Larry--

I just heard, "He ain't been on line recently' from a lower middle class
male Caucasian in Orlando.  Those who do not like 'Caucasian', tough!
I am not White--the few I know are albinos.  And don't call me Pink!
Pink is a political term; e.g., "Parlor Pinks and the lunatic fringe."

Coercion is sometimes necessary: write a formal paper in txtspk and you
fail.  Joos' Five clocks should be of every English class that involves
writing.  My graduate linguistics professor requires all work to be based
on peer-reviewed academic journals cite in a specific database, LLBA.
Use Wiki and you walki out the door.


I also agree with Bill's suggestion of replacing "academic" with "careful
and explicit exposition and argumentation that is suited to its purpose
and audience," would result in fewer problems (and better results).

N. Scott Catledge, PhD/STD
Professor Emeritus
history & languages



I'd do it but I ain't got the time.  Great example!

On Tue, Jun 2, 2009 at 2:36 PM, Larry Beason <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Herb,
> Can you give examples of people who use 'ain't' for a contraction of
> 'has/have not.'  I might not be thinking it through, but I cannot think of
> any such instances myself.
>
> Just curious.
>
> Larry
>
> ____________________________
> Larry Beason, Associate Professor
> Director of Composition
> University of South Alabama
> Mobile, AL 36688-0002
> Office: 251-460-7861
> FAX: 251-461-1517
>
Date:    Wed, 3 Jun 2009 08:06:56 -0600
From:    Bruce Despain <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: "Result gives"; ATEG Digest - 2 Jun 2009 - Special issue
(#2009-135)

--_000_C62F596A20AB834B86375CE75059D1374A644291B0MBX01ldschurc_
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
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Scott, I think, has simply reiterated how logic is normally so loose in lan=
guage.   Perhaps the problem I have with "gives" is that it is one step fur=
ther along in the derivation.  The blending of meanings is ubiquitous in la=
nguage.  My point is simply that it would be more analytic to distinguish t=
he two:

Old-fashioned diagramming gives me the subject and verb immediately.

The result of old-fashioned diagramming's being ingrained in me is that I p=
arse the subject and verb immediately.

The problem with the Harriet and Joanna (you've deleted their names and my =
memory is faulty) sentence was that the concepts were blended and referred =
back to, much like those of my example (and yours).

Bruce

>>> "STAHLKE, HERBERT F" <[log in to unmask]> 6/1/2009 8:30 PM >>>
Peter,

That's exactly what happened with "ain't."  Up into the 16th c. it was the =
standard contraction of "am not," a string for which we now have no =
contraction.  In some dialects of English, "ain't" came to be used with =
all persons, and so 18th c. prescriptive grammarians rejected "ain't" =
completely, in any usage.  The result is that today, English speakers =
don't even consider "ain't" to be a legitimate possibility for "am not."  =
Those who use it use it not only for all persons but also as a contraction =
of "has/have not."  So the answer to your question is yes.  Prescriptive =
rules can bring about linguistic change.

Oddly, the form persisted among the nobility.  Dorothy Sayers, who's very =
careful with her representation of dialect and register, has Lord Peter =
Wimsey using "I ain't" regularly.  The nobility, who didn't bother to read =
the 18th c. self-help literature on how to sound like the nobility, didn't =
give up the contraction.  While it was still current in the early 20th c., =
as the Sayers novels demonstrate, the use of "ain't" for "am not" has now =
disappeared among the nobility as well.

Herb

-----Original Message-----
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar [mailto:[log in to unmask]
OHIO.EDU] On Behalf Of Peter Adams
Sent: 2009-06-01 20:58
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: training wheels

Here's a scary thought.  If enough teachers have taught these
"training wheel rules" to enough generations of students, who are now
out there teaching them to others and editing books and periodicals
and even the NY Times, so that most people in America believe that
starting a sentence with "because" or "there" or "and" is just plain
wrong, could what started as "training wheels" actually become
descriptions of how the language is used?  Despite what a handful of
brilliant ATEG members think, can what started as "training wheels"
actually become "the rules" if enough people think they are the
rules?  And then we ATEG-ers become the reactionaries trying to resist
"change" in the language?  Really scary.  [Note that, as if to prove
I'm not influenced by training wheels, I just started a sentence with
"and."]

