Correct or not correct?

[belly_ttt]

I have seen such sentence like:
This is another total different matter (1)
This is another totally different matter (2)

I think that in sentence (1), people use total as an adj and in sentence (2) as an adv. Why do people use adj instead of adv here? (Except for informal speech).

[2006]

(1) is not correct.

[belly_ttt]

But I have seen 2 , 3 or 4 adjs go together like:
An interesting English film
but not
An interestingly English film
why?

[Teia]

Originally Posted by belly_ttt

But I have seen 2 , 3 or 4 adjs go together like:
An interesting English film
but not
An interestingly English film
why?

An interesting English film - adjective [it modifies the noun film]

An interestingly directed English film - adverb [it modifies the word directed]

This is another totally different matter.

to be different - linking verb + adjective
totally - adverb modifying the verbal phrase to be different

totally means completely, wholly, entirely

Let`s rephrase your sentence :
This is another completely different matter [different from the one we talked about yesterday]

[riverkid]

Originally Posted by 2006

(1) is not correct.

Language science tends not to use terms like "incorrect", 2006, substituting terms like non-standard.

What good is the study of any subject if it's simply a matter of people's varying opinions? 'nonstandard' covers the situation perfectly because the rules that govern casual speech are decidedly different than those that describe other registers.

[2006]

Originally Posted by riverkid

Language science tends not to use terms like "incorrect", 2006, substituting terms like non-standard.

What good is the study of any subject if it's simply a matter of people's varying opinions? 'nonstandard' covers the situation perfectly because the rules that govern casual speech are decidedly different than those that describe other registers.

You can call it what you like, I'll call it "incorrect". Correct English does have rules; it's not all a matter of "opinion".

[riverkid]

Originally Posted by 2006

You can call it what you like, I'll call it "incorrect". Correct English does have rules; it's not all a matter of "opinion".

I never said it was a matter of opinion, 2006. Isn't that what you are expressing, an opinion of how you want language to be? Language doesn't conform to opinions, it never has and it never will. It can't.

Can you imagine the muddle language would be if we tried to conform to all the silly prescriptions that have been touted as rules over the years.

In actuality, it's simply a matter of language fact. Nonstandard does not equal incorrect. It simply means that it doesn't match Standard English.

[riverkid]

Standard English. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000.

In recent years, however, the term has more often been used to distinguish the speech and writing of middle-class educated speakers from the speech of other groups and classes, which are termed nonstandard. This is the sense in which the word is used in the usage labels in this dictionary. But it should be borne in mind that when it is used in this way, the term is highly elastic and variable, since what counts as Standard English will depend on both the locality and the particular varieties that Standard English is being contrasted with. A form that is considered standard in one region may be nonstandard in another, and a form that is standard by contrast with one variety (for example the language of inner-city African Americans) may be considered nonstandard by contrast with the usage of middle-class professionals. No matter how it is interpreted, however, Standard English in this sense shouldn't be regarded as being necessarily correct or unexceptionable,

[2006]

Originally Posted by riverkid

I never said it was a matter of opinion, 2006. Isn't that what you are expressing, an opinion of how you want language to be? Language doesn't conform to opinions, it never has and it never will. It can't.

Can you imagine the muddle language would be if we tried to conform to all the silly prescriptions that have been touted as rules over the years.

In actuality, it's simply a matter of language fact. Nonstandard does not equal incorrect. It simply means that it doesn't match Standard English.

riverkid
You implied that my calling the sentence "incorrect" is a matter of opinion (because maybe somewhere what I called "incorrect" is 'standard English'). So we both are expressing opinions about the English language.

Although the rules of a language do slowly change over time, there always are widely accepted rules as to what constitutes correct spelling, grammar, etc of the language. One cannot have a language with no rules, where nothing can be called "incorrect".

Finally my comment on "language fact". If one is studying a language as a research project, one can say that the fact is that this variation of the language is spoken here and that variation is spoken there. (even so, there will be a lot more that is the same than is different)
So when one is teaching a language, one cannot teach that anything can be correct and that nothing is incorrect. What you call "standard" is correct for the language spoken in that particular place and is largely correct for other places too.
That's my opinion.

[riverkid]

Originally Posted by 2006

riverkid
You implied that my calling the sentence "incorrect" is a matter of opinion (because maybe somewhere what I called "incorrect" is 'standard English'). So we both are expressing opinions about the English language.

Although the rules of a language do slowly change over time, there always are widely accepted rules as to what constitutes correct spelling, grammar, etc of the language. One cannot have a language with no rules, where nothing can be called "incorrect".

Of course there are rules; I dare say millions. imagine the countless nuances that we can express that are lost to ESLs.

Finally my comment on "language fact". If one is studying a language as a research project, one can say that the fact is that this variation of the language is spoken here and that variation is spoken there. (even so, there will be a lot more that is the same than is different)


So when one is teaching a language, one cannot teach that anything can be correct and that nothing is incorrect. What you call "standard" is correct for the language spoken in that particular place and is largely correct for other places too.
That's my opinion.

I never said "anything goes". I said that using "correct" is misleading, especially for ESLs. They constantly come here with questions relating specifically to these normal everyday uses by native speakers.


"The standard language embraces a range of styles, from formal through neutral to informal. A satisfactory grammar must describe them all. It is not that formal style keeps to the rules and informal style departs from them; rather, formal and informal styles have partially different rules."

The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language



It's just as easy and more accurate and especially less misleading for ESLs to describe language without loaded terms. Of course, this doesn't mean that we can't guide them to Standard uses for Standard situations, like tests, formal written papers, etc. but to deny them access to what educated speakers often use in casual speech risks "a danger that the student of English will not be taught how to speak in a normal informal way, but will sound stilted and unnatural, like an inexpert reader reading something out of a book". [CGEL]