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Oh, this sort of thing goes way back… here’s Swift from 1712, for instance: > I do here … complain to your Lordship … that our Language is extremely imperfect;
by bradrn 4y ago
Oh, this sort of thing goes way back… here’s Swift from 1712, for instance:
> I do here … complain to your Lordship … that our Language is extremely imperfect; that its daily Improvements are by no means in proportion to its daily Corruptions; and the Pretenders to polish and refine it, have chiefly multiplied Abuses and Absurdities … Gentlemen … introduced that barbarous Custom of abbreviating Words, … as to form such harsh unharmonious Sounds … They have joined the most obdurate Consonants without one intervening Vowel, only to shorten a Syllable: And their Taste in time became so depraved, that what was a first a Poetical Licence, not to be justified, they made their Choice, alledging, that the Words pronounced at length, sounded faint and languid … Instances of this Abuse are innumerable: What does Your Lordship think of the Words, Drudg'd, Disturb'd, Rebuk't, Fledg'd, and a thousand others, every where to be met in Prose as well as Verse? Where, by leaving out a Vowel to save a Syllable, we form so jarring a Sound, and so difficult to utter, that I have often wondred how it could ever obtain.
— A Proposal for Correcting, Improving and Ascertaining the English Tongue [taken from https://www.jacklynch.net/Texts/proposal.html https://www.jacklynch.net/Texts/proposal.html]
Or in other words: “It’s ‘dess-turb-uhd’, with THREE vowels! Not that nasty word ‘dess-turbd’ which is impossible to pronounce! What a horrible degradation of the language!”
(For more of this, Deutscher’s The Unfolding of Language contains a highly amusing list of examples dating all the way back to Cicero in 46 BC, who complains that the speech of his day was sadly degraded from the great orators of the past. I’m certain I’ve even seen an Ancient Egyptian complaint along these lines, though sadly I can’t seem to find it now.)
- tommit 4y agoI love this, thanks! "Kids these days" of language. Oh well, I'm gonna stop correcting of's used instead of have's - don't want to end up in The Unfolding of Language II. But I will definitely check out the first one, thanks for the tip!
- IncRnd 4y ago> Or in other words: “It’s ‘dess-turb-uhd’, with THREE vowels! Not that nasty word ‘dess-turbd’ which is impossible to pronounce! I had a Professor who pronounced the -ed that was at the end of a word as its own syllable. She loved doing that, and it actually wasn't noticable after a short while. > What a horrible degradation of the language!” It's not that different from people today saying "wanna" for "want to" or even "me wan go home" for "I want to go home". Idioms and dialects abound!
- QuercusMax 4y agoIs this a serious article from Swift? It has "A Proposal" in the name, and we all know about his more famous "Modest Proposal". I can't tell if this is a masterful 18th Century troll job or if he was actually in earnest.
- fknorangesite 4y agoEven if it's satire, it's got to be satirizing an attitude that actually exists - otherwise it's just nonsense. Given how prevalent the eyeroll-inducing grammar nazis have been in my lifetime (I am happily recovered from that affliction, myself), I have no trouble believing they existed in the 1700s, too.
- irrational 4y agoIt is interesting how much more complex ancient languages were. Just look at Greek and Latin. So many tenses, aspects, time, etc. It doesn't seem odd that things become simpler over time. People are inherently lazy and if they can get by with nicknames, abbreviations, fewer syllables, simpler syntax and grammar, they will. Though this does beg the question, why in the world were language so much more complex the farther back you go? You would think languages would have been simple from the start.
- codehalo 4y ago> Though this does beg the question.... You are raising the question, not begging it. https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/beg-the-question https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/beg-the-questi...
- BalinKing 4y agoFrom the first sentence of that article: > Begging the question means "to elicit a specific question as a reaction or response," and can often be replaced with "a question that begs to be answered."
- gnicholas 4y agoI have all but given up on this one. It's now notable when I hear someone use the phrase in the "correct" way. Usually the person ends up being someone who majored in philosophy. This progression is likely due to the fact that people raise questions much more often than they beg questions. Once the phrase started being used in the former sense, it was bound to overtake the latter.
- sethrin 4y ago"Begging the question" is a mistranslation of a mistranslation. Saying that it means something other than what people use it to mean is the worst form of pedantry.
- jackbravo 4y agoProbably latin wasn't the start ;-). We are not 2,000 years old hehe.
- hoosieree 4y agoSadly, the art of Speaking in Capital Letters has been lost to the Ages.
- not2b 4y agoMany 18th century writers of English capitalized nouns the way it's done in German. For example, the US Constitution does this. But it was already going away by then.
- fknorangesite 4y agoAh but now we have the informal-internet-speak version of using capital letters to emphasize things that are Very Important.
- chrismorgan 4y agoThat’s old school. My favourite source where you can clearly see it in use is Winnie the Pooh; Milne rather liked the style.
- egypturnash 4y agoIt still exists, but it is rarely taught. When it is time for you to learn it, you will learn The Way of the Capital Letter, and anyone paying even the smallest amount of Attention to your words will Hear them in your speech.
- gumby 4y ago> Or in other words: “It’s ‘dess-turb-uhd’, with THREE vowels! Some of these pronunciations still survive, such as "I learned* the words to the song" vs "the learned gentleman". * as a kid I was taught to write "learnt" but I never see that in the US.
- layer8 4y ago“learnt” is mostly British English.
- graderjs 4y agoI LOVE this. Thank you! :)