quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: Yes, it makes sense however "As" is acting as a subordinate conjunction not a coordinate conjunction and there should not be a comma.
Errr? I think you're mistaken here. There are two complete sentences connected by a conjunction, hence coordinate and comma.
I like my choice. It allows me to go to school.
Posts: 354 | Registered: Jan 2006
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quote:[quote]I don't think I agree with Rabbit's assertion that "correct grammar" is an elitist concept, although it is certainly a tool that can be used by elitists to assert their eliteness.
Perhaps I should elaborate by what I mean by the assertion that "correct grammar" is an elitist concept.
First, note that I used the term "correct" not "standard" and I put the term in quotes. This was not by accident. My objection is to the association of the word "correct" to connote "standard usage".
I think there are language constructs which can be logically labeled as grammatically incorrect because they obscure meaning. As an example, a few weeks ago there was a headline in the Washington Post which read "Man Beating Baby Shot By Police" the double meaning of which would have been funny if the story itself hadn't been so terribly tragic.
There are, however, many instances where the a grammatical construct is labeled "incorrect" solely because it isn't the standard English usage endorsed by college professors even though the meaning is quite clear.
For example, in the rural west its common for people to say "We was" or "We's" instead of "We were" and "We're". Such as "We's going to a movie" or "We was waiting for you for over an hour."
I admit that this construct grates on my ears but there is no logical reason why it is any better or worse than the English Professor approved version. When I was a professor in Montana, we encourage students to avoid that kind of usage arguing that it could make them seem stupid and uneducated and it would be more difficult for them to gain the respect of upper manage unless they used "proper" English. I still think that's reasonable advice for anyone who wishes to be respected in educated circles.
At the same time, the stereotype that people who use non-standard grammar are less intelligent, educated and refined than those who use standard grammar is totally unfair and elitist at its roots.
In conversation, most people speak with the grammar that was used in their homes and communities. If, like I did, you grew up in an upper middle class neighborhood with college educated parents, standard American grammar is your first language. You will likely speak it most of time regardless of how smart or well educated you are. You're not going to say "We was sleeping" instead of "We were sleeping" even if you have an IQ of 80 and didn't graduate from high school.
On the other hand, if you grew up in a small farming community or an inner city ghetto or a Caribbean Island, standard American Grammar isn't your first language, it's something you had to learn in school. Most likely, it won't come naturally to you. You might feel comfortable saying "We was sleeping" even if you have an IQ of 150 and a Ph.D.
When, as a well educated person, I define my way of speaking as the "correct" way of speaking, its elitist because it tends to perpetuate the status of the existing well educated "elite". My children and I will have an easy time being accepted among the well educated "elite" because people will tend to identify us as intelligent and refined because of our natural language. People from other social groups and their children will have to work harder to be seen as intelligent and refined because of unfair stereotypes against their language. The advantage is even greater in written language.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
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quote:Errr? I think you're mistaken here. There are two complete sentences connected by a conjunction, hence coordinate and comma.
I like my choice. It allows me to go to school.
We need Jon Boy, because I've only taken three courses in linguistics - only one of those in grammar and usage - and he is a much more skilled grammarian than I.
However, I do not believe "as" usually functions as a coordinate conjunction. In this case, "as" is a subordinate conjunction, being used to make the second clause dependent. Had the sentence been "I like my choice and it allows me to go to school," you would have a coordinate conjunction because both clauses are emphasized equally. In the actual sentence, however, "as it allows me to go to school" is subordinate.
I hope that makes sense, my brain is hazy from staying up late to work on a term paper!
Posts: 14428 | Registered: Aug 2001
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quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: Yes, it makes sense however "As" is acting as a subordinate conjunction not a coordinate conjunction and there should not be a comma.
Errr? I think you're mistaken here. There are two complete sentences connected by a conjunction, hence coordinate and comma.
I like my choice. It allows me to go to school.
Incorrect analysis.
The "as" is what makes it a subordinate clause. "as it allows me to go to school." is not a complete thought on its own.
quote:Originally posted by Jon Boy: Yes, you can use as as a subordinating conjunction, just like because or since. The Chicago Manual of Style says that you should use a comma before the dependent clause if that clause is nonrestrictive, meaning that it's not essential to the meaning of the main clause. However, I've always thought that it's rather hard to tell, so I punctuate more by ear in such cases.
Also, as a side note, it's important to remember that punctuation is not grammar.
