What ever happened to language and Grammar?

[Pjotr]

But then, English speakers are comparatively lucky.... My native language, which is Dutch, is suffering from what I call the "English disease". A creeping and quite unnecessary replacement of fine Dutch words by English words (almost exclusively American, not British).

This "English disease" has affected many other non-English languages as well, all over the planet. The end result will probably not only be the death of those other languages, but also the appearance of a worldwide horribly mutilated and simplified pidgin English, which will most likely "eat up" original English in the process.

It's not a new phenomenon though.... and it happened to English itself in the past with French particularly inserting itself.

It's what happens with lingua franca's, they infect everything.

In SA Afrikaans (my language) is kinda progressively bastardized by region. The closer you get to the Cape in the south the more English and Afrikaans words are used interchangeably. The curse of bilingualism is that you can sometimes only remember a word in one language not both and Anglicization is rife. And that ignores the Cape dialect which no one understands half the time anyway if it's spoken fast.

TBH I really don't care about all languages surviving, the smallest one's tend to be unimportant or primitive anyway and are of no objective loss if they die. In cases where languages are ethnically tied to a race of people.... that's different. In that case the people and the language cannot be separated, if the langue changes so do the people.... but generally I treat language as just another tool to be discarded if rendered obsolete.

It would be a pity if Afrikaans died.... It's beautiful: it's as compact and powerful as the tough people that speak it. In that, it reminds me of that other ultra compact and forceful language, the Latin that the Romans spoke.

As Afrikaans is a "sister language" of Dutch, I can easily understand it. I particularly like the songs from Bok van Blerk, and this poetic song from Robbie Wessels (I don't like many of his other songs, but this is a true gem):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKP8kkwCAhQ

[rambo919]

It would be a pity if Afrikaans died.... It's beautiful: it's as compact and powerful as the tough people that speak it. In that, it reminds me of that other ultra compact and forceful language, the Latin that the Romans spoke.

As Afrikaans is a "sister language" of Dutch, I can easily understand it. I particularly like the songs from Bok van Blerk, and this poetic song from Robbie Wessels (I don't like many of his other songs, but this is a true gem):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKP8kkwCAhQ

I don't think Afrikaans will die... but it will likely have a later incarnation the same way older languages have had. Interesting point you make about Latin, today it is a language often associated with snobbery and other delusions of self-importance.

There is not many songs in Afrikaans that actually grabs my attention, I think that has a lot to do with Afrikaners having lost their belief in themselves after the inevitable failure of Apartheid to secure a better future, psychologically we are a people imprisoned in Babylon. There is no soul in most of the music currently, it's often just a self-soothing emulation of other song traditions. And then there is the problem where the industry is caught in the vice grip of an elitist (left-leaning and as such anti-confidence) self-destructive cadre.

I think there will be a revival of the language but only when the self-pity is killed off similar to (but hopefully more stable) what happened with Israel.

All this I think is true for all western languages atm though.... a loss of confidence in the body of the volk leads to a loss of interest in the language of the volk. There is just no motivation to do a good job of it atm.... on the other hand I have no particular love of English personally anyway (due to a variety of factors) so I have myself no motivation to memorize it's spelling beyond what gets me by.

And then there is the problem where people can pictorialize words and memorize how they look without memorizing their spelling.... which I mostly do with odd names in fiction because I really cannot be bothered to try and figure out how to say them. I think this is increasingly happening with a lot of words because they simply are not commonly used and people understand associations with them rather than actually understanding them leading to "I don't think that means what you think that means".

[RollyShed]

As well as spelling there are a few other items. The annoying people are those who have nothing to say and spend a long times saying it.
"Going forward into the future" anyone tried going in backwards into the future?

There has been lots of requests for "social distancing". You can sit elbow to elbow and be socially distanced but not physically distanced which is what has been wanted for the past 2 years. Wrong terminology.

"At this moment in time" is a "moment" anything other than in "time"?

[rambo919]

As well as spelling there are a few other items. The annoying people are those who have nothing to say and spend a long times saying it.
"Going forward into the future" anyone tried going in backwards into the future?

