Back in the dim, misty reaches of the past, when I first was exposed to
a school biology text, there were only two "Kingdoms" of living things
in the standard taxonomy: Animalia and Plantae. By the time I got to
high school, things had changed; they had added Fungi. This annoyed me,
since I thought that anything that went on a pizza and was not meat was,
by definition, a vegetable, but all the biologists seemed to agree that
this was the right thing to do. And, I thought, since Brussels sprouts
were a vegetable and most emphatically did *not* go on pizza, my
taxonomic views might have a flaw in them anyway. By college, those damn
biologists had added Protista, or something to that effect. By now,
they've probably even added something that lets them account for
whatever the heck it is that Velveeta is made out of.
Now, biologists had known about mushrooms and protozoans all along. And
there had been no major morphological changes in mushrooms or protozoans
while I was going to school. What *had* happened was that the community
of biologists had decided that particular differences between fungi and
"other plants," which had caused them to class fungi as a separate
phylum within Plantae, should be taken more seriously, and therefore
could motivate making a new "Kingdom" for them. In a somewhat analogous
move, botanists decided that a class of plants previously termed
"cruciform" (because of the way a cross-section of the stem looked; this
includes the aforementioned Brussels sprouts) should be termed
"Brassicae" instead (I *think* because some new plants were added to it
that did not have the requisite cross-shaped structure).
"Cruciform" had been used for a *very* long time in the botanical
literature, and generation upon generation of students had come out of
schools thinking that Animalia and Plantae were all there was,
kingdom-wise. However, there was no wailing and gnashing of teeth among
botanists, nor among students either (other than that minimum expected
of students who have a pulse and don't have a high fever). They knew
that a taxonomy is....a taxonomy. It's an organized system for
describing similarities and differences among things that (one hopes) is
internally consistent, and which emphasizes whatever criteria *are
important for its users*. Tomatoes are a fruit to botanists, but a
vegetable to cooks -- they go on pizza, but don't go with chocolate at
all. Neither label can be judged "correct" out of context; a cook need
not consider a tomato a vegetable just because it has seeds, and no one
forces botanists to eat chocolate-tomato mousse. And neither cooks nor
botanists have the copyright to the English language (I'm trying to get
a patent on it, though. That would be cool! Imagine the opportunities to
frighten one's colleagues!).
As for the wider public's reactions to changes in the biological
taxonomy, it was, to put it mildly, muted. A few gardeners (e.g., me)
looked at our seed catalogs and had to take a moment to adjust, but
somehow it didn't cause our world to collapse. It just gave the seed
companies a nice little "Did you know?" item to fill up that empty
rectangle on page 28 that they would have otherwise had to put a cute
cat photo in.
And at this point I'll stop pontificating on the subject. Phil, I won't
accept any counterarguments to this unless you manage to work in both
Velveeta *and* Brussels sprouts into the response. Anything else will
lack the requisite lucidity and full-deck-itude.
Bill Spruiell
Dept. of English
Central Michigan University
-----Original Message-----
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Phil Bralich
Sent: Friday, July 28, 2006 2:04 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Proposed grammar terms
There is no vote here. And I doubt that there are more than one or two
who have their hackles up on this rather trivial issue. And even if
there were one-hundred to one, the arguments I am providing are lucid
and effective what is coming back is not. Paul's solution to use
"parts of speech" with "word class" as an appositive is intelligent and
would likely give the movement a little more staying power. But it
cannot be said clearly enough -- thinking you can eliminate or replace
the term "Parts of Speech" is delusional.
Phil Bralich
-----Original Message-----
>From: Craig Hancock <[log in to unmask]>
>Sent: Jul 28, 2006 1:30 PM
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: Proposed grammar terms
>
>Phil,
> If you're being outvoted by twenty to one (I haven't counted, but
the
>margin is large), I'm not sure it's helpful to call everyone else
>foolish. I'm not as concerned about the issue as I am about the way we
>should proceed. I don't think a single person can or should have veto
>power over the group.
> The consensus seems to be that we'll mention "parts of speech" but
use
>"word classes." That's a compromise position to many people in the
>group. Why don't we leave it like that and move on.
>
>Craig
> These anecdotal reports don't change the fact that English books
going
>> back hundreds of years use the term and there is no reason to change
>> it. If it has been taught and they trouble with the term, you may
want
>> to check the thickness of their tongues. There are terms in typing
and
>> home economics classes that are a bigger challenge. Phil Bralich
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: "Paul E. Doniger"
>> Sent: Jul 27, 2006 9:18 PM
>> To: [log in to unmask]
>> Subject: Re: Proposed grammar terms
>>
>> For the record, when I ask my (usually very bright) high school
>> students to identify the part of speech of a given word, I invariably
>> get a large number of blank stares and "what's a part of speech?"
