The same rules apply to gods, according to Terry Pratchet
Linguistics
Submitted 9 months ago by fossilesque@mander.xyz to science_memes@mander.xyz
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Comments
abbadon420@lemm.ee 9 months ago
ZombiFrancis@sh.itjust.works 9 months ago
Some of the earliest religions were just trying to figure out this whole ‘words’ thing. Describing abstracts consistently was developed over time across generations, sometimes very strictly.
JoeBigelow@lemmy.ca 9 months ago
It’s dangerous not to believe
I_am_10_squirrels@beehaw.org 9 months ago
I rattle my kitchen drawers at least once a week
Klear@sh.itjust.works 9 months ago
Take my S word.
corvi@lemm.ee 9 months ago
Gonna go on Countdown with the line “Dictionaries aren’t rule books, they’re record books” and fight Susie Dent.
ID411@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 months ago
“ sorry, xzzyghaoi Isn’t in the dictionary “
It’s not fuckin rule book , suzi
sundray@lemmus.org 9 months ago
Académie Française: <<Ahem – pardon et moi?>>
merc@sh.itjust.works 9 months ago
You mean <<pardonnez moi?>>
“pardon et moi” means “pardon and me”. “pardonnez moi” means “pardon me” (in a polite / respectful tense).
Semjaza@lemmynsfw.com 9 months ago
Delightfully failing to be either but with a huge sense of superiority and disdain for the youth and migrants.
TheBat@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Try it, she’ll fuck you up with a bike chain (her weapon of choice in pub fights)
z00s@lemmy.world 9 months ago
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.works 9 months ago
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.zip 9 months ago
“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.
jjjalljs@ttrpg.network 9 months ago
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.
tdawg@lemmy.world 9 months ago
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
zarkanian@sh.itjust.works 9 months ago
What if people understand you, but they think you’re stupid?
Klear@sh.itjust.works 9 months ago
Congratulations! You did the best you could…
MonkRome@lemmy.world 9 months ago
That’s their problem, I always assume the stupid people are the ones that are so inflexible and uncreative that they don’t understand that language is entirely an amorphous flexible human creation.
merc@sh.itjust.works 9 months ago
The flip side of that is that if the words you’re using are wutdownrerary, you should be told to stop using those words because by using them you make communication harder.
mnemonicmonkeys@sh.itjust.works 9 months ago
Does “glizzy” (i.e. hotdog) fit under this classification?
OpenStars@discuss.online 9 months ago
Eylrid@lemmy.world 9 months ago
I love militant descriptivists
tigeruppercut@lemmy.zip 9 months ago
we love you too
Zacryon@feddit.org 9 months ago
One thing I learned as an information technology engineer: language is a tool for communication. As long as the sender can send his 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.world 9 months ago
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.
BenLeMan@lemmy.world 9 months ago
And still I maintain that “alot” is not a word.
Pulptastic@midwest.social 9 months ago
BenLeMan@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Mine, too! I hope Allie is doing well these days.
Zoot@reddthat.com 9 months ago
God i love alot
zarkanian@sh.itjust.works 9 months ago
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.world 9 months ago
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.world 9 months ago
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.
mnemonicmonkeys@sh.itjust.works 9 months ago
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
Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world 9 months ago
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.
Anyolduser@lemmynsfw.com 9 months ago
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.
vonxylofon@lemmy.world 9 months ago
No body writes noone as one word because there’s a similar word written that way.
Squirrel@thelemmy.club 9 months ago
I think spellings and punctuation are still valid. Mostly. Ignore variations between English and Americanese.
mnemonicmonkeys@sh.itjust.works 9 months ago
In not the Americans’ fault that the English decided to butcher their own language after the US kicked them out
idiomaddict@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Frankly this wouldn’t be a problem if it weren’t for “another”
psud@aussie.zone 9 months ago
Which some who use alot consider as two words.
JackbyDev@programming.dev 9 months ago
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.
Etterra@lemmy.world 9 months ago
ytg@sopuli.xyz 9 months ago
That has to do with the definition of what a word even is. “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.
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 9 months ago
As a l33+ |><|@z0r, I’m here to criticize your command of the English language.
fossilesque@mander.xyz 9 months ago
You just described 90% of Lemmy users.
Ferrous@lemmy.ml 9 months ago
I dig the variety of topics on this comm, and I super appreciate how it doesn’t get STEMlordy at all.
fossilesque@mander.xyz 9 months ago
It’s all connected. :)
HollowNaught@lemmy.world 9 months ago
While that’s correct and all, it still irks me when somwbody uses a word that has a shorter, older variant. (Gives side-eye to orientated)
DillyDaily@lemmy.world 9 months ago
orientated
Is this common in American English? I don’t think I’ve ever seen the word oriented double handled like that. Irregardless, it slew me
GiveMemes@jlai.lu 9 months ago
At least with orientated it kind makes sense because orientation is the process of orienting, so to have done the process would be to be orientated in a weird way but irregardless will always irk me because the ir and the less make a double negative, making the meaning as written ‘with regard’ which just doesn’t make any sense whatsoever. Like if somebody misunderstood a sentence with a double negative we would call them wrong but because it’s a single word they get to change the entire language, regardless of its structure and rules? Seems kinda bogus to me.
