PSA: Dice

[Delicious Taffy]

This was somewhat entertaining at first, but now it's just gotten grating. Nobody is arguing any of the points being refuted, at this point, so far as I can tell. Maybe if the primary actors would shut the hell up and explain themselves clearly*, this could be resolved in a reasonable manner. The closest I've come to understanding the conflict is that one person is saying that dialects exist, and the other is saying there are still basic rules to follow. If this is the case, then there's no reason to continue, because it's gotten nasty, and the two points aren't contradictory in the first place. Having general rules and guidelines does not remove the legitimacy of a dialect, and having a dialect does not remove the legitimacy of having general rules and guidelines. In the end, conveying a concept is the point of a language, and if you can understand someone well enough, clarification is fine on what you missed, but lecturing them on how improper their language is? Well, that's just called being an overly-pedantic *******. Just admit you're both generally right, forget the worthless little quibbles that have caused pointless tangents, and make out already.


*To everyone else, not yourselves. It doesn't matter how well you understand what you mean if nobody else does.

[ImNotTrevor]

This was somewhat entertaining at first, but now it's just gotten grating. Nobody is arguing any of the points being refuted, at this point, so far as I can tell. Maybe if the primary actors would shut the hell up and explain themselves clearly*, this could be resolved in a reasonable manner. The closest I've come to understanding the conflict is that one person is saying that dialects exist, and the other is saying there are still basic rules to follow. If this is the case, then there's no reason to continue, because it's gotten nasty, and the two points aren't contradictory in the first place. Having general rules and guidelines does not remove the legitimacy of a dialect, and having a dialect does not remove the legitimacy of having general rules and guidelines. In the end, conveying a concept is the point of a language, and if you can understand someone well enough, clarification is fine on what you missed, but lecturing them on how improper their language is? Well, that's just called being an overly-pedantic *******. Just admit you're both generally right, forget the worthless little quibbles that have caused pointless tangents, and make out already.


*To everyone else, not yourselves. It doesn't matter how well you understand what you mean if nobody else does.

This is why I brought up Linguistic Etiquette, since it is, in my mind, the optimal approach.

When in Rome, etc.

Y'all is OK in Texas, even if not in New York. AND, when in New York, cut back on its use. But in Texas, go nuts. If you tell a Texan talking to Texans that Y'all is wrong, you're being pedantic and an A-hole. If you're telling a New Yorker that (I apologize for this) "badabing, badaboom" are not words, you're being a butt. (And so am I for doing that. I honestly couldn't think of the inverse otherwise.)


And in response to a previous post, yes. Prescriptivism does lean heavily towards "The way rich educated people do it is the right way. We know because they're rich and educated and they say so." Not explicitly so, but it's creepily close.
(For clarity, I don't think anyone here is of that particular stance, mostly out of not really knowing anything other than very summarized bits of the tips of the icebergs of the two general schools of thought, so I don't really think most of the people bringing dogs to the fight and throwing in with either side actually know all that much about the sides themselves)

[hymer]

Marvy. Fab. Far out.

That's totally spam. Lubricated! I'm phasing.

[Max_Killjoy]

Empirically more, because the enforcement of French-origin words is in response to "non-French words" that have already assimilated, rather than to preempt the possible assimilation of "non-French" words?

Irregardless, I'd rather roll a dice than quibble over grammar.

Since I've only been skimming the thread: has the class issue come up yet? That is, the fact (I think it's safe to say fact) that prescriptivism consistently prescribes the highest-status version of the language it's describing (within a given region)?

At least in the US, there really isn't a "dialect of the wealthy and elite" any more. There used to be an "aristocratic Northeast" dialect/accent (listen to speeches by Franklin Roosevelt and some of his peers), but that's largely faded since. In part due to the the anti-intellectual underbelly of American culture, people are just as easily judged for being "too proper" in their manner of speech. In fact, some American politicians are encouraged by their advisors to dumb-down their vocabulary in order to avoid "alienating" or "offending" the electorate.

Listen to the richest Americans today, and you'll hear broad sample and blend of American dialects, clustering around "television American" / General American English. It's a broad blend of "de-regionalized" American English that's descended at least as much on what a farmer in Wisconsin or a store clerk in industrial Ohio grew up speaking as it is on what a fourth-generation multi-millionaire in the Northeast might sound like.


Of interest to me due to my location is this -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northe...es_Vowel_Shift -- which I have found to be fascinating because it in no way at all reflects how I speak despite living in SW Michigan my entire life.

[Segev]

Man, Latin fanboys ruin everything. Maybe there's a good reason it's always used as the go-to "evil incantation" language.

Interestingly, Anime will often use Engrish or Gelman for its "spellcasting" language.

As far as specific examples go, I feel using literally in the figurative sense cam be acceptable for the purposes of enhancing/emphasizing an existing hyperbole (since it will still be understood that the setence is hyperbolic even with the word 'literally' present), but is just confusing outside of such a context. I can certainly understand why that would irk some people, though.

I disagree. It's one thing for a word to stretch from its original meaning based on usage to encompass another, related meaning, or even an unrelated one. When the word can literally mean two opposite concepts, that is a problem. Especially when no, you cannot guarantee that the context will let you know which is intended.

"He literally drove that car into the ground!" What is meant here? Is he saying "he drove that car into the ground" in the metaphorical sense, but with added emphasis, or is he saying that the guy crashed the car into a steep hill or other representation of the ground? The fact that this dual-and-opposite meaning for "literally" leads to - at best - having to ask for clarification when it's used because it's not possible to tell from context makes the utterance of more than half the phrases using it a waste of breath. At worst, it makes people who think they know what the word means (whether they're right or not) assume one meaning when the other was meant, leading to "amusing" misunderstandings.

"She literally fed me poison!"

Should somebody be taking me to the hospital and calling the police, or am I just warning them away from her awful cooking? Doubly problematic if I'm showing signs of intestinal distress.

This is where I get to introduce the expansion of my position while also getting to be smug because a Usage Dictionary (the guys who tell you how words are used) are A-ok with it outside of formal contexts:
"In its standard use literally means ‘in a literal sense, as opposed to a non-literal or exaggerated sense’, as for example in I told him I never wanted to see him again, but I didn't expect him to take it literally. In recent years an extended use of literally (and also literal) has become very common, where literally (or literal) is used deliberately in non-literal contexts, for added effect, as in they bought the car and literally ran it into the ground. This use can lead to unintentional humorous effects (we were literally killing ourselves laughing) and is not acceptable in formal contexts, though it is widespread"
-Oxford English Dictionary

Frankly, it's not something that should go uncorrected even outside "formal" contexts. About the only time it's really acceptable is in parody. Again, because this particular usage muddles meaning even within context, since the original meaning is intended to disambiguate figurative hyperbole from literal denotation.

Here is where I introduce a new concept that will likely blow your mind:

Linguistic Ettiquette.

It is essentially the Linguistic version of "When in rome" or the two-word version of "write/speak for the intended audience."

If you're joking, in a format suited to such jokes, then yes. They are incorrect to correct you. Especially when the social context allows it.

(...)

Let the context of the situation be your guide. If I'm in a rodeo in Texas, and I say "Howdy," am I speaking appropriately to the audience?

If I'm in a New York Board Meeting and I say "Howdy?" am I speaking appropriately for the audience?

I'm going to trim a lot of your post, not because I didn't read it, but in an attempt to be brief. I'll fail at that attempt anyway, but I'm going to make the effort. I apologize if you think I've missed something important.

Here, I don't disagree. This concept doesn't "blow my mind" at all. The fact you think it does is mildly insulting, but I don't think you mean it that way, so I won't take offense. You bring up "howdy" and "y'all" repeatedly. No, I have no problem with those words. I am aware of "howdy"'s etymology, and what it means now, and it's fine as a dialectic greeting. I, at least, am not speaking against dialects. "Y'all" isn't even a problem in formal grammar; it's a perfectly legal contraction for "you all." Some might quibble over its common use as a singular, but if you're talking to one person, "all" of him is still one person.

Later, you also bring up "ain't" and suggest I might use such in conversation. I do not. The only time I use it is in parody, because it bothers me that it's a non-contraction, non-possessive that we spell with an apostrophe. If you want to invent a new word, go ahead and do so. But heavens, please don't take one of our already mildly confusing written symbols and make it even more so. Spell it "aint" if you really, really must. I'd prefer you didn't; I dislike the word. But I won't dispute that it's valid linguistic drift. Just annoying.

Let context, as always, be your guide.
Correcting a guy who's clearly being facetious in his use of Literally when he obviously doesn't mean it and the context is casual is having a stick up your butt. Someone doing the same in a research paper or formal speech should be corrected, because it is inappropriate for the context.