There has been lots of requests for "social distancing". You can sit elbow to elbow and be socially distanced but not physically distanced which is what has been wanted for the past 2 years. Wrong terminology.

"At this moment in time" is a "moment" anything other than in "time"?

Otherwise known as jibber jabber.

Certain people can say the most stupid things but have perfect grammar and spelling.... and then look down on people saying intelligent things with flawed grammar or spelling. It's things like these that make you wonder if class warfare has made a comeback.... and not wanting to admit it has.

Marxists and their polar opposite are kinda morons in many aspects.... but they can be very articulate and people confuse that for intelligence and truth.

A pet peeve for me is the meaningless "people of colour"..... So whites are what? Colourless? White is not a colour anymore?

[AZgl1800]

Back in the 8th grade, I had a very talented English teacher, I just loved that lady. She was/is a gem ( providing she still lives, which is doubtful, I am 79 now )

At the time, we learned how the English language was constructed, what and why adverbs are used, or should not be used.

Over the years, I have noticed that the News Media is atrociously horrible with posting up garbage that obviously has never been reviewed by anyone. Most of that garbage is constructed from a Smartphone in the T9 language, and the result is horrible.

Being an Okie not from Muskogee, I was raised in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma – and not having been forced to take “foreign languages” in school, I am now sorry that I do not understand Hispanic speakers, nor French speakers, nor the Dutch, Russian or anything other than the local “Tex-Mex-Okie” speak as I grew up and have always worked in the Greater Southwest of Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona with a touch of Mormonism from working a while in the state of Utah…. My kids attended a Mormon school for one year while we were there.

One of my favorite peeves is the miss use of “to” and “too” of which the later means “also”

time to stop, I am rambling.

[Schultz]

But more seriously.... English is a bastard language stemming from a Germanic dialect. It was always going to bastardise even more.

Aren't most languages today like that? They all came from somewhere. Even the ones that can be proven to go back 2,000 or more years.

[rambo919]

But more seriously.... English is a bastard language stemming from a Germanic dialect. It was always going to bastardise even more.

Aren't most languages today like that? They all came from somewhere. Even the ones that can be proven to go back 2,000 or more years.

Difference is English came from multiple sources though it seems to mostly be Friesian with a French expansion and a few other addons.

[Portreve]

Actually, English is a Germanic language with a significant number of French loan words, and then a (comparative) smattering of words and ideas of how words should be spelled from a variety of other sources. For example, certain words which begin with the silent letter K (knife, knob, etc.) have a Dutch printer behind their origin.

English's biggest problem is that it never was standardized like, for example, French was. There's no single definitive standard for spelling or grammar. In fact, for a very long time, English was considered (and rather dismissively, in my opinion) to be the "common tongue" which needed no formal education, unlike Latin, German, French, Spanish, etc. It's something which I think is ironic given some of the very finest literature and poetry ever written — not all, to be sure, but a not inconsiderable amount — originated in English.

I find myself having issues which dovetail nicely with something Pjotr mentioned above: global hijacking. It really would be a loss to humanity to eliminate all the myriad different languages which exist. To be honest, I owe my recognition of this to friends of mine who are German (and, natürlich, multilingual) because I come from an America of a time when there was no broad effort to teach (for purpose of actual use) multiple different languages. Just like AZgl1800 who is 30 years my senior, I am natively monolingual. My traditional perspective on language — which is a very American one — is all I need is just one language. After all, I can travel across the approximately 3.8 million square miles of my English-speaking country and never need any other language. I think this also explains to a great degree a similar situation with our refusal to actually metricate.

To be fair, this brings up an entirely different subject which I will not get into here: cultural isolation (and one of its direct and proximate effects: ethnocentrism).

However, the act of learning, as well as the act of using different languages causes one to exercise one's brain in different ways. Moreover, if one truly pays attention to how things are done in different languages, you can pick up on different assumptions — often culturally-bound — from that culture. That, to me, is an absolutely fascinating thing.