FuglyDuck@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Never seen it here.
davidagain@lemmy.world 9 months ago
“Orientated” is reasonably common in British English, I think. I remember thinking someone had misspelt it the first time I saw “oriented” written down.
sundray@lemmus.org 9 months ago
End prescriptuhvist speling! We haf nuthing to loose butt hour wigly red underlyns!
maniclucky@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Ow. What did I do to you?!
Voroxpete@sh.itjust.works 9 months ago
If you think that’s bad, never try reading FEERSUM ENDJINN.
Empricorn@feddit.nl 9 months ago
That hurt to read… Kudos!
SweetCitrusBuzz@beehaw.org 9 months ago
undalihnz
i_dont_want_to@lemmy.blahaj.zone 9 months ago
Would you look at the time? Loose butt hour.
sxt@lemmy.world 9 months ago
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”
pyre@lemmy.world 9 months ago
most often it’s said to dismiss people. AAVE gets a lot of that. but it’s used to mock and dismiss young people too by the “back in my day” crew.
merc@sh.itjust.works 9 months ago
“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.
Xavienth@lemmygrad.ml 9 months ago
Formality, just like meaning, is decided collectively. The reason you wouldn’t use “cheugy no cap” in a formal email is not because they’re not words, but because they are commonly understood to be informal.
Jakdracula@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Great post, I offer my most enthusiastic contrafribularities.
bluewing@lemm.ee 9 months ago
I agree, a perfectly crommulant statement from a Word Warrior.
Jakdracula@lemmy.world 9 months ago
I’m anaspeptic, phrasmotic, even compunctuous to have caused you such pericombobulation.
ArcaneSlime@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 months ago
“That’s not a word” only applies to scrabble and boggle. Fuck any other context.
str82L@lemmy.world 9 months ago
And Wordle
Draegur@lemm.ee 9 months ago
“refrigerate” at least has sensible etymological roots in its constituent components.
The problem with brain rot lingo is that it isn’t constructed from precedent but a decay therefrom, corrupted by niche “meta” references that are little more than inside jokes that escaped their in-group, divorced of the context that brought them about.
…
Then again, though, the most popular word that humans speak all over the world is “OK”, which is itself a memetic corruption of a fad, wherein people were saying “All Correct” with a deliberately exaggerated fake British accent: “Oll Korrect” (which became abbreviated).
And brain rot does have the fact that it’s very funny going for it. It sounds silly which makes it fun to say and it pisses people off which makes it even funnier, because getting mad about it is a drastic overreaction. So I don’t think it’ll even really BECOME an actual serious problem, because the moment it hits mainstream and corporations start publishing commercials about “skibidi Ohio GYATT” it’s going to implode like “it’s morbin time” burned Sony.
scratchee@feddit.uk 9 months ago
“Divorced from the context that brought them about” Ahh, so you’re complaining about all the Germanic words in English, or the Latin words? The whole point of their diatribe is that the “brain rot” words you hate are little different from most words. It’s just that for some words the “in group” is Latin speakers, and for some words it’s some group nerding out about their own topic that spread their word to the rest of us… actually, I’m still talking about Latin speakers.
sgtlion@hexbear.net 9 months ago
Descriptivists will never haltodulate the hatsrglabatude of us prescriptivists.
Snowclone@lemmy.world 9 months ago
I’m old enough to have noticed that a huge amount of language has changed in American English in the Westcoast at least. It’s pretty remarkable even myself and other middle aged people I know have changed their word use and slang.
homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Gronk. Now bleet glanmar.
ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de 9 months ago
Studies linguistics, but not grammar.
7bicycles@hexbear.net 9 months ago
You know what my biggest problem with descriptivists is? What is “correct” always coincides exactly to what they learned in school or university from 15 - 20. It’s never anything else. Never in like 20.000 years of human history did we nail language except for that timeframe, and never will it happen again. what a coinkidink.
lightsblinken@lemmy.world 9 months ago
ferpectly cromulent!
Sat@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Skibidi rizz
trashgirlfriend@lemmy.world 9 months ago
ITT we fight against the evil descriptivist windmills
Professorozone@lemmy.world 9 months ago
So why teach English at all? People could just make it all up theirself.
FuglyDuck@lemmy.world 9 months ago
I’m curious. How many people does it take to make a word a word?
bleistift2@sopuli.xyz 9 months ago
While I get the point they’re making, I have a counterargument:
Ngqnund urnidng bptgx durunbde druxng.
What, you didn’t understand that? Are you dissing be just because you didn’t bother to learn new words?
spirinolas@lemmy.world 9 months ago
When you read texts of an ancient language than span several centuries, and the language itself stays the same, it’s a strong indicator the language was no longer spoken.
Living languages always change. Only dead languages stay the same.
cm0002@lemmy.world 9 months ago
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
perishthethought@lemm.ee 9 months ago
Meh, seems cromulent.
WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Adequately pondiferous.