>> responses from them. Apparently, the term is not comfortable enough
>> for them to remember it well from year to year -- or perhaps they
>> never learned it at all, and now it sounds odd to them. Paul D.
>>
>> ----- Original Message ----
>> From: Phil Bralich
>> To: [log in to unmask]
>> Sent: Thursday, July 27, 2006 6:14:38 PM
>> Subject: Re: Proposed grammar terms
>>
>>
>> I am not convinced. The term Parts of Speech is ubiquitous and people
are
>> more likely to wonder why it is being avoided or what it different
about
>> word classes than think the same set of terms is being presented.
You
>> certainly do not want to give newbies the impression that Parts of
Speech
>> and Word Classes are something different as happens when you have
other
>> duplications of terminology such as predicate nominate and noun
complement
>> It just makes students think the job is bigger than it is. And you
>> certainly don't want our need for entertainment to be the cause of
>> students thinking there is something different between the word
classes of
>> ATEG and Parts of Speech of history and the rest of the world.
Phil
>> Bralich
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Bruce Despain
>> Sent: Jul 27, 2006 5:09 PM
>> To: [log in to unmask]
>> Subject: Re: Proposed grammar terms
>>
>> The following from Johanna Rubba: The phrase "word classes" sounds
odd
>> to Phil, and probably to many who
>> are steeped in the "traditional" approaches to grammar. But "parts of
>> speech" sounds much stranger to people who have little to no
background
>> in that tradition. I think it is safe to say that the vast majority
of
>> people working in the schools today, meaning schoolchildren and
younger
>> teachers, and probably most parents as well, have no deeply-ingrained
>> associations with the phrase "parts of speech". I'm sure they've
heard
>> it, just like they have heard "direct object" and "verb", but
everyone
>> is attesting to their students' inability to find either of these in
a
>> sentence. We'll have a battle with the _powers_ that currently
dictate
>> content
>> for grammar-teaching materials. "Word classes" will no doubt be much
>> more understandable to newbies, since it means exactly what is says.
>> "Parts of speech" could be phonemes, syllables, words, affixes,
clauses
>> ... basically anything which is used in building language. "Part" is
a
>> very vague term. Writing is also not just "speech written down". It
>> started out that way
>> in some cultures (writing down speech was apparently not its original
>> motivation in the Near East civilizations where our alphabet's
>> ancestors were invented; commerce was). But writing has been with us
>> for so long, now, that it has had time to develop its own structural
>> and lexical characteristics. The difference in _mode_ is crucial:
>> speech puts severe memory and time limits on planning, production,
and
>> comprehension which are not present in the read/write mode. Also, the
>> association of writing with "high" pursuits such as religion, law,
and
>> scholarship has encouraged a higher formality level and richer and
more
>> varied word choice. Written language has greater syntactic
complexity,
>> longer sentences, more-varied vocabulary, and controlled ways of
>> handling repetition, such as use of synonyms and careful attention to
>> pronoun-antecedent relations. If ! we actually wrote as we spoke
>> (especially ordinary, everyday talk as opposed to intellectual
>> commentary), the writing would be nearly incomprehensible most of the
>> time. Various medical theories, e.g. of humors and so on, were also
>> accepted
>> for thousands of years. That doesn't mean they were accurate. Phil
has
>> yet to respond to any of my posts on either grammar terms or
>> on my statements regarding the definition of prescriptivism and the
>> harm current practices do to large segments of the school population.
>> He has, however, spent plenty of words telling us that we're "not
>> playing with a full deck". Is it his wish to engage in an open,
>> scientifically-informed discussion, or to play the naysayer, and not
>> back up his claims with anything more than "it has been an accepted
>> tradition for over a thousand years"? He is certainly altogether
>> correct in saying that grammarians didn't invent the structure of
>> language -- they discovered it. But discoveries about much of the
>> natural world, ourselves included, have taken thousands of years to
get
>> anywhere near predictive accuracy. Past scholars of language have
come
>> up with only partially correct descriptions of it. Perhaps the most
>> accomplished ancient grammarian was Panini, whose! work on Sanskrit
>> matched the sophistication of modern linguistics. The medieval Arab
>> grammarians also had significant insights. I don't believe Europeans
>> came up with anything that matches Panini until the late 19th-,
>> early-20th centuries. Dr. Johanna Rubba, Associate Professor,
>> Linguistics
>> Linguistics Minor Advisor
>> English Department
>> California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo
>> E-mail: [log in to unmask]
>> Tel.: 805.756.2184
>> Dept. Ofc. Tel.: 805.756.2596
>> Dept. Fax: 805.756.6374
>> URL: http://www.cla.calpoly.edu/~jrubba
>>
>>
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