And so, what I've learned from my German friends as well as others over the years is to stretch my mind and learn new things because those very same 3.8 mill... er, I mean 9,8 million km² aren't the only km² on Earth.

[slipstick]

Actually, English is a Germanic language with a significant number of French loan words, and then a (comparative) smattering of words and ideas of how words should be spelled from a variety of other sources. For example, certain words which begin with the silent letter K (knife, knob, etc.) have a Dutch printer behind their origin.

But it's much more complicated than that. I have a very interesting book, which I just re-read a few months ago:
"Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue - The Untold History of English" by John McWhorter. Here's a quote from this book summarizing what happened to English even before the Norman conquest:

"The History of English we are usually given is rather static. Some marauders brought Old English to Britain. The Celts scampered away. Pretty soon the Brits went cosmopolitan and started gathering baskets of words from assorted folks, such that now we have a bigger vocabulary than before. The only thing that happened to English grammar during all this time, other than minutiae only a linguist could love, is that it lost a lot of endings, and this made word order less flexible.
The History of English is more than that. An offshoot of Proto-Indo-European borrowed a third of its vocabulary from another language. That language may have been Phoenician; certainly, there was some language. Its speakers submitted the Proto-Indo-European offshoot to a grammatical overhaul. As adults, they could not help shaving off a lot of its complications, and rendering parts of the grammar in ways familiar to them from their native language. This left Proto-Germanic a language both mixed and abbreviated before it even gave birth to new languages -- and meant that it passed this mixed, abbreviated nature on to those new languages.
One of them was Old English, which morphed merrily along carrying the odd sound patterns, vowel-switching past marking, and mystery vocabulary from Proto-Germanic, just as organisms morph along through the ages carrying and replicating mitochondrial DNA patterns tracing back to the dawn of life. Old English was taken up by speakers of yet another language -- or in this case, languages: Celtic ones. As Celts started using English more and more over the decades, English gradually took an infusion of grammatical features from Welsh and Cornish, including a usage of do known in no other languages on earth.
Not long afterward, speakers of yet one more language filtered English yet again. Vikings speaking Old Norse picked up the language fast, and gave it a second shave, so to speak, after what had happened to Proto-Germanic over on the Continent more than a thousand years beforehand. English's grammar became the least "fussy" of all of the Germanic languages, impatient with "nuance" as Edward Sapir had it, and leaving its speakers, like Mark Twain, with a special challenge in mastering the complxities of other Germanic languages.
The result: a tongue oddly genderless and telegraphic for a European one, clotted with peculiar ways of using do and progressive -ing -- with, in addition, indeed, a great big bunch or words from other languages. Not only Norse, French, Latin, and Greek, but possibly Phoenician -- or if not, some other language, but surely that."

English's biggest problem is that it never was standardized like, for example, French was. There's no single definitive standard for spelling or grammar.

I read somewhere that at the time the printing press was introduced into Britain the pronunciation of many words varied in different regions so words were spelled differently in different parts of Britain and these "weird" spellings were "locked in" so to speak by being widely printed. I don't remember the details, or even if this is really what happened, but it sounds plausible.

I come from an America of a time when there was no broad effort to teach (for purpose of actual use) multiple different languages. Just like AZgl1800 who is 30 years my senior, I am natively monolingual

When I was in high school (early 60's - Fort Worth, Texas), languages were taught - as I recall, Latin, French, German, and Spanish. I took two years of Spanish there, then when I was in university I took two years of German and one year of Russian (and if you think German grammar is complicated, try Russian - LOL). I have forgotten all the Russian except for a handful of words, but I remember a bit of German, probably due to brushing up on the language prior to a couple of business trips to Germany (Kaiserslautern in '83 and Munich in '85). Still trying to learn more Spanish now and then - I can read it fairly well, but not speak or understand it (being hard of hearing doesn't help).

[AZgl1800]

Still trying to learn more Spanish now and then - I can read it fairly well, but not speak or understand it (being hard of hearing doesn't help).

