Herb,
In the case Paul brings up, it's hard not to have mixed feelings.
Because I know Paul and have every reason to expect he is an exemplary
teacher, I have a lot of sympathy for his attempts to preserve a nuance
of meaning that he feels is being lost. If he talks to his students
about those observations, I think they will learn much in the process.
(Which is not the same thing as being too fussy about it.) On the other
hand, I don't have much sympathy for those who believe that the
language itself is going downhill and that we need to enforce our
judgements on other people. Language can't be controlled by the
dictionary makers, and the good dictionary makers know that. Words mean
what we observe that they mean.
I like Steven Pinker's take on it in his chapter on "The Language
Mavens" in "The language Instinct": "So these are the language mavens.
Their foibles can be blamed on two blind spots. One is a gross
underestimation of the linguistic wherewithal of the common person….
The other blind spot... is their complete ignorance of the modern
science of language….basic knowledge of what kinds of constructions
and idioms are found in English, and how people use them and pronounce
them. In all fairness, much of the blame falls on members of my
profession for being so reluctant to apply our knowledge to the
practical problems of style and usage…."
The problem for some time has been that for people who are insecure
about their language (most of the population), the prescriptive advice
has been the only game in town. Perhaps the prescriptivists have been
a large part of the problem in creating people's distrust in their own
natural language and its hugely complex unconscious grammar. Again, to
quote Pinker: "A preschooler’s tacit knowledge of grammar is more
sophisticated than the thickest style manual or the most
state-of-the-art computer language system, and the same applies to all
healthy human beings, even the notorious syntax-fracturing
professional athlete and the, you know, like, inarticulate teenage
skateboarder."
Our task in coming up with a new public grammar is to give people a
viable alternative, advice about using language effectively and
productively without creating the impression that their language is
inherently deficient or wrong. They can grow into becoming more effective
language users. They can absorb new words, try out new kinds of
sentences, practice writing that matters to them, steal what they can
from writers they admire, and so on. They are not going to get there by
distrusting the complex tacit knowledge they already bring to the task.
I have been on record many times as saying that the only way change can
happen is through a functional approach. We can't be so focused on
correcting "error" that we lose sight of far more important standards,
like thoughtfulness, clarity, interest, and so on. Grammar participates
in the making of meaning; meaning doesn't happen without it. But this
brings us into a very different set of "rules" than the ones the
prescriptivists distract us with.
Craig
Craig,
>
> I'd like to see more comment on your last clause, "and it may not always
> seem for the best." Therein lies a mammoth body of social judgments and
> prescriptivist nostrums. The question is whether there are language
> changes that are in some definable sense good or bad.
>
> Herb
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Craig Hancock
> Sent: Thursday, March 16, 2006 8:12 AM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: comparing superlatives (was: Blue Color; each other)
>
> Paul,
> I'm with you on one level. It's a shame when a perfectly fine
> (indeed,
> a unique word) begins to lose its special quality. You would like to
> use it in such a way that everyone knows you mean "one of a kind". It's
> the kind of point I enjoy from William Safire in his columns. Your
> students, though, are used to thinking of it as meaning "unusual"
> because that is a common meaning for it in actual use. I confess I have
> probably said "very unique" without thinking about it as
> problematic.>Thanks to your conversation, I have now looked closely at
> the dictionary and deepened my understanding.
> I love the idea that you would talk to your students about it. When
> language changes, something is gained and something is lost. You care
> about fine shades of meaning, as we all should. Ultimately, I think
> decisions about these sorts of changes are out of our hands. A word
> means what people think it means. But I also think that sort of
> discussion with students is very productive. Language changes over
> time, and it may not always seem for the best.
>
>
> Craig,
>>
>> My problem with "very unique" is that unique means (to ME), one of a
>> kind (or some emphatic variation of that idea). It is illogical to me
> to
>> say that something can be "very one of a kind" or "most one of a
> kind."
>> I'm not sure how I feel about "thoroughly unique" and "absolutely
>> unique;" for some reason, and I am hard pressed to express what that
>> reason is, the logic doesn't bother me. Maybe I'm being too fussy
> about
>> that usage. What I really meant to emphasise in my previous post,
>> however, was that many of my students couldn't see the logical problem
>> in the expression in the first place.
>>
>> It's curious that the two most "objectional" examples from the OED
> below
>> are first from the voice of a toad (In "The Wind in the Willows") and
>> next from an advertisement (Country Life, 1939). I guess that
> fictional
>> toads and real-life ad copy writers have a different sent of standards
>> from mine!
>>
>> So it goes,
>>
>> Paul D.
