1. Is English deteriorating? Ling 1

2. Remember! Language is instinctive -- humans are grammatical beings. Children are grammatical geniuses. All languages are structure-driven.

3. If all this is arguably correct, why is everyone always complaining about the state of English? “to grow the economy” “y’all”, “y’uns”, “yins”, “yous” “ain’t” “my bling, (bling)”

4. Arbiters of English Who decides what is and is not correct spoken language? Why do people get so stressed out about “incorrect usage?” Do we have a moral imperative to protect language?

5. Examples of “bad” English “Hopefully, we’ll end early today.” For most of us, the adverb indicates our attitude toward the entire sentence…[One hopes that [X]].

6. *We’ll end hopeful(ly) today. It does NOT modify just the verb phrase. We know exactly what we mean.

7. Confusion of lay/lie “I’m going to lay down” - is this bad? “I have lain down” - how’s this sound?

8. Regular/irregular? “He snuck into the room late” - ? “She dove off the platform” - ?

9. What’s wrong here? I want to gradually save money for a new car. She decided to never touch another cigarette.

10. That’s John and mine’s favorite song - ? Conjoined nouns are often treated differently than simple nouns: John and me arrived late. *Me arrived late. That’s between you and I.

11. Hypercorrection Me and you went to the movies. Rule? Internalize: “Never say ‘you and me’” Hypercorrection: He gave the book to you and I. He lent the DVD to John and I. Hypercorrection: misapplication of prescriptivist rules

12. Prescriptive versus Descriptive Grammar Prescriptive grammars describe how one ought to talk. Descriptive grammars describe how people DO talk.

13. We all have our own likes and dislikes about how others use language. Examples? Prescriptivists, though, feel very strongly that only their definition of correct usage is accurate. “This is an outrage up with which I shall not put” – Churchill in response to being told not to strand prepositions

14. Language as Shibboleth Shibboleth: Hebrew for ‘torrent, stream’ - custom or usage that distinguishes one group from another. Judges (12:4-6) recounts the slaying of 42,000 Ephraimites at the passage of Jordon who could not pass as Gileadites because they said ‘sibboleth’.

15. For prescriptivists, language use is a shibboleth. They protect their status -- being smarter and more urbane than others. Language ‘corruption’ is interpreted as a sign of mental/moral corruption.

16. They’re everywhere! It’s not just English that’s going to the dogs. Many societies, particularly literate ones, are constantly preoccupied by language corruption.

17. Greek grammarians in 100BCE were worried that spoken Greek was not as pure as Homeric Greek. Moslem grammarians of 8th-9th centuries tried to restore Arabic to its perfect state as revealed in the Qu’ran.

18. 1794 Murray’s English Grammar: 2 negatives in English cancel each other out. Never put a preposition at the end of a sentence.

19. Murray’s example of ‘bad’ preposition use: “Who do you speak to?” (quoted from Shakespeare’s As you like it) Pittsburghese: “Where’re you at?” would probably have killed him.

20. Many of these ‘shibboleths’ come from a misunderstanding that English should be more like Latin. Ex, prepositions don’t occur finally in Latin.

21. Origin of these notions 18th century preoccupation that Latin was perfect and English defective unless regulated by ‘experts’.

22. ain’t This is used as a contraction of “am not”. It’s of very old origin and was used even in cultivated speech (and it still is).

23. (You/we/they) are not  aren’t (He/she/it) is not  isn’t I am not  I’m not (*ain’t)

24. Only with “I” is the contraction to the pronoun. I am notHe is not Ain’t makes this symmetrical. I am not

25. Y’all - Y’uns - Yous Even Tok Pisin, based on English, has a singular versus plural you. yu yupela

26. “Conservative” American English pronoun paradigm Iwe youyou s/he, itthey To fill in the gap, we have all kinds of variants, depending on region.

27. Even if you don’t like yins, you probably use: You guys…

28. Negation and ‘polarity’ Double negation is considered a solecism. Example “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet”

29. English isn’t math: two negatives do NOT make a positive. Double negatives were fine: Chaucer: He never yet no vilainy ne said.. “He never said any evil.”

30. “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet” You haven’t seen anything yet -or- You have seen nothing (yet). “any” has to occur with neg. “some” “none” “nothing” have to occur with pos. Why?

31. But… Some people use ‘anymore’ without a negative: “Anymore I just work” Dialectal variant = synonym for “these days”

32. The StarTrek corruption “to boldly go where no man has gone before!” Again with the Latin!… It’s impossible to split an infinitive in Latin because infinitives are expressed via inflections (ama-re) not periphrastic expressions (to go).

33. Right and wrong usage Every generation is accused of corrupting or degrading the language. Languages change generation by generation. Those who get all incensed about correct usage are usually wasting their time.

34. Spoken language always has a lot of variation - due to regional, stylistic and personal differences. Sometimes grammatical variations are in competition for a very long time. Only speakers will eventually sort this out - probably not a “language maven”.