what makes human beings tick

From what I've seen of you, it appears that you are an honest man, Robert, so I can only conclude that this is an idea that is simply beyond your ken. I provided a number of examples showing you how you were wrong but they just didn't take.

1. If I'm describing what is grammatical for English, how can I be prescribing anything?

2. You weren't prescribing anything either when you set forth your arguments for your reading of how that sentence met the grammatical standards of English. You were simply mistaken.

3. I could have been the one who was mistaken and so could have MJ. Neither of us, me or MJ, were mistaken this time but none of us three attempted to pass off a falsehood about language, ergo, there was no prescription involved.

Let me try one more time. This time, PLEASE, if you don't understand, ask.

And again, I understand your position on descriptivism but I disagree with you. The position makes sense for linguists, but ESL is a prescriptive profession by nature and by my reckoning you are ultimately a prescriptivist while refusing to call yourself that. But because you are unwilling to consider anything other than being right you'll keep thinking I'm incapable of understanding it and I can come to terms with that.



We've already been through this, and I don't expect you to agree but you are making a value judgment on whether it is an accurate description of English use. Some clearly do use English this way, as you see above, but you call it non-grammatical. But I was ribbing you here and don't really want to turn oristarA's question into yet another argument about how little separates your brand of descriptivism from prescriptivism.

But it has a new meaning as to differ from the original one, Robert.

I take it then that you believe that the linguists/grammarians who wrote The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language and the ones who wrote Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English are prescriptivists.

Why can't you address what, I hope, you've just read. Did you go to the site and read the whole article? Why haven't you addressed the 3 points I raised. Were you being prescriptive? Was MJ?




Again, were you being prescriptive? Was MJ? Was Setanta being prescriptive with what he offered? Please address these questions.

Let me clue you in. When a physicist sets forth a theory, it isn't a value judgement. It's an appraisal of the facts as that person views them. How can that physicist know? From long years of study, weighing different alternatives, doing all the things that scientists do.

Even after all that, can the physicist be wrong? Of course. But the difference is, the one you are missing, is that there's no attempt to pass off any falsehoods. The science either stands or it doesn't.

Descriptivists look to how people use language to determine what is grammatical and what is not. There's no value judgment involved. As Professor Pullum says, in a nutshell, 'ungrammatical doesn't offend me'; it doesn't offend me either.

Try this once more, if you would, if you are really sincere in your efforts to understand.



You accuse me of simply wanting to be right. I have to wonder, Robert, why you've never brought up any of the issues raised in any of the articles I've posted for you on this very issue.



I think that you're making an assumption too large that "[S]ome clearly do use English this way". We simply don't know that for sure.

Beyond that, it's pretty clear that the example was ungrammatical for both standard and nonstandard English. And there are reasons why that is so, reasons that you are able to grasp even if you can't explain them.



If that's truly your thought, then I think that you should return to the other thread, because, you're not going to like this but, ... you still do not understand the more complicated aspects of this issue.

Yes, oristarA, I was wrong and had misread the sentence that way.

If you really want to go back to the prescriptivist argument feel free to bump up that thread, but I'll have to join some other time, I've got a lot going on right now (just managed to brick my phone while hacking it, and I'm trying to fix it before tomorrow).

Where did you come across this example, Ori? Was it a speech or was it printed?

ESL is only prescriptive when a person is being prescriptive. Look at the peeves thread; those are prescriptions. Time after time I've pointed out that they were and why they were. I described language as it works to refute the prescriptions.

It's so abundantly clear that this position that makes sense for linguists makes sense for everyone. Science is never about prescribing things, it's always about checking the facts and trying to describe the facts.

When I offer a position on a language, I don't go to style manuals, I don't make a decision on how English should be used because another language does it a certain way, I don't choose certain forms or proscribe certain forms based on opinion.

I look to language, to see how people actually use the language. If I'm unsure, and plenty of times I certainly can be despite 20 years of full on thinking about these issues, I go to descriptive sources, The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language or another, Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English, one that has done extensive study of how often people use the various structures and/or collocations of English.

That's how one determines grammaticality.

What the Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English also notes, repeatedly, [as do ALL other descriptive texts] is that they do not make value judgments on how people use language, in the manner that Professor Pullum calls "correctness conditions".

Structures/collocations that aren't found within Standard English are not wrong, they are merely nonstandard. They are perfectly correct within the dialect spoken by a certain group.

'might could' isn't part of Standard English but it is perfectly natural, ergo, correct for many southern USA speakers within the confines of their dialect. I personally, cannot get my head wrapped around its nuances, but that isn't any reason to condemn it. It is a standard for their dialect, so it's standard for their dialect.

My take on this:

That politicians wield power, sometimes enormous power, cannot be disputed, but to regard [infinitive of verb] politics as the decisive influence [singular] in setting society's long-term direction betrays a misunderstanding of what makes human beings tick.

The first part is rather formal, and "what makes human beings tick" strikes a jarring note, being somewhat idiomatic, and I would rather see something like "human nature" or "what motivates people" there instead.

Carrots and sticks they say.

George Orwell said that the future is a stick rattling in a bucket. He wasn't that far out.

if JTT were Spanish, I expect he/she'd have a go at me for saying "vos" instead of "tu", but do I care? Do I buggery! (I know he's there because I can see the "User ignored" messages)

What are "User ignored" messages contrex? How do I get those?

Click on a user's name above one of their posts, and in their profile, click "ignore user". Thereafter for you their posts will be replaced by little "User ignored" links which you have to click in order to read the post.

Is that all? I thought you might be getting a message who has you on Ignore.

Obviously, I have nobody on Ignore myself. I think it's wimpy. It's drifting in the direction of the hermit's cave too. Removing from view offensive people. If ever you read Gibbon's Decline and Fall you will realise why there were so many hermits in those days.

