I guess the best that we can do is use our knowledge of the history of
language change and variety to discuss these variations in
pronunciation. I think that it is really interesting that we are talking
about so many differences when I have heard people lamenting the loss of
dialect variation, what with the power of the media to make us all
conform to the "standard." Perhaps the media are now reinforcing dialect
variation.
Edith
-----Original Message-----
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Craig Hancock
Sent: Monday, March 20, 2006 11:06 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Civility
Edith,
The dictionaries I have consulted give them both as options but don't
list regions. I was born in Connecticut, but lived long stretches in
southern New Jersey, New Hamphsire, and now upstate New York. People
sometimes think I'm from the south, maybe because I like to take my time
when I talk. I say the first part of "human" the same way I say "you".
(To me, you and hue are indistinguishable.)
But I'm mainly interested in how you tell someone it isn't evidence
of "lazy talk" when we leave out "letters." >
Craig
Craig, as far as I know, on the West Coast there has been no loss of h
> in human, humor, humid. I could almost blow out a candle on all three
> of them. On the other hand, I have no h in hour or herb and I don't
> hear one on this side of the Rockies.
> Edith Wollin
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Craig Hancock
> Sent: Monday, March 20, 2006 10:46 AM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Civility
>
> Herb,
> I am very glad you sent this post. I have been contemplating
> something of the sort since I caught up on mail this morning. >
> One reason I enjoyed Eduard's polemic is that it expresses rather
> blatantly a perspective not often expressed on this list precisely
> because it is politically incorrect. (I suspect that is one reason we
> are reacting so strongly to it.) In all the talk about civility, the
> substance of his position has gotten lost. I think you're right, that
> it's the view of many people out there. I also think it's close to
> the views of many on list, but I think we need to slow things down to
> get there.
> With apologies to Eduard if I'm misrepresenting his views, I think
> he is saying that there is an ideal form of the language that people
> should aspire to. Because of his background, he is used to having a
> national academy to pass judgement on the kinds of questions we deal
> with all the time. (Hardly a week goes by in which someone doesn't
> post the list for advice about which choice is more "correct" when
> there are alternatives. Eduard's not the only one to believe that some
> forms and choices are more "correct" than others.) In our country, we
> have the handbooks and style manuals. Our progressive position
> (politically correct) is that the standard is only better because it's
> a standard (not standard because it's better.) In other words, as you
> mention in your talks with your class, it opens doors for us. This is
> not the way the public sees it, and it's not the vision behind the "no
> child Left Behind" movement, which tries to test whether students are
> acquiring these better choices. From this perspective, which you
> label a kind of elitism, everything Eduard says makes more sense.
> Children don't acquire a prestige language just by being alive. They
> need to be exposed to it. And, as Eduard sees it, they need to have
> their language "corrected" when it falls short. He, and I think many
> people, believe that teachers are failing to live up to this important
> obligation, telling students (very wrongly) that it's OK to be
> themselves, when in fact it's not. They will pay for it and we will
> pay for it as a culture.
> Part of this point-of-view usually is the notion that people need
> to be socialized into language, that left to their own devices, it
> just won't happen.
> Eduard, especially as a trained linguist, could and should be
> better able to distinguish between the grammar in the language and the
> grammar in the school books (or academies). I was also deeply
> surprised that he would say there are many people in our cities with
> vocabularies of a few hundred words. I don't think scientific studies
> have ever shown people like that (assuming no brain damage.) His more
> important point, I think, doesn't require that kind of questionable
> statement. Students don't learn the kind of language they need to be
> successful without the right kinds of experiences (exposures,
interventions.)
> My own reply to Eduard was an attempt to clarify my own position.
> To his credit (as I see it), he agreed with much of it. Students need
> far more than "correctness" when they use language. Prescriptive
> rules are often goofy, often a distraction from more important
> concerns. We need far more attention to knowledge about language.
> Many of us are also in favor of tougher standards, but standards of a
> higher order than mere correctness.
> The status quo is almost a standoff from elitist views of the
> general public (language should be correct and proper language should
> be
> enforced) and the progressive view, which may disdain the prescriptive
> but doesn't have much solid advice to offer in its place.
> I think you're right; as long as we keep on talking to each other,
> we will never make headway in the larger world.
> I was giving a public talk on grammar a few weeks back, when a
> person in the audience asked "whatever happened to the "h" in "human."
> It was her position, and I think she expected me to verify it, that we
> should pronounce words as they are spelled, and that the loss of the
> "h" is evidence of laziness and a falling off of the language. I
> confessed that I don't say the "h" in human, hour, humid, humor, that
> we don't (any of us) say the D in Wednesday, the k in knight, and so
> on. Bu this is the general level of understanding the world brings to
> these questions. Somehow, we need to be patient and win people over
> one at a time.
