Grammar day post mortem

Some of Casey's recent comments bring up relevant issues that I'm happy to address. So…

He asks:

do I best serve my children (or my students) by not objecting to their use of the objective-as-subject-of-sentence form? Whether "Linguistics" likes it or not, there does seem to be a language of power...

Whether he serves his children/students best is not really a linguistic question. It's a parenting question if he's talking about his offspring. It's a pedagogical/teaching-philosophy question if he's talking about his pupils. The question of dative/accusative/nominative forms is linguistic. So a linguist can probably answer some of the basic questions he has about why his kids use one form here and another form there. Another linguist could give him an answer about whether there's any evidence that a parent objecting to a child's use really makes any difference. Not about whether it should make a difference, but whether it does. To that point: in short, correcting your children's grammar will have little effect on their speech. They're going to talk like their peers whether you like it or not.

You can probably tell them that they have misunderstood what a giraffe is, and you might stop them from saying 'giraffe' when looking at a zebra. And you'll probably be able to convince them that the past tense of eat is ate rather than eated. But only when they've heard enough other people backing up your story by example.

And by the time their language differs from yours due to dialectal differences they're pretty much done listening to your advice. This doesn't mean they're done learning. And it doesn't mean they're done shaping their habits of usage and their command of registers.

The question of serving asks if needs are being met, but to answer that requires some agreement about what needs there are. What are you trying to give them? Honestly, the use of I and me and us and we isn't going to make much of a difference in their lives. Graduate students and professors all around me are constantly saying things like spoke to my brother and I and For my colleagues and I to consider. Those forms in speech aren't blocking many people from succeeding even in paths that claim to be picky about language.

A few people decided to jump on Barack Obama for his use of I in accusative and dative positions. What's the lesson there for an English teacher? Obama has succeeded while using registers as he does. He certainly knows that the forms that are overlooked in speech are not as easily overlooked in writing. So he avoids them in writing and uses them in speech. And even when they're not overlooked in speech, the people who pick on them are tiny little toothless pit-bulls. They'll grab on and hold on but they are no more than a nuisance. And by nuisance I don't even mean something that we should try to get rid of or something that causes any real problem. I simply mean that the anger is impotent. Don't worry about it. Really. Shrug and move on.

Should students know the mechanics of different writing styles? Yes. Teach them to know their audience. Teach them to choose a tone carefully. Teach them to use strategies for clear communication. And in my opinion you should do yourself the favour of separating writing from language. For that matter you should be careful to separate all edited and prepared expression from language. Teaching strategies for writing and reciting is a rhetorical business. That's fine. Linguists have nothing against such instruction. Most linguists are pretty good at it and many are happy to give it.

To Casey's next comment: Whether "Linguistics" likes it or not, there does seem to be a language of power...

Linguists know this. And study it. Descriptivism is about understanding the structure of language. We have faith that an honest and unbiased description will lead to the conclusion that the power is determined by social forces and not because of an inherent quality that one dialect has over another. And reaching that conclusion does not mean that a linguist will then be determined to influence that power. I believe that is the primary misconception regarding descriptivism.

Casey then argues:

grammarians are no more or less correct than teenagers who are always introducing new forms.

And I agree. That's true as far as the grammaticality of their sentences goes. The active voice, for instance, is no more or less grammatical than the passive voice. If I choose to pick on "grammarians" it's going to be because of their claims that they are more correct than those teenagers. Or because of the logic they use to argue in favor of a form. I have no problem with William Safire sharing his opinions. I criticize him when he makes an assertion that I know to be false. About the history of a word or about the current state of language or about the forces at work in language change. The irony is that if a grammarian was to flat out say 'I just prefer this form' or 'I just like it better because I had a crush on the teacher who taught it to me' or 'This form reminds me of the social circle of which I would like to be a part' or 'I like this pronunciation because I just like the sound of that diphthong' then I would have little criticism. Those are all pretty honest assessments of preferred forms as an arbitrary judgment.

It's when those grumblers accuse kids of having a novel disrespect for language and for endangering the future of 'good' English like no generation before them that linguists have reason to roll their eyes.

If we are sympathetic to the creative impulse it's because that's what all languages do and it's interesting to watch it happening. If we are tired of rigidity it's because a corpse can only tell you so much about the life it led. Autopsies are fine but they only entertain for so long.

Rhetorical

Said in 215 today:

'I never need to use the term kairos in a discussion. It doesn't make my argument any better. All it does is help my ethos.'