Gibbon likes to hold Christianity responsible for the decline of the Roman Empire but it was bound to be the victim of a long struggle for humanity to rid itself of a system built upon inhumanity of the grossest and most disgusting sort and we all ought to be truly grateful it no longer exists and if it was a high price to pay it was paid and here we are in this Aladdin's Cave of goodies, admittedly a bit bored, but safe and comfortable.

So if it was Christianity that brought it down raise your glasses gentlemen and ladies--"To Christianity".

Some say it was the lead in the pipes. Others that the women got control.

Take your pick--raise your glasses to the one of your choice. And there are others. Over-indulgence in good times. What's new eh?

What site are you talking about? You hadn't posted any links here when you asked me this. Are you talking about the other thread's links? Yes, of course I read them. I even went out of my way to use "decry" about grammar because I thought the author was making a pedantic point about how descriptivists don't "decry" grammar because it is too strong of a word. You didn't pick up on it, accused me of not reading the article and played "gotcha" because I used the word.



I was busy, with a lot of windows open and the need to reboot my computer frequently. Plus, as I've already told you, I have a distaste for your style of discussion. Right here in this thread you use rhetorical tactics like saying I'm too dumb to "understand" you when this is a simple subjective disagreement that reasonable people can differ on. I'm not a fan of that kind of discourse. I don't go around calling you thick if you don't agree with me. I don't make sarcastic comments to you and talk down to you if we don't see eye to eye, and I don't appreciate when people do that to me. If you have a case you should be able to make it without those kinds of rhetorical lows. And I've told you before that this is why people here tend to avoid talking to you.



We don't see eye to eye on what constitutes prescriptivism JTT. I've played this game with you before, and I won't speak for others here because prescriptivism and descriptivism offer differ in intent and substantiation for the same conclusions.

So I will speak for myself, yes I consider my comments here prescriptive in nature.



This kind of thing is why I'll go back to avoiding you after this JTT. You don't have any real arguments to present, it's just strength of conviction and sarky condescension.



I disagree. All known variations of language use have been used, otherwise they'd not be known. Descriptivists must make subjective judgments about the degree of prevalence that make it an "accurate" description.

So if enough people start saying "me want cookie" they will have to accept it, but the point is that some people already talk that way, but it's not prevalent enough in English for them to find acceptable.

Language is not, and cannot be, perfectly objective. It requires value judgments on some level. I'd agree that descriptivism is more objective than prescriptivism, but the core of our disagreement centers around this, that I think your absolutism is unwarranted in a subjective field of study.

Descriptivism operates with value judgments though based on different, and admittedly more defensible, criteria.



And it doesn't have to "offend" a prescriptivist either.



This is debate by tome. I've read what you've offered many times. Often I've read them before you offer them. I worked as an assistant to linguists many years ago JTT. These aren't concepts that aren't familiar to me.

This isn't a valid argument, this is just obnoxious repetition.



And I've already told you, I find your condescension unwarranted and irritating and avoid you. Plus, it was 2AM and I was busy, I'm addressing you the very next day. You need to simmer down now...



It's right above you typed out and used that way. Any known use of English is used by someone somehow. Otherwise it wouldn't be known.



This is more of the unwarranted condescension JTT. It doesn't present an argument, it just aims to indict my intellect. I won't return the favor but if you are going to incessantly ask me why I don't respond to you I'll continue to point out that this kind of discourse is why.



Well now I have responded to you, and as I suspected there's nothing of substance here. You just are repeating that you think I fail to "understand" and making sarcastic comments about me.

Where's the beef? There is nothing edifying to be had here. I've made my point to you and you simply:

1) Insist I don't "understand"
2) Make condescending remarks about me
3) Tell me to re-read what you already posted

There's no profit to be had in rinsing washing and repeating this cycle, this is why I avoid you. I'll summarize my positions very simply to you and leave it at that.

I find descriptivism to be a valuable development in linguistics as a science. But there are self-proclaimed descriptivists who take things too far, and who get on a high horse about the pedantry of prescriptivism while ultimately engaging in the very same things. There is a place for prescriptivism that many descriptive linguists recognize without becoming an ideologue for descriptivism.

Ultimately both say that something is "ungrammatical" but might do so for slightly different reasons and hold slightly different emotional attachments to the reasons. You like to portray this as a black and white issue but there are shades of grey and an awful lot of overlap between the two when it comes to English instruction (which is inherently prescriptivist in nature).

So when you engage in absolutism and insist that prescriptivism is what you say it is and nothing more you ignore that this is a subjective determination. You are proscribing definitions (and I've pointed out this irony before) and I find little difference between you and the pedantry you decry (there it is again, feel free to tell me how I'm wrong because I used the word that is too strong again) in effect.

And when it comes to ESL, as opposed to linguistics as a science, this is really counterproductive. It's not helpful to the students at all. I'm here to help people learn English, and you are here to foist arguments on people who are trying to avoid you. I stupidly mentioned prescriptivism here, hoping you'd have a better sense of humor about it but as in each previous exchange we've had I regret doing so. You haven't done any more than try to bludgeon me with the same stock and store as always, without even bothering to make a case for the arguments you claim I ignore.

I'm not ignoring arguments, there are none here. I'm avoiding you because this isn't edifying and wastes my time.

That's not at all the case here, Spendi. Contrex simply can't take it when his cherished little prescriptions are shown to be nonsense.

It is wimpy and it's really chickenshit. Dollars to donuts, Contrex won't get back to you. It really isn't that much differen than before. When he wasn't using ignore, it was like shooting fish in a barrel; now it's like shooting blind fish in a barrel.

That's not fair mate.