Good to know, Thucy.
And agreed, ulytau.

Also, however it is that people use a language is by definition the easiest, most well-liked way.

So, you know, if people start saying "appLICable" instead of "APPlicable" or if people start using "comprise" and "constitute" the same way, and indeed, if people start losing the habit of capitalizing things, and so on, well then okay.

There will always be ambiguities in our languages. And there will always be concepts without words for them. The way people speak is the right way. The only wrong way to speak a language is to intentionally obscure your meaning so that you cannot be understood (unless that was your goal I guess).

Notice that the phrase "to intentionally obscure" has a word that means this very thing: obfuscate.

I didn't use this word because most people don't know it, and would just have to look it up. Let it die.

All grammar does is look at the way people speak to each other and attempt to describe emergent patterns.

Some people take these patterns and attempt to instruct people to follow them, as if they are "rules."

This type of discourse is only useful in one setting: those settings in which an improper pattern will result in your being held in disrepute, as in a newspaper article or a job interview. In this instances it is useful to instruct people in how to "speak the language" that is "proper grammar."

However, this "language" is not the language any of us speak, nor was it ever. True grammar seeks to understand and describe what it is we actually say so that people who are new to a language can attempt to understand too, and even replicate it.

Well, I completely disagree, Thucy, but at least we know where we stand. : ) That is, yes, if everybody starts making all those changes, then there's nothing you can do to stop them, but the language will have become harder to use to communicate precisely and well. So there is absolutely nothing wrong with trying to resist and discourage such misuses.

@Semck - The definition of a word, both connotation and denotation, aren't grammar. That is vocabulary. Grammar is the type of word used and sentence structure. Vocabulary is the specific word used. So grammar can be flexible while not allowing vocabulary (or for that matter, spelling) to be as flexible. You object (and rightfully so) to the misuse of specific words like "couple" and "few" which have very different meanings but have become the same basic word in recent years. But fragments, for example, should be (and generally are) acceptable when the rest of the sentence is intuitive by its frame of reference.

You seem to assume that when things disappear from language, nothing else takes its place. Speaking a language that has completely lost its subjunctive except in a few standard phrases, I can still clearly express the subjunctive mood with a combination of verbs instead of one verb with morphological inflection. It doesn't mean that the language has lost any of its structure, it's just expressed differently.

Draugnar, I already explained that I recognized my example wasn't grammar, but that it was completely analogous to the point I was making about grammar, and easier to explain. The issue of subjunctive is a purely grammatical issue, on the other hand, and the same point stands.
As for sentence fragments -- they are indeed useful and in many cases standard, but they are certainly also informal, and so rightly discouraged in formal writing. You're right that I would neither object to nor even notice a sentence fragment in a normal forum post, novel, or the like.
@Vaft, "Speaking a language that has completely lost its subjunctive except in a few standard phrases, I can still clearly express the subjunctive mood with a combination of verbs instead of one verb with morphological inflection."

Of course, but a combination of verbs is clumsier and more of a pain to use. Your language has become less concise, and in that sense harder to use to express complicated thoughts clearly with minimal words.

semck, why do you assume that a combination of verbs is clumsier and more of a pain to use than an inflected verb? Inflections can certainly be more difficult, there is after all a reason that they are disappearing in modern Germanic languages. Just look at Latin graffiti from the height of the Roman empire - people clearly misused inflections constantly, making it harder and not easier to understand.

Basically, why are minimal words preferable? Are analytic languages like Mandarin Chinese worse at expressing complex ideas than polysynthetic languages like Greenlandic?

Vaft, you raise an important point, which is that there is a sweet spot between complexity and verbosity. In particular, precision may still be achieved in more verbose languages, you are right, but where the modifications are simple, as in the English subjunctive, and the education system rather poor, I would hesitate to assign the disappearance of a simple and useful construction to over-complexity.

Of course in English, in any case, people by and large are _not_ using an equivalent, clunkier construction. They are just using incorrect constructions that lead directly to ambiguity.

But you're right to imply that I shouldn't have barged in and spoken about Swedish. I don't really know your language. Maybe the subjunctive was horribly complex and deserved to die.

Romani ite domum!

@semck - I was writing that while in a meeting before so it took time and I didn't see your explanation till after I posted. Sorry about that. No offense intended.

@Draug, no problem, none taken. Sorry if my response indicated otherwise. (The first sentence seemed more strident than I intended after I posted).

And I should point out that, unlike Vaft and semck, I am no linguist. I know English, enough German to get around and eat while over there, and can usually read with great effort Russian and Latin (and can make out some Spanish and Italian), but my primary languages involve logic constructs and telling a computing device what to do.

You guys are *w-a-y* over my head. :-)

I'm a dilettante in linguistics, Draug, as in so many things.

But let us not forget my favorite advice in Strunk and White: "If you don't know how to pronounce a word, say it loud." :-)

Well, we Americans know everybody speaks English if you say it slowly enough. :-)

Draugnar, I'm currently learning PHP and SQL. These are languages where you can actually make a valid case for being consistent with the grammar :D I love programming languages though, and I'd forgotten how happy programming makes me.

semck83, I was in a game so sorry for the late response. I'd never make a case for inflection over analysis. Clearly, both have been very productive language categories, and unless I see some data on it, I won't believe that one is more efficient or clear than the other. I don't believe that there is some sweet spot between them, except for a cultural one (clearly, if you grow up learning an analytic language, it's easier to learn another one of those).

