Acquisition of prescriptivism

Last night Nora (3) was jumping on her bed screaming "I don't want to wear nothing!" as I attempted to get her pajamas on. From his bed, Max (6) pipes up, "Sissy, saying you don't want to wear nothing means you want to wear something. Right dad?" Applying the poverty of the stimulus argument it appears that prescriptivism is innate. I know he didn't get it from me.

Well at least this sort of crap will be short-lived

By "this sort of crap" I mean, of course, the relief by right speaking Americans everywhere that we again have an articulate leader.

I was just watching Obama on the teevee and I have to say that at the very least it will be refreshing to have a president who can speak in complete sentences.

More support for the Amish effect

Mr. Verb reports that German immigrants in Wisconsin were pretty lazy about learning English. Stupid lazy Germans. This is more evidence that there is indeed an Amish loophole because you know the Amish are also German and they don't have to learn English. Compared that with those industrious hispanic immigrants who are learning English like it's going out of style.

In many of the original German settlements in the mid-1800s from southeastern Wisconsin to Lake Winnebago and the Fox Valley, the researchers found that German remained the primary language of commerce, education and religion well into the early 20th century. Some second- and even third-generation German immigrants who were born in Wisconsin still spoke only German as adults.

Since Language Log can't talk about politics

Rich Sweeney at Common Tragedies picked up on something odd in Palin's response to the "Is climate change manmade" question.

One of the many jaw-dropping Palin clip’s from the Katie Couric interview
shows Palin saying that it doesn’t matter what caused global warming, what
matters is that we do something about it now. Now that’s bad enough as is, but
as Johnny Walker pointed out to me, she also says, “I’m not going to solely
blame all of man’s activities on changes in climate.” WTF?

I notice that too. And figured it was a simple mistake. But as Sweeney notes, she did it again last night.
I have no clue why she does this. I vaguely remember some discussion on the American Dialect Society list about a similar switch, but I can't remember the word it happened in, so search is useless. Maybe Young Eric has something to add.

Update: In the comments, Grant Barrett, of the American Dialect Society, reminds me that the ADS-L discussion was around 'exchange' verbs like exchange, swap, trade, etc. Still not sure if there is a connection.

Level up the discourse

Here's an interesting post on the place for gaming in libraries. The coolest part of it is right here [emphasis mine.]:

I hear it most loudly from Eli Neiburger at the Ann Arbor District Library, someone who has fostered an online and physical community of kids who are passionate about the Library because of its gaming programming. In his book Gamers…in the Library??, he talks about how you can level up the discourse by engaging kids around content they care about.

I'm going to start using 'level up' instead of 'take to the next level.' No more corporate drone lingo for me!

I'm feeling defensive

I feel the need to defend things. So, you know what doesn't bother me? His or her. Seriously. I think it has a nice rythm to it. Here's an example from Krugman in the NY Times.

if the market value of the house falls, the buyer can easily lose his or her entire stake.

What does everybody have against it? Oh, "It's clumsy and intrusive." So it adds 2 extra words to a sentence. BFD. That whole brevity thing is overrated. It's bad enough we're all drinking espresso in to go cups. (And by all, I mean "all of us urban elites.")

I, for one, embrace our new conjoined pronoun overlords. And I'm totally going to pad my sentences with extra morphemes.

Amish loophole is a real problem

In this article on a great program to help immigrants in Philadelphia learn English we learn a startling fact (emphasis mine):

The stakes are high. Immigrant students tend to stay in school and graduate, said Ana Sainz de la Pena, who directs English as a Second Language and bilingual education for the district. By contrast, many American-born English language learners struggle and drop out.

I knew we should be concentrating our efforts on those recalcitrant non-English speakers who are already citizens!

Does freedom of speech cover made up shit?

Philadelphia enacted a law in April to require Center City tour-guide operators to be certified, licensed and knowledgeable.

Councilwoman Blondell Reynolds Brown's bill requires the guides to pass a test on Philadelphia history and geography before they can lead tours in the areas between the rivers and from South Street to Vine.

