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It’s sloppy because it’s just a regurgitation of a talking point that has no logical basis. You and I both know that not teaching a standard English or pretendi

It’s sloppy because it’s just a regurgitation of a talking point that has no logical basis. You and I both know that not teaching a standard English or pretending like one does not exist would only worsen language-based discrimination. > When you enforce a specific dialect, then you exclude and alienate speakers of other dialects and this will INCREASE linguistic drift. How exactly would that happen? It would provide a means for other dialects to adopt the standard dialect and communicate with the wider community. That’s the opposite of increasing linguistic drift. In the situation you’re suggesting, you’re expecting everyone to understand and communicate in every other dialect simultaneously. That’s just an unrealistic expectation. > That's where we are already. What you propose is forcing the other tribes to speak your tribe's english. I propose everyone who desires to participate in the English-speaking world voluntarily unite and find consensus under standard English. Stop taking something personally that isn’t personal and speak the standard English so that we may all better communicate and information can more freely disseminate across more populations. Imagine if people started making the argument that correcting incorrect Python was racist/classist and people should just start forking Python if they do not like standard Python. That would be silly yet that is what you are suggesting. Obviously having a single agreed-upon dialect of Python is beneficial to everyone and it shouldn’t be personally offensive to recommend that people program in standard Python.

shkkmo 5y ago
> It’s sloppy because it’s just a regurgitation of a talking point that has no logical basis. It definitely is not a talking point. This is a stance I have arrived at after studying linguistics, philosohy of language and psychology then doing lots of traveling and spending over a decade thinking about it, all as someone who is inclined towards engaging in language pedantry. If there are errors in reasoning, those errors are mine since it is a stance I arrived at without hearing it from other people. > How exactly would that happen? How it always happens? How much time have you spend in multi-lingual contexts? How do you think creols and slang develope? Language naturally evolves to fit the needs of people who use it. > I propose everyone who desires to participate in the English-speaking world voluntarily unite and find consensus under standard English. Who decides what is standard? Can the standard change? Is it fair to set that standard as something that one group learns at home and another group has to study and practice to use? > Stop taking something personally that isn’t personal It's hard to get more personal than the language you think in and use to talk to the people closest to you. > we may all better communicate and information can more freely disseminate across more populations. You say "we", but the "we" for whom it is easier is limited to the people that already speak the annoited "correct" dialect. > Imagine if people started making the argument that correcting incorrect Python was racist/classist and people should just start forking Python if they do not like standard Python. Programming "languages" aren't actually languages in any sense that makes your argument here have any value. Programming "languages" are actually complicated mathematical notations. Funnily enough, your example, python, actually has two versions in use. If everyone refused to use python 3 because it was "bad python" then the communtiy would have been worse off. The fundemental problem with your position is that it is inherently hypocritical, arbitrary and self-serving. You distinguish between the age of "as a lark" and "on a lark" based on an arbirary point in time. There are plenty of idioms / meanings that are younger than "as a lark" but that you hypocritically would accept as just fine. For example, you use the term "forking" in a manner that is both semantically and grammatically very new. If a word or usage arises as part of your dialect, it automatically becomes part of the "standard", but if it arises in the dialect of an outgroup then it qualifies as "incorrect english". I am not opposed to developing language standards, but those standards need to be both responsive to shifts in the language and inclusive for a wide range of dialects. Ideally you can also teach this standard without impicitly judging people as stupid and uneducated when they use their native dialect. You also need to be careful about using adherence to this standard as a gatekeeper to prevent people from having equal opportunities.
- CyberRabbi 5y ago
  >> How exactly would that happen? > How it always happens? How much time have you spend in multi-lingual contexts? How do you think creols and slang develope? Language naturally evolves to fit the needs of people who use it. This is a failure to demonstrate how promoting language standards may result in increased discrimination. Again, whether a language standard is promoted or not, people will discriminate against others who differ from them. The existence of a language standard removes the confusion and ambiguity as to what the correct form of the language is. This enables everyone to participate in the usage of the language equally. > Funnily enough, your example, python, actually has two versions in use. If everyone refused to use python 3 because it was "bad python" then the communtiy would have been worse off. Right and it took an official body with authority over the language to get everyone to reunite over Python 3. If no official body stepped up and no standard version was declared, there may still be large fragmentation between Python 2 and 3. Everyone clearly understands fragmentation of a language community is a stark negative. You are suggesting we pretend that a standard form of English does not exist which would only result in further fragmentation of English, which just as in Python, would be a bad thing for the community at large. > Ideally you can also teach this standard without impicitly judging people as stupid and uneducated when they use their native dialect. No one in this thread ever suggested using language standards for this purpose. And again, the existence of a language standard is largely orthogonal to this phenomenon. Judging people as stupid comes from differences in people, not language standards. In the absence of the existence of a “correct English” the judgements would transition from “you are not speaking correct English” (which is shared by all) to “you are not speaking my tribe’s English” (which is unique to a single tribe and would be a lot more tribally divisive). > Who decides what is standard? Whoever is the appropriate authority of the language. It could be a national government or an academic organization. Language standardization isn’t a new concept, nearly all European languages have gone through a standardization phase. It’s a solved problem. This is the equivalent of saying we can’t standardize Python because there is no obvious way to decide who is allowed to standardize it. That is just silly. Either an interested committee will form or a pre-existing authority will take on the responsibility.
  - shkkmo 5y ago