Peter Adams


On Jun 1, 2009, at 3:50 PM, Edgar Schuster wrote:

> I have the same concern about the training wheels never coming off.
> I will never forget suggesting to the senior high school teachers in
> one of the best public schools in the state of New Jersey that it
> was OK to start a sentence with "and" or "but," only to discover
> that the department chair had just sent out a memo urging every
> English teacher to be on guard against this sinful practice and join
> him in wiping it off the face of the Earth.  If college English
> teachers frequently find their students believing such things as
> never use the passive, never begin sentences with "there," never use
> "I" in formal writing, and such, it would seem the training has
> lasted for 12 years.
> As for "formal" writing, what is it? and where is it published?  And
> what chance is there that more than (fill in the number) percent of
> our students are ever going to have to write it?
>
> Ed
>
>
> On Jun 1, 2009, at 3:33 PM, Spruiell, William C wrote:
>
>> Herb, Peter, et al.:
>>
>> I'm just kibitzing with a couple of points (and whole-heartedly agree
>> with Herb's points about the value of this thread) --
>>
>> (1) I think Peter's point about training wheels being useful only
>> insofar as the students *know* they're there and they will come off
>> eventually is a crucial one. Simplifications used in textbooks should
>> always be accompanied by some comment, however brief, that the actual
>> situation is more complex, and that discussion of that will occur at
>> some later point. From what I've seen of K-12 textbooks, this kind of
>> comment is almost never added, and I have gotten the impression at
>> times
>> that the publishers of the texts didn't actually know that the
>> material
>> *was* a simplification (like an inset box in one text I've examined
>> that
>> made the point that (a) dialects are very different and quaint
>> kinds of
>> speech, like one hears in Scotland, and (b) dialects are dying out;
>> it
>> was accompanied by a picture of a child in a kilt, playing bagpipes).
>> Students are hardly ever shocked to discover that there's more
>> complexity to a subject than they are being asked to deal with right
>> now. They *are* annoyed when they've been presented with something
>> as an
>> absolute fact about English and then hear someone tell them it's
>> wrong.
>>
>>
>> (2) I always want to add a third domain to the two Peter mentioned.
>> Grammar-as-a-discipline, like chemistry or biology, focuses on the
>> architecture of part of our experienced reality. Grammar-for-
>> composition
>> focuses on expression; interpretation is automatically included the
>> minute audience awareness becomes a topic, but it's not the primary
>> focus. As future citizens, and consumers, students also benefit from
>> examining how language is *on* them. It's possible to study
>> traditional
>> formal grammar and have a large amount of practice with composition
>> without ever really noticing how "virtually" is used as a weasel
>> word,
>> or how a politician is using a passive construction in a way that
>> happens to omit the agent when referring to a major problem. A
>> consciousness of grammar during "reception" is vital, even if it's
>> unconnected to a current writing task.
>>
>> Sincerely,
>>
>> 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 STAHLKE, HERBERT F
>> Sent: Friday, May 29, 2009 7:54 PM
>> To: [log in to unmask]
>> Subject: Re: training wheels
>>
>> Peter,
>>
>> You've put your finger on precisely the reason why the discussions of
>> how much grammar students need to know tend break down.  You write of
>> Goal Two:
>>
>> This is the goal that asserts that we require
>> students to know something about chemistry or biology, why shouldn't
>> they know something about that most fundamental aspect of our
>> humanity: our language?
>>
>> But this rationale falls into the domain of linguists, not writing
>> and
>> language arts teachers.  How much students should know about
>> language is
>> directly analogous to how much students should know about biology, US
>> history, economics, math, etc.  In contrast, the question of how much
>> students should know about grammar does fall much more directly
>> into the
>> domain of the writing teacher and the language arts teacher.
>> Unfortunately, most of these people are the beneficiaries of a half
>> century of bad teaching of and about grammar, but, that problem
>> aside,
>> linguists and grammarians need the guidance of writing and language
>> arts
>> teachers, and vice versa, to understand the questions of scope and
>> sequence that K12 teachers know about that linguists tend not to.
>>
>> I must add that this thread, training wheels and its predecessor,
>> is one
>> of the most thoughtful and informative I've read on this list in
>> quite a
>> while.  My thanks to all who have contributed of their knowledge,
>> experience, and expertise.  It confirms the sense of awe I have long
>> felt towards good K12 teachers.
>>
>> Herb
>>
>> Herbert F. W. Stahlke, Ph.D.
>> Emeritus Professor of English
>> Ball State University
>> Muncie, IN  47306
>> [log in to unmask]
>> ________________________________________
>> From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
>> [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Peter Adams [[log in to unmask]
=20
>> ]
>> Sent: May 29, 2009 10:24 AM
>> To: [log in to unmask]
>> Subject: Re: training wheels
>>
>> Craig,
>>
>> I think you've put your finger on an important issue, one I have not
>> resolved in my own mind.  Put simply, the question is how much
>> grammar
>> should students know.
>>
>> It seems to me the questions derives from two different goals for
>> grammar instruction:
>>
>> Goal 1: To give students the capability to produce writing that
>> conforms reasonably to the constraints of Standard Written English.
>>
>> Goal 2: To provide students with some level of understanding of how
>> language works.  (This is the goal that asserts that we require
>> students to know something about chemistry or biology, why shouldn't
>> they know something about that most fundamental aspect of our
>> humanity: our language?)
>>
>> Because these are two disparate goals, the answer to the simple
>> question of how much grammar should students know is difficult to
>> agree on.  In addition, for those who espouse either of these goals,
>> it is still difficult to reach agreement on how much grammar it takes
>> to reach that goal.
>>
>> And then there is a third goal for grammar instruction that
>> complicates the argument even further: students need to know grammar
>> so that they have more options for how to express their ideas.
>>
>> I fear I have made absolutely no progress toward an answer to the
>> question I called "simple," but perhaps I have clarified what the
>> questions are.
>>
>> Peter Adams
>>
>>


