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Common errors vs language evolution | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6499 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes  Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 65 of 72 20 November 2013 at 10:23am | IP Logged | ||
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I am also primarily a descriptivist, but sometimes I do find that language changes are irritating (rather than wrong). For instance the Danish word "bjørnetjeneste" (= bear's service) always has meant doing somebody a service which isn't beneficial for them. Now suddenly youngsters with public media access have started to use it with the opposite meaning: doing somebody a mega big positive service - probably because bears are big strong animals. And the result is confusion.
It is the same thing which happens with words like "terrific", which once meant that things were terrible, and now it means that they are amazing and excellent. But things like this have always happened, and you can't stop them from happening by law. You can for some time force school children to learn the old meanings and constructions and maybe even to use them in their essays and other assignments, and by favoring certain geographical and sociological groups in the mass media you may even turn the direction of the development (the effect of Luther's bible translation is a clear example of this - from long before the digitial revolution). But something will happen, and those who don't like it will call it an error. And they are right until the moment where the majority have accepted the invention. From that moment both versions are correct until one of the versions has lost its adherents, and then that version is wrong - or at least antiquated. The really big issue here is what and how you teach children. You can't just let them spell as they please because there then won't be any common spelling, and weak readers won't be able to read anything anymore. So in essence it is necessary to violate the freedom to boldly spell as you please for children in a certain age group - just as you violate their freedom to beat each other up or eat bogey men in public. However the issue is whether the standard you teach necessarily should be the most conservative one on the market or whether you should accept anything that is commonly accepted outside school. My own opinion about this is that you need to be fairly conservative with spellings, but permissive when it comes to the words and expressions you choose to spell with that conservative orthography. And if you change the spelling rules then it is better to make a major reform at once - like the Greeks did when they kicked out all except two of their diacritical marks. Edited by Iversen on 22 November 2013 at 11:10am 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6393 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 66 of 72 20 November 2013 at 2:20pm | IP Logged | ||
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If I'm not mistaken, amazing and awesome have also had this meaning :-)
And funny, we also have медвежья услуга in Russian. the mega big positive service interpretation makes me think of "bear hug", a big hug that is. And even teddy bears. The perception of animals is changing... 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| tastyonions Triglot Senior Member United States goo.gl/UIdChYRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4461 days ago 1044 posts - 1823 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish Studies: Italian | Message 67 of 72 20 November 2013 at 2:31pm | IP Logged | ||
And you would sound like Yoda. :-) 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4503 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 68 of 72 20 November 2013 at 4:45pm | IP Logged | ||
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Sound like Yoda, you would.
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| beano Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4418 days ago 1049 posts - 2152 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Russian, Serbian, Hungarian | Message 69 of 72 20 November 2013 at 4:59pm | IP Logged | ||
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In Scotland, huge numbers of people use phrases involving "could/should have went" every day. I know the "proper" past tense in this situation is "gone" but "went" comes into my head naturally when speaking because that's the way I learned the language.
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| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4624 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 70 of 72 20 November 2013 at 6:46pm | IP Logged | ||
Isn't the same true in Ireland? Anyway, I know that Scots and Irish use English in slightly (sometimes more than slightly) different ways than the English do, so I try remember to qualify with something like "the English as used in England", whenever I am rash enough to make some statement about "correct" English. On words changing their meaning: I get slightly annoyed when words like "alibi" start to be used in a different way to their original meaning. Originally, it was used in a legal sense, to mean that someone was "elsewhere" when a crime was committed, and so could not be guilty. It has now come to be used (in the UK) to mean "excuse", and I think is sometimes even further weakened to mean "reason". 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6393 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 71 of 72 21 November 2013 at 12:18am | IP Logged | ||
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That's not even limited to English, it's used like that in Russian and probably many other languages too. It's just the legal version of our frustration with incorrect usage of terms like linguist, polyglot and arguably bilingual.
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| Luso Hexaglot Senior Member Portugal Joined 5857 days ago 819 posts - 1812 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, French, EnglishC2, GermanB1, Italian, Spanish Studies: Sanskrit, Arabic (classical) | Message 72 of 72 21 November 2013 at 4:13am | IP Logged | ||
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OSV Yoda used, if mistaken I'm not.
Actually: OSV Yoda used, sure I am. Edited by Luso on 21 November 2013 at 3:49pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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