So now tour guides can be fined or face suspension if they make up stuff. And of course the tour guides are not happy. A couple of them are challenging the law claiming it violates their first amendment rights.

Zing!

And/or redux

Geoff Pullum has been posting a bit about and/or.

So my guess would be that and/or is a way of underlining the point that the or is to be understood in its inclusive sense rather than its exclusive sense. Sometimes you want to explicitly indicate “or more than one of the above”, and and/or does that.

I posted about this a while ago. In my original post I think I confused my exclusives and inclusives.

Anyway, one of the arguments I tried out on them was that no language has a lexical distinction between inclusive or and exlusive or. One of my bosses immediately responded, "English does, or is exclusive and and/or is inclusive." My response was that and/or isn't a word. We left it at that.But I thought to myself, I bet and/or ends up being just like or by taking on an exclusive meaning.
I was vindicated last night. I was sitting on the can reading What to Expect When You're Expecting (It's good bathroom literature!) when I came across the following in a recipe for oatmeal cookies on p. 94:

"add ground cinnamon and/or salt to taste (both optional) when you add the milk."

I was thinking or was inclusive and and/or was exclusive. My boss was thinking the other way around, but I wasn't paying attention. (Maybe that's why she's not my boss anymore.) Anyway, I now understand that and/or is inclusive, which I think is what the cookie recipe shows.

Pennsyvania's English idiocy

as Sharon pointed out before, Pennsylvania isn't much different than New Jersey when it comes to English Only bullshit. So, in the interest of fair balance, here is the PA bill.
Pennsylvania House Bill 1958 P.N. 2716:

Providing for the English language as the official language of the Commonwealth.

It is the purpose of this act to preserve, protect and strengthen the unifying role of English as the official language of this Commonwealth.

This act, which doesn't seem to be going anywhere, would make it illegal for the government or any government official to use a language other than English, to prefer another language, or to diminish or ignore the unifying role of English.

English is hereby recognized as the official language of the Commonwealth and shall also be designated as the language of official acts of government.

The Commonwealth shall make no policies expressing a preference for any language other than English or diminishing or ignoring the unifying role of English as designated in this act

In some ways it's pretty mild since it only really affects government. On the other hand, what the hell does it mean to diminish the unifying role of English? So if a congressman or mayor says that English really isn't that important, he or she could get fined? What does that accomplish?
The other scary thing is that there won't be an enforcement agency. Rather, citizens will be on the lookout for foreigners:

Any person who is a resident of or doing business in this Commonwealth shall have standing to sue any agency or official of the Commonwealth to seek a declaratory judgment as to whether this act has been violated and injunctive relief therefrom. A qualified person may file suit even if the Attorney General or other appropriate official of the Commonwealth has not filed such a suit, and the suit may be brought on behalf of all citizens of this Commonwealth.

The funny thing is all the exceptions:

The provisions of this act shall not apply to the following:
(1) When Federal law imposes contrary provisions.
(2) When the public safety, health or justice requires the use of other languages.
(3) Instruction in foreign language courses.
(4) Instruction designed to aid students with limited English proficiency in their transition and integration into the education system.
(5) The promotion of international commerce or tourism.
(6) To provide interpretation for hearing impaired individuals in American Sign Language.
(7) When using terms of art or phrases from languages other than English.
(8) For informal and nonbinding translations or communications among or between representatives of government and other persons if this activity does not affect or impair supervision, management, conduct or execution of official actions and if the representatives of government make clear that these translations or communications are unofficial and are not binding on the Commonwealth.

Thank god we can still use Latin phrases and celebrate Cinqo de Mayo!
And, of course, private citizens would still have the freedom of conscience to choose their primary language.

This act shall not be construed in any way to infringe on the rights of citizens to choose their own primary language, in the use of language for private conduct, nor shall this act be used to dictate language policies for the operation and administration of organizations or businesses in the unregulated private sector.

Another interesting thing is what's missing from the act. There is no provision for the Amish. Those nutty religious non-assimilators still speak German! Also, there is no definition of English. I suppose they go by the "I know it when I see it" precedent.

Of course, Pennsylvania has a long history of this sort of thing.