I was born, Stone Cold Deaf: a doctor did miracles on my ears at the age of 12. Took another 10 years for me to "understand" what people were saying. both ear drums have holes in them, and I have severe Tinnitus 24/7/365


Back in 1993-2010, I lived in Mesa, Arizona and I did a lot of home landscaping.
I used the laborers on the street corners around town.
after the 1st summer was over, I took a six week compressed course in Colloquial Spanish taught by the Wife of a local Professor at the University.

The lady has a PHD in Languages, and she was born in Mexico... wonderful lady, just loved that gal.
After her classes, I was able to converse with the laborers enough that they understood what I wanted, and that they were not going to able to just slouch around and not do their jobs.

but, after I moved from Mesa, AZ in the spring of 2011 to Oklahoma where I was raised, my "Spanish" is now about 10 words.

[slipstick]

... I was able to converse with the laborers enough that they understood what I wanted....

I can express very simple things in Spanish, but find it much harder to understand it (they really speak it "rapid-fire" around here).

[RollyShed]

I do a bit of proof reading and have just gone through a book which will probably have about 250 pages when printed. The author, sensibly, has passed it on to another proofreader for her to now go over it. Hopefully, with enough people checking things, it will be reasonably correct.

Two things I've noticed, possibly just me, I can scan a page (at times), not reading it, and spot typos, some of the typos, not all.

The other (excuse?) is "never proof your own work" meaning, do your best but don't expect to get it all right as you will think you have written one thing but actually have written something else. One book I published, I had an offer from a friend to proof it. Only 1 to 3 edits per page were necessary after I'd spent a lot of time going over and over it.

[Jymm]

Why Your Brain Lets You Make Grammar Mistakes (Even If You Know Better)
https://blog.hubspot.com/agency/brain-grammar-mistakes

Generalization is the grouping strategy that helps our brains respond quickly to situations similar to one we're already familiar with. It's what helps us take in information, combine it with our habits and past experiences, and then extract meaning from it. And it's fundamental to our ability to communicate.

But, at the same time, it makes us prone to grammatical mistakes no matter how well we can write. Typos aren't usually a result of stupidity or carelessness, Dr. Stafford explains. Instead, they often happen because trying to convey meaning in your writing is actually a very high-level task.

"As with all high-level tasks, your brain generalizes simple, component parts (like turning letters into words and words into sentences) so it can focus on more complex tasks (like combining sentences into complex ideas)," writes Stockton.

It is also rude to point out typos and grammar mistakes of others:
Study: People Who Point Out Typos Are Jerks

https://gizmodo.com/study-people-who-po ... 1767969516

According to a bunch of fancy linguists, people who are more sensitive to written typos and grammatical errors are indeed the kinds of Type A a-holes everyone already suspects them to be.

The findings came from a new study out of the University of Michigan. Researchers gathered 83 people and had them read emails that either contained typos (“mkae” or “abuot”), grammar errors (to/too, it’s/its or your/you’re), or no spelling mistakes at all. At the end, the participants, who had also been asked to give information about themselves, scored the writers on “perceived intelligence, friendliness, and other attributes.”

The team reported that extroverts were more likely to wave off spelling errors, whereas introverts were basically like, “You’re a f***ing idiot, learn to construct a goddamn sentence, Christ almighty.” Less agreeable people were more likely to notice grammar errors, which the researchers mused was because these types “are less tolerant of deviations from convention.” (Or they’re just a-holes, but who can say?) People who were more conscientious and less open were more sensitive to typos.

It didn’t really matter whether it was a typo or a grammatical error, though, because the results were clear: The people who notice either of these things and let it inform their perspective are what I believe kids these days are calling “the worst.”

[Hoser Rob]

English is actually a sort of creole due to the fact that there were several Germanic tribes occupying England in the post Roman Empire era, all speaking different Germanic dialects. That's why German has gendered words and English doesn't. among other things.

I never learned the rules of English grammar, it's all by ear. Studying grammar is really only all that useful for learning other languages.