Jon Boy, I've always understood that this rule applied only to subordinate clauses that begin with a relative pronoun (who, that, which). Dependent clauses that do not begin with a relative pronoun are separated from the main clause by a comma when they precede the main clause. No comma should be used when they follow the main clause. That is, at least, the rule used in technical writing. Is this different from what is in the current Chicago Manual on Style?
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
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quote:It's rather petty of you to bring up a typo I have made in the past....
In fairness to Kat, I think she's trying to refrain from bringing up typos you've made in this thread. *laugh*
Isn't it nice that the internet provides a medium where fast and accurate typists can feel superior to others?
Certainly how well one types is a far better indicator of the value of ones contributions than ones ability to use reasoning and logic correctly.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
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quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: ... On the other hand, if you grew up in a small farming community or an inner city ghetto or a Caribbean Island, standard American Grammar isn't your first language, it's something you had to learn in school. Most likely, it won't come naturally to you. You might feel comfortable saying "We was sleeping" even if you have an IQ of 150 and a Ph.D.
I'd like to expand on this point with a quote from an apropos article I ran across a while ago.
quote: Thanks to globalization, the Allied victories in World War II, and American leadership in science and technology, English has become so successful across the world that it's escaping the boundaries of what we think it should be. In part, this is because there are fewer of us: By 2020, native speakers will make up only 15 percent of the estimated 2 billion people who will be using or learning the language. Already, most conversations in English are between nonnative speakers who use it as a lingua franca.
In China, this sort of free-form adoption of English is helped along by a shortage of native English-speaking teachers, who are hard to keep happy in rural areas for long stretches of time. An estimated 300 million Chinese — roughly equivalent to the total US population — read and write English but don't get enough quality spoken practice. The likely consequence of all this? In the future, more and more spoken English will sound increasingly like Chinese. ... Ultimately, it's not that speakers will slide along a continuum, with "proper" language at one end and local English dialects on the other, as in countries where creoles are spoken. Nor will Chinglish replace native languages, as creoles sometimes do. It's that Chinglish will be just as proper as any other English on the planet.
And it's possible Chinglish will be more efficient than our version, doing away with word endings and the articles a, an, and the. After all, if you can figure out "Environmental sanitation needs your conserve," maybe conservation isn't so necessary.
Any language is constantly evolving, so it's not surprising that English, transplanted to new soil, is bearing unusual fruit. Nor is it unique that a language, spread so far from its homelands, would begin to fracture.
So I think some of this debate about what is "correct" English may be somewhat minor given the cultural force of 300 million people evolving English into something different. From my own experiences, even Hong Kong English has been surprisingly persistent and thats only with the cultural force of 10 million people.
So going back to Rabbit's point, "standard American grammar" will not be natural for a lot of these people, nor will it ever be, nor should it be.
I look forward with amusement to the day when people will be in an "elite fashion" debating the merits of "standard Chinese-English grammar" in the same way we're debating the merits of "standard American-English grammar" (and I suppose the same way others debated "standard British-English grammar").
Posts: 7593 | Registered: Sep 2006
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posted
Some more examples of "elitism" in Grammar.
This is an excerpt taken from a grammar lesson.
quote:To choose correctly among the forms of who, re-phrase the sentence so you choose between he and him. If you want him, write whom; if you want he, write who.
Who do you think is responsible? (Do you think he is responsible?) Whom shall we ask to the party? (Shall we ask him to the party?)
First, note that this suggestion on how to determine whether to use who or whom only works for some one who already naturally knows how to use he and him because they grew up speaking a form a English that properly declined pronouns. To a Trini who would say "Do you think he responsible" or "Should we ask he to the fete", the advice is completely worthless.
Second, the advice is promoting as "correct" a form of English Grammar that is already becoming archaic. Half the English grammarians I know are pushing to eliminate this from style guides. I'm a college professor, I socialize with college professors from England, I have friends who are professors of English writing and I still can think of a single situation I've ever been in where saying "Whom shall we ask to the party?" wouldn't sound pretentious. Get real, no one except perhaps a tiny subset of British upper class snobs talks like that.
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posted
I don't have a problem with calling elitist the assumption that those who use non-standard English when speaking are less intelligent. Edit: And I do think that there are people who use the words "correct grammar" to convey that assumption.
quote:When I was a professor in Montana, we encourage students to avoid that kind of usage arguing that it could make them seem stupid and uneducated and it would be more difficult for them to gain the respect of upper manage unless they used "proper" English. I still think that's reasonable advice for anyone who wishes to be respected in educated circles.
