February 2003 Archives

How Useful is the Concept of Abnormality?

There are many examples in history which show us that up to the late seventeenth century people the world over predominantly considered the 'Abnormal' or 'Mentally Ill' to be suffering from some kind of supernatural force. It was not uncommon that in popular thinking, external influences such as the Devil or spirits would be held responsible for strange and uncontrollable behaviour in people and animals, a train of thought termed 'Demonology' having its roots in religious thinking (Davison/Neale, p8).

While it is undoubtedly true that there is a grammar of spoken English, the problem is, could it be codifed and documented when it is so fluid and intangible?

If a verb or adjective has one syllable and ends with a single vowel followed by a single consonant, then there are rules:

People may say that 'there is no inherently correct usage ', but all language is rule based and no matter how much we play with the rules, the fundamentals remain fairly unchanged. Everybody will have a cut-off-point at which they regard something as ungrammatical. When the idea of ungrammatical is accepted, then correct usage gets in. There are disagreements, but no one crosses the lines in the sand.