As I see it, language doesn't just decay out of nowhere. Things disappear when the majority of people feel that the distinction isn't necessary, or come up with a different way to express the same distinction. If the distinction is lost among, e.g., working class people, but still necessary in academia? That's why language has different registers. Academic language, unlike everyday language, needs clarity and precision. The problem is of course when registers become sociolects, creating a language barrier between classes. That's why the academic register should be taught at school, so that everyone has access to higher education. But it should NOT be taught as the "correct" grammar.

The reason I feel so strongly about it is because all over the world, people are being shamed for the way they speak a language. Clearly there is no difference between "Tru dat!" and "That is true!", and both should be accepted as varieties of English expression. Language is tied to culture and identity, to class and power. It's not just a matter of syntax and semantics, language is expressive and emotional and vital. Sure, a university should expect uniformity in academic language, but to promote grammar from the academic register on an Internet forum or in casual conversation is wrong at best, a power play at worst.

@Vaft - if you ever have any SQL questions, fire away. I don't think there is anything in SQL I haven't done - whether it be a join, an aggregate, an order by, a where or having clause, a union or union all, nested selects, selects to table variables...

Right now I'm working on building analytic cubes in SSAS (SQL Server Analytic Services) for our CRM product so we can say we have analytics. I'll be following that up with some SSRS reports and graphs built around those cubes.

@Vaft - I agree with most fo what you say except there is a standard of language used in the business world as well and ebonics (e.g. tru dat, aksed instead of asked) has no place there, especially in nationwide or worldwide business relations. It's hard enough communicating with someone to whom English is a second language without adding the complexity of ebonics and surfer culture language. Business language should be as culture neutral as possible.

The main point wasn't a dichotomy between just everyday and academic language, there are infinite degrees. What I wanted to point out is that language has different purposes. Social, emotional, informative etc., and clarity/unambiguity is really only the major concern when the purpose of language is expressing information. In poetry and humour, ambiguity and vagueness help.

Once again, I have no problem with promoting clear, standardised language where it's appropriate, in business, academia, etc. But to claim that these registers of language are more correct versions of the language because they make more distinctions and are more clear means implicitly putting down other registers where the function is more social, emotional and creative. I believe that the attitude inhibits people from speaking their minds and creating freely. It's also sad to me that the standard versions of languages are usually the ones that are associated with:

1. Academia
2. Business
3. Males
4. The dominant ethnic group
5. The social group with the most power

By dismissing the language of those not in those groups, you automatically delegitimise their voices, and grant more power to those privileged enough to already have internalised the more regarded registers of language.

Also, I just reread what I wrote above, and aside from it being very rambling and incoherent, I used the word "clearly" three times. Clearly, my vocabulary needs some filling.

Vaft,

I can't claim to be familiar with "analytic" and "inflective" languages. All I can do is compare one English with another English, see ambiguities, present in one that aren't present in the other, etc.

I will agree that people should not be put down because of their language. On the other hand, I wouldn't go along with you in saying that one type of language shouldn't be portrayed as correct. This is probably, again, just because I value the preservation of certain useful features of language more versus all dialects being treated equally. I also (usually) find that the "correct" versions of language have more logical coherency than variants, and that matters to me too.

Context is important here, though, it's true. Lots of dialects that would never hack it in business or academia can be superb for expression and the like, and that should not be discouraged by any means. It just means that correct grammar isn't always the best, and shouldn't always be used.

In the end, of course things are going to evolve how they evolve. And part of that process will be people doing whatever is easiest for them. And part of that process will also be active resistance and shaping by rules and prescriptivists. I am happy to celebrate the latter process as well as the former.

The definition of a language has been stated as "a dialect with an army and a navy," meaning that whoever has the power gets to set the standards of correct grammar and usage. When London became ascendant in England, the grammar of the local dialect of the time became "correct English" while the Midlands dialect, in what was previously the center of learning and literature on the island, became "substandard." Ain't IS a word, and at one time was accepted as standard literary English, as were Shakespeare's double negatives and double superlatives ("the most unkindest cut of all.)

Many dialects retain complexities that Standard English does not, but that does not make either of them more correct. Correct usage is whatever suits your purposes, taking the audience (reader/listener) and the speaker/writer's purpose into account. Immigrants and others in border areas often employ "code-switching," such as Spanglish, and that's correct in certain environments, but it wouldn't work for most college papers. So correct usage is dependent on the situation. :-)

Any opinions/rules on the one vs. two space argument after a period?

First time I hear about this bullshit.

@2WL - That's less grammar and more typed syntax, but it used to be always use two spaces. Now it seems that one is perfectly acceptable everywhere.

Draug, can I cite you when my professor takes points off for two spaces?

Two spaces after a full stop was a typewriter convention because it made text easier to read. It was never a rule of grammar. These days word processors usually automatically adjust the spacing for you.

Let us stop using the word "correct" in reference to grammar. Even the word "proper" is not really the proper term. We shouldbe using "formal", "informal", an "casual" for the three primary breakdowns. "Formal" is the written (and sometimes spoken) word for academia, business contracts, the law and the like. "Informal" is spoken (and sometimes written) in the business world to give the appearance of likeability and approachability, being more oriented around interpersonal communications. And casual is the dialect used in the community and varies rom community to community and situation to situation and person to person.

Aroudn the forums we all tend to be more casual. But in games I would say most of us switch to more of an informal with a touch of casual thrown in to get people offtheir guard. And in that damned thread they are using formal.

Sure, and I'm sure spyman would agree too. If a professor is taking points off for the use of two spaces after a period, (s)he is a bit pedantic and needs to get the stick out of their ass.