>>
>> Craig Hancock <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>> >Paul,
>> I just remembered I can access the OED if I use my UAlbany account.
>> Here's a section copied from their entry for "unique". It has been
>> "Objected to", as they say, but a fairly common practice in their own
>> examples, dating back well into the nineteenth century.
>>
>> Craig
>>
>> From the OED, the second entry for "unique":
>>
>> 2. a. That is or forms the only one of its kind; having no like or
>> equal; standing alone in comparison with others, freq. by reason of
>> superior excellence; unequalled, unparalleled, unrivalled.
>> In this sense readopted from French at the end of the 18th c. and
>> regarded as a foreign word down to the middle of the 19th, from which
>> date it has been in very common use, with a tendency to take the wider
>> meaning of 'uncommon, unusual, remarkable'.
>> The usage in the comparative and superlative, and with advs. as
>> absolutely, most, quite, thoroughly, totally, etc., has been objected
> to
>> as tautological.
>>
>> 1618 W. BARCLAY Well at King-horne Avij, This is a soueraigne and
> vnicke
>> remedie for that disease in Women. 1794 R. J. SULIVAN View Nat. I. 3 A
>> concentrated, and an unique aggregation of almost all the wonders of
> the
>> natural world. 1809 R. K. PORTER Trav. Sk. Russia & Sweden (1813) I.
> xxv.
>> 285 As it was thoroughly unique, I cannot forbear presenting you with
> so
>> singular a curiosity. 1842 J. P. COLLIER Armin's Nest Ninn. Introd., A
>> relic..not only unique in itself, but unprecedented in its kind. 1866
>> LIDDON Bamp. Lect. v. (1867) 368 [Christ's] relationship to the
> Father..is
>> absolutely unique. 1871 B. TAYLOR Faust (1875) II. II. i. 84 A thing
> so
>> totally unique The great collectors would go far to seek. 1885
> Harper's
>> Mag. April 703/1 When..these summer guests found themselves defrauded
> of
>> their uniquest recreations. 1908 K. GRAHAME Wind in Willows viii. 168
>> 'Toad Hall,' said the Toad proudly, 'is an eligible self-contained
>> gentleman's residence, very unique.' 1912 CHESTERTON Manalive I. iii.
> 86
>> Diana Duke..began putting away the tea things. But it was not before
>> Inglewood had seen an instantaneous picture so unique that he might
> well
>> have snapshotted it. 1939 Country Life 11 Feb. p. xviii/2 (Advt.),
> Almost
>> the most unique residential site along the south coast. 1960 [see
> DIQUAT].
>> 1980 Verbatim Autumn 15/2 A high-ranking state Alcoholic Beverage
>> Commission official said Friday that Wednesday's retroactive renewal
> and
>> transfer of the beverage permit of the rural Bloomington Liars' Lodge
> by
>> the Monroe County Alcoholic Beverage Board was 'unique but not
> uncommon'.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Doesn't the 'each' automatically make the 'other' singular?
>>>
>>> Paul D.
>>>
>>> Speaking of redundancy, my students often struggle against the notion
>>> that "very unique" doesn't make sense to me.
>>>
>>> stein wrote:
>>>
>>> Here is your posting Joanne.
>>> Thank you, Herb and Paul for responding to my question.
>>> Dalia
>>> -------Original Message-------
>>>
>>> From: Johanna Rubba
>>> Date: 03/15/06 02:51:00
>>> To: stein
>>> Cc: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
>>> Subject: Re: Blue Color; each other
>>>
>>>
>>> Dalia,
>>>
>>> I wonder if you could post this for me: (Thanks!)
>>>
>>> "I like the blue color" could be another example of the tendency
>>> towards redundant expressions which seems to be strong in English
> right
>>> now. My students often write things like "equally as good"; there's
> the
>>> old "refer back"; "both my sister and brother share this tendency";
> and
>>> others that don't come readily to mind. I can imagine someone
>>> responding to a question like "Which color shirt do you like best?"
>>> with "The blue color." "Color" links the answer to the question, and
>>> puts the queried word ("which color") in the answer.
>>>
>>> I also have a query about "each other" -- how do we make it
> possessive,
>>> as in
>>>
>>> "They are always snooping into each other's business." Should it be <
>>> each others' > ? I keep doing a Gestalt shift on this; right now the
>>> first one looks right. How about a clear more-than-two:
>>>
>>> "The students then proofread each other's papers." Here, the <'s>
> looks
>>> wrong; the coreference with the plural "students" is getting in the
>>> way.
>>>
>>> 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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>>>
>>>
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