and communication. They should function like a car manual does for a driver. If the rules are too vague or general or outdated, they should and will be discarded. But to reject prescriptivist grammar because it is a simplification is like throwing away a bowl of chicken soup because it is not a cauldron of bouillabaisse. Purpose and function must be taken into account.

One of the great pleasures of reading Achewood is drinking in with the mind sentences that are not only grammatically rich and well-constructed but which stretch the language, make it bounce around and party a little.

Let's face it: decades of ignoring grammar instruction in American public schools has made good writing increasingly rare. Have you read Time magazine lately? It's crap. And how often do you hear someone struggle to express him or herself, and, failing to find the right words, fall back on tired cliches and stale media phrases to express his or her thought? We turn to an obscurish webcomic for prose that is rich and displays a love of language hard to find in the dry forest of American media.

Americans aren't stupid, they just lack the right tools. Who will provide them?

Ezra Pound:

The individual cannot think and communicate his thought, the governor and legislator cannot act effectively or frame his laws without words, and the solidity and validity of these words is in the care of the damned and despised litterati …when their very medium, the very essence of their work, the application of word to thing goes rotten, i.e. becomes slushy and inexact, or excessive or bloated, the whole machinery of social and of individual thought and order goes to pot.

This quote is from a review of a newish American novel, a review that is worth reading if you care about language.
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200712/vietnam

[lprkn]

Up is down, black is white, I'm giving Cioran cans. wtf?

[AugustWest]

All rules and explanations are simplifications. Nobody can honestly say how language, or anything else, really works.

Simplifications are created to perform functions. The criterion for accepting or rejecting a simplification is: does it deliver the goods?

In the case of prescriptivist rules of grammar, the "goods" are precision and comprehensibility in thought and communication. They should function like a car manual does for a driver. If the rules are too vague or general or outdated, they should and will be discarded. But to reject prescriptivist grammar because it is a simplification is like throwing away a bowl of chicken soup because it is not a cauldron of bouillabaisse. Purpose and function must be taken into account.

A prescriptive grammar is at best a snapshot of a language at any given point in time.  Which is not to diminish the usefulness of a prescriptive view of language.  Precision and efficiency are highly useful in a language and prescriptive rules are necessary for both.

On the other hand, language is like Heraclitus's river.  As a communal human construction it grows and changes as our society does.  It's only appropriate for language to be responsive.

I'm with you Cioran.  I'm glad that there are writers like Onstad influencing the growth and flux of our language.