• cm0002@lemmy.worldEnglish
    83·
    4 个月前

    I’ve always said the dictionary is a follower not a leader, by the time a word gets added to the dictionary it’s already established widespread usage

  • corvi@lemm.eeEnglish
    63·
    4 个月前

    Gonna go on Countdown with the line “Dictionaries aren’t rule books, they’re record books” and fight Susie Dent.

  • z00s@lemmy.worldEnglish
    55·
    4 个月前

    The problem is that people frequently use this type of argument when they are unable to spell or follow the basic rules of syntax and grammar instead of simply admitting they’re wrong.

    Language does change, over time and across many cultures. It doesn’t mean that anything you write is automatically correct.

    • booly@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      18·
      4 个月前

      I’m a descriptivist but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t rules and that we can’t point out things still being wrong.

      Descriptivism still describes rules as they’re used in the real world. Breaking those rules still subjects the speaker/writer to the consequences: being misunderstood, having the spoken or written sentence to simply be rejected or disregarded, etc.

      “Colour” and “color” are both correct spellings of the word, because we are able to describe entire communities who spell things that way. “Culler” is not, because anyone who does spell it that way is immediately corrected, and their written spelling is rejected by the person who receives it. We can describe these rules of that interaction as descriptivists, and still conclude that something is wrong or incorrect.

      • tigeruppercut@lemmy.zipEnglish
        3·
        4 个月前

        “Culler” is not, because anyone who does spell it that way is immediately corrected, and their written spelling is rejected by the person who receives it. We can describe these rules of that interaction as descriptivists, and still conclude that something is wrong or incorrect.

        Orthography isn’t really a part of grammar, so it’s easily possible for natives to make mistakes when writing that might make a word difficult to understand. It’s much harder for spoken language to be misunderstood among the population that a native grew up in, because the words they use don’t come out of nowhere (despite the old prescriptivist argument that you can even see in this thread saying “I’m just gonna call houses xytuis because any words are ok!”) Obviously now with mass communication people pick up language from all sorts of places, so you might have words be unrecognizable even within a locality.

        Even so, an individual’s (native) idiolect can’t really be “wrong” to descriptivists in the way orthography can. It’d just be chalked up to differences from the local language or dialect.

        • booly@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
          1·
          4 个月前

          It’s much harder for spoken language to be misunderstood among the population that a native grew up in,

          Well, there’s still register switching, which is an important part of the study of linguistics. A native English speaker might freely switch between the different ways to say the same meaning, depending on context and audience (“sorry” versus “my bad” versus “apologies,” or “you’re welcome” versus “don’t mention it” versus “my pleasure”).

          There are perceived formalities, common membership in different groups, unspoken social relationships and positions that are reflected in speech.

          These systems can be described with rules, and we can recognize that sometimes one register is inappropriate or poorly fit for a particular situation, and that some registers have different rules of grammar.

        • NeverNudeNo13@lemmings.worldEnglish
          1·
          4 个月前

          It’s funny because a ton of these common errors are due in a huge part to the fact that we don’t use the native alphabet for English. Lots of stuff has to be transposed in creative ways to deal with the romanization of English.

            • NeverNudeNo13@lemmings.worldEnglish
              2·
              4 个月前

              The Latin alphabet is not the original alphabet system used for English. There are modern alternatives that have been suggested to help eliminate some of the confusion created by using a non native alphabet, the Shavian alphabet for instance would theoretically solve much of the issue.

              It’s kind of what happens in other languages as well… English speakers like to quip that there are x number of dozens of ways to spell Mohammed. And for sure, in English, it probably feels that way. But there is actually only one proper way to spell it you just have to use the Arabic alphabet to do so.

    • jjjalljs@ttrpg.networkEnglish
      1·
      4 个月前

      Wrong according to… who? Who is the authority? Who granted them that power? By what mechanism can one appeal their decision?

      What is “correct”?

