Definitions have all the vices Jesperson and Ed complain of, for sure.  And yet, how my students cry out for them.  They seem to think, and they may be right, that being able to sort things--words, for instance,--into categories is a necessary step on the path to using them effectively.

By the way, I've always wondered why Lowth and almost every handbook author since want to say a noun is the NAME of something.  My students find that definition very confusing when they come to learn what proper nouns are . . . names of things in a different sense.  Perhaps it would be clearer for novices to say nouns are words that represent . . . persons, places, things, abstract ideas, anything that exists.  The last part is the hard part, but I've always resisted saying nouns are names.

Peter Adams


On Jun 11, 2008, at 12:28 PM, Edgar Schuster wrote:

Bill (and others),
     For what it's worth---and I'm not sure it's worth much---I have a Murray definition of noun as "the name of any thing that exists, or of which we have any notion."  Lowth wrote "the Name of a thing; of whatever we conceive in any way to subsist, or of which we have any notion."
     Maybe this comment from Otto Jespersen is worth a lot more:  "If there is one thing I dislike in grammar, it is definitions (of parts of speech) too often met with in our textbooks.  They are neither exhaustive nor true; they have not, and cannot have, the precision and clearness of the definitions found in textbooks of mathematics . . . .  And thus we might go on to the definitions found even in the best grammars: they are unsatisfactory, all of them, and I do not think they are necessary."
The English Journal [!!!], 1924

Ed Schuster


**************
Vote for your city's best dining and nightlife. City's Best 2008.
(http://citysbest.aol.com?ncid=aolacg00050000000102) 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/