This is the concept I think the term "correct grammar" can refer to without being elitist.
I think that the mere fact we teach standard English in school and have tests that are marked "correct" or "incorrect" means that many people will attach the word "correct" to that form of English.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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posted
There are at least two sides to the elitism coin.
On the one side, standard English is the language spoken by the overwhelming majority of power brokers in the US and the stereotype that speakers of non-standard English are less intelligent and refined is quite pervasive. Whether or not that system is just is almost irrelevant, it is the system we live in and we have to deal with it. The bottom line is that if you want your ideas and work to be respected by people in positions of power, it is to your advantage to learn and use standard English Grammar. For that reason, I will continue encouraging my students to learn and use standard American Grammar.
On the other side, It is important for people who are part of the elite group of standard English speakers to recognize their own unfair prejudice and to work to overcome them. When I am not in my role as teacher, I recognize that it is condescending and elitist of me to "correct" other peoples grammar, particularly when clarity of the ideas is not an issue. I'm working hard to become a better more egalitarian listener and to overcome my own elitist tendency to cringe when people use non-standard grammar or to dismiss people as less intelligent because of the way they speak.
The internet has made this side of the coin very evident to me. All too often, people use grammar, spelling and punctuation as a way to put people down and dismiss their ideas. When someone has put effort into expressing an idea, it's simply rude and condescending to point out their inconsequential errors in English usage. I've noticed that certain people are prone to resort to it when they are loosing an argument. I guess it somehow makes them feel superior to be able to criticize their opponents typing and proof reading ability.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
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quote:Isn't it nice that the internet provides a medium where fast and accurate typists can feel superior to others?
Certainly how well one types is a far better indicator of the value of ones contributions than ones ability to use reasoning and logic correctly.
I was going to say that I think the best thing about the Internet is that it gives anyone who's willing to take the time to proofread their own writing the opportunity to seem much more intelligent than they might appear in person. But then I realized the best thing about the Internet is all the straw men.
quote:When someone has put effort into expressing an idea, it's simply rude and condescending to point out their inconsequential errors in English usage.
Now this, mind you, is a perfectly valid point. I've seen it myself; too often is someone's poor usage used to dismiss their writing. Now, I've also seen the reverse: people desperately struggling to understand someone whose written English is so bad that it's nearly incomprehensible. I figure it breaks either way.
For my part, I care about grammar because I consider it an indication that you care about me. Lazy typing on a medium where all communication is typed is, as far as I'm concerned, the equivalent of mumbling and staring past someone's ear while they're trying to have a conversation with you.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: Yes, it makes sense however "As" is acting as a subordinate conjunction not a coordinate conjunction and there should not be a comma.
Errr? I think you're mistaken here. There are two complete sentences connected by a conjunction, hence coordinate and comma.
Rabbit is right. Not all conjunctions are coordinating conjunctions—this one's a subordinator. It makes the second clause dependent on the first.
quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit Jon Boy, I've always understood that this rule applied only to subordinate clauses that begin with a relative pronoun (who, that, which). Dependent clauses that do not begin with a relative pronoun are separated from the main clause by a comma when they precede the main clause. No comma should be used when they follow the main clause. That is, at least, the rule used in technical writing. Is this different from what is in the current Chicago Manual on Style?
I already explained the rule in the current edition of Chicago. But like I said, I don't think it's a very good rule, because the distinction between restrictive and nonrestrictive clauses isn't very clear. I don't know what other style guides say on the issue, but I'm sure there's some variation.
[ July 23, 2008, 12:30 AM: Message edited by: Jon Boy ]
Posts: 9945 | Registered: Sep 2002
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quote:Isn't it nice that the internet provides a medium where fast and accurate typists can feel superior to others?
Certainly how well one types is a far better indicator of the value of ones contributions than ones ability to use reasoning and logic correctly.
I was going to say that I think the best thing about the Internet is that it gives anyone who's willing to take the time to proofread their own writing the opportunity to seem much more intelligent than they might appear in person. But then I realized the best thing about the Internet is all the straw men.
quote:When someone has put effort into expressing an idea, it's simply rude and condescending to point out their inconsequential errors in English usage.
