[riverkid]

Originally Posted by Naamplao

RiverKid....you show all the charm of an evangelical Christian telling me that I am going to Hell because I am a Protestant and not Evangelical.

When there's nothing left to argue, out comes the ... . Naamplao, note that in all this and still, there's has been nothing to prove the prescriptivist point. This would be funny if it didn't so serious affect ESLs.

The following goes for me too.

LANGUAGE LOG
October 28, 2006

Evil

First, let me distance myself from the view -- religious or otherwise -- that it's "evil to prescribe".

Sometimes, as in the "than me" affair, prescription is based on mistaken analysis, false history or bad logic. This is foolish, but it's not evil.

In other cases, prescription is based on resistance to innovation. This is usually futile, but it's not evil.

It's not clear whether discussion about performance errors of various sorts should be considered prescriptive, but it's certainly not evil. And linguists don't recommend performance errors, though we sometimes study them.

Some prescriptive advice deals with style, tone, or communicative effectiveness. Advice of this sort may be right or wrong, useful or useless, but it's not evil. Here at Language Log,we often have advice of this kind to offer, though we're careful to distinguish linguistic norms from stylistic preferences.

In our discussions of eggcorns, snowclones, overnegations, linguifications and so forth, it's clear that we're talking about violations of lexical, syntactic, semantic or stylistic norms. We don't recommend such violations, though we often enjoy them.

Publications often choose a "house style" that prescribes what to do with possessive plurals and the like -- such style books disagree, and linguists (like other people) sometimes disagree with particular choices, but there's no evil here.

Originally Posted by Naamplao

The FACT that there are few if any references on the internet other than those of CGEL for Override Reflexive Pronouns says that this term and other have not been adopted by other teachers of English. Period. Full Stop.

It doesn't matter what the name is, Naamplao. It's a description of something that already exists in language. It's in frequent use. That prescriptive grammar has missed virtually everything there is to know about language is clear. That what it has described is mostly wrong is also clear.

That is clearly illustrated by the fact that none of you can provide any reasoning, sound or otherwise for your prescription. Go thru the thread and count them; there are none!

Originally Posted by Naamplao

Originally Posted by Naamplao

The writer did not know if "Bob and yourself" was an option...he was asking the question. I agree with Anglika and others that this is not correct. You are the only one in this group that supports this construction.

"I'm writing a business letter, and I am wondering about the way I used a common phrase: "It was very nice meeting you and Bob." Is there a more proper way to write this? Others in my office have suggested, "It was nice meeting Bob and yourself." Maybe I should consider, "It was nice meeting yourself and Bob." I'm not sure what to do....."

Originally Posted by Naamplao

I don't believe that it helps ESL learners as it relates to ability to pass tests and exams that are important to their advancement in the English world. They cannot go wrong by learning English they way that is pre-CGEL.

I challenge you to prove that this isn't simpley another old canard.

Prescriptivists hold to this mistaken assumption that ESLs are stupid, that they can't discern between what's expected for formal language and what's fine for everyday speech. Nothing is further from the truth. When it comes to ENLs, which Unregistered is, why offer prescriptions, which don't describe actual language, when you can describe how language really works.

This is such a simple concept. How is it that it escapes prescriptivists?

Originally Posted by Naamplao

Who knows CGEL may be accepted as the mainstream English teaching method and become acceptable in current international testing and formal writing. Right now it seems to be a topic in academia.

You keep harping on this when you know that it's already mainstream English. It's a descriptive account of the English language.

Originally Posted by Naamplao

This discussion is ended for me...there is no more to add. In fact I am sure you will like the fact that you are on my ignore list.

Funny, that's how prescriptivists always handle these things. Not a one of the prescriptivists that Professor Pinker dismantled in his book, The Language Instinct defended their position. Doesn't that speak volumes as to their scholarship?

I'm sure you'll be pleased to know that I don't have an ignore list. It somehow seems rather juvenile to me.

HOW GRAMMARS OF ENGLISH
HAVE MISSED THE BOAT
THERE'S BEEN MORE FLUMMOXING THAN MEETS THE EYE

Charles-James N. Bailey

Consider the possibility that English grammar has been misanalysed for centuries because of grammarians’ accepting fundamentally flawed assumptions about grammar and, not least, because of a flawed view of the history of English; and that these failings have resulted in a huge disconnect between English grammars and the genius of the English that really exists among educated native-speakers. The development of the information age and of English as a world language means that such lapses have even greater negative import than formerly. But what is available on the shelves has fallen into sufficient discredit for grammar to have forfeited its place in the curriculum, unrespected and little heeded by the brighter students.