The trouble is that "clearly being facetious" - unless you mean he's mocking the improper use of "literally" by demonstration - is often very hard to tell. Short of "I literally died" style expressions, where the lie is put to the adverb by simply seeing that he's there speaking it, the fact that the only reason to correctly use "literally" is to disambiguate from when you're engaging in figurative hyperbole to when you actually mean the exact definition of what you're saying, means that it is often not possible to tell.

And, even when you can take a pretty solid guess that they don't mean "literally" literally (godlings, if that very construction doesn't illustrate the problem...), you're left with the problem that you're now forced to assume that the one time you should really be asking, "wait, do you ACTUALLY mean that, or was that - I really hope - figurative?" is figurative, because the word that should have clarified it by its use is being used to exaggerate the hyperbole.

"Donald Trump literally screwed Hillary Clinton out of the Presidency," has an entirely different and more horrifying meaning if 'literally' is used correctly. We only know it's (thankfully) figurative because we have no reason to expect that Trump and Clinton had any sort of sexual encounter, nor that the process is what cost her the election. But that choice of words should make people stop and double-take, because if somebody had some new, breaking story that was actually about that, that is the phrasing one would use to disambiguate it from the colloquial meaning.

Funnily enough, mispronunciation in children often fixes itself without teaching because your brain is programmed to learn language. Speech impediments aside, of course.

Often, but not always. Especially when it's very close.

Are you sure they actively corrected you or that you just stopped? I'm guessing the latter is more likely. That's how it goes for most young kids.

They actually corrected me. It was close enough that my brain did an audio equivalent of what yuors deos wehn you raed tihs setnence: it heard enough of the sounds to translate to the concept and didn't filter that others were pronouncing that middle bit slightly differently. (It's noteworthy that, at least where I'm from and every place I've lived, people pronounce "breakfast" as if the first syllable rhymed with "wreck," rather than "ache," despite the root word being "break." Also, the second syllable is glossed over in the vowel sound, so it could just as easily be a rapidly-pronounced "fist," "fast," or "fest." "Fist" is probably closest in pronunciation, but it's really just a slur over the vowel sound that's more like "f'st.")

I replied to you and/or Max and listed several. That this was unread is not really my problem.

Please, provide them again. I can't seem to find the post with them in this monstrous thread.

Saying the point is unaddressed is not the same as saying those not addressing it are therefore wrong.

I'll accept that you mean this, but generally if somebody says, "Hey, nobody addressed this point that would seem to counter their position," they mean it as an insinuation that the point was deliberately ignored because the opposing side knew they were unable to answer it.

What is the inherent difference between those situations and this one that makes the fight over Literally comparable to PLAGUES and GLOBAL SUFFERING? As opposed to an argument about not liking how some people use a word?

So many people die from misuse of Dice and Literally. You're right. Comparing a plague that killed millions to an argument about a word is apt and appropriate, and in no way trivializes human suffering.
OR
This is overblown Appeal to Fear nonsense that I reject out-of-hand.

Yes, yes, dismiss the analogy that uses obviously more extreme circumstances, but don't actually address the points of comparison. I wouldn't mind if you rolled your eyes at my extreme analogy, but when you don't take the actual comparable bits and address them, it feels like, "I don't like how you said that, so I'm going to pretend that I won with

What is it that makes this particular word the one where the line in the sand must be drawn, facetious use and situational context be damned, there is only one way to ever use this word.

Because this particular word is directly intended to disambiguate the situations where it is now becoming part of the ambiguity.

When I was a kid, there was a prevalence amongst my elementary school peers of use of the word "ask" when they meant "answer." It was prevalent enough that I, as an impressionable 6 and 7 year old, started to wonder if maybe I had the definitions backwards, but, being the stubborn jerk that I demonstrably am (given my persistence in these arguments on forums like this), I persisted in using it (as it turns out) correctly. I also asked my parents, because, being a kid, I trusted their judgment.

This would have been less problematic than "literally" coming to mean its opposite, but it was definitely confusing. Other kids would walk up to me and say, "Would you ask me a question?" Now, with the background I just gave, you can probably guess what they really meant, but remember that we're all little kids, and this kid didn't give me any background. Even knowing other kids have used this word that way, I'm not sure which meaning they intend.

It's even worse with "literally" being used as a superlative.

Correcting it prevents the loss of disambiguation, and also, when people take to the correction, prevents them from uttering sentences which inherently are a waste of everybody's time and breath due to - at best - requiring somebody to ask them if they mean what they said. Replace it with "essentially" or "basically" or "practically" or any other word that hedges the denotation, and their meaning becomes crystal clear. And leaves those times when they do say "literally" and mean it correctly likewise clear and appropriately attention-getting.

For a more accurate comparison you'd be looking at:
"Santa Claus wore a green cloak for many years, but then began moving towards the modern red suit in the past, causing multiple depictions of Santa Claus to exist at the same time, possibly confusing some children. Based on this, why would we not stop the trend of replacing the white-fur Easter Bunny with a blonde-fur Easter Bunny?"
That's a bit closer.

Not really. It replaces it with a situation where communication isn't as essential, and where people - even kids - aren't really confused by it. I have never heard anybody question whether a given bunny is the Easter Bunny based on its coloration. Heck, the worst I've seen from even little kids regarding Santa-in-green is, "Why is Santa wearing a green coat?" Most don't even bother with that; everybody understands that people can change clothes, since they, themselves, have been doing it daily their whole lives. (Well, okay, maybe some haven't, but even so.)

No, but if they don't we will suffer Black-plague levels of suffering!

Not my point, as you might have guessed by the fact that I didn't use "literally" as an adjective nor adverb. Of course, if I had, how would you have known if I meant it literally or not, since "literally" means "extremely figuratively" as well as "literally?"

Or people will be minorly inconvenienced by one word until this slang usage moves out of popularity just like Groovy and Epic did.

Godlings, I hope so. I intend to encourage it by correcting misuses of the word.

Which is totally different from Literally gaining the meaning of "Figuratively, when used facetiously."

Which isn't a word gaining a meaning. It's a word gaining a meaning.
Totally different.

No, it's "wet" coming to mean "dry," as well as "moist," "damp," and "desiccated." "He's totally dripping wet!" now means either that he's soaked and is literally dripping water everywhere, or that he's so dry he might be dehydrated and literally a withered husk. (Also, bets on which of those 'literally's meant 'literally' and which meant 'practically'? Hint: I can prove you wrong by declaring my meaning to be the opposite of what you said you guessed and the context doesn't give you grounds to say I was deliberately deceptive.)

How dare they use Literally in a figurative and exaggerated sense! What untold, plague-like suffering awaits us! (Yes, I'm still harping on how utterly absurd that comparison is.)

Which I wouldn't mind if you weren't essentially using that harping as a variant on ad hominem. "Your analogy is extreme! Therefore the actual point contained in it can be ignored! I don't have to demonstrate that there isn't a problem of confusion because it isn't as bad as the suffering of the plague!"

I can take a ribbing. But when it's used to avoid actually engaging in the discussion, it irritates me.

Are we also banning Sarcasm, in which an entire sentence is used to convey its opposite? (Obviously not.)

Indeed not. You'll note that we have conventions for conveying sarcasm. In speech, it's conveyed by tone. In text, we often have to ask people if they're being sarcastic or not. It happens often enough that some people on this forum adopt a convention of using blue text for it when they think there's risk of it not being clear. They're obviously meaning exactly what they say, those terrible people!

Point it out all you want. I'm not offended, I just think it's a waste of time.

It isn't, because most people who misuse it don't realize they're misusing it. And, if you harp on it enough, it does change some people's behavior, even if they persist out of habit for a while. (Others persist to be deliberately annoying, the way I still pronounce "origin" with accent on the second syllable to annoy my brother, who insists that it should be on the first...and he's PROBABLY right, but it's fun to irk him.) (...actually, in truth, I vacillate on how I accent that word, depending on the cadence of the sentence. It tends to be unintentional.)

If you think Descriptivists don't also seek to point out these growing meanings to make people aware of potential confusion without saying one version is wrong and will bring about nogoodverybadtimes, you don't understand the position. Pointing out a point of conflicting Usage for the benefit of speakers seeking to cater to their audiences accomplishes a similar task without also being smug and judgemental about it.

"Ohey, in this context that might be confusing. Is that your intent?" Is more pleasant than "You're using that word wrong."

Unfortunately it takes more words and, if I wanted to be needlessly biting, I'd bring up some bit about how the first doesn't let you feel superior. But I don't think that is a conscious intent of you in particular.

