5 ms·

Are there people who speak like that? The a/an rules exist because they make it easier to speak. "I went to get an burger" is more like brain damage than bad gr

by causi 3y ago

Are there people who speak like that? The a/an rules exist because they make it easier to speak. "I went to get an burger" is more like brain damage than bad grammar.

lolinder 3y ago
Non-native speakers can take a while to pick up rules like that, since the whole language feels thick on their tongues. "I went to get an burger" doesn't necessarily sound much worse to someone who already struggles with "I went to get a burger".
bdw5204 3y ago
In written English, getting a/an wrong is usually a typo or an editing error. In spoken English, it means somebody is a non-native speaker with a beginner's level of fluency in the language.
qwery 3y ago
Your comment comes across (to me) as elitist, rather than curious. But yes, there are people who speak "like that". "An burger" sounds like a abomination to you and is more difficult for you to say than "a burger" because that's how you learned to say it.
- thereisnospork 3y ago
  >because that's how you learned to say it. That's an oversimplified (and therefore unfair) dismissal. There are 'correct' ways of performing muscle kinematics that stem from nature, and not nurture.[0] For a trite example, consider the golf swing. There is a right way to do it, and the correctness of 'good golf form' does not derive from golfing pedagogy, but physiology. A competent golfer, I would presume, would also experience physical signs of stress from having to watch an amateur at the driving range. [0]I am not enough of a language nerd to attest to a-consonant vs. an-vowel but it seems plausible enough.
  - qwery 3y ago
    But your competent golfer learned the 'correct' form/whatever, no? I'm not sure why it matters if the technique is optimised for human physicality.
    - thereisnospork 3y ago
      > I'm not sure why it matters if the technique is optimised for human physicality. It does if you'd like to hit said golf ball far, or accurately. Likewise if the aim is to enunciate clearly[0]. [0]If I may take a presumption for brevity that this is the case, and that this is a reasonably valid objective of the spoken word.
      - qwery 3y ago
        Yes, learning the correct technique (the rules) gets you a more effective result than not. You have to learn to speak english correctly, you have to learn to do a golf swing correctly. The beginner speaker/golfer uses the incorrect form most likely because they haven't learned the correct form. The rules don't exist because it's the easiest way to do it, they exist because it's the correct way to do it.
- wolverine876 3y ago
  > "An burger" sounds like a abomination to you and is more difficult for you to say than "a burger" because that's how you learned to say it. I could understand someone wondering whether that was true, but what evidence supports that claim? As a wild guess, maybe putting two consonents together, as in 'an burger', is too hard to say and one is eventually dropped.
  - qwery 3y ago
    It's plainly obvious that not every person speaking english uses an identical grammar. It seems reasonable to assume that at least some people don't notice the difference/s. The incorrect form must not be significantly more difficult to use because it's being used. They haven't learned that it's incorrect or can't see why it matters. I'm a bit confused about what point you're making. Are you talking about individuals "naturally" preferring the correct grammar -- as opposed to learning it? Or the grammar has developing over time?
    - wolverine876 3y ago
      > not every person speaking english uses an identical grammar. It seems reasonable to assume that at least some people don't notice the difference/s. The incorrect form must not be significantly more difficult to use because it's being used. Not every variation of grammar is equally possible or usable. It's a philosophical argument, a fantasy of (rebellion?), to reject all practices and rules and preferences as arbitrary and therefore to be ignored. Some are arbitrary, some are obsolete, but many have real reasons, value, and impact. From David Adger, professor of linguistics, Queen Mary University of London: "People have a notion of grammar as being a set of rules that someone tells you to do. ... I want to say, 'No, look at the amazing complexity of languages around the world, and look at how unified it all is.'" "There's an unlimited number of even numbers but obviously they’re limited, right? Because 3s and 7s aren't in there. Language is like that. There's an unlimited number of possible things we can say, of sentence structures, but not anything can be a sentence structure. ... Language is unlimited, but it’s unlimited in a limited way." http://nautil.us/issue/76/language/-talking-is-throwing-fictional-worlds-at-one-another http://nautil.us/issue/76/language/-talking-is-throwing-fict... > I'm a bit confused about what point you're making. Are you talking about individuals "naturally" preferring the correct grammar -- as opposed to learning it? Or the grammar has developing over time? I'm saying the great majority of explicitly learned/taught grammar is not arbitrary or obsolete, but has developed from study and practical experience of what is used and what works well (and what doesn't).