Now this, mind you, is a perfectly valid point. I've seen it myself; too often is someone's poor usage used to dismiss their writing. Now, I've also seen the reverse: people desperately struggling to understand someone whose written English is so bad that it's nearly incomprehensible. I figure it breaks either way.
For my part, I care about grammar because I consider it an indication that you care about me. Lazy typing on a medium where all communication is typed is, as far as I'm concerned, the equivalent of mumbling and staring past someone's ear while they're trying to have a conversation with you.
I don't see "day I agree with Tom" marked on my calendar anywhere!
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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posted
I value "correct English" because, in my experience, and my upbringing, it is "Correct English" that has had the most benefit to my life. It allows me to clearly communicate with those around me, succeed in school, and be taken seriously by people I care to be taken seriously by.
I don't much care what the average citizen of Trinidad, or Detroit, for that matter, thinks of me. I don't much care what most people think of me(remember, there are a lot of people in the world, most of whom I will never meet). I do care, however, about employers/colleges/professors/family/friends' opinions of me, and so I try to use the same form of English they use, "correct english."
I do not deny that communication may be fluid between two trini-speaking people, but I know that certainly the communication between me and a trinian person would not be as effective as between my parents and I.
Posts: 655 | Registered: May 2005
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quote:I value "correct English" because, in my experience, and my upbringing, it is "Correct English" that has had the most benefit to my life. It allows me to clearly communicate with those around me, succeed in school, and be taken seriously by people I care to be taken seriously by.
In many parts of the US - where I'm assuming you're from - these things would often be mutually exclusive.
Posts: 2907 | Registered: Nov 2005
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quote:For my part, I care about grammar because I consider it an indication that you care about me. Lazy typing on a medium where all communication is typed is, as far as I'm concerned, the equivalent of mumbling and staring past someone's ear while they're trying to have a conversation with you.[
Your presumption that proofreading is something everyone can do quickly and effortlessly is wrong. As I have explained to you and others on this board many times previously, 20 years of teaching, reviewing and publishing technical reports had proven to me definitively that I am incapable of proofreading my own writing. For this reason, I have a technical editor who proofs all my professional work.
I can only presume that your continued insistence that I'm lazy and inconsiderate indicates that you take some sort of perverse pleasure in insulting others.
I had thought that the content I contribute at hatrack made me a valued member of the community despite weaknesses as a typist and proofreader. I guess not.
I have far better things to do in life than participate in a board where I'm mocked by pricks for my weaknesses as a proofreader.
When I read a post at night and wake up in the morning still fuming about it, I know its time for me to take a hiatus from hatrack.
BTW: rivka -- I thought we were friends. If you agree with Tom that I am lazy and inconsiderate -- I guess I was wrong.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
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quote:I can only presume that your continued insistence that I'm lazy and inconsiderate indicates that you take some sort of perverse pleasure in insulting others.
I hesitate to mention this, but I will: not only are you not required to presume this, but the first presumption -- that I have insisted multiple times that you are lazy and inconsiderate -- is also incorrect.
I'm sorry you feel that you've been insulted. That was neither my intention nor my purpose.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
I don't mind everyone in the world adopting English and morphing it into their own comfortable dialect. That's the beauty of English, after all--it's so malleable. Look what we Americans have done to the Queen's English, after all, and yet we can still talk to our friends across the pond for the most part. But I would be terrified if there were no standards of correctness in the language. I'm thankful for guides like the Chicago that try to preserve all the standards. Without them I don't think English would be as vibrant as it is. You can't make a beautiful riff on a rule when there is no rule. Huck Finn wouldn't have the flavor he has if we didn't have standards. There is substantial value in preserving (and defending) universal rules in the language so that it is universally accessible regardless of all the different ways people use it in their own circles. If we let go of those rules we'd quickly lose the ability to communicate with each other--and to appreciate all the differences in how we use the language.
I am perhaps not as staunch a defender as some here, but I value correctness because the English language is my livelihood. I'd rather uphold the rules in most cases, because I feel that by not letting them be degraded on my watch, I will be able to communicate clearly for the long run.
Posts: 5957 | Registered: Oct 2001
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posted
theirs a differance between spelling a few things wrong or missing a wrod or too and choosing to be so lazy that you dont capitalize or punctuate and assume eveyones going to do all the work of figuiring out what you mean when you dont bother to take the effort to right clearly. i think thats what tomdavidson is referring to when he talks about laziness - making eveyone else work harder to read you're stuff because you didnt take the time to make the effort to communicate clearly.