I need about 3 weeks away from Purdue.

Crystal on Clarity

David Crystal (whose Encyclopedia of the English Language is always within reach as I write) has posted an appreciative analysis of Barack Obama's acceptance speech. Specifically the ambitiously intricate yet clearly effective opening:

What was I noticing? It was the opening if-clause, a 41-word cliff-hanger with three who-clause embeddings. Starting a major speech with a subordinate clause? And one of such length and syntactic complexity? I thought he would be lucky if he was able to round it off neatly after the first comma.

My own favourite phrase from Obama's speech: the dream of our founders. With this line he celebrates the potential of a document, which knowingly allows slavery, to eventually connect with its principles, which do not. At the same time he evokes Martin Luther King's most memorable idea. And the moment of his speech is a testament to the trajectory of history. And a well-crafted piece of writing.

Don't blame him for what you're thinking he's obviously doing

Bill Cunningham is "a bit of an historian". He's now on a campaign to continue the traditions of respect for presidential candidates.

"You might recall Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Dwight David Eisenhower and John Fitzgerald Kennedy, William Jefferson Clinton. The man who would be president...normally the middle name is employed in order to give the man more dignity and more respect."

So that's why he insists on using the full name of Barack Hussein Obama.

His goal: "simply to state the fellow's name much like I often say John Sidney McCain the Third."

His intentions are his own to know -- and the rest of us can only make judgments based on his probable rhetorical interests.

(listen to his NPR interview with Robert Siegel)

I might never be able to prove it, but this looks like a relevant twist on the question I posed a while ago about loaded terms. The intention in question: why use language that's both accurate and loaded.

Cunningham claims it's because it's accurate.

I believe it's because it's loaded.

Facetious terms

Later in the interview Siegel asks Cunningham what he thinks of John McCain choice to denounce the use of Obama's full name with divisive intentions.

[~4:50]

Sad -- it is very sad for a gentleman who did not hear what I said -- who has met me several times but has forgotten about it he might have half-heimers -- the guys gettin' a bit old. It is sad when he forgets meeting me and then having not heard me he criticizes words that I didn't say, that he didn't hear, and then throws me under the Straight Talk Express.

It's new play on Alzheimer's. The old joke was the eggcorny joke: 'old-timers'. The joke is now with 'Alz' apparently being analyzed as the 'all' morpheme. So if full dementia is of the All(z)heimer's type, temporary mild or selective memory loss is of the Half-heimers type.

Google™ hits.

"halfheimers"    749
"half heimers"   590
"halfheimer's"   85
"half heimer's"  57

Syntactically puzzled

Elizabeth asks a question over on the Purdue Linguistics Association blog:

I saw this in a Christmas letter I got:

This year will be our hopefully last Christmas in #Exico.

#(place-name changed to protect the innocent)

So, what I want to know is, what is going on with "hopefully" in this sentence? Traditionally it's an adverb, but here it's hopped over into the noun phrase. The sentence sounds grammatical to me if I imagine somebody inserting the "hopefully" at the last minute as if they didn't think of it in time. But then how did an adverb get in that position? There are other adverbs that don't sound like they could do that:

It looks to me like it's still functioning as an adverb on last -- and it sounds fine to me in any adverbial position.

will hopefully be our last Christmas in X.

will be hopefully our last Christmas in X.

will be our hopefully last Christmas in X.

*will be our last hopefully Christmas in X. -- (unless said parenthetically)

So it can't modify an noun as we see also in another sentence type that Elizabeth suggests:

This box will hopefully be the one I need.

This box hopefully will be the one I need.

Hopefully this box will be the one I need. (that old bane of the prescriptivist)

?This box will be hopefully the one I need.

*This box will be the hopefully one I need.

?This box will be the one hopefully I need. (It might only be okay here if it's changed scope to revert again to the prescriptivist's nemesis)

This box will be the one I hopefully need.

Elizabeth importantly points out that surely won't work like hopefully:

This year will surely be our last Christmas in Exico.

?This year will be our surely last Christmas in Exico.

There's almost some hypallage going on here altho that's typically an adjective moving to another noun. In this case 'hopefully' as an adverb wouldn't be starting on any noun but I think it might be. Let's look at it as a special case of transferred epithet moving from "I am hopeful" to the special semantically widened scope that "hopefully" has taken starting off a CP. Because yes -- it's odd that hopefully seems to have some license that other adverbs don't. Perhaps it's because a word like "surely" hasn't earned the legs that "hopefully" has. But has importantly? How do you feel about my sentence above where I displaced important from its place modifying the point that Elizabeth makes and I put it on her method of making the point? Does it look to you like it's freer than 'surely' but not as free as 'hopefully'? That's how I hear it.

