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That’s why I personally don’t like ideas like “queens English”, ect… language is defined by the way people use it. Some sort of authority attempting to police i

That’s why I personally don’t like ideas like “queens English”, ect… language is defined by the way people use it. Some sort of authority attempting to police it’s correct usage has always just seemed like gate keeping to me.

dylan604 2y ago
I think the horse left the barn a long time ago with the concept of gatekeeping English. Now, it's just a label of a dialect. Queen's English vs Newfie vs Geordie vs American Mid-Atlantic vs Southern vs Bostonian vs vs vs
- yakshaving_jgt 2y ago
  In Geordie you don't tend to have completely different words though, save for a few colloquialisms borrowed from old Scandinavian languages. It's not as far removed from actual English as, say, a Pidgin.
fragmede 2y ago
but maybe there are some gates are meant to be kept. language evolves, sure, but I literally can't use literally to mean literally anymore because it's sloppily become to also mean figuratively. in this day and age, bureaucracy doesn't have to be glacially slow, and new words could be proposed and officially adopted, if (wait hang on there couldn't possibly be a problem with my plan) people would follow the rules set down by a committee. Thing is, we have such committees for English, and they say Internet should not be capitalized and I say it should, just like Earth or Sun, there's only one.
- AmericanChopper 2y ago
  The thing about language is it’s basically the world’s most pure democracy. Communities, cultures, ect… each decide for themselves how they’re going to use it. Individuals or organisations can attempt to establish themselves as an authority on how it should be used, by forming committees or writing dictionaries, but the only people who care what they have to say are their own respective community of aligned interests. Everybody else ignores them. I would say if you want your dictionary to be actually useful, then it should attempt describe the way words are actually used, rather than attempt to dictate their permissible use. I think English is a language that lends itself to this rigid approach a bit more than some other languages, because of how common it is for English as a first language speakers to only speak English. Where I live there are a lot more languages, basically everybody is multilingual, and the level of slang, language mixing and other general bastardisation would probably make a lot of English speakers cringe…
- NegativeK 2y ago
  Literally has been used to mean figuratively since the 1800s. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/literally https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/literally 'The "in effect; virtually" meaning of literally is not new. It has been in regular use since the 18th century and may be found in the writings of some of the most highly regarded writers of the 19th and early 20th centuries, including Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, Charlotte Brontë, and James Joyce.'
ruraljuror 2y ago
Check out dfw’s Tense Present for a discussion of these opposing schools, prescriptvist vs descriptivist: https://harpers.org/wp-content/uploads/HarpersMagazine-2001-04-0070913.pdf https://harpers.org/wp-content/uploads/HarpersMagazine-2001-...
nayuki 2y ago
> Some sort of authority attempting to police it’s correct usage has always just seemed like gate keeping to me. This is the norm for many languages. For example, French is prescribed by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acad%C3%A9mie_Fran%C3%A7aise https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acad%C3%A9mie_Fran%C3%A7aise , and they like to coin new terms and discourage popularly used terms. But not English! It is the true global language with distributed decision-making.
- AmericanChopper 2y ago
  > This is the norm for many languages. For example, French is prescribed by… Prescribed to who? Is it typical for French speakers to consult Académie Française before using slang, or inventing a portmanteau, or using other colloquialisms? I doubt many French people care much about the opinions of Académie Française, unless they’re actually trying to enforce the authority they believe themselves to have in some way. The authority these institutions claim to have is almost always based on the same set of delusions. Some people care about this sort of formalism and will hold them in high esteem. Most people won’t care about their work, or will (I would say rightfully) see an institution like this as attempting to usurp authority over their language. Because a language doesn’t belong to any institution, it belongs to the speakers of that language, who are free to (and typically do) use it in whatever way they feel conveys what they’re trying to communicate. The only time I’ve ever seen a language authority being widely valued by its community of speakers is where use of the language itself becomes a political issue, like when a mostly dead language is being revived, or when one camp strongly values the use of a language as part of their identity because some opposing camp has a different language.

dylan604 2y ago

I think the horse left the barn a long time ago with the concept of gatekeeping English. Now, it's just a label of a dialect. Queen's English vs Newfie vs Geordie vs American Mid-Atlantic vs Southern vs Bostonian vs vs vs

yakshaving_jgt 2y ago
In Geordie you don't tend to have completely different words though, save for a few colloquialisms borrowed from old Scandinavian languages. It's not as far removed from actual English as, say, a Pidgin.

fragmede 2y ago

but maybe there are some gates are meant to be kept. language evolves, sure, but I literally can't use literally to mean literally anymore because it's sloppily become to also mean figuratively. in this day and age, bureaucracy doesn't have to be glacially slow, and new words could be proposed and officially adopted, if (wait hang on there couldn't possibly be a problem with my plan) people would follow the rules set down by a committee. Thing is, we have such committees for English, and they say Internet should not be capitalized and I say it should, just like Earth or Sun, there's only one.

AmericanChopper 2y ago
The thing about language is it’s basically the world’s most pure democracy. Communities, cultures, ect… each decide for themselves how they’re going to use it. Individuals or organisations can attempt to establish themselves as an authority on how it should be used, by forming committees or writing dictionaries, but the only people who care what they have to say are their own respective community of aligned interests. Everybody else ignores them. I would say if you want your dictionary to be actually useful, then it should attempt describe the way words are actually used, rather than attempt to dictate their permissible use. I think English is a language that lends itself to this rigid approach a bit more than some other languages, because of how common it is for English as a first language speakers to only speak English. Where I live there are a lot more languages, basically everybody is multilingual, and the level of slang, language mixing and other general bastardisation would probably make a lot of English speakers cringe…
NegativeK 2y ago
Literally has been used to mean figuratively since the 1800s. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/literally https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/literally 'The "in effect; virtually" meaning of literally is not new. It has been in regular use since the 18th century and may be found in the writings of some of the most highly regarded writers of the 19th and early 20th centuries, including Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, Charlotte Brontë, and James Joyce.'

ruraljuror 2y ago

Check out dfw’s Tense Present for a discussion of these opposing schools, prescriptvist vs descriptivist: https://harpers.org/wp-content/uploads/HarpersMagazine-2001-04-0070913.pdf https://harpers.org/wp-content/uploads/HarpersMagazine-2001-...

nayuki 2y ago

> Some sort of authority attempting to police it’s correct usage has always just seemed like gate keeping to me. This is the norm for many languages. For example, French is prescribed by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acad%C3%A9mie_Fran%C3%A7aise https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acad%C3%A9mie_Fran%C3%A7aise , and they like to coin new terms and discourage popularly used terms. But not English! It is the true global language with distributed decision-making.

AmericanChopper 2y ago
> This is the norm for many languages. For example, French is prescribed by… Prescribed to who? Is it typical for French speakers to consult Académie Française before using slang, or inventing a portmanteau, or using other colloquialisms? I doubt many French people care much about the opinions of Académie Française, unless they’re actually trying to enforce the authority they believe themselves to have in some way. The authority these institutions claim to have is almost always based on the same set of delusions. Some people care about this sort of formalism and will hold them in high esteem. Most people won’t care about their work, or will (I would say rightfully) see an institution like this as attempting to usurp authority over their language. Because a language doesn’t belong to any institution, it belongs to the speakers of that language, who are free to (and typically do) use it in whatever way they feel conveys what they’re trying to communicate. The only time I’ve ever seen a language authority being widely valued by its community of speakers is where use of the language itself becomes a political issue, like when a mostly dead language is being revived, or when one camp strongly values the use of a language as part of their identity because some opposing camp has a different language.