I generally don't say "you're using that word wrong." I skip straight to, "When you said that you 'literally died laughing,' you conveyed that you meant that you really, truly died, not that you are using 'died' as a hyperbole but want to emphasize it." Which is more words, but gets the correct definition across as quickly as I am able.

Again, I have no strong feelings one way or another. I see the argument for both but I still use it out of habit.

I literally do not see the argument for refusing to use it.

No, I mean literally. I don't know what the argument is.

The idea that it is up to the brave few to uphold the One True Right English while even the people supposedly responsible for establishing the One True Right English can't agree is incredibly funny to me.

That really isn't the point. The point is to maintain understanding of what the words people are saying actually mean. For the same reason that we should discourage people from starting to use "wet" to mean every possible level of moisture something could exhibit.

It isn't about snobbery, at least not to me. It's about clarity and accuracy and precision in speech.

[Max_Killjoy]

"Literally" being used to mean either "figuratively" OR "literally literally" isn't a word gaining a meaning.

It's a word losing all meaning. It's a word being made useless. It's the language being degraded.

[Delicious Taffy]

Did you know the word "literally" has three Ls in it? It also contains three vowels, which are A, E, and I. Furthermore, it contains the consonants R, T, and Y. You can separate it right down the middle to create the words "liter" and "ally", as well, and if you take out the "-ly" suffix, it becomes "literal", which is the root word.

I was going to bring up something more constructive, but isn't it fun to just harp on about a single word for pages and pages? It matters so much, and I'm so glad I read all of this wonderful dialogue about it, instead of a rational discussion about how different words can mean the same thing depending on context and dialect, like the OP opened the door for.

[Mordar]

Empirically more, because the enforcement of French-origin words is in response to "non-French words" that have already assimilated, rather than to preempt the possible assimilation of "non-French" words?

I don't think I quite get this...I believe the effort to be to "prevent assimilation of additional non-French words due to the perceived impact of previous assimilation". Basically, we've let one or two in and don't like what it portends, so we're both going to try and kick them out and stop any new ones from sneaking into the language.

So if that is the case, that leads to more drift? Help!

[Also: I appear to have never learned how to include both the quoted reply and the comment the reply quoted from a previous post. Is there a way to do that on the quick, or do I have to select multi-quote on each original posting?]

Irregardless, I'd rather roll a dice than quibble over grammar.

This would have been improved by swapping "myself" in for "I'd"...

Since I've only been skimming the thread: has the class issue come up yet? That is, the fact (I think it's safe to say fact) that prescriptivism consistently prescribes the highest-status version of the language it's describing (within a given region)?

...and yet the school that the poor white kid from the trailer park attended taught the same version as the school that the rich kid from the country club attended. 150 years ago there was probably a lot more validity to this defense against expecting adherence to the rules (arbitrary or otherwise) of our language and the inevitable consequence from ignoring or dismissing those rules. The basics necessary for most of this conversation are sufficient and managed in elementary school. This isn't physics or calculus (or Latin or comparative religions or Russian literature, etc.) where the differences in schooling really separate.

- M

[Lord Torath]

Did you know the word "literally" has three Ls in it? It also contains three vowels, which are A, E, and I. Furthermore, it contains the consonants R, T, and Y. You can separate it right down the middle to create the words "liter" and "ally", as well, and if you take out the "-ly" suffix, it becomes "literal", which is the root word.

I was going to bring up something more constructive, but isn't it fun to just harp on about a single word for pages and pages? It matters so much, and I'm so glad I read all of this wonderful dialogue about it, instead of a rational discussion about how different words can mean the same thing depending on context and dialect, like the OP opened the door for.

I'm just going to leave these here (anyone who's managed to wade through this much discussion of "literally" needs a laugh!):
Captain Literally: ALL EPISODES! - YouTube
The Grammar League - YouTube

[Also: I appear to have never learned how to include both the quoted reply and the comment the reply quoted from a previous post. Is there a way to do that on the quick, or do I have to select multi-quote on each original posting?]

I think the easiest way is the Multi-Quote button.

[BayardSPSR]

At least in the US, there really isn't a "dialect of the wealthy and elite" any more. There used to be an "aristocratic Northeast" dialect/accent (listen to speeches by Franklin Roosevelt and some of his peers), but that's largely faded since. In part due to the the anti-intellectual underbelly of American culture, people are just as easily judged for being "too proper" in their manner of speech. In fact, some American politicians are encouraged by their advisors to dumb-down their vocabulary in order to avoid "alienating" or "offending" the electorate.

Listen to the richest Americans today, and you'll hear broad sample and blend of American dialects, clustering around "television American" / General American English. It's a broad blend of "de-regionalized" American English that's descended at least as much on what a farmer in Wisconsin or a store clerk in industrial Ohio grew up speaking as it is on what a fourth-generation multi-millionaire in the Northeast might sound like.

I don't see the adoption of lower-status dialects for political purposes as evidence against a hierarchy of dialects, but as evidence supporting it. The status associated with a dialect doesn't necessarily mean that someone is guaranteed to like or respect you for using it; on the contrary, using it in an area where the local dialect is considered lower-status at the national level might be a great way to seem like an uppity outsider.

As far as what today's high-status American dialect is, I think you've described it pretty well. It's not aristocratic, but it definitely dominates American public life, and people who use lower-status dialects in environments dominated by it are definitely stigmatized.

...and yet the school that the poor white kid from the trailer park attended taught the same version as the school that the rich kid from the country club attended. 150 years ago there was probably a lot more validity to this defense against expecting adherence to the rules (arbitrary or otherwise) of our language and the inevitable consequence from ignoring or dismissing those rules. The basics necessary for most of this conversation are sufficient and managed in elementary school. This isn't physics or calculus (or Latin or comparative religions or Russian literature, etc.) where the differences in schooling really separate.

Yes, they're both taught a higher-status dialect, which the wealthier kid probably grew up speaking with their parents, and the poorer kid may not have. Low-status dialects don't get taught in schools. That said, since the poorer kid is likely surrounded by people who speak the same dialect they do, they may leave school still speaking it - or more likely, will leave school able to code-switch between their native dialect and the high-status one they'll use in job interviews.

I also want to point out that you're specifically using a poor white kid as an example. Dialect status in the US is heavily racialized.

EDIT: Possible rule of thumb: if you can't think of the high-status dialect in your region/society, you probably speak it?

[Max_Killjoy]

I don't see the adoption of lower-status dialects for political purposes as evidence against a hierarchy of dialects, but as evidence supporting it.

Notice I said "vocabulary", not "dialect".

The status associated with a dialect doesn't necessarily mean that someone is guaranteed to like or respect you for using it; on the contrary, using it in an area where the local dialect is considered lower-status at the national level might be a great way to seem like an uppity outsider.

As far as what today's high-status American dialect is, I think you've described it pretty well. It's not aristocratic, but it definitely dominates American public life, and people who use lower-status dialects in environments dominated by it are definitely stigmatized.

There doesn't appear to be any evidence at all to indicate that there's a specific dialect that separates "high status" from the general population or the overall "middle class" or "professional class" in America.

Do you have any evidence to indicate that such a dialect exists?

[Mordar]

Yes, they're both taught a higher-status dialect

This struck me as an interesting turn of phrase. Are they being taught a high-status dialect...or are they being taught what is accepted as proper usage? And that is thought to correspond to what was at one time the dialect of the people of high status?

In this case, is status referential to social status, economic status or some other status?

I guess some of my confusion may also relate to the connotation I have/had of "dialect" which is that a dialect is effectively a variant of the standard language...thus you have 1 standard language with possibly X dialects (that may be regional, ethnic, temporal, etc). Is this incorrect, and there is a "standard dialect" with possible X other sub-dialects?

- M

[Max_Killjoy]

This struck me as an interesting turn of phrase. Are they being taught a high-status dialect...or are they being taught what is accepted as proper usage? And that is thought to correspond to what was at one time the dialect of the people of high status?

In this case, is status referential to social status, economic status or some other status?

I guess some of my confusion may also relate to the connotation I have/had of "dialect" which is that a dialect is effectively a variant of the standard language...thus you have 1 standard language with possibly X dialects (that may be regional, ethnic, temporal, etc). Is this incorrect, and there is a "standard dialect" with possible X other sub-dialects?

English-as-taught-in-schools, sometimes referred to as "Standard English" or "General American English", is specifically does not originate with "high status America" of the time in which is was conceived.

Regarding dialects, it has for some time been fashionable in academic circles to reject even the slightest suggestion that a language might have one standard, with variations -- all dialects are "equal" and "valid".