> (What happened to the h, by the way? I have been meaning to ask.
> Does it have something to do with the vowel sounds that follow it?)
> I, for one, would hate to lose people like Eduard from the list.
>
> Craig
>
> Like many of us, I suspect, I've been giving some thought to our
> recent
>> experience with Eduard Hanganu. While it is unquestionably true that
>> he has insulted people on the list and that he has, to a lesser
>> degree
>
>> than he claims, been treated roughly by some of us, I think there is
>> an important side to the entire experience of the last few weeks that
>> has been missed. Eduard's presence represents the world that we work
>> in breaking in upon our discussions. The findings of linguistic,
>> sociolinguistic, and educational research that inform our discussions
>> of language variation, dialect, correctness, appropriateness, and
>> related issues are not findings that are widely known or accepted
>> beyond language specialists. Many of us have lamented the prevalence
>> of myth and misinformation about language among the general public
>> and
>
>> especially in school boards, PTAs, and even Colleges of Education and
>> Departments of English. What we haven't come up with is a good
>> information strategy to combat this misinformation and to correct the
>> ill effects of it. In some of the earlier discussions of the New
>> Public Grammar, this need has been discussed, but even there little
>> progress has been made. The laudable work on scope and sequence is
>> valuable but only builds a common body of pedagogical theory and
>> content that we can agree on among ourselves. It doesn't address the
>> problems of the audiences we have to present it to and convince.
>>
>>
>>
>> Eduard represents that audience: intelligent, articulate, passionate
>> about education, but whose views of language have not been affected
>> by
>
>> the linguistic and sociolinguistic research of the past half century
>> and more. It's not that people like Eduard are wrong on a few
points.
>
>> It's rather that Eduard has a coherent view of language, society, and
>> education that appeals to a certain elitism in society and that holds
>> fast to measures of correctness that serve as gateways to success.
>> In
>
>> my undergrad Language and Society classes we get to a certain point
>> where I ask my students to consider implications of their command of
>> standard English, to use a term which I acknowledge to be
>> problematical, compared to that of their high school classmates who
>> didn't go on to post-secondary education. This leads usually to a
>> fairly incisive discussion of the ways in which Standard English and
>> beliefs about it serve as a gateway to achievement in American
>> society. Certainly, one can achieve career and financial success
>> without a good command of it; just watch local ads by car dealers and
>> carpet merchants. But it takes remarkable ability to do so. Those
>> who succeed at the English standards that are expected have doors
>> open
> to them more easily.
>>
>>
>>
>> Eduard's presence among us is an opportunity to talk with someone
>> whose background, interests, and opinions represent the very audience
>> we need to be addressing, and I fear we have shown our lack of
>> preparation for this task. We have to expect our ideas to be
>> attacked. They threaten dearly held cultural beliefs, as we have all
>> seen on many other occasions. And for that very reason we can't
>> expect such discussions to proceed without some rough spots. But we
>> are the ones trying to change these attitudes, and that places a
>> special responsibility on us. The painful lesson of these past few
>> weeks is that we haven't risen well to that challenge.
>>
>>
>>
>> Our task is much more than an academic and pedagogical one, as
>> crucial
>
>> as that part of it is; our task has an even more important political
>> and social public relations side to it, and that's the kind of
>> activity we academics are too ready to neglect, sometimes to the
>> point
> of disdain.
>>
>>
>>
>> Herb
>>
>>
>>
>> ________________________________
>>
>> From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
>> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Paul E. Doniger
>> Sent: Sunday, March 19, 2006 11:45 AM
>> To: [log in to unmask]
>> Subject: Civility
>>
>>
>>
>> Between a very long self-defense and very short general apology,
>> Eduard Hanganu wrote: "It makes me sad to see how biased people can
>> be, and how unfair. Is is (sic)possible that out of 250 people on
>> this
>
>> mail list nobody has seen how *rude* and *offensive* Johanna Rubba
>> has
>
>> been towards me under the false pretense of promoting fairness,
>> decency, and civilized dialogue on this forum?"
>>
>>
>>
>> It seems to me that Mr. Hanganu is unaware of how biased and unfair
>> he
>
>> appears to be in many of his own comments on this list. Perhaps a few
>> examples might help him understand why we are all rushing to
>> Johanna's
>
>> well-deserved defense (and sometimes as well to our own defenses). As
>> one who has felt personally insulted by Mr. Hanganu, perhaps I have a
>> stake in presenting some of these examples, and perhaps I could begin
>> by offering him the benefit that I suspect he is unaware of the
>> insults! we feel and that he did not intend them to be insulting.
