OT: Is English a sign of the end of days?

Bloomfield · Post by **Bloomfield** » Tue Oct 15, 2002 9:02 am

On 2002-10-15 10:49, Liam wrote:
Also I am not sure that anyone would look to Latin for the basis of word order in English since word order in Latin was strictly optional.

They used to, however. Some Reverend so-and-so schoolmaster wrote a grammar, I believe in the 19th century, and invented the rule against split infinitives, exactly because you can't split infinitives in Latin. (Martin Luther, btw, superimposed much Latin grammar on the German of his time in his Bible translation, so it's not an unusual phenomenon).
But it's a myth that you are not allowed to split infinitives. You wouldn't want to rephrase this one, I am sure: To boldly go where no man* has gone before

Everyone who hasn't should consult H. W. Fowler, Modern English Usage (1926), on this and other issues. Fowler distinguishes five classes of English-speakers: (1) Those who neither know nor care what a split infinitive is; (2) those who do not know, but care very much; (3) those who know and condem; (4) those who know and approve; and (5) those who know and distinguish.

You'd want to be either in category 1 or 5, as I see it.

*) I scorn the rephrasing in TNG. Just in case you wondered.

_________________
/bloomfield

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brianormond · Post by **brianormond** » Tue Oct 15, 2002 9:13 am

-I laughingly stand corrected re. split infinitives.

_________________

Brian O.

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Jo C · Post by **Jo C** » Tue Oct 15, 2002 9:35 am

I come into categary 1)... well they say ignorance is bliss!!

Chuck_Clark · Post by **Chuck_Clark** » Tue Oct 15, 2002 9:53 am

Whenever I hear people talk about how much worse crime, the young, the language, or the food is, I try to ask for their frame of reference. Usually it's their sixth-grade world view, perhaps the forties and fifties and if I am lucky the 19th century ("all morality and decency is lost"). I have yet to hear a good argument of how the decline of the language is worse than what we saw in the fourteenth century...

In large part, you're right. But the food IS worse - for those who have ANY, of course.

Liam · Post by **Liam** » Tue Oct 15, 2002 10:42 am

On 2002-10-15 10:58, Michael Sullivan wrote:

if I wasn't too busy this morning I'd be tempted to take up your challenge. The argument could certainly be made. J.R.R. Tolkien, for instance, seems often to have the opinion that English literature started around Beowulf and ended in Chaucer; everything afterwards is mush. Certainly his love-hate relationship with Shakespeare is very much more often on the hate side, and by the time you get to the nineteenth century romantics it's nothing but simpering sappy drivel.

Kind of interesting that Tolkien thought that English Literature ended with Chaucer since of course modern English did not yet exist.

My own views are not quite as adamant . . . and yet if one wanted to argue that civilization reached its all-time high in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries I would be sympathetic. Whether you pick art, music, literature, philosophy, or architecture you can show illuminated books, polyphony of incredible complexity and spledor, Dante, Aquinas and Scotus, the great cathedrals, etc. THOSE, my imaginary extremist friend would say, were the good old days (ignore the political and sociological problems which after all are still current in more places than not). All of modernity and especially the Renaissance was overrated.

Again I'm not espousing this onesided view but I don't think it can be laughed off either.

Well as a former student on the Middle Ages, I think it is pretty safe to say that while the 12th-14th century were hardly a dark age, indeed an age in which much progress was made, it is pretty safe to say that in no way could it be considered the high point of any civilization (in Europe that is, other areas of the world may differ). You forget that it was an age where illiteracy was even more prevelant than the norm in
pre-printing press cultures, where science did not exist and where medicine might actually have been regressing. Philosophy was enthralled with Scholasticism which while impressive, relied far to much on authority as the source of truth. As for music and art... well I think few could argue that the Renissance was a bad thing.

scottielvr · Post by **scottielvr** » Tue Oct 15, 2002 12:53 pm

On 2002-10-15 08:27, Chuck_Clark wrote:
Thanks, Walden. This was getting far more serious than I had intended. I always did tend toward overly complicated jests.

...and I thank you too, Walden; I always did tend toward gullibility...

Bloomfield · Post by **Bloomfield** » Tue Oct 15, 2002 1:26 pm

On 2002-10-15 11:53, Chuck_Clark wrote:

In large part, you're right. But the food IS worse - for those who have ANY, of course.

I'm with you on that one. Sad.

C4 · Post by C4 » Tue Oct 15, 2002 2:11 pm

Its seems to me that language is alot like a car.A VW can get you from here to there just as well as a cadillac...Of course I am just an uneducated Kansan butting into something she barely understands....Where's my whistle???

drewcifer · Post by **drewcifer** » Tue Oct 15, 2002 3:23 pm

On 2002-10-15 10:58, Michael Sullivan wrote:
Again I'm not espousing this onesided view but I don't think it can be laughed off either.

Oh yeah?!? Watch me:

-Drew

drewcifer · Post by **drewcifer** » Tue Oct 15, 2002 3:37 pm

On 2002-10-15 16:11, C4 wrote:
Its seems to me that language is alot like a car.A VW can get you from here to there just as well as a cadillac...Of course I am just an uneducated Kansan butting into something she barely understands....Where's my whistle???

Not according to some theories (eg, Sapir-Worf).
Some people think that a culture has a more difficult time having or expressing thoughts on a subject if their language doesn't have a term for it. There are some words/phrases that just don't have direct translation. For instance, some languages don't have a word that represents the color Blue, and others don't have a word that represents a concept of Time. Whereas some have litteraly hundreds of words for what we just call 'snow'.

I read an article recently that interviewed some bi-lingual students and asked them to compare English with Mandarin Chineese. They said that English was far more apt for expressing logical thoughts, but Mandarin was much better for expressing poetic pictures.

I guess it's more like comparing a Cadillac with a 4x4 Truck. One's better for highway rides, the other better for off-road.
Oh, and my red-neck upbringing tells me that the Cadillac is better for rusting in the front yard on cinder-blocks.

-Drew