No less a figure than Benjamin Franklin circulated pamphlets expressing alarm that German settlers, now representing a third of the colony’s population, were failing to learn the language of their English neighbors. ‘Great disorders and inconveniences may one day arise among us,’ he warned, unless the Germans could be assimilated:

Those who come hither are generally of the most ignorant Stupid Sort of their own Nation, and as Ignorance is often attended with Credulity when Knavery would mislead it, and with Suspicion when Honesty would set it right; and as few of the English understand the German Language, and so cannot address them either from the Press or Pulpit, 'tis almost impossible to remove any prejudices they once entertain. (Franklin, [1753] 1961: IV, 483–484)

Public uses of German, he added, such as advertisements, newspapers, street signs, legal contracts, and court interpreters, only made the situation worse. Concerned that ‘few of their children in the Country learn English’ (IV, 484) – most were being educated in German – Franklin helped to establish a network of English-language schools under the guise of providing religious instruction. German parents were initially enthusiastic, but when the assimilationist purpose of these ‘charity schools’ was revealed, they refused to send their children (Bell, 1955).

Sometimes I don't get Swedes

Even for me, a guy descended from them, who has lived among them, learned their language, made friends with some of them, and immersed myself in their culture, Swedes can be confounding.
Among some things I will never understand is why they can't speak English. I've already talked about how they can't pronounce viking and video correctly even though THEY ARE PRONOUNCED WITH A V IN SWEDISH!
Now add the fact that they insist on calling polar bears 'icebears'. What is up with that? I may never know.

Phillies and Positive Anymore

Charlie Manuel lays down a nice positive anymore.

"I think anymore, if you can get somebody who you think might play a role in helping you, I think you'd better go get him,'' Phils manager Charlie Manuel said. "You never have enough pitching . . . Actually, that's what it's all about."

And Rich Hoffman follows his lead:

THE FESTIVITIES have begun, with fresh-faced kids expectantly lining the curbs on either side of the street and Rudy Seanez perched above the back seat of the first open convertible. If this summer is like last summer, the parade will feature 12, maybe 15 more cars. That is how many pitchers it takes anymore, more than double what you started with on Opening Day.

Why is this so hard?

I'm always surprised when people think that Yeungling beer is Chinese. But I never expected it from a Swede. Still, Lennart at Det Progressiva USA, makes this mistake.

Det finns ingen chans på denna jorden att Pennsylvanias mest berömda öl kan vara kinesiskt, arbetarna där är alldeles för invandrarfientliga för att dricka kinesiskt öl, än mindre för att rösta på Barack Obama, så jag googlade och det visar sig att namnet ursprungligen är tyskt och detsamma som det svenska yngling!

There's no way in the world that Pennsylvania's most famous beer is Chinese, workers there are too xenophobic to drink Chinese beer, not to mention vote for Barack Obama, so I googled it and the name turns out to be of German origin and cognate with the Swedish word yngling!

C'mon, the word is freaking so obviously germanic!
Also, Lennart needs to visit PA and talk to some real "arbetar" here. I can hook him up with my brothers who all seem to be leaning toward Obama.

WTF Antecedent

From a Citgo ad:

For generations we've been helping to fuel our way of life

I know what its supposed to say; 'we' is meant to refer to Citgo and 'our' to society. But it hurts my brain to get that reading. Instead I want them both to refer to Citgo.

Hmmm...

In southern New Jersey there is a museum of a colonial era Swedish settlement. They claim Swedes are responsible for South Jersey dialect features.

The fort, a threat to Dutch shipping interests in New York, did not last long, but the settlements and the Scandinavian influence has endured over the years. Today, linguists theorize that certain speech patterns in Southern New Jersey, which differ from the rest of the State, are traceable to the mixed and changing Swedish-English vocabulary.

Could be.

Absolute best [[new word] blog]

Check out Mark Peter's work at Wordlustitude. I especially like this entry since I had some little part in it's creation:

quasi-crackpotitude

noun. The questionable quality that semi-nuttily lurks in the sorta-batshitty heart of a pseudo-whacko.