>>
>>
>>
>> Here are a few:
>>
>> * "Forgive me, but your perspective (and Craig's also) reflects
>> the provincial attitude so common in this country among the English
>> teachers and linguistists (sic)."
>>
>> I've already responded personally (and I might add with good humor)
>> to
>
>> this. I still doubt the accuracy of calling me provincial; after all,
>> Mr. Hanganu does not know me from Adam. I don't know, by the way,
>> that
>
>> there is any statistical evidence to support the claim that such
>> provincialism is common among my colleagues or among American
>> linguists generally. Also, I might point out that my previous
>> response
>
>> did not point out his constant misspelling of the word "linguists."
>>
>> * "Probably you don't know too much about the L'Academie
>> Francaise, the Romanian Academy on Language, and other academic
>> forums
>
>> in Europe which have been regulating language (structure and use) for
>> centuries."
>>
>> My last response should have proven this hasty assumption to be a
>> fallacy. I have some knowledge of the history of language, and I am
>> well aware of the academies. My opinion of such academies, I admit,
>> is
>
>> not as high as Mr. Hanangu's opinion, but that is beside the point.
>> The comment would have not been so insulting had the word 'probably'
>> been replaced with 'perhaps', for he does not know what my education
> consists of.
>> There's not enough space here to fill in that lack of information.
>>
>> * "The United States has practically no history compared with
>> Europe. My country goes back TWO THOUSAND years, and most contries
>> (sic) in Europe have as much history also."
>>
>> Now this is a curious statement. I'm not sure what "no history" is
>> intended to mean, but the chauvinism is so obvious in this statement
>> (emphasized by the all capitals) that I'm surprised it did not jump
>> out of the screen and smack Mr. Hanangu in the face. Doe! s he really
>> think that he is better than me because his continent has an older
>> history than my country? My ancestors go back to Europe and the
>> Middle
>
>> East. We have a history that's over four thousand years and spoke, in
>> different eras of our history, English, Polish, Russian, Yiddish,
>> Spanish, and Hebrew (and perhaps other languages, too). Does that
>> mean
>
>> I am better than he is? I would never make such a rude assumption.
>>
>> * "The idea that the 'native speaker knows more grammar than has
>> ever
>> been printed in any grammar books' is PURE NONSENSE."
>>
>> The capitals again provide the insult. One can disagree with the
>> concept, but here Mr. Hanangu clearly calls the holders of this idea
>> (like perhaps Johanna Rubba, Herb Stahlke, Craig Hancock, [I'd add
>> 'me', but I'm not in their linguistic league], ... ) nonsensical.
>> Argue the merits of the idea, not the intelligence of the people who
>> hold it. This is called an Ad Hominem fallacy. It's al! so insulting.
>>
>> * "I believe that a less provincial perspective, a better
>> understanding about how other languages function will protect us from
>> a narrow and much too confident notion that the way language is
>> handled in the United States is the best way."
>>
>> Although the words "I believe" help to soften this insult, there are
>> three problems with this comment. first it suggest that the rest of
>> have little understanding of the functions of languages; then that we
>> are narrow minded and cocky. Finally, it assumes that we all believe
>> that only citizens of the USA know how to "handle" language (whatever
>> that means). Perhaps there are some of us who do think that way, but
>> I
>
>> would be hard pressed to know who they are from my near decade long
>> involvement with the members of this assembly. Certainly, I am sure
>> that I don't think that way. I never looked on linguistics as a
>> nationalistic study. Who does? I would like to know.
>>
>> T! here are five example here from only a single posting by Mr.
> Hanangu.
>> I would not be so rude as to try to match his 13 misrepresentations
>> of
>
>> Johanna's postings in his recent "apology." I'm sure I could find
>> more, but I don't have the time or the interest right now.
>>
>>
>>
>> My one hope is that he see this not in the apparently paranoid
>> fashion
>
>> that I have inferred from his last posting, but in the spirit that it
>> was intended: That is to return to thoughtful and civil discussion of
>> the issues that we are all interested in. Remember the Greek origin
>> of
>
>> the term argument is clarification, not diatribe.
>>
>>
>>
>> Let's return to argument.
>>
>>
>>
>> Paul D.
>>
>>
>>
>> "If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an
>> improbable fiction" (_Twelfth Night_ 3.4.127-128). To join or leave
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>>
>>
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>>
>
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