      There are standards, but you can only really say something is “wrong” or “incorrect” in relation to a particular standard. You typically wouldn’t write “senator yeeted his hat lol fr” as a newspaper headline. That doesn’t follow the standards for that context. But that doesn’t mean it’s “wrong” in some universal sense.

      • z00s@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        4 个月前

        Correct according to who? You? Lol

        Fortunately, you are not the arbiter of the English language.

        • jjjalljs@ttrpg.networkEnglish
          1·
          4 个月前

          That’s what I was just saying to you, so I’m confused why you think that’s a rebuttal.

          You said things people write aren’t automatically “correct” without defining what correct means.

            • jjjalljs@ttrpg.networkEnglish
              1·
              4 个月前

              You seem to be trying to be smug after you’ve communicated badly. Additionally, your understanding of how language works is not widely accepted.

              • z00s@lemmy.worldEnglish
                1·
                4 个月前

                The fact that you don’t understand your argument is facile and easily undermined only highlights your lack of understanding and maturity.

                Your personal opinion doesn’t count as something being “widely accepted”.

          • psud@aussie.zoneEnglish
            1·
            4 个月前

            You’ll be corrected by someone with enough education to believe they are correct. English speakers police the English language in a very unorganised way.

            There are no appeals. Accept that you were wrong or find a reputable style guide or dictionary that supports your position and tell the person who corrected you to get lost.

            New words happen, but if you can’t get the right spelling of “they’re” or “their”, “your”, “you’re” or “yaw”, “its” or “it’s”, etc or use a unique spelling of a word I can point out in a dictionary how you’re wrong

            If you mismatch brackets or do odd punctuation I can point out how it looks bad or reads wrong

  • DreamButt@lemmy.worldEnglish
    52·
    4 个月前

    I’ve always been a big advocate of the idea that the only part of communication that matters is communication. If people understand you then congrats you’ve successfully languaged

  • Zacryon@feddit.orgEnglish
    28·
    4 个月前

    One thing I learned as an information technology engineer: language is a tool for communication. As long as the sender can send its message unobstructed and as long as the receiver receives and understands the message as intended, the information transmission can be considered a successs.

    • AngryCommieKender@lemmy.worldEnglish
      9·
      4 个月前

      Just remember that language is an imprecise tool, and all too often the actual intended meaning that one is trying to convey, will get misunderstood.

    • zarkanian@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      15·
      4 个月前

      I’ve noticed a tendency of people to combine words that are frequently seen together: “alot”, “aswell”, “noone”, etc.

      Some of these catch on, like “nevertheless” and “whatsoever”. Maybe eventually “alot” and “noone” will become standard English, too.

      • DillyDaily@lemmy.worldEnglish
        10·
        4 个月前

        The way alot, aswell and noone are combining is expected given how many other words we don’t bat an eye at went the same way. “another” is the perfect example, it’s just “an other” combined.

        It’s sort of the reverse of what happened to words like apron and newt.

        The division and bracketing of phrases changes over time.

        “An apron” is the modern usage of the word “napron”, and a newt was originally called an eute. The grammatical need for “a” and/or “an” resulted in the root word being rebracketed and changed.

      • pyre@lemmy.worldEnglish
        4·
        4 个月前

        it’s all just made up. you can see old writings without spacing. or punctuation. you can’t even define what’s really a word universally. people just decided what’s what and standardized it at one point just for some consistency. that doesn’t mean things won’t change; they most definitely will.

      • Ensign_Crab@lemmy.worldEnglish
        3·
        4 个月前

        I always imagine Peter Noone of Herman’s Hermits whenever someone does that.

        “Noone thinks I have a lovely daughter.” Yes, Mrs. Brown. Noone does.

      • mnemonicmonkeys@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        3·
        4 个月前

        I recall “noone” being taught as acceptable by my english teacher back in 2004. That being said, she’s also said some things that ended up being very wrong

        • NigelFrobisher@aussie.zoneEnglish
          4·
          4 个月前

          Whenever someone says “Noone wanted this” I always picture a big Irishman who has a deep appreciation for stuff Internet people are against.