[ImNotTrevor]

English-as-taught-in-schools, sometimes referred to as "Standard English" or "General American English", is specifically does not originate with "high status America" of the time in which is was conceived.

Regarding dialects, it has for some time been fashionable in academic circles to reject any even the slightest suggestion that a language might have one standard, with variations -- all dialects are "equal" and "valid".

Yes. One dialect in particular has been Blessed By Deity and was not selected by happenstance to be the "Standard" for no legitimate or inate reason, and certainly not becase the people making the decision just liked it the most.

Even though all evidence says that is exactly what happened, we all know better because my english teacher said it was the best English, so it is.

I disagree. It's one thing for a word to stretch from its original meaning based on usage to encompass another, related meaning, or even an unrelated one. When the word can literally mean two opposite concepts, that is a problem. Especially when no, you cannot guarantee that the context will let you know which is intended.

Let the question "Did ___ really ___?" Be your assistance when you can't tell.

"He literally drove that car into the ground!" What is meant here? Is he saying "he drove that car into the ground" in the metaphorical sense, but with added emphasis, or is he saying that the guy crashed the car into a steep hill or other representation of the ground?

Well, let's have a think here:
How many cars, on average, meet theor demise by collisions that place them INTO the ground?

Extremely rarely, no? Then assume it's facetious until they tell you otherwise. This stuff is insanely easy, being painted like it's exceptionally hard. I have never had a problem telling the difference between actual and facetious, exaggerated use.

The fact that this dual-and-opposite meaning for "literally" leads to - at best - having to ask for clarification when it's used because it's not possible to tell from context makes the utterance of more than half the phrases using it a waste of breath. At worst, it makes people who think they know what the word means (whether they're right or not) assume one meaning when the other was meant, leading to "amusing" misunderstandings.

If you think the majority of people using it aren't aware of both meanings and are using it to exaggerate ON PURPOSE, you have an insultingly dismal view of the intelligence of other people based on how they use a word. Or you live in a place unusually swamped with morons, in which case I feel for you.

"She literally fed me poison!"

Should somebody be taking me to the hospital and calling the police, or am I just warning them away from her awful cooking? Doubly problematic if I'm showing signs of intestinal distress.

If you're going through the effort of trying to insert "Literally" into a sentence instead of expressing the feeling that you are in extreme distress and feel your life is in danger, and just jave a gurgly tummy, the answer is bald-faced and obvious.

Frankly, it's not something that should go uncorrected even outside "formal" contexts. About the only time it's really acceptable is in parody. Again, because this particular usage muddles meaning even within context, since the original meaning is intended to disambiguate figurative hyperbole from literal denotation.

Again, compared to other auto-antonyms
(Apparently I need to be Google for other people again so here's a very quick link to some:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auto-antonym
Yes, some are debated there and others are very obviously going both ways.)

I'm going to trim a lot of your post, not because I didn't read it, but in an attempt to be brief. I'll fail at that attempt anyway, but I'm going to make the effort. I apologize if you think I've missed something important.

I was rambling thanks to having been awake for 16 hours and getting screamed at by clinically psychotic children for around half of my 10 hour workday. I don't guarantee the quality of this post, either. But weirdly, arguing about pointless crap on the internet helps me unwind. So there you go.

Here, I don't disagree. This concept doesn't "blow my mind" at all. The fact you think it does is mildly insulting, but I don't think you mean it that way, so I won't take offense.

You have correctly spotted hyperbole amd exaggeration. Now just figure out how to do that with sentences containing the word Literally, and the problem solves itself.

You bring up "howdy" and "y'all" repeatedly. No, I have no problem with those words. I am aware of "howdy"'s etymology, and what it means now, and it's fine as a dialectic greeting. I, at least, am not speaking against dialects. "Y'all" isn't even a problem in formal grammar; it's a perfectly legal contraction for "you all." Some might quibble over its common use as a singular, but if you're talking to one person, "all" of him is still one person.

I recommend running an experiment:
Use "Y'all" in a college paper, scientific paper, legal writing, or other highly formal context and see if it causes you problems. We both know how it will play out, but I'm pointing towards actually thinking about what Formal means.

Later, you also bring up "ain't" and suggest I might use such in conversation. I do not. The only time I use it is in parody, because it bothers me that it's a non-contraction, non-possessive that we spell with an apostrophe. If you want to invent a new word, go ahead and do so. But heavens, please don't take one of our already mildly confusing written symbols and make it even more so. Spell it "aint" if you really, really must. I'd prefer you didn't; I dislike the word. But I won't dispute that it's valid linguistic drift. Just annoying.

Ain't is indeed a contraction.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ain't
It was, for many years, a valid contraction of "are not," and fell out of use for a time before resurfacing. Look up its history and be amazed at a word that was once formal and is no longer.

[QUOTE)
The trouble is that "clearly being facetious" - unless you mean he's mocking the improper use of "literally" by demonstration - is often very hard to tell. Short of "I literally died" style expressions, where the lie is put to the adverb by simply seeing that he's there speaking it, the fact that the only reason to correctly use "literally" is to disambiguate from when you're engaging in figurative hyperbole to when you actually mean the exact definition of what you're saying, means that it is often not possible to tell. [/QUOTE]
I have literally never had this problem. Really. Not a single time have I ever been unable to tell from the wider context of the conversation. (So don't give me a single sentence for a Gotcha, here. Give me an entire paragraph and I'll probably get it right so long as it's not intentionally engineered to deceive.)

And, even when you can take a pretty solid guess that they don't mean "literally" literally (godlings, if that very construction doesn't illustrate the problem...), you're left with the problem that you're now forced to assume that the one time you should really be asking, "wait, do you ACTUALLY mean that, or was that - I really hope - figurative?" is figurative, because the word that should have clarified it by its use is being used to exaggerate the hyperbole.

"Donald Trump literally screwed Hillary Clinton out of the Presidency," has an entirely different and more horrifying meaning if 'literally' is used correctly. We only know it's (thankfully) figurative because we have no reason to expect that Trump and Clinton had any sort of sexual encounter, nor that the process is what cost her the election. But that choice of words should make people stop and double-take, because if somebody had some new, breaking story that was actually about that, that is the phrasing one would use to disambiguate it from the colloquial meaning.

Someone is going to break a scandalous story like that using "Trump literally screwed Hillary out of the election?" That's the sentence they will use? Not just a declarative statement such as "Illicit love affair between Trump and Clinton cost her the presidency"

Come on. None of your contrived situations are even a little bit hard to parse out.

Often, but not always. Especially when it's very close.

Hence why I said "often."

They actually corrected me. It was close enough that my brain did an audio equivalent of what yuors deos wehn you raed tihs setnence: it heard enough of the sounds to translate to the concept and didn't filter that others were pronouncing that middle bit slightly differently. (It's noteworthy that, at least where I'm from and every place I've lived, people pronounce "breakfast" as if the first syllable rhymed with "wreck," rather than "ache," despite the root word being "break." Also, the second syllable is glossed over in the vowel sound, so it could just as easily be a rapidly-pronounced "fist," "fast," or "fest." "Fist" is probably closest in pronunciation, but it's really just a slur over the vowel sound that's more like "f'st.")

Sounds kinda like the Utah accent that diminishes most vowels. And I don't know of anyone in modernity that pronounces it as Break-Fast like the two individual words.

Please, provide them again.

I did above.

I'll accept that you mean this, but generally if somebody says, "Hey, nobody addressed this point that would seem to counter their position," they mean it as an insinuation that the point was deliberately ignored because the opposing side knew they were unable to answer it.

It does mean the point stands unaddressed, which is bad for the opposing side. Ignoring a point (as we've seen) is not a good thing.

Yes, yes, dismiss the analogy that uses obviously more extreme circumstances, but don't actually address the points of comparison. I wouldn't mind if you rolled your eyes at my extreme analogy, but when you don't take the actual comparable bits and address them

So... "Linguistic drift that was bad happened and in actuality it was a decade (maybe) of minor inconvenience and then it ended up not being a problem, so why would we not prevent ourselves from ever experiencing a minor inconvenience that will likely sort itself out ever again?"
Probably because it's only a minor inconvenience compared to the monumental task of stopping linguistic drift? It would be like if you had to choose between being itchy for a day and eradicating all mosquitos from the earth. I'm no expert, but most people would rather just be inconvenienced. And yes, it would be a task comparable to causing the extinction of mosquitos.

Because this particular word is directly intended to disambiguate the situations where it is now becoming part of the ambiguity.

Auto-antonyms are already a thing. The specific definition of this new one does not make it different. What is it inherently about this particular word that is where the line must be drawn?