shkkmo 5y ago

> It’s sloppy because it’s just a regurgitation of a talking point that has no logical basis. It definitely is not a talking point. This is a stance I have arrived at after studying linguistics, philosohy of language and psychology then doing lots of traveling and spending over a decade thinking about it, all as someone who is inclined towards engaging in language pedantry. If there are errors in reasoning, those errors are mine since it is a stance I arrived at without hearing it from other people. > How exactly would that happen? How it always happens? How much time have you spend in multi-lingual contexts? How do you think creols and slang develope? Language naturally evolves to fit the needs of people who use it. > I propose everyone who desires to participate in the English-speaking world voluntarily unite and find consensus under standard English. Who decides what is standard? Can the standard change? Is it fair to set that standard as something that one group learns at home and another group has to study and practice to use? > Stop taking something personally that isn’t personal It's hard to get more personal than the language you think in and use to talk to the people closest to you. > we may all better communicate and information can more freely disseminate across more populations. You say "we", but the "we" for whom it is easier is limited to the people that already speak the annoited "correct" dialect. > Imagine if people started making the argument that correcting incorrect Python was racist/classist and people should just start forking Python if they do not like standard Python. Programming "languages" aren't actually languages in any sense that makes your argument here have any value. Programming "languages" are actually complicated mathematical notations. Funnily enough, your example, python, actually has two versions in use. If everyone refused to use python 3 because it was "bad python" then the communtiy would have been worse off. The fundemental problem with your position is that it is inherently hypocritical, arbitrary and self-serving. You distinguish between the age of "as a lark" and "on a lark" based on an arbirary point in time. There are plenty of idioms / meanings that are younger than "as a lark" but that you hypocritically would accept as just fine. For example, you use the term "forking" in a manner that is both semantically and grammatically very new. If a word or usage arises as part of your dialect, it automatically becomes part of the "standard", but if it arises in the dialect of an outgroup then it qualifies as "incorrect english". I am not opposed to developing language standards, but those standards need to be both responsive to shifts in the language and inclusive for a wide range of dialects. Ideally you can also teach this standard without impicitly judging people as stupid and uneducated when they use their native dialect. You also need to be careful about using adherence to this standard as a gatekeeper to prevent people from having equal opportunities.

CyberRabbi 5y ago
>> How exactly would that happen? > How it always happens? How much time have you spend in multi-lingual contexts? How do you think creols and slang develope? Language naturally evolves to fit the needs of people who use it. This is a failure to demonstrate how promoting language standards may result in increased discrimination. Again, whether a language standard is promoted or not, people will discriminate against others who differ from them. The existence of a language standard removes the confusion and ambiguity as to what the correct form of the language is. This enables everyone to participate in the usage of the language equally. > Funnily enough, your example, python, actually has two versions in use. If everyone refused to use python 3 because it was "bad python" then the communtiy would have been worse off. Right and it took an official body with authority over the language to get everyone to reunite over Python 3. If no official body stepped up and no standard version was declared, there may still be large fragmentation between Python 2 and 3. Everyone clearly understands fragmentation of a language community is a stark negative. You are suggesting we pretend that a standard form of English does not exist which would only result in further fragmentation of English, which just as in Python, would be a bad thing for the community at large. > Ideally you can also teach this standard without impicitly judging people as stupid and uneducated when they use their native dialect. No one in this thread ever suggested using language standards for this purpose. And again, the existence of a language standard is largely orthogonal to this phenomenon. Judging people as stupid comes from differences in people, not language standards. In the absence of the existence of a “correct English” the judgements would transition from “you are not speaking correct English” (which is shared by all) to “you are not speaking my tribe’s English” (which is unique to a single tribe and would be a lot more tribally divisive). > Who decides what is standard? Whoever is the appropriate authority of the language. It could be a national government or an academic organization. Language standardization isn’t a new concept, nearly all European languages have gone through a standardization phase. It’s a solved problem. This is the equivalent of saying we can’t standardize Python because there is no obvious way to decide who is allowed to standardize it. That is just silly. Either an interested committee will form or a pre-existing authority will take on the responsibility.
- shkkmo 5y ago