Date:    Wed, 3 Jun 2009 17:47:10 -0400
From:    "Spruiell, William C" <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: levels of formality/training wheels, NOW value of HS education

As someone from a social-science background who teaches composition in
an English department, I've noted some similar issues. Years ago, at
another institution, I was teaching composition in a program that
mandated a particular textbook. It was all about literature, and the
essays I was supposed to use as models for argumentative writing were
literary essays (which in this case, meant that the authors were
distinctively, and productively, violating some of the major rules of
essay-writing, such as "have a clear thesis statement"). They *were*
good essays from a number of perspectives, but they weren't good in a
way that the students could emulate at that point in their writing
development, and would not have been publishable as anything other than
literary essays, in a venue devoted expressly to that genre. =20

Similarly (well, it's off-topic, but it IS similar....) course
objectives such as "Students will demonstrate that they value <insert
genre name here>" strike me as at best coercive and at worst deeply
creepy. I have no way of reading their minds, and what they think isn't
necessarily within my area of influence, although what they *do* can be.
I like Twain, but I'd rather have a student who said interesting things
about Twain and carefully analyzed his writing but didn't like it at all
than have a student who obligingly parroted the required opinion of
Twain. I told my science fiction class last semester that despite the
course objective that stated they had to value SF, I was more interested
in whether they could discuss and analyze the arguments for valuing SF
than with whether they agreed with those arguments or not.

In composition teaching, the problem with interpreting "writing" as if
it were equivalent to "writing about literature" isn't really one of
extending the academic into the realm of the practical, though. An
APA-style analysis of survey results is academic, but not literary. It's
more a side-effect of the somewhat haphazard conflation of literature
with composition in English departments, and the tendency for any group
to lose sight of the fact that what they value isn't automatically the
same as what other people do. If we replaced "academic" with "careful
and explicit exposition and argumentation that is suited to its purpose
and audience," we might have fewer problems.

Bill Spruiell
Dept. of English
Central Michigan University=20


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