LINGUIST List 6.1556

Sun Nov 5 1995

Misc: Binary Comparison, Prescriptivism

Editor for this issue: T. Daniel Seely <dseelyemunix.emich.edu>

Directory

1. , Binary comparison
2. "Larry Trask", Disc: Prescriptivism

With regard to Alexis Manaster Ramer's query about binary comparison:

I recall reading of a German linguist (or philologist?) who applied binary
reconstruction with an almost pathological severity, quoting and applying
a German maxim that I can only remember the outline of. It was a rhymed
couplet in iambic trimeter,
 da-DA da-DA da-DA
 da-DA da-DA da-DA
The first line meant something like "through the mouths of two
witnesses", and went something like "Durch zweier Zeugen Mund..."
(That may well be an ungrammatical German fragment, but blame my
memory).

Alas that I cannot remember the linguist's name, either. Perhaps
someone else can help.

 Mark A. Mandel
 Dragon Systems, Inc. : speech recognition : +1 617 965-5200
 320 Nevada St. : Newton, Mass. 02160, USA : markdragonsys.com

For some reason, Linguist postings have recently been arriving in
Britain very late and out of order, so I hope I'm not just repeating
things that have already been said. But here's something that nobody
seems to have brought up.

When Myrna Gopnik first announced her findings with SLI, and suggested
that sufferers might have a grammatical disability resulting from a
genetic defect, a journalist reporting the story for a major British
newspaper leapt to the conclusion that speakers of non-standard
English who say things like "I ain't got none" must have a genetic
problem, and a teacher was quoted as expressing amazement that every
single pupil in her class could have a genetic defect. And I would be
surprised to find that this reaction was unique.

Whatever one may think of the quality of journalists' accounts of
linguistic work, there is clearly a variety of prescriptivism running
around out there which is extremely objectionable and which needs to
be confronted with some vigor. William Safire's campaigns against
"Who do you trust?" and "Woe is me" are one thing, but such
bone-headed views of prescriptivism in the educational system are
quite another, and one I find a little frightening.

In my recent popular book _Language: The Basics_, I report the Gopnik
story, and, in my last chapter, I confess to poking a great deal of
fun at prescriptivism generally. I admit that I am curious to find
out if colleagues think I have gone too far in this enterprise. My
copy-editor certainly thought so, and she's a former student of mine.

Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
England

larrytcogs.susx.ac.uk