> Re the British example:  Sorry, I should have said it was de rigueur NEVER to
draw attention to the class difference in the speech of sports commentators.

Edmond



Bill, I agree completely. My observation is quite different from yours, and
> I high-jacked your topic to drop my tangential curiosity on ATEG. Sorry
> about that!
> 
> I DO know what you mean though; I'm not sure what to make of it most of the
> time. I often chalk it up to processing issues because so many of my
> students seem to struggle with cognitive overload when it comes to the
> writing process. For so many reasons, they speed write, trying to force the
> core content of their ideas (which they first twist and gnarl into bulky,
> stilted constructions that they think I expect) onto the page before they
> "lose" the thought completely. Perhaps some of the grammatical nuts and
> bolts are getting lost along the way. In any case, I agree with you that
> these occurrences are not always dialect-based and are a written, not
> spoken, phenomenon.
> 
> John Alexander
> 
> On Thu, May 14, 2009 at 6:23 PM, Spruiell, William C
> <[log in to unmask]>wrote:
> 
>>  John,
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> People who don¹t make an ³X vs. X-ly² distinction in writing also don¹t, as
>> you point out, make it in speech either. That¹s more what I think of as an
>> effect of normal language change; people are writing what they actually say,
>> whether or not a usage guide would approve of it. The students who are
>> dropping the ­ing suffixes do say it. It¹s almost as if they¹re classing it
>> with expression such as ³ummŠ² or the ³like² that¹s, like, used to, like,
>> mark, like, hesitation.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> Bill Spruiell
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> *From:* Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar [mailto:
>> [log in to unmask]] *On Behalf Of *John Dews-Alexander
>> *Sent:* Thursday, May 14, 2009 6:58 PM
>> *To:* [log in to unmask]
>> *Subject:* Re: Suffix-dropping
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> I've been amazed at the loss of the derivational suffix -ly that routinely
>> marks adverbs.
>> 
>> Bill's talking about inflectional suffixes, I know, but I couldn't help
>> mentioning the loss of -ly.
>> 
>> I'm not one to cling to language bits that are rusting out and
>> disappearing, but it really took me by surprise that -ly is not a productive
>> part of the language for many speakers.
>> 
>> If you focus on it and really listen to current language usage on
>> television (both scripted and unscripted), in radio, and with the people you
>> encounter, you'll notice it too.
>> 
>> John Alexander
>> 
>> On Thu, May 14, 2009 at 5:41 PM, Spruiell, William C <[log in to unmask]>
>> wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> I¹ve read a ton of student papers over the past two weeks, and based on
>> this batch and those from the last couple of years, I¹m starting to get the
>> impression that a greater percentage of my students every year are dropping
>> inflectional suffixes (plurals, tense-markers) and finding it difficult to
>> notice the omissions when proofreading (I haven¹t been formally counting, so
>> I could be mistaking something I¹ve just noticed for a trend, though).  I¹ve
>> always seen some of this in examples where the suffix isn¹t audible in
>> normal speech, particularly  if the suffix is well on the way to being a
>> kind of fossil in the particular expression(e.g. ³ice tea² ­ you can¹t hear
>> the realization of the {-ed} suffix before [t], and ³iced² in that
>> expression is probably a unitary adjective rather than a participle for most
>> speakers who do use the ­ed in writing). That¹s absolutely normal, and over
>> time the suffix-less form can become the norm (³ice cream² used to be ³iced
>> cream²).
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> What I¹m seeing, though, are forms like ³I was read this book² or ³These
>> short story areŠ.²; they¹re in papers written by native English-speakers who
>> don¹t speak any of the dialects that would normally drop those suffixes, and
>> the same students do use the suffixes in speech (it¹s exactly the reverse of
>> the usual situation, in which students don¹t know they have to write bits
>> that they don¹t say). If I draw attention to a line in which there¹s a
>> missing ­ing, etc., the students frequently **can¹t** see anything unusual
>> about it; their usual reaction is to look at it for a minute, then get rid
>> of a comma (if there is one) or add one (if there isn¹t).  It¹s that
>> inability to notice the ³gap² that I¹m particularly intrigued by. If I read
>> the section out loud, they immediately notice the omission (and I then tell
>> them that they need to coerce friends into reading papers out loud for them
>> as a coping strategy). It¹s not a language issue at all; it¹s just an
>> orthographic one.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> I know similar effects can be associated with mild forms of dyslexia, but I
>> find it hard to believe that fully 15 - 25% of the student population is
>> even mildly dyslexic.   I realize this is starting to sound like a variant
>> of ³Geezer Rant #325A; Those Darn Kids Won¹t Write Right² but I¹m curious
>> about whether anyone else is noticing similar patterns, or whether this has
>> been common all along and I¹ve somehow managed not to notice it (which,
>> given the rest of this post, would be rather amusing for everyone but meŠ).
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> ---- Bill Spruiell
>> 
>> Dept. of English
>> 
>> Central Michigan University
>> 
>> To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface
>> at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html and select "Join or
>> leave the list"
>> 
>> Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/
>> 
>> 
>> To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface
>> at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html and select "Join or
>> leave the list"
>> 
>> Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/
>>  To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web
>> interface at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html and select
>> "Join or leave the list"
>> 
>> Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/
>> 
> 
> To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at:
>      http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html
> and select "Join or leave the list"
> 
> Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/

To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at:
     http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html
and select "Join or leave the list"

Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/