by causi 3y ago

Are there people who speak like that? The a/an rules exist because they make it easier to speak. "I went to get an burger" is more like brain damage than bad grammar.

lolinder 3y ago

Non-native speakers can take a while to pick up rules like that, since the whole language feels thick on their tongues. "I went to get an burger" doesn't necessarily sound much worse to someone who already struggles with "I went to get a burger".

bdw5204 3y ago

In written English, getting a/an wrong is usually a typo or an editing error. In spoken English, it means somebody is a non-native speaker with a beginner's level of fluency in the language.

qwery 3y ago

Your comment comes across (to me) as elitist, rather than curious. But yes, there are people who speak "like that". "An burger" sounds like a abomination to you and is more difficult for you to say than "a burger" because that's how you learned to say it.

thereisnospork 3y ago
>because that's how you learned to say it. That's an oversimplified (and therefore unfair) dismissal. There are 'correct' ways of performing muscle kinematics that stem from nature, and not nurture.[0] For a trite example, consider the golf swing. There is a right way to do it, and the correctness of 'good golf form' does not derive from golfing pedagogy, but physiology. A competent golfer, I would presume, would also experience physical signs of stress from having to watch an amateur at the driving range. [0]I am not enough of a language nerd to attest to a-consonant vs. an-vowel but it seems plausible enough.
- qwery 3y ago
  But your competent golfer learned the 'correct' form/whatever, no? I'm not sure why it matters if the technique is optimised for human physicality.
  - thereisnospork 3y ago
    > I'm not sure why it matters if the technique is optimised for human physicality. It does if you'd like to hit said golf ball far, or accurately. Likewise if the aim is to enunciate clearly[0]. [0]If I may take a presumption for brevity that this is the case, and that this is a reasonably valid objective of the spoken word.
    - qwery 3y ago
      Yes, learning the correct technique (the rules) gets you a more effective result than not. You have to learn to speak english correctly, you have to learn to do a golf swing correctly. The beginner speaker/golfer uses the incorrect form most likely because they haven't learned the correct form. The rules don't exist because it's the easiest way to do it, they exist because it's the correct way to do it.
wolverine876 3y ago
> "An burger" sounds like a abomination to you and is more difficult for you to say than "a burger" because that's how you learned to say it. I could understand someone wondering whether that was true, but what evidence supports that claim? As a wild guess, maybe putting two consonents together, as in 'an burger', is too hard to say and one is eventually dropped.
- qwery 3y ago
  It's plainly obvious that not every person speaking english uses an identical grammar. It seems reasonable to assume that at least some people don't notice the difference/s. The incorrect form must not be significantly more difficult to use because it's being used. They haven't learned that it's incorrect or can't see why it matters. I'm a bit confused about what point you're making. Are you talking about individuals "naturally" preferring the correct grammar -- as opposed to learning it? Or the grammar has developing over time?
  - wolverine876 3y ago
    > not every person speaking english uses an identical grammar. It seems reasonable to assume that at least some people don't notice the difference/s. The incorrect form must not be significantly more difficult to use because it's being used. Not every variation of grammar is equally possible or usable. It's a philosophical argument, a fantasy of (rebellion?), to reject all practices and rules and preferences as arbitrary and therefore to be ignored. Some are arbitrary, some are obsolete, but many have real reasons, value, and impact. From David Adger, professor of linguistics, Queen Mary University of London: "People have a notion of grammar as being a set of rules that someone tells you to do. ... I want to say, 'No, look at the amazing complexity of languages around the world, and look at how unified it all is.'" "There's an unlimited number of even numbers but obviously they’re limited, right? Because 3s and 7s aren't in there. Language is like that. There's an unlimited number of possible things we can say, of sentence structures, but not anything can be a sentence structure. ... Language is unlimited, but it’s unlimited in a limited way." http://nautil.us/issue/76/language/-talking-is-throwing-fictional-worlds-at-one-another http://nautil.us/issue/76/language/-talking-is-throwing-fict... > I'm a bit confused about what point you're making. Are you talking about individuals "naturally" preferring the correct grammar -- as opposed to learning it? Or the grammar has developing over time? I'm saying the great majority of explicitly learned/taught grammar is not arbitrary or obsolete, but has developed from study and practical experience of what is used and what works well (and what doesn't).