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Sorry, I think I was not clear enough. There have certainly been efforts to draw arbitrary distinctions between groups based on speech for a very long time, pr
by DonaldPShimoda 5y ago
Sorry, I think I was not clear enough.
There have certainly been efforts to draw arbitrary distinctions between groups based on speech for a very long time, probably going almost as far back as language itself.
What I was referring to was specifically an effort rooted in a desire to use rules of Latin grammar to restrict constructions in English. This was a big thing relatively recently (likely sometime in the past 100-300 years). It is this movement from which we get rules like "never end a sentence with a proposition" or "don't split infinitives" --- those sorts of things.
- ghusbands 5y agoThose things are irrelevant to the question of whether "never can't never" is incorrect in context, which is what you were replying to. Nor was the comment you replied to trying to draw distinctions between groups.
- pwdisswordfish9 5y ago> rules like "never end a sentence with a proposition" or "don't split infinitives" --- those sorts of things. Just because those particular rules are silly doesn't mean all linguistic prescription is wrong. Prescriptions that clarify the meaning and relational structures between concepts can be very helpful, and discriminate only against careless users of language. Grammar poor not does if exist, this like having have conversations fun.