      • Anyolduser@lemmynsfw.comEnglish
        2·
        4 个月前

        Ampersand is another good example. “&” was considered the last letter of the alphabet for a while. Schoolchildren would recite the alphabet and finish it with the phrase “and, per se and” (“and, meaning and”).

        The words got mashed together over time and the word “ampersand” was born.

        • zarkanian@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
          1·
          4 个月前

          “Per se” means “in itself”, so it’s a shorter way of saying “also the word ‘and’ itself”.

    • Squirrel@thelemmy.clubEnglish
      2·
      4 个月前

      I think spellings and punctuation are still valid. Mostly. Ignore variations between English and Americanese.

        • Semjaza@lemmynsfw.comEnglish
          5·
          4 个月前

          The spelling differences are actually mostly due to Noah Webster standardising what he saw as pure Anglo-Saxon English without corruption by French princelings.

        • psud@aussie.zoneEnglish
          1·
          4 个月前

          England and all its former colonies (except the American ones) agree on the language, and the only odd one out - the United States feels it is unique among former colonies and its parent nation as the sole owner of the most correct version of English.

          Seems likely /s

    • JackbyDev@programming.devEnglish
      2·
      4 个月前

      I feel like that sort of misses the point. That really has to do with how we transcribe verbal speech into written. “A lot” is absolutely a phrase, I don’t imagine you’d disagree with that.

    • YTG123@sopuli.xyzEnglish
      1·
      4 个月前

      That has to do with the definition of what a word even is (an open problem!). “Alot” is clearly made up of two separate units, but so is “anyway”. I think a lot of people don’t like this one because it’s simply unnecessary. You need “anyway” to show that the two words are not stressed separately, but treated as one unit, whereas with “a lot” this is already obvious (“a” is almost never stressed).
      Also has to do with English spelling just being bad, generally.

  • sundray@lemmus.orgEnglish
    23·
    4 个月前

    End prescriptuhvist speling! We haf nuthing to loose butt hour wigly red underlyns!

  • Ferrous@lemmy.mlEnglish
    23·
    4 个月前

    I dig the variety of topics on this comm, and I super appreciate how it doesn’t get STEMlordy at all.

  • sxt@lemmy.worldEnglish
    20·
    4 个月前

    That said I feel like when people are referring to whether or not something “is a word” they’re referring to whether not is has seen historical/widespread usage, not “has somebody ever just decided it meant something, somewhere, at some point”

  • merc@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    19·
    4 个月前

    “a language that doesn’t adapt to an ever changing society is bound to be lost”, sure, but adapt too quickly and you lose the ability to communicate between groups of people.

    There needs to be some compromise where new words are adopted, and changed words are accepted, without flooding the language with garbage. For example, English should still be taught in schools, and English teachers should still have the freedom of correcting the writing kids produce, and taking points off for “mistakes”.

    Like, if you go pure descriptivist, “it’s” and “its” can now mean the same thing. There is no ability to distinguish between their, they’re and there. A business email describing a product as “cheugy, no cap” is perfectly acceptable and it’s up to the reader to figure it out, because every word is a real word and perfectly valid, and every grammar deviation is acceptable because languages evolve.

    Even on social media, I think it’s fair to push back on “mistakes” that make it hard to understand something. An error that might take a poster 1 second to fix, might cost the world minutes, as thousands of people each take a few seconds to puzzle out what the OP meant to write.

    Languages are about communication, and that can suffer whether the language police are too rigid and forbid any deviation, are too easily bribed and allow for anything.

    • tiredofsametab@kbin.run
      5·
      4 个月前

      Certain registers of a language do have different rules, but those also change and are still kinda whatever that part of society agrees with. Business letters that I learned to write in gradeschool in the '80s aren’t necessarily the same as I would write or expect to receive today. Ubiquitous, fast electronic communication also through a wrench into things a bit.