Real citation: “Ah! It's a very technique-driven game you play, then! One must walk the thin line of almost maybe quasi-crackpotitude carefully...”
(July 19, 2007, nerdnyc, http://www.nerdnyc.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=30229&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=10&sid=7e80e314da25da1468dd5b4606c77315)

Made-up citation: "I like people to think I'm a burbling, carbonated cauldron of pain and quasi-crackpotitude. It improves their opinion of my writing."

Obligatory prescriptivist rant

Yesterday Leonard Lopate had Patricia T. O'Connor on for a regular language discussion, this time on pronunciation errors. I caught the tail end of the show and was predictably incensed. You can listen to the show here.

I posted some comments on the discussion board. It's moderated, so I don't know if they will make it on there (update: that was quick!). Here they are:

As a phonologist, I'm pretty disappointed by the lack of expertise of your expert, Ms. O'Conner. Especially when it comes to basic phonetics, phonology, and American dialect differences. Many of the questions listeners brought up have been studied extensively by American dialectologists and linguists. I suggest she look into that work before the next scheduled appearance. A good place to start is the American Dialect Society (on the web at www.americandialect.org).
In response to Jim's question above: the pronunciation of [or] as [ar] in NY (and other parts of the mid Atlantic] happens when the the [r] starts a new syllable in the word. You get it in 'sorry' but not 'for'. That said, all Americans pretty much have the [ar] in 'sorry' (unlike Canadians) but only some dialects extend it to other words like 'orange', 'Florida', or 'moral'. And many people have some idiosyncratic uses. For example, I (a native of SE Pennsylvania) have it in most of these words except 'moral'.
Some Brits may also have this pronunciation, although the only evidence I have for that claim is Roger Daltry's pronunciation of 'moral' in "Won't get fooled again". He clearly sings 'The m[ar]als that we worshipped were all gone.' I don't know if that is him affecting an American pronunciation or his native one.

On the show a caller asked about [shtreet] for [street]. This is also a common phonological variation in American speech. It appears to be anticipatory assimilation of the [s] to the place of articulation of the [r]. A similar rule is found in Swedish where an [s] following an [r] is pronounced as [sh], for example [morshan] meaning "Mother".

I'm surprised more people aren't excited by the Great Vowel Shift. I mean, it has the word 'great' right there in it's name.

McCain not afraid of languages

Language Log rightly singles McCain out for being smart about English Only.
This appears to be a long-held opinion by Senator McCain. In 1996, he went on record against an English only bill--even threatening a filibuster.

According to the best estimates of committee staff, opposition lobbyists, and other semi-informed sources, here's how the Governmental Affairs votes appear to break down:

5 solidly in favor: Stevens (R-Alaska), Roth (R-Del.), Cochran (R-Miss.), Smith (R-N.H.), and Brown (R-Colo.)
5 1/2 solidly against: Glenn (D-Ohio), Levin (D-Mich.), Lieberman (D-Conn.), Akaka (D-Hi.), Dorgan (D-N.D.), and McCain* (R-Ariz.).
4 undeclared or uncommitted: Cohen (R-Me.), Thompson (R-Tenn.), Nunn (D-Ga.), and Pryor (D-Ark.)
Senator John McCain's name is asterisked because his position is politically problematic. On the one hand, in communications with constituent groups he has reaffirmed his longstanding opposition to English-only legislation – even implying that he would stage a filibuster against S. 356 on the Senate floor, if necessary. On the other hand, now that English-only has become a partisan issue, his opposition creates tensions with fellow Republicans. McCain is now being mentioned as a possible running mate for Bob Dole, an English-only supporter who may decide to exploit the issue during his Presidential campaign. Thus far McCain has managed to absent himself at two hearings, and at today's markup, on S. 356.

And here he is quoted in a Time article from 1988on the issue:

Even conservatives like Arizona Senator John McCain oppose initiatives like the one just passed in his state. Says McCain: "Our nation and the English language have done quite well with Chinese spoken in California, German in Pennsylvania, Italian in New York, Swedish in Minnesota and Spanish in the Southwest. I fail to see the cause for alarm now."