When I was a kid, there was a prevalence amongst my elementary school peers of use of the word "ask" when they meant "answer." It was prevalent enough that I, as an impressionable 6 and 7 year old, started to wonder if maybe I had the definitions backwards, but, being the stubborn jerk that I demonstrably am (given my persistence in these arguments on forums like this), I persisted in using it (as it turns out) correctly. I also asked my parents, because, being a kid, I trusted their judgment.

This would have been less problematic than "literally" coming to mean its opposite, but it was definitely confusing. Other kids would walk up to me and say, "Would you ask me a question?" Now, with the background I just gave, you can probably guess what they really meant, but remember that we're all little kids, and this kid didn't give me any background. Even knowing other kids have used this word that way, I'm not sure which meaning they intend.

He wanted an answer. People who want to have a question asked of them almost invariably include the question. *shrug*
But a classroom-wide misunderstanding likely having to do with wonky teaching is not the same as widespread use.

Correcting it prevents the loss of disambiguation,

I wasn't aware that the death of Literally was also the end of disambiguation.

and also, when people take to the correction, prevents them from uttering sentences which inherently are a waste of everybody's time and breath due to - at best - requiring somebody to ask them if they mean what they said. Replace it with "essentially" or "basically" or "practically" or any other word that hedges the denotation, and their meaning becomes crystal clear. And leaves those times when they do say "literally" and mean it correctly likewise clear and appropriately attention-getting.

Or just, like.... listen to people while they talk so you can field the obviously facetious.

Not really. It replaces it with a situation where communication isn't as essential, and where people - even kids - aren't really confused by it. I have never heard anybody question whether a given bunny is the Easter Bunny based on its coloration. Heck, the worst I've seen from even little kids regarding Santa-in-green is, "Why is Santa wearing a green coat?" Most don't even bother with that; everybody understands that people can change clothes, since they, themselves, have been doing it daily their whole lives. (Well, okay, maybe some haven't, but even so.)

indeed. Both are minor inconveniences. If your entire communication being interpreted correctly hinges on a correct interpretation of "literally," you need to reword.

Not my point, as you might have guessed by the fact that I didn't use "literally" as an adjective nor adverb. Of course, if I had, how would you have known if I meant it literally or not, since "literally" means "extremely figuratively" as well as "literally?"

By context.

I have literally typed until my fingers fell off. You can tell by my still typing and not going to the hospital and by the impossibility of my statement.

It's also worth noting that in most cases, Literally is used to emphasise (in speech) AFTER the simple declarative form of the statement.
"Her screaming made my ears bleed."
"Ha! Wow."
"No, she literally made my ears bleed."
"Oh crap! Are you ok?"
Etc.

No, it's "wet" coming to mean "dry," as well as "moist," "damp," and "desiccated." "He's totally dripping wet!" now means either that he's soaked and is literally dripping water everywhere, or that he's so dry he might be dehydrated and literally a withered husk. (Also, bets on which of those 'literally's meant 'literally' and which meant 'practically'? Hint: I can prove you wrong by declaring my meaning to be the opposite of what you said you guessed and the context doesn't give you grounds to say I was deliberately deceptive.)

By statistics, the first is legit and the second is not since the second is vastly more exaggerated. If it had been "so wet he was literally bloated and pale like a corpse left in a river." But even you openly admitted that there is an intention at being obfuscating and not just exaggerating, meaning the choice was intentionally confusing which hurts your point rather than helping it. Yes, you can be intentionally confusing. This is true of most words.

Which I wouldn't mind if you weren't essentially using that harping as a variant on ad hominem. "Your analogy is extreme! Therefore the actual point contained in it can be ignored! I don't have to demonstrate that there isn't a problem of confusion because it isn't as bad as the suffering of the plague!"

My contention is with the scale of the problem. Saying it is the worst ever thing ever, that we are careening towards a future of meaningful grunts because a single word is becoming an additional Auto-antonym (which it really isn't, even the definition added in reads more like a point of usage with a lot of informally proceeding it and pointing out that it is meant facetiously or to exaggerate. Even in the most reasonably confusing way I can think of, namely:
"I literally walked 30 miles yesterday," the exact number of miles is probably irrelevant when the intended meaning is "I walked a lot yesterday, and I want to really emphasize how much I walked."

I can take a ribbing. But when it's used to avoid actually engaging in the discussion, it irritates me.

Indeed not. You'll note that we have conventions for conveying sarcasm. In speech, it's conveyed by tone. In text, we often have to ask people if they're being sarcastic or not. It happens often enough that some people on this forum adopt a convention of using blue text for it when they think there's risk of it not being clear. They're obviously meaning exactly what they say, those terrible people!

Ok, so tone and context magically don't apply to one particular word even though we do just fine for sarcasm, and it has the exact same weakness in text as sarcasm has, which probably means methods of establishing tone in text will solve both problems simultaneously. (Such as proposed "Sarcastices" punctuation marks)

It isn't, because most people who misuse it don't realize they're misusing it. And, if you harp on it enough, it does change some people's behavior, even if they persist out of habit for a while. (Others persist to be deliberately annoying, the way I still pronounce "origin" with accent on the second syllable to annoy my brother, who insists that it should be on the first...and he's PROBABLY right, but it's fun to irk him.) (...actually, in truth, I vacillate on how I accent that word, depending on the cadence of the sentence. It tends to be unintentional.)

And you've convinced a tiny handful while hundreds more picked up its use. Weeee!
Like I said, not wrong, but a waste of time.

I generally don't say "you're using that word wrong." I skip straight to, "When you said that you 'literally died laughing,' you conveyed that you meant that you really, truly died, not that you are using 'died' as a hyperbole but want to emphasize it." Which is more words, but gets the correct definition across as quickly as I am able.

And it also still sounds pretentious and corrective rather than engaging in a discussion for clarity.

I literally do not see the argument for refusing to use it.

No, I mean literally. I don't know what the argument is.

I don't either. That's a schism in the Prescriptivist side, hilariously enough. Ask the guys who made the AP style guide. It is, as far as I'm aware, Prescriptive Conservatism in the use of the comma. Essentially, don't use punctuation marks unless you ABSOLUTELY NEED TO for clarity. That doesn't come from my part of the field. Descriptivists, funnily, have very little infighting. Meanwhile, Prescriptivists tend to argue about which One True Right Way is the One Truest Right Way. *shrug*

That really isn't the point. The point is to maintain understanding of what the words people are saying actually mean. For the same reason that we should discourage people from starting to use "wet" to mean every possible level of moisture something could exhibit.

Here's a thought to point to some cognitive dissonance I'm seeing, in the form of some questions with what I think the answers will be:

Words have specific meanings, yes? Ok. We all need to establish a common ground of what these words mean so we can all use them correctly, yes? Ok.
Who are the gatekeepers of these meanings? Who is the person or persons who decide upon what the meaning is? Where is it kept, so that everyone can know with precision?
(Probably some kind of dictionary, yeah? Feel free to tell me who to consult instead, I'm curious.)
Ok, so when the dictionaries almost universally acquiesce to the change, why are the keepers of the meanings suddenly betrayers except that in all other instances they should still generally be trusted but they did betray you at this one point?

(This didn't come directly from you, but I've seen this cognitive dissonance happen already and I really want to know how it's justified.)

It isn't about snobbery, at least not to me. It's about clarity and accuracy and precision in speech.

Which also happens to line up almost exactly with how the Rich and Educated speak. Again, I don't think you intentionally believe this, but you need to be aware of and acknowledge that somewhat... distasteful edge.

[Mordar]

It isn't about snobbery, at least not to me. It's about clarity and accuracy and precision in speech.

Yes. One dialect in particular has been Blessed By Deity and was not selected by happenstance to be the "Standard" for no legitimate or inate reason, and certainly not becase the people making the decision just liked it the most.

Even though all evidence says that is exactly what happened, we all know better because my english teacher said it was the best English, so it is.

[Big SNIP]

Which also happens to line up almost exactly with how the Rich and Educated speak. Again, I don't think you intentionally believe this, but you need to be aware of and acknowledge that somewhat... distasteful edge.

This is the part that I find the most engaging/troublesome (not to the exclusion of other parts)...to paraphrase, "Rich (undercurrent white) folks are keeping us as second class by making their dialect the standard accepted dialect."

To be less inflammatory, some group of people with power in this area reached a consensus, either by design or by acceptance, that a certain set of rules would be applied to create "American English". Those rules and standards were codified and spread through public and private schooling. In the modern era (and for the last several decades), these rules and standards are taught in elementary/primary school and, do not seem to be as curtailed by the same funding-based troubles as advanced math, science, arts and technology coursework or curricula.