(And by "you" and "you're", I meant "people in general", not you personally, Rabbit. I don't find your writing "lazy".)
Posts: 1522 | Registered: Nov 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Starsnuffer: I do not deny that communication may be fluid between two trini-speaking people, but I know that certainly the communication between me and a trinian person would not be as effective as between my parents and I.
quote:For my part, I care about grammar because I consider it an indication that you care about me. Lazy typing on a medium where all communication is typed is, as far as I'm concerned, the equivalent of mumbling and staring past someone's ear while they're trying to have a conversation with you.
I agree with this sentiment. I don't think that Rabbit's occasional typos come close to implicating it, though. First, they generally don't make it harder to read her posts. Second, it's enormously clear how much effort she puts into many of her posts. Third, they are clearly typos - that is, aberrations, not a conscious decision to not care about her readers.
Given that this sentiment was expressed in the context of Rabbit's typos, I can see why she might think it was meant to include those typos. And it now seems Tom did not mean it that way, although that was by no means clear from his initial post on the subject.
From what I know of rivka, my assumption is that she was agreeing with the sentiment taken entirely out of the context of the previous argument and did not interpret Tom's statement as calling Rabbit lazy and inconsiderate.
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posted
I did not think that Tom was referring to The Rabbit's posts when he was writing about being lazy. I assumed that he was referring to some of our posters who don't bother with complete sentences or any punctuation at all. Or who type posts like they would type text messages.
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posted
Poor grammar is the bane of my existence. I pose a question. Am I overly sensitive if everytime someone misuses the word "good" I whisper to myself "well"?
Posts: 247 | Registered: Jun 2008
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quote:I did not think that Tom was referring to The Rabbit's posts when he was writing about being lazy. I assumed that he was referring to some of our posters who don't bother with complete sentences or any punctuation at all. Or who type posts like they would type text messages.
That was my assumption as well, but I think one is more likely to make that assumption when one's typos are not the subject of the post being responded to.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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quote:Originally posted by Dagonee: From what I know of rivka, my assumption is that she was agreeing with the sentiment taken entirely out of the context of the previous argument and did not interpret Tom's statement as calling Rabbit lazy and inconsiderate.
quote:Originally posted by Trent Destian: Poor grammar is the bane of my existence. I pose a question. Am I overly sensitive if everytime someone misuses the word "good" I whisper to myself "well"?
quote:And it now seems Tom did not mean it that way, although that was by no means clear from his initial post on the subject.
As I have never been a grammar Nazi, and as my respect for Rabbit has always been pretty obvious, and since I've known y'all for years now, I figured it went without saying. If you have to consider a single "initial post" in isolation to decide whether I respect someone or not, there's probably something wrong with your mental filter.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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quote:As I have never been a grammar Nazi, and as my respect for Rabbit has always been pretty obvious, and since I've known y'all for years now, I figured it went without saying. If you have to consider a single "initial post" in isolation to decide whether I respect someone or not, there's probably something wrong with your mental filter.
Ah, yes, leave out the part where I actually explain my opinion and don't bother to address it before speaking of my mental filter.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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posted
To be honest, I didn't think it was particularly germane. If my next door neighbor were to compliment Sophie on how lovely she happens to look today, that might be grounds for me to assume that he's a creepy pedophile. But since I've known him for five years and have decent grounds to assume otherwise, it'd be unlikely for me to jump to that conclusion.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
I apologize to Tom and rivka for over-reacting to their posts. Because Kat was deliberately and clearly mocking me, I presumed that Tom's comment beginning with "In fairness to Kat, I think she's trying to refrain from bringing up typos you've made in this thread", was jumping on her bandwagon.
Context is important, and in a community like this both long term and short term context are important.
quote:If my next door neighbor were to compliment Sophie on how lovely she happens to look today, that might be grounds for me to assume that he's a creepy pedophile. But since I've known him for five years and have decent grounds to assume otherwise, it'd be unlikely for me to jump to that conclusion.
But if you and the neighbor had been discussing a newspaper article on a child pornography ring, when he suddenly interjected a comment on how lovely Sophie looks today, You'd be far more likely to think he was a creepy pedophile or that a minimum he had a warped sense of humor and bad sense of timing.
I've known Tom and rivka long enough that I should have given them the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps that is why I was so upset when they seemed to be dog-piling on me.
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