Don't breathe the water

An AP story about a brain eating amoeba is making the rounds. Why? because there's been a recent spike in the number of cases reported. Infection is around ninety-seven percent fatal--only three survivors ever reported. It crawls up your nose and follows the olfactory nerve to your brain causing headaches and hallucinations and finally death.

Sounds pretty scary. And the spike this year was enormous. In 2007 Primary Amoebic Meningoencephalitis was reported to have caused about two-hundred percent more deaths than the yearly average from 1995 to 2004. The amoeba-- Naegleria fowleri --thrives in warm stagnant water. So global warming is expected to make it worse.

I've borrowed some of the language and some of the statistical rhetoric from all the stories I've seen. Brain-eating is a favorite in these stories. It's up there with flesh-eating in its impact. Maybe better. It's a lot better than infection. It sounds a lot scarier and more deliberate on the part of those ravenous brain eating mini-monsters.

And the statistics: In the story I linked to above Chris Kahn writes "The spike in cases has health officials concerned." Infections are exceedingly rare. So a spike is a complicated phenomenon. From 1995 to 2004 there were 23 reported cases. That's just over 2 per year. 2007 saw 6 deaths. About four more than the average. But is that a spike? Snooping around the CDC website I found that there were 6 cases in 2002 as well. Two each in Texas Arizona and Florida.

I've not been able to find the numbers for year to year cases tho I'm quite sure that they would make 2007's "spike" look less alarming.

But then how would the story make it into all the newspapers and TV newscasts?

_

Quotidian complaints

This is what love of language has become.

I was just talking to my students today about this. Not the overuse of quotation marks in writing--but the peevologists who complain about it.

AP writer Jocelyn Noveck just gave Bethany Keeley's blog a big boost. And of course I'm a little jealous. Keeley started the "blog" of "unnecessary" quotation marks in 2005 and started collecting submissions and posting pictures of signs posters ads documents...all illustrating the scourge of baffling quotation marks.

Due credit: the posts and the comments often work to explain or understand the rhetorical reasons for the quotes.

The article (perhaps more than the blog) persists with references to certain devices as annoying and unnecessary abuses misuses missteps and problems.

Noveck calls these "linguistic concers" and labels Keeley a "language-lover" which is too often used with the connotation of intolerance. Tho Keeley defends her generous spirit saying she doesn't feel superior to those whose usage she highlights.

'I don't consider myself a prescriptivist or a pedant,' she says (really). 'So I'm open to critiques of my own language. I make plenty of mistakes myself.'

I wouldn't call these quotation marks a mistake. They can be overused and they often lose their effect. But it really has nothing to do with grammar. I'd say this is as much a grammatical issue as emoticons italics and bold typeface are.

The story then takes a very odd jump to the overuse of quotations. Not quotation marks. Quotations.

'I have a thing against overuse of quotations, period,' says [Pat] Hoy, director of the expository writing program at New York University. 'Whether in academic or bureaucratic writing, it's giving up responsibility for what you're writing. It's a pushing aside of the responsibility to be the major thinker in the piece.'

So not only are quotation marks overused when they are not used only to mark attribution to a speaker or writer other than the person typing; now they're overused when they set off the very type of passage the peevologists are telling us they should mark: Only use them to set off quotations. But don't set off too many quotations! The salient connection is the tone of a people-do-bad-things-with-language fixation. Later in the article is fleeting mention of another blog that "tracks abuses of the word 'literally.'" I'm guessing that hopefully and singular their will soon have their own website...if they don't have one already.
[Update:
I cut out a few sentences in which Hoy is quoted regarding an early essay rejection that taught him not to quote so heavily. Perhaps I learned from it too.]

I regret that you think I was cheating

I don't really understand why players and coaches are fined for being critical of the officiating in a game. Let's say the officiating was so bad that something like an extra down was awarded to one of the teams. The players and coaches should be free to say That officiating sucked. Shouldn't they?

Officials can ruin a game by neglecting those acts that both teams expect will be repeated consistently and predictably.

Here's the lovely counterbalance: football is largely the competitive planning organizing and executing of plays and formations that are intended to both respond to and influence the plays that the opposing team might call. I love that the "might" is so important. Without it the sport becomes less interesting. Flexibility and adjustment is a big part of a successful team's strategy.