So the response to the paraphrased problem is "But now they've made their dialect accessible to everyone, so at least *that* obstacle is minimized."

I'm swapping "communicate" in for "speak" because I think we all generally accept that speech is not the only form of communication that is important, and of all the forms of communication might be most allowed to "slide" on the rules. I think it is clear that social reinforcement probably has a larger impact on speech than on other forms of communication, and perhaps this is part of why we accept things in verbal conversation that would be jarring in written communication or formal presentation.

So the question regarding communication becomes "Do the 'rich and educated' communicate as they do because they had better access to primary school, or are they rich and educated because they communicate as they do?"

Is it that the non-rich (again, mind the undercurrent) are not presented the rules and standards equitably, or is it that those rules and standards are not reinforced by the social environment in which they live? And how is that linked to lack of concern (or inability to be concerned) with the consequences of not communicating by the rules?

Again, I believe the origin of the rules is far secondary to their existence and to the consequences for not adhering to those rules. They ARE, and they are ignored at a cost.

- M

[Max_Killjoy]

This is the part that I find the most engaging/troublesome (not to the exclusion of other parts)...to paraphrase, "Rich (undercurrent white) folks are keeping us as second class by making their dialect the standard accepted dialect."

To be less inflammatory, some group of people with power in this area reached a consensus, either by design or by acceptance, that a certain set of rules would be applied to create "American English". Those rules and standards were codified and spread through public and private schooling. In the modern era (and for the last several decades), these rules and standards are taught in elementary/primary school and, do not seem to be as curtailed by the same funding-based troubles as advanced math, science, arts and technology coursework or curricula.

So the response to the paraphrased problem is "But now they've made their dialect accessible to everyone, so at least *that* obstacle is minimized."

I'm swapping "communicate" in for "speak" because I think we all generally accept that speech is not the only form of communication that is important, and of all the forms of communication might be most allowed to "slide" on the rules. I think it is clear that social reinforcement probably has a larger impact on speech than on other forms of communication, and perhaps this is part of why we accept things in verbal conversation that would be jarring in written communication or formal presentation.

So the question regarding communication becomes "Do the 'rich and educated' communicate as they do because they had better access to primary school, or are they rich and educated because they communicate as they do?"

Is it that the non-rich (again, mind the undercurrent) are not presented the rules and standards equitably, or is it that those rules and standards are not reinforced by the social environment in which they live? And how is that linked to lack of concern (or inability to be concerned) with the consequences of not communicating by the rules?

Again, I believe the origin of the rules is far secondary to their existence and to the consequences for not adhering to those rules. They ARE, and they are ignored at a cost.

Any assertion that either the origin, or the current teaching or use of the rules of American "standard" / "general" English, lie in some sort of effort to suppress the "lower classes" by an "elite" is, to be blunt, almost entirely a fantasy, founded on the ideological assertions of a particular political policy that cannot help but see all aspects of the world through a lens of "class conflict".

The past attempt at an "elite" American accent is all but extinct.

http://dialectblog.com/2012/08/25/ar...erican-accent/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mid-Atlantic_accent

[BayardSPSR]

This struck me as an interesting turn of phrase. Are they being taught a high-status dialect...or are they being taught what is accepted as proper usage? And that is thought to correspond to what was at one time the dialect of the people of high status?

In this case, is status referential to social status, economic status or some other status?

I guess some of my confusion may also relate to the connotation I have/had of "dialect" which is that a dialect is effectively a variant of the standard language...thus you have 1 standard language with possibly X dialects (that may be regional, ethnic, temporal, etc). Is this incorrect, and there is a "standard dialect" with possible X other sub-dialects?

I was using "dialect" very loosely; I apologize for the confusion. For me, in this context, "higher-status" and "accepted as proper usage" are exactly the same thing. I'm not trying to imply that "standard American" is descended from millionaire-talk or anything, just that the fact that it's standard is what identifies it as higher-status. Status isn't referential to anything other than the fact that it's accepted as correct, and is unlikely to have a stigma associated with its use.

Any assertion that either the origin, or the current teaching or use of the rules of American "standard" / "general" English, lie in some sort of effort to suppress the "lower classes" by an "elite" is, to be blunt, almost entirely a fantasy, founded on the ideological assertions of a particular political policy that cannot help but see all aspects of the world through a lens of "class conflict".

I don't think anyone's saying that? The point isn't that "standard American" = "wealthy overlords;" the point is that "standard American" is one of at least several ways of speaking in the United States, and many of the other ones tend to be ones that we may on average tend to think of the speakers of as folksy, less-educated, poor, or criminal. No one's doing this deliberately, and it does follow that schools would encourage a higher-status way of speaking (it's in people's best interest to be able to speak it). There's no conspiracy; I'm just trying to be descriptive. At the same time, there's nothing inherent about "standard American" that necessarily means it's better than regional versions of American, or inherent about other versions of American that means they ought to have a stigma associated with them (I've heard a remarkable number of non-Southerners adopt "y'all" for a clearer plural "you," for instance).

Would this idea be less bothersome if we used a different country or language as an example? For instance, BBC English vs East London? Or Parisian French vs, I don't know, Norman?

[Max_Killjoy]

I don't think anyone's saying that? The point isn't that "standard American" = "wealthy overlords;" the point is that "standard American" is one of at least several ways of speaking in the United States, and many of the other ones tend to be ones that we may on average tend to think of the speakers of as folksy, less-educated, poor, or criminal. This doesn't necessarily mean that the speakers are likely to line. No one's doing this deliberately, and it does follow that schools would encourage a higher-status way of speaking (it's in people's best interest to be able to speak it). The way of speaking taught in schools is always likely to be a higher-status one. There's no conspiracy; I'm just trying to be descriptive. At the same time, there's nothing inherent about "standard American" that necessarily means it's better than regional versions of American (I've heard a remarkable number of non-Southerners adopt "y'all" for a clearer plural "you," for instance).

Would this idea be less bothersome if we used a different country as an example? For instance, BBC English vs East London?

England is a bad parallel, because it's actually had a long history of dialect attached to serious issues of elitism and class conflict, an entrenched "very upper" class, legal barriers to class mobility, etc.

The problem with this idea of "dialect as an aspect of class conflict" in the US is that there was never a single "elite" dialect, and the attempt at establishing one failed -- if dialect were mapped to a "socioeconomic pyramid", the American map would cut off less than half way up from the bottom. There's no dialect that serves as a marker of socioeconomic status higher than "middle class", and in some areas even no higher than "lower middle class". Of course, the political philosophy that underlies the notion of American dialects as intertwined with class conflict also has a history of seeing the "middle class" as "in league with the elites" and in conflict with the "working class" and "poor", so the reality of this truncated map might not give them any pause in making there fallacious assertions.

[BayardSPSR]

The problem with this idea of "dialect as an aspect of class conflict" in the US is that there was never a single "elite" dialect, and the attempt at establishing one failed -- if dialect were mapped to a "socioeconomic pyramid", the American map would cut off less than half way up from the bottom.

"Higher-status dialect" doesn't mean "class conflict." All it means is that one way of speaking is treated as "normal" while others may be subject to stigma.

[Segev]

I apologize for neither having the time nor energy to give the full post the response it deserves. However, I wanted to point out this one bit:

Well, let's have a think here:
How many cars, on average, meet theor demise by collisions that place them INTO the ground?

Extremely rarely, no? Then assume it's facetious until they tell you otherwise. This stuff is insanely easy, being painted like it's exceptionally hard. I have never had a problem telling the difference between actual and facetious, exaggerated use.

This is actually the entire point. The fact that so few cars are literally driven into the ground is why "literally" is an important word to preserve. Because otherwise, yes, we are forced to assume that he probably doesn't mean what he said, but instead means the exact opposite of what he said. And thus, "literally" has lost all meaning. It is no longer a useful word. At BEST, it is a worthless extra choice to use when you mean "completely" or "totally" or some other superlative that you should be using a hedge word on.

The fact that I have lost the ability to convey to you, with the sentence, "He literally drove his car into the ground," the fact that somebody's car was driven physically, actually, and without any hyperbole into the actual, genuine ground, with no metaphors involved, is a bad thing. It diminishes our ability to communicate.

I know I'm not brief, and therefore I'm not witty. I object strongly to people making it harder for me to even attempt it by reducing the precision of language to the point of meaninglessness unless I go out of my way to be overly verbose.

