Re: Another stupid singular "their"

dontbother wrote:

Stephen Calder <calder9@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

dontbother wrote:


But there is no shame in making judgments about the quality of
usages. We all do it all the time. Some draw the line at
ungrammaticality, others at non-idiomaticity, still others at
infrequency of use. Those of us who choose to draw the line elsewhere
are not unaware of how ready some are ready to accept stupidity and
cacaphony as normal and even good usage. But that is of no moment. We
just like to bitch about things we know we can change when we use
language, but we don't really care whether anyone else changes the
way they use language. It's all a matter of taste above the
substratum of the grammar one learned at one's mother's knee.

As a prescriptivist I pick my battles; I would rather spend energy on those that appear to be winnable. Examples: would of, loose for lose, lead instead of led.


You're an optimist, I see. I don't think any of these battles are winnable. Gresham's Law operates in different guises. In one way, that's what the English Next report "Why global English may mean the end of 'English as a Foreign Language'" demonstrates when it talks about English as Lingua Franca.


The language is about to undergo its biggest shift perhaps in all its history.

I javen't read the report, but it seems to me we are witnessing a linguistic phenomenon never before seen: the opposite of a language fragmenting into different dialects like Latin did. Non-native English speakers helping to make a new version with new vocabulary and a more flexible syntax that will be distributed to all users via the most powerful information dissemination system we have ever had. A new world language that native English speakers will have to learn along with everyone else.

Not tomorrow but over the next century.



Singular "their" makes your toes curl but it actually provides a
natural solution to an otherwise intractable problem in English. This
battle, like that about "hopefully", is lost.


I wonder what the ratio of entertainment creators to entertainment consumers is. In primitive societies it's probably no higher than 1:2, but in the most technologically advanced societies, it's probably more on the order of 1:20,000. In my EFL classes, I have usually had a group of interested and already motivated students of about 10-20% of the class, on average. I always thought that was very high.

Yes. I can't relate this to anything I said, unless you mean that most people just don't care any more and perhaps never have. They don't about spelling; spelling is about to undergo a radical change anyway via SMS and instant messaging.

betr b ready 4 it




No, but they do induce spitting at the speaker's shoes and on the writer's page. Stupidity is still stupidity, even when millions
accept it as the new normalcy.

Canute.


I didn't get to read much about King Canute, so I don't understand the allusion.




He took his entourage to the shore at low tide to refute, by awaiting its coming in, claims that he was divine and had extraordinary powers. Now also used to mean someone who thinks he can stem the tide (though Canute, also spelt Knut, did not think that way). Another example of a long-lost battle.

--
Stephen
Lennox Head, Australia
.

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