So there are some fines that make more sense to me. Fines that discourage dishonesty and flat out cheating. Something like the half-million dollar fine that was levied on Bill Belichick.

When a lackey was caught with a video recorder on the sidelines Belichick was fined $500,000 and the Patriots organization was fined $250,000. Videotaping is against the rules. There was no question that the team had broken a rule--a good rule--so a fine was reasonably imposed. Earlier Belichick issued a statement: "Earlier this week, I spoke with [NFL] Commissioner [Roger] Goodell about a videotaping procedure during last Sunday's game and my interpretation of the rules."

According to league spokesman Greg Aiello "The rule is that no video recording devices of any kind are permitted to be in use in the coaches' booth, on the field, or in the locker room during the game."

In a reaction to the fine Belichick stated: "My interpretation of a rule in the Constitution and Bylaws was incorrect."

In his first statement I notice that he calls it "a videotaping procedure." What difference would the definite article make? If he had referred to the videotaping procedure (even without the insist) the admission is that there was a specific act of which he is aware and which he knows everyone is expecting him to address. Using the indefinite article is a sly little dodge. "What camera? I don't see a camera. Is that ours? Huh...how about that? What was that employee of mine doing? Really?" Then he turns to the press and says "Apparently there was some video tape stuff going on. The commissioner told me about it."

But that's not the ballsiest lingual legerdemain. How about those "interpretation" lines? So the rule says no video taping equipment of any kind is allowed. Other rules state that the equipment can only be used when there are walls all around and a roof overhead. Those are pretty clear. Where did Belichick find a loophole in the interpretation of these rules?

Ohhh...by "no video recording devices of any kind" I thought you meant some kinds of equipment are allowed.

The AP story; and the Bloomberg story.

Belichick's Reaction as posted on NFL.com.

It's a weak apology. He apologizes for the effect of his cheating not for the cheating. He even offers a lame it wasn't really cheating because it didn't work excuse. And he continues to insist that he didn't realize he was doing anything wrong. So where's the appeal? Where's the insistence that the rule needs to be changed and he shouldn't pay the half million? I put up a bigger fight on a sixth-grade grammar test when I knew the question was worded poorly.

I accept full responsibility for the actions that led to tonight's ruling. Once again, I apologize to the Kraft family and every person directly or indirectly associated with the New England Patriots for the embarrassment, distraction and penalty my mistake caused. I also apologize to Patriots fans and would like to thank them for their support during the past few days and throughout my career.

As the Commissioner acknowledged, our use of sideline video had no impact on the outcome of last week's game. We have never used sideline video to obtain a competitive advantage while the game was in progress.

Part of my job as head coach is to ensure that our football operations are conducted in compliance of the league rules and all accepted interpretations of them. My interpretation of a rule in the Constitution and Bylaws was incorrect.

With tonight's resolution, I will not be offering any further comments on this matter. We are moving on with our preparations for Sunday's game.

Be As Simple and As Trusting

Usually when we want to win an argument we throw jargon statistics lists history and volume into our onslaught of logic. This is especially in academia where we have perfected and become reliant on the habit of evidential persuasion. In this form of exposition we treat evidence and logic as a force to be gathered mounted and released in a barrage that cannot be outfaced. We believe that against enough shrapnel the fortress will fold.

There is another popular very successful and contrary strategy of persuasion. I call it successful because of its ability to sway the masses – not because of its ability to sway the discriminating or deliberate reasoner. This strategy is the simplification gambit.

Then I find myself wondering how much an issue can be simplified before key elements of the quandary are compromised or discarded. I find myself cringing when a politician preacher or peer looks to emotion as the main impetus to a belief. But some speakers are quite skilled at appealing to our basic values. When Bill Clinton looked at the camera and told us about the hardworking single mother who was struggling to raise her children and he closed his eyes and bit his lower lip then told us how much he wanted to be a part of a government that worked to help this mother’s family survive, we had to consciously decide why we disagreed with his desire (if in fact we found ourselves wanting to). For those who disagreed with him were certainly evil right?

The appeal to emotions is related to the “thus" formulation I’ve mentioned before. We certainly share certain values and beliefs and those beliefs lead us to see some things as necessary and some things as harmful or perhaps wrong. Do values ever lead us to see some things as unnecessary?

But with all the current noise and trouble alerting us to the world-views that surround us we find ourselves asking, if not demanding, that the other viewer move - back away from the modes beliefs assumptions values or statistics that have contributed to his or her stance. We call these influences biases and we claim that they are adulterating an honest perspective.