[ImNotTrevor]

I apologize for neither having the time nor energy to give the full post the response it deserves. However, I wanted to point out this one bit:



This is actually the entire point. The fact that so few cars are literally driven into the ground is why "literally" is an important word to preserve. Because otherwise, yes, we are forced to assume that he probably doesn't mean what he said, but instead means the exact opposite of what he said. And thus, "literally" has lost all meaning. It is no longer a useful word. At BEST, it is a worthless extra choice to use when you mean "completely" or "totally" or some other superlative that you should be using a hedge word on.

The fact that I have lost the ability to convey to you, with the sentence, "He literally drove his car into the ground," the fact that somebody's car was driven physically, actually, and without any hyperbole into the actual, genuine ground, with no metaphors involved, is a bad thing. It diminishes our ability to communicate.

I know I'm not brief, and therefore I'm not witty. I object strongly to people making it harder for me to even attempt it by reducing the precision of language to the point of meaninglessness unless I go out of my way to be overly verbose.

This is solved by adding two words.

"He literally drove his car into the ground"
(Other person doesn't get it)
"No, really."
(Other person probably gets it now and the story becomes even funnier.)

Or just, after that statement, describe the crash.

It's not particularly hard.

(And Literally has not lost all meaning. You just need to be more careful about your context and your speech. Since you're OK with people being careful with their speech, this shouldn't be much of a change. :D)

I apologize if this comes off as rude, generally. I'm being brief and trying to bring down the proposed magnitude of the problem.

[ImNotTrevor]

England is a bad parallel, because it's actually had a long history of dialect attached to serious issues of elitism and class conflict, an entrenched "very upper" class, legal barriers to class mobility, etc.

The problem with this idea of "dialect as an aspect of class conflict" in the US is that there was never a single "elite" dialect, and the attempt at establishing one failed -- if dialect were mapped to a "socioeconomic pyramid", the American map would cut off less than half way up from the bottom. There's no dialect that serves as a marker of socioeconomic status higher than "middle class", and in some areas even no higher than "lower middle class". Of course, the political philosophy that underlies the notion of American dialects as intertwined with class conflict also has a history of seeing the "middle class" as "in league with the elites" and in conflict with the "working class" and "poor", so the reality of this truncated map might not give them any pause in making there fallacious assertions.

This is not a point anyone is making. >.>

[Max_Killjoy]

I apologize for neither having the time nor energy to give the full post the response it deserves. However, I wanted to point out this one bit:



This is actually the entire point. The fact that so few cars are literally driven into the ground is why "literally" is an important word to preserve. Because otherwise, yes, we are forced to assume that he probably doesn't mean what he said, but instead means the exact opposite of what he said. And thus, "literally" has lost all meaning. It is no longer a useful word. At BEST, it is a worthless extra choice to use when you mean "completely" or "totally" or some other superlative that you should be using a hedge word on.

The fact that I have lost the ability to convey to you, with the sentence, "He literally drove his car into the ground," the fact that somebody's car was driven physically, actually, and without any hyperbole into the actual, genuine ground, with no metaphors involved, is a bad thing. It diminishes our ability to communicate.

I know I'm not brief, and therefore I'm not witty. I object strongly to people making it harder for me to even attempt it by reducing the precision of language to the point of meaninglessness unless I go out of my way to be overly verbose.

Indeed. Language is supposed to be a scalpel, not a dull and rusted machete.

Context should matter less, not more. Changes that make vocabulary less precise and more reliant on context, make the language less accurate and useful, and end up forcing those who make the attempt at precision and clarity to use more words to say the same thing. The writer must sacrifice flow and brevity, for ever more words and more convoluted phrasing.

[ImNotTrevor]

Indeed. Language is supposed to be a scalpel, not a dull and rusted machete.

Context should matter less, not more. Changes that make vocabulary less precise and more reliant on context, make the language less accurate and useful, and end up forcing those who make the attempt at precision and clarity use more words to say the same thing. The writer must sacrifice flow and brevity, for ever more words and more convoluted phrasing.

Context will always matter. Literature and vibrant metaphor RUN ON context. This is desiring a robot language where only exactly what is meant is said, and there is no room for expression, vibrancy of language or even intentional misuse for the purpose of emphasis. "Her bones were brittle, her eyes devoid of life" must be able to mean multiple things based on its context, or else all writing becomes clinical.

The error is in assuming that one word becoming an Auto-antonym is indicative of a general trend towards the language becoming vague, when in fact no such trend exists. If anything, we now have more terms for incredibly specific feelings and situations than ever before. We're even moving towards using a combination of standard words and pictograms for further clarification (Emoticons, reaction gifs, etc) in a way no one else can.

The idea that people misusing words will lead overall to decay is silly. Imagine a society where everyone is playing catch. All the time. Almost constantly. In class, on the bus, at home, at the movies, playing catch. Their throws are not, obviously, all done to perfection. But play catch they do. Will this society overall be better or worse at throwing baseball pitches?

Ok, now take a society where everyone is writing short messages to one another all the time. Almost constantly. In class, on the bus, at home, at the movies, sending messages. Their syntax and grammar are not, obviously, all kept up to maximum standards. But write messages they do. Will this society overall be better or worse at writing?

The answer is obvious: overall, both will have greater skill. We are discovering new ways to share information with increased flexibility and accuracy, because the same technology you want to use to limit the use of language, allows us to expand upon it incredibly.

[Segev]

Context will always matter. Literature and vibrant metaphor RUN ON context. This is desiring a robot language where only exactly what is meant is said, and there is no room for expression, vibrancy of language or even intentional misuse for the purpose of emphasis. "Her bones were brittle, her eyes devoid of life" must be able to mean multiple things based on its context, or else all writing becomes clinical.

You're engaged in false dichotomy, here. Max_Killjoy did not say, "Context should not matter." He said it should matter less rather than more. Given the nature of linguistic drift - which nobody denies is both happening and unavoidable - is to shift meanings of words such that we must smurf meaning from context when we don't know how a word's etymology led to it being smurfed in the way it's being smurfed in a particular smurf, context cannot help but be important. It will always be critical to poetry and even artistic prose.

This is why attention to detail and standing up for preserving words with usefully precise meanings is important, however: linguistic drift will always trend in the direction of greater context-dependency, so establishing the "battleground" of what to preserve in the name of reducing context-dependency (or at least preventing a needless increase) is wise.

The error is in assuming that one word becoming an Auto-antonym is indicative of a general trend towards the language becoming vague, when in fact no such trend exists.

Actually, it is exactly that, but you're also making the error of assuming that because somebody stands against the formulation of an auto-antonym so egregious that it literally destroys the meaning of the word - turning it into a literal waste of breath and syllables to utter - means they stand against all such when those might be of use (or at least harmless).

If anything, we now have more terms for incredibly specific feelings and situations than ever before. We're even moving towards using a combination of standard words and pictograms for further clarification (Emoticons, reaction gifs, etc) in a way no one else can.

And that's cool. This point doesn't defeat the point either Max_Killjoy or I are making; neither of us - nor anybody in this thread, to my recollection - has said we shouldn't expand and possibly even celebrate useful modification to the language.

If you're confused as to why it seems we might be construing your arguments as "don't bother ever worrying about language, and you're bad people for wanting to correct others when they misuse 'literally' by informing them of what it actually means," this is why: you're constantly holding up linguistic drift as inevitable and sometimes good as if that means that we stand against all of it because we stand for some preservation of understanding and definition of useful words.

The idea that people misusing words will lead overall to decay is silly. Imagine a society where everyone is playing catch. All the time. Almost constantly. In class, on the bus, at home, at the movies, playing catch. Their throws are not, obviously, all done to perfection. But play catch they do. Will this society overall be better or worse at throwing baseball pitches?

That depends. Are we going to start defining "playing catch" as throwing the ball 'close enough' that it can be picked up? Are we going to start defining it as handing the ball off, because telling people that throwing it is what they have to do to "play catch" is just resisting "game drift?"

I wager that if we asserted the same lack of definition and willingness to preserve the rules of "catch" (what few there are) you're espousing for language, we would see "catch" become people carrying around balls and occasionally trading them like baseball cards. Would you say that that culture is better or worse at catch than they would be if there'd been some "elitist snobs" insisting that "catch" actually involved throwing balls back and forth to other people in such a way that they pluck them out of the air?

Ok, now take a society where everyone is writing short messages to one another all the time. Almost constantly. In class, on the bus, at home, at the movies, sending messages. Their syntax and grammar are not, obviously, all kept up to maximum standards. But write messages they do. Will this society overall be better or worse at writing?

Given evidence today? We're seeing it look like society's gotten worse. Communication IS degrading in our instant messaging world. Now, the question as to whether that's because there are such lax standards, or the fact that we're just seeing the poorer examples more prominently due to exposure, is a valid one.

