Re: off topic: language, long

[Zach Wolff <zachary_wolff@YAHOO.COM>]

--- "Richard W. Tarara" <rtarara@SAINTMARYS.EDU>
wrote:
> Since this thread isn't going away......
>
> Don't fool yourself into believing that the ability
> to speak and write
> 'within the rules' isn't important to employers.
> You could easily find
> yourself unemployed!

I agree wholeheartedly with this statement.  I believe
I have learned to use the standard academic English
language rather well, and largely for this reason.

> It is also difficult enough to communicate intended
> meanings (this list is a
> prime example) using a reasonably well-defined set
> of grammatical rules.
> Without these rules your 'standard of
> intelligibility' would soon be lost
> and the language degenerate into babble.  Such is
> already the case with
> certain dialects or slangs where the words may be
> English but the meanings
> to be communicated can be very obscure for most
> English-speaking people.
> The comedic example of this was the first Airplane
> movie, where the dialog
> between two 'ghetto' passengers required subtitles.
> (Can anyone say
> Ebonics?)
>
> Rick

I would like to bring the transgression in question
back to the fore.  The word breech was "incorrectly"
used as a verb.  This is not a horrendous piece of
slang that cannot be understood.  This is the product
of a simple English rule whereby nouns can be used as
verbs with certain restrictions.  The rules we are
taught are not the reason we can communicate, and
communication would not fall apart without them.
People learn lanuage naturally.  I don't have a
reference, but I believe that all healthy children can
speak intelligibly BEFORE they receive any formal
education.  All that is taught in proscriptive rules
is a style that does have benefits, but is not a final
"right" answer on how to speak.  Without this teaching
their would language would not "degenerate into
babble."  The claim is ridiculous.  Modern English and
Old English are generally mutually unintelligible, but
we hav not reduced ourselves to grunting and pointing.
 The rules have simply changed.  The greatest weapon
against language change is not formal education, but
mass media.

I think the comments in Richard Tarara's message
provide a strong counterpoint to Brian Whatcott's
claim that American English dialects no longer place
the user in a distinct social class.  Minorities would
disagree, as would my father who occasionally still
pronounces an r in the word wash (we're from Kansas).
We learn to control our linguistic register based on
the company.  My father's r disappears in formal
settings.  I don't swear in front of professors like I
swear in front of my friends.  Many other speakers of
minority (I include minorities other than ethnic here)
dialects regularize their speech in formal settings.
This is important, as Mr. Tarara points out, for
employment and other situations.  I don't feel that
phys-l should be a context where dialects should be so
tightly reigned.  The error at hand was not one of
physics, mathematics, or anything else pertinent to
the science at hand.  Speakers of all dialects of
English ought to have here a forum where they can
express their thoughts on physics and physics
education without fear that their speech might be
ridiculed.  If anyone disagrees with this, I think the
purpose of the list should be seriously reevaluated.

Zach

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