And if you want to know why English language skills have gone downhill so far, the short version is that school standards have been falling for a long time (at least in North America, the English seem to write/speak a lot better to me). I used to grade essays in a 1st year Univ course about 30 years ago. A C meant that it was so badly written I had no idea what the frak they were talking about most of the time. A B meant you could understand it but most of it had nothing to do with the topic because they weren't capable of reading something and being able to tell what the important parts were. This is what you call grade inflation and things have not improved since.

[rambo919]

The team reported that extroverts were more likely to wave off spelling errors, whereas introverts were basically like, “You’re a f***ing idiot, learn to construct a ---damn sentence, ------ almighty.” Less agreeable people were more likely to notice grammar errors, which the researchers mused was because these types “are less tolerant of deviations from convention.” (Or they’re just a-holes, but who can say?) People who were more conscientious and less open were more sensitive to typos.

It didn’t really matter whether it was a typo or a grammatical error, though, because the results were clear: The people who notice either of these things and let it inform their perspective are what I believe kids these days are calling “the worst.”

I cannot read this without thinking of a specific few grade AAA a-holes I have delt with who use it as some sort of superior deflection "gotcha" when they lose arguments.... "ignore what was said, pick apart the most minute errors in delivery as proof of inferiority". They also tend to me immensely childish in general.

[AZgl1800]

I also "proof read" books, but at the author's request before publishing.

My typing?
the errors don't show up, until I click on POST and see it in a different format.

I have learned to use LO Writer for my 'doctorial essays' as it finds my dyslexic fingers and does 'AutoCorrect' for me

[Schultz]

Re: the idea of people being idiots for pointing out grammar mistakes . . .

I was part of a group of people a while ago which shared a common interest. There was one guy there always coming up with different things that were really "out there" to the rest of us. He was always rocking the boat with his ideas. So one day one of the fellows told him to put down all his ideas in an 'essay type' of write up for all of us to read. He did so and gave us all copies. There were so many spelling mistakes (if I recall, just about every other sentence had a mistake) that none of us could take what he wrote seriously. So yeah, you can call someone an idiot for expecting good grammar and spelling, but at the end of the day, a person's bad grammar and spelling ends up hurting themselves [sic] more than others. So the moral of the story is, if you want people to take you seriously, brush up on your grammar and spelling.

BTW, this guy's ideas were such b.s. anyway it didn't matter; but if there weren't as many spelling mistakes I probably would have gave it more attention and not dismiss it as quickly as I (and the rest of us) did.

[NOTE: I proofread this twice for mistakes before posting so nobody could call me out on it. Hopefully I didn't miss any. ]

[AZgl1800]

Re: the idea of people being idiots for pointing out grammar mistakes . . .

I was part of a group of people a while ago which shared a common interest. There was one guy there always coming up with different things that were really "out there" to the rest of us. He was always rocking the boat with his ideas. So one day one of the fellows told him to put down all his ideas in an 'essay type' of write up for all of us to read. He did so and gave us all copies. There were so many spelling mistakes (if I recall, just about every other sentence had a mistake) that none of us could take what he wrote seriously. So yeah, you can call someone an idiot for expecting good grammar and spelling, but at the end of the day, a person's bad grammar and spelling ends up hurting themselves [sic] more than others. So the moral of the story is, if you want people to take you seriously, brush up on your grammar and spelling.

BTW, this guy's ideas were such b.s. anyway it didn't matter; but if there weren't as many spelling mistakes I probably would have gave it more attention and not dismiss it as quickly as I (and the rest of us) did.

[NOTE: I proofread this twice for mistakes before posting so nobody could call me out on it. Hopefully I didn't miss any. ]

You passed

[RollyShed]

I would say the main difference is a multitude of spelling and grammar mistakes or just one unfortunate one.
When the writer doesn't use capitals at the start of a sentence or any punctuation any where, then it is either laziness or ignorance.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

...I proofread this twice for mistakes before posting so nobody could call me out on it. Hopefully I didn't miss any. ]

Don't feel bad. I can proofread something I wrote multiple times and still miss some real stinkers. My mind has a habit of substituting what should be there, such as having a wrong letter or skipping a word, so, when I read it shortly after writing it, I "see" it as what it should be, not what it actually is.