Re: textbook touchstones

["Bernard G. Cleyet & Nancy Ann Seese" <georgeann@REDSHIFT.COM>]

An antidote to fractured English?

As promised just before my OCR reader broke down.

bc

it's me  Most speakers of English tend to put nominative case pronouns at the lefthand side of the clause, in "subjective" territory before the verb, and objective case pronouns at the righthand side of the clause, in "objective" territory after it.  Apparently the pressure of this habit is so great that it overwhelms the Standard Formal pattern for the special class of verbs called linking or copulative verbs, wherein It is she is required, at least by rule, rather than It's her, or where This is he is needed, not This is him. The primary use of the objective case pronoun after linking verbs is in the first person: It's us, It's me. With third person, singular and plural, many Standard speakers will retain the nominative, even at lower levels of speech and in Informal uses. (And of course with second person you the nominative and objective are indistinguishable.) But It's me and It's us are both Standard in all Conversational and most Informal uses, perhaps in part because they occur almost exclusively in speech anyway.  Consider the way you answer the phone if the caller asks for you.  To a stranger you'll respond (if you're a Standard speaker), This is she [he], not This is me, or you'll dodge the issue entirely and say Speaking. If you know the caller well, though, It's me will serve. In Oratorical speech and Formal writing, however, Standard English demands the nominative: It is we who must shoulder the burden. It is us just won't do in that sort of context.

[p. 257 The Columbia Guide to STANDARD AMERICAN ENGLISH 1993 -- Which errs far in the direction of description instead of prescription.  Cf. Strunk and White and Fowler.]

bc
 
 

"Paul O. Johnson" wrote:

----- Original Message -----
From: "Doug Craigen" <dcc@ESCAPE.CA>
To: <PHYS-L@lists.nau.edu>
Sent: Friday, May 05, 2000 9:22 AM

> There's an old usenet saying that spelling flames are the lowest form of
> abuse.  Of course its a different context.  On usenet (and on listservs
> for that matter) spelling flames usually correlated well with people
> wishing to carry on a fight, but they have exhausted any valid grounds
> for disagreement that they may have originally had.  With textbooks
> people will hang onto them and use them as authoritative sources for
> years, so being correct about everything (including spelling) is
> important.

Doug,

As a poor natural speller, I grab 'holt of every spelling aid I can find
when I write and always keep my F&W at my side.

Having admitted this, I must express my amazement at the lack of
embarrassment exhibited by many otherwise well educated folks who post
messages in fractured English. God knows, I post my share of spelling goofs
despite all my care, but at least I am ashamed when I do.

In this light, readers of this list might be interested in this little piece
published recently by the folks at European Union Headquarters:

The European Union commissioners have announced agreement by all members to
adopt English as the preferred language for communications throughout
Europe, rather than German, which was the other candidate. As part of the
negotiations, the British government conceded that English spelling had some
room for improvement, and has accepted a five year phased plan to introduce
what will be known as EuroEnglish.

In the first year, "s" will be used instead of the soft "c". Sertainly,
sivil servants will resieve this news with joy. Also, "k" will be used
instead of the hard "c". Not only will this klear up konfusion, but
keyboards kan have one more funktion key.

There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year, when the
troublesome "ph" is replaced by "f" This will make words like "fotograf",
"filosofy",  and "fosforus" twenty per sent shorter.

In the third year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to
reach the stage where more komplikated changes bekum praktical. Governments
will enkourage the removal of double leters, which have always ben a
deterent to akurate speling. Also, al wil agre that the horible mes of the
silent terminal "e" in the languag is disgrasful, and it would go.

By the fourth year, peopl wil be reseptiv to a small nod to the Germans;
namely, replasing "th" by "z" and "w" by "v."

During ze fifz year, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vords kontaining
"ou", and similar changes vud of kors be aplid to ozer kombinations of
leters.

After zis fifz yer, ve vil hav a reli sensibl riten styl for EuroEnglish.
Zer vil be no mor trubls or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu
understand ech ozer. Ze drem of a unitd Urop vil finali kum tru.

Paul O. Johnson