I mean, if we just assume, for a moment, that sampling the publicly-available and easily-accessed literature of a decade tells us the quality of writing, we'd see much higher average quality of writing in nearly any decade of the 20th century than the 21st...but I would also hasten to point out that this doesn't mean, necessarily, that writing has GOTTEN worse. Only that we now have ready access to every pre-teen's self-insert wish-fulfillment fanfic as well as the writings that were considered quality enough for a publisher to invest in printing and selling for profit.

The point of which is to say that you're not helping your point by holding up IM culture as "improving communication," but the naïve examination of it that seems to undermine your position isn't a fair judge, either, due to other factors.

The answer is obvious: overall, both will have greater skill. We are discovering new ways to share information with increased flexibility and accuracy, because the same technology you want to use to limit the use of language, allows us to expand upon it incredibly.

...now you're straw-manning. Nobody I've seen in this thread - certainly not me - has advocated using technology to limit the scope of language.

I'm saying that the smurf that it's bad to tell people they're using "literally" wrong when they use it to mean the opposite of what it means is an obnoxious smurf that, if obeyed faithfully, leads to degradation of the language's power to convey meaning. I will absolutely hang my metaphorical hat on the notion that words with precise, useful meanings should not be misused by people out of ignorance, and that people who, when corrected, smugly claim that the person correcting them is in some way a bad, inferior, backwards, anti-progress person because linguistic drift happens are doing harm to the language by spreading a confusing meaning, possibly just out of pique that their pride has been stung by the pain of somebody daring to tell them that they were wrong about a word's definition.

I know, being told 2+2 is 4, not 3 nor 5, can be a painful experience if you feel embarrassed by the mistake. It can be particularly uncomfortable if you had firmly believed the incorrect fact, and it shifts your paradigm a bit. So I fully understand the urge, when it is not a "provable" fact of inherent world-truth, to assert that "it's just your opinion, man" because language is arbitrary and shifts with time, so who's to say that your "incorrect" definition isn't going to become the new "correct" one? It protects the ego, and (if you've got a large enough minority of people sharing your misuse) can let you engage in a fallacy of consensus to assert that it totally has to grow.

And it probably isn't a bad thing most of the time. There ARE obnoxious people who get smug about being "right" when others are ignorant of the "truth." But at the same time, it never hurts to use words correctly nor to improve your understanding of the language you're speaking. And when you learn that you're using a word exactly wrong, perhaps you should really think about whether preserving your sense of comfort with it meaning what you believed it to mean is worth the fact that it becomes harder to use the word usefully.


Edit to add: One more thought. Have you always, upon seeing a new word that you've never read before, or hearing one you'd never heard before, understood exactly what it meant? Has context always provided you with everything you needed to piece together what was being said? Or have you had to stop and ask, "Wait, what does that word mean?" Especially in conversation, have you ever asked somebody to pause and define a word they've just used?

If so, then you understand why having words that people think they understand have opposite or askew meanings can be harmful to communication, especially if the word makes sense in context.

Again, "He literally drove his car into the ground," makes sense, in context, by its denotative, correct-use-of-"literally" meaning. It is precisely because the context would, without "literally" being there, suggest that it is a figurative turn of phrase, that "literally" makes sense as something telling you you should understand it to mean something terrible has happened and the car has impacted with terra firma, potentially becoming at least partially buried.

If somebody told you that they hammered their car to the store, would you be confused? If they explained that this meant they climbed into their car, turned it on, and engaged the various controls of it to cause it to navigate the roads until he left it parked in a parking space in front of the store, would you feel a need to inform him that "hammered" doesn't mean that, and that he should have said he drove his car to the store?

Are you wrong to do that? If he insists on using "hammered" to mean "drove," because hammering a nail can also be termed driving a nail, and that you're just fighting inevitable linguistic drift, would you feel sheepish for having resisted this new expansion of the meaning of the verb "to hammer?" Or would you think he (and whoever he's talked into using the word that way) is being silly, and hindering clear communication?

Now, what if his son was using "hammered" in that fashion out of sheer ignorance, and it made people confused who talked to him? Sure, it's kind-of cute that he's got this weird speech quirk, while he's little, but are you a bad person for taking the boy aside and explaining to him why people snicker at him for misusing the word, and what word he should use to be clearer? When he insistently (out of ignorance) asks for the "nail-driver," and people eventually figure out he means that tool with the weighted head you use to drive nails, is it wrong to tell him it's properly called a "hammer," and suggest that he not use "nail-driver" anymore? Is it wrong to suggest that he stop saying his mom hammered him to school, and instead say she drove him to school?

Heaven forbid he should also confuse "at" and "to." If we had some "linguistic drift" where people used "at" to mean both "at" and "to," that would be horribly confusing. Especially if this little boy said, "Daddy hammered me at school this morning," when he meant, "Daddy drove me to school this morning."

But it's all just linguistic drift, right? (Sure, I will allow you to stipulate that the "at" and "to" replacement is me being deliberately confusing. The "hammer" for "drive" is actually one I could see a reasonable etymological link for, however. And anyway, I would contend that "literally" meaning "figuratively but in extremis" is just as confusing as "at" for "to." You can tell from context that you don't drive people "at" things. You drive them "to" things. So obviously, if you drive at the store you mean the same thing as if you drive to the store. Just like it's totally rare for cars to literally drive into the ground, so if somebody says it was literally done, they obviously mean the opposite and that it's figurative.)

[Max_Killjoy]

Wait, did someone really just assert that "Twitter-type" and "IM-speak" and "emoji" spam are improving communication?

Regarding context: it is quite often a terrible teacher of what words actually mean -- and accepting the misuse of words as "inevitable drift" only compounds the limitations of context. I've learned the hard way to never trust context alone to tell me what a word means.

[BayardSPSR]

Wait, did someone really just assert that "Twitter-type" and "IM-speak" and "emoji" spam are improving communication?

No, no one made that specific assertion. I think ImNotTrevor was proposing that people who use text-based communication more frequently are likely to communicate more effectively in other text-based media, and separately pointed out the use of emojis as tone signifiers. Which is something you can also do with italics, as you demonstrated.

[Mordar]

The idea that people misusing words will lead overall to decay is silly. Imagine a society where everyone is playing catch. All the time. Almost constantly. In class, on the bus, at home, at the movies, playing catch. Their throws are not, obviously, all done to perfection. But play catch they do. Will this society overall be better or worse at throwing baseball pitches?

Ok, now take a society where everyone is writing short messages to one another all the time. Almost constantly. In class, on the bus, at home, at the movies, sending messages. Their syntax and grammar are not, obviously, all kept up to maximum standards. But write messages they do. Will this society overall be better or worse at writing?

The answer is obvious: overall, both will have greater skill. We are discovering new ways to share information with increased flexibility and accuracy, because the same technology you want to use to limit the use of language, allows us to expand upon it incredibly.

Wait, did someone really just assert that "Twitter-type" and "IM-speak" and "emoji" spam are improving communication?

No, no one made that specific assertion. I think ImNotTrevor was proposing that people who use text-based communication more frequently are likely to communicate more effectively in other text-based media, and separately pointed out the use of emojis as tone signifiers. Which is something you can also do with italics, as you demonstrated.

I have to disagree based on the bolded (my addition) text above - "...better or worse at writing?", not "...better or worse at texting/IMing/shorthand electronic communication."

Does communicating via texting a lot make you better at communicating via texting? Overall, almost certainly. But it is like endurance training at high altitude. Both things improve the ability to perform that task under those conditions (communicate via text, perform endurance exercise at altitude), but does not translate to the broader field.

I think a review of the development and evolution of texting/IMspeak across different regions and populations would be a really interesting read, particularly if it considered things like being able to understand it as a gate to communication (like code speak...something done intentionally to exclude others and/or obfuscate rather than communicate) or the transit of elements to the broader population.

- M

I tried to resist commenting on the fact that playing catch will absolutely not increase the society's ability to pitch beyond the very lowest baseline, but I couldn't. So I did it tiny and down here. Throwing /= pitching. Baseball geekness vented.

[BayardSPSR]

I have to disagree based on the bolded (my addition) text above - "...better or worse at writing?", not "...better or worse at texting/IMing/shorthand electronic communication."

"Writing" and "text-based media" are the same thing.

[Max_Killjoy]

"Writing" and "text-based media" are the same thing.

The sort of "emoji"-laden, spasmodically-abbreviated "writing" that was being discussed, should no more be confused with writing, than a long series of gastrointestinal-distress noises should be confused with music.