Pat’s Polemics

On May 30, I wrote the following under the title The Grammar Mavens Fall to My Wit and Charm:

So............
There's a great article in the NYT today on the growing use of the word "so"
as an introductory sentence starter like "well" and "ummm". I have noticed
for a long time now a tendency in my writing to start sentences with so, so
I go back and replace some of them.

The article goes into the reasons for the growth of 'so', relating it to the
fragmentation of our attention so that we want to assure our interlocutors
that what we are about to say concerns what we have been talking about. One
scholar traced its rise to Silicon Valley where lots of immigrants found it
an easy word to use in tracking the course of problem-solving discussions
inherent in the informatic industry. One scholar, Galina Bolden, has
written several papers on it. One function of "so" is to foreshadow a major
insight, which is how I usually use it, so pay attention.

My entry went on but there were responses to the article in the NYT the next week. I'd like to reproduce a few here to illustrate a point:

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I was directed to a blog dedicated to debunking language shibboleths. Participating is John McWhorter - very impressive.
On that same blog is Geoff Nunberg who quotes himself writing about William Safire. I write this to show the members of the listservs I am on how restrained I am in characterizing those who "plant their flag" on some piece of absolutely pointless grammar distinction and declare themselves to be upholders of civilization and all that.

"He was no snob. You can't imagine him comparing a poet who confused between and among with someone picking his nose at a party, the way John Simon

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This phrase seems like an adverb to me. What is its history? I associate it with the Viet Nam War, but that may be b/c of the movie by that name.

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From 1965, a major linguist, H. A. Gleason, wrote:
"The schools have struggled valiantly to make the standard pattern universal, but with various degrees of success. Most American speakers follow the school prescriptions in at least some situations, but few conform in every instance. It's me is, perhaps, the most widespread of the departures from the proclaimed norms, so widespread that It's I impresses many as prim or pedantic. However, there are differences from one person t nother and from one situation to another in the actual compromises that are followed."
- p. 382

Quite balanced and written before the influence of the Commie-led hippies infected academe with its sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll mentality.

Then there is The Grammar Book for ESL teachers by the well-known

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My major reason for wanting a blog was to have discussions on language issues that would attract serious and open-minded people. One way to do this is to respond to posts on listservs, but that has the disadvantage of irritating the authors of said posts. Another way is to enter information I find intriguing and hope others find it so, too. This information should pique the interest of language people and challenge their thinking.

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Joe Scarborough, a libertarian/conservative talkshow host and former congressional representative, said in a very entertaining interview today on npr that a certain "tact" would not work, another "tact" was necessary. Clearly, the words 'tack' and 'tact' are very close in sound. 'Tack' is a technical term used frequently by sailors but not that frequently by other people. So it's easy to see/hear how the two words could be confused.

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Lots have jokes have arisen over Newt Gingrich's use of the term "racialsim" concerning Judge Sotomayor, as if it was something he had made up. The word triggered a memory and so I went to a book I read many years ago, D. VanNostrand and Company's The Idea of Racialism in its Anvil series. The author is Louis L. Snyder.

In it, on p.10, Snyder says that 'racialism' is distinguished from 'racism' by an emphasis on the elements of race hatred and racial prejudice.

-30-

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As a kid in the 40s and 50s, the word swarthy was known to me. In recent years, I've found that a fair number of students (teenagers) know it. Yet I haven't heard or seen it used in years. I bring it up with students b/c it has a German cognate many of them know: schwartz, "black". But I don't read it or hear it.

So I'm wondering how many of you have heard the word. Perhaps the younger among you don't even know the word. I think it is interesting to chart the progress of this word into oblivion b/c it happens with frequency but seldom before our very ears.

The first thing that happened to it was a narrowing of meaning. In my vocabulary it was used only of complexion, a swarthy complexion, meaning a dark-skinned person but not Black in the sense African-Americans are dark-skinned. Italians, Arabs, and so on might be described as having a swarthy complexion. So being thus restricted made its use less frequent.

Next came a heightened sense of self-consciousness about skin color and its supposed irrelavance to a person's character. People became cautious about any reference that might be termed racial. For that reason, I believe, the word isn't used.

What do you find and what do you think?

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As an American born and bred, I wonder at our inability to promote the standard language without at the same time besmearing and denigrating anything not standard.

Is it the same in other countries? Are people who control the standard in public situations condemned for using their home dialect at home or among friends who speak it? Do school children in other countries find themselves chided for using a homey, dialectal variant in class or on the playground? Or do teachers there simply remind them of the standard way of saying the same thing?

I hope someone responds to this and gives us personal observations from other countries. Remember, I'm not asking for tales of how someone used the home dialect inappropriately, in a situation where the standard was required, but rather where the home dialect is denigrated and considered stupid, grating, illogical, and all the other pejorative terms used on listservs of American fl teachers.

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There are all sorts of expressions, some foreign, some not, that I adopt,
usually unconsciously, and others I reject, usually b/c I don't see myself
as like the people who use them.

In Spanish, I like a lot of the Spanglish expressions I learned early on and
I use them. I have no concern whatsoever for what anyone else thinks of
that. Other people are very concerned about what others think of them and
for good reason (hiring committees, grad school acceptance committees,
in-laws).

As for regulating the language through committees, I regard that as a fool's
errand while others think it's the best thing since sliced bread.

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