I’m not seeking to build up the claim that all views are biased therefore all views are equally valid – I’m wondering about the point at which our demand for an objective evaluation falls into the pit of valuing naïveté over judiciousness.

“Out of the mouths of babes” – not usually used to win an argument. It’s a phrase usually reserved as a reaction when a child has said something we believe to be insightful, nuanced, prophetic, true. Why call attention to a child’s opinion? I read an article about a public official who offered a prayer in a public setting. Among those present were many who insisted that this was the dangerous act of an establishmentarian. The newspaper article – seeking to convey the importance of this event (for why else would the article have been disseminated to all the wires and thrust into the headlines in North Dakota) included several quotes. In addition to the usual wailing of the ACLU the writer included the comment of a child in attendance. “I don't know; it just felt wrong” said the young sage. Why would this quote have been included? I’m not sure but I’ll take a few guesses at what message the writer was hoping to convey.

a. Everybody’s opinion should be quoted.

b. Notice how baseless is this child’s opinion as evidenced by the lack of developed argument.

c. What a strange thing that a child would have interest in political/state matters.

d. Anyone who believes this was a violation of the separation of church and state is as unsophisticated and uninformed as a child.

e. Anyone who doesn’t believe this was a violation of the separation of church and state is less sophisticated and informed than a child.

It's probably a combination of a couple of these - with a few more intended messages besides. And although I cringe at this maudlin appeal to the simple and therefore (allegedly) unbiased and fundamental purity of a child's unwizened wisdom, I know that none of us reaches a view by accepting only honest challenges to presumptive perspectives. Can we fault a child for not yet reaching our biased perspective, informed as it is?

Are we Safir?

I'm guessing that Howard Safir's last name was originally pronounced something like staffer, Zamfir, sapphire...something like one of those. But as he is one of the increasingly sampled voices on national security issues and given his career track with law enforcement, I'm sure he smiles at the safer pronunciation. It doesn't make him good at the job, but it likely makes a few easily influenced minds out there think "hey, he has the right name . . . I'm going to stop evaluating now." Never mind that we all know how irrelevant phonology is to semantics.

In other words: it may not be true - but I'll believe it because it'd be neat if it is.

But it reminds me of the quote I heard by Benjamin Franklin:
He who sacrifices liberty for security deserves neither.

No wait. I think he said
If we restrict liberty to attain security we will lose them both.

Hold on. I'm pretty sure it was actually
A society that gives up a little liberty to gain a little security deserves neither and loses both.

Franklin never said any of those. At least we have no reliable record of him saying them. But don't they make the point so well? Especially now that we can use wise ol' Ben to support our grumbles about the foolishness of our current federal executive administration? Franklin is smarter than Bush so I want a quote by Franklin that disagrees with Bush. Alas these are not his.

Here's my question. Why do quotes carry such weight? We're all guilty of hitching our arguments to the soaring wagons of the philosophers' utterances. Especially in academia. But let's look for instance at that first quote mistakenly attributed to Franklin. Why would someone no longer deserve freedom or liberty just because they make a foolish choice of prioritization? Does that mean that anyone who demands every right and surrenders security deserves both? Is that why that last quote looks so good - because by endangering both freedom and security the foolish citizen forfeits all?

The problem with these quotes is they are predictive. They assume morals and promise judgment. To use them in argument simply says "I agree with this value." That's a fair statement but not a good argument. I like Mr Franklin's actual quote much better. In Poor Richard's Almanac he writes

  Sell not virtue to purchase wealth   
nor liberty to purchase power. 

These suggestions are unabashedly about values. The quote does not sneak under the rhetorical radar as true-because-of-it's-rhythm-eloquence-and-wit.

In an interview a few weeks ago I heard Mr Safir respond to the question of racial profiling with the clarification that he was not supporting "racial" profiling; he was supporting "terrorist" profiling. Oh well of course. Great. If all he wants to do is catch terrorists then I'm behind him "a hundert purcent." Here's the problem - in "racial" profiling those who are identifiable because of cultural markers are suspected. In "terrorist" profiling those who are identifiable by the same cultural markers are suspected.

Mr Safir has forgotten that changing the phonology of a policy doesn't do anything to change the semantics.

Here's my proverb for the day.

He who surrenders the rights of others
to make himself secure
will lose the respect of all his brothers
and is an ass for sure.

I just believe it.