Language Change Index

9 years ago

last modified: 9 years ago

Yoyobon's Spelling....is it relevant any more? thread has morphed into a grammar and usage discussion. It reminds me of Brian Garner's Language-Change Index, which I've encountered a few times over the years. The five stages of language change he defines seem spot-on to me. For example, it's probably time for me to get over my "less vs. fewer" pet peeve (Oh those grocery store checkout signs!), as I believe it's at stage 4, nearing stage 5 on the Language Change Index.

Where do you think your pet peeves fall on this scale?
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Stage 1 (“rejected”): A new form emerges as an innovation (or a dialectal form persists) among a small minority of the language community, perhaps displacing a traditional usage (e.g.: “your” misused for “you’re”).

Stage 2 (“widely shunned”): The form spreads to a significant fraction of the language community but remains unacceptable in standard usage (e.g.: *”pour over books” for “pore over books”).

Stage 3 (“widespread but . . .”): The form becomes commonplace even among many well-educated people but is still avoided in careful usage (e.g.: “clinch” misused for “clench”).

Stage 4 (“ubiquitous but . . .”): The form becomes virtually universal but is opposed on cogent grounds by a few linguistic stalwarts (die-hard snoots) (e.g.: “often” pronounced “OF-tuhn””).

Stage 5 (“fully accepted”): The form is universally accepted (not counting pseudo-snoot eccentrics) (e.g.: “decimate” for inflicting large-scale destruction).

Featured Answer

vee_new

9 years ago

last modified: 9 years ago

If you have ever read the ghastly pompous book Augustus Carp written by 'Himself' you will see the the three churches in his area of London are St James the Great, St James the Less and St James the Least of All.

A very amusing 'tongue in cheek' tale but at least the grammar is correct.

Augustus Carp

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Comments (80)

friedag
9 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
Vee, yes, in the U.S. soldier is pronounced with an audible L -- most of the time as /sol-juhr/ (note that /uh/ represents the upside down e, schwa sound again). This time it is the /d/ sound that is silent. I won't say the L is always pronounced and the D is always silent, because every time I state something categorically, someone points out to me that in such-and-such region of the U.S. it is different. With some non rhotic speakers soldier is pronounced /sol-jah/ as Kath noted above in her actual pronunciation of solder.
friedag
9 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
The differences in pronunciation fascinate me. I love to hear a Brit say Managua, Nicaragua and jaguar. In the 1970s there was a British band called Procol Harum that had a hit song titled 'Conquistador.' The singer pronounced it /con-kwisst-a-dor/. I also remember Jack Bruce of Cream singing in 'Tales of Brave Ulysses' about turquoise which he pronounced /tur-kwhaz/. Then there's Jethro Tull's 'Aqualung'. The different pronunciations make the songs that much more memorable to me.
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vee_new
9 years ago
Thanks Frieda. I have to admit I don't know what rhotic/non rhotic speech is! Is there some simple explanation you are able to supply please?
friedag
9 years ago
Whew! Vee, that's a tall order for me to boil down rhoticity and non rhoticity into a simple explanation. It's too easy to get completely into the weeds because of all the exceptions. There are entire semesters/terms of coursework that can be devoted to rhotic, non-rhotic, and partially rhotic speech. It would probably be best for you to search the Internet for linguistics sites that give audible examples and charts where these speech patterns are heard. They become readily apparent when they are heard.

About all I can do briefly is start with a baseline: Rhotic speakers will do their best to retain the /r/ sound to pronounce it whenever a word is spelled with an R in it, wherever it appears. Rhotic speakers are often accused of over-emphasizing the /r/ sound; think of the Scottish burr. Non-rhotic speech is characterized by the deleting of the /r/ sound except when it is the initial sound or it ties together two vowel sounds (butter and jam is the commonest example). The intrusive r, which we have discussed many times, is heard in non-rhotic speech ("lawr and order" is the classic example). Colonel pronounced as kernel is another example of the intrusive r, as is pronouncing words that end in a vowel to which a non-rhotic speaker will add an /r/ sound (saying Cuber for Cuba or Linder for Linda are examples).

I suspect that you are a non-rhotic speaker -- or possibly partially rhotic -- from your descriptions of the way you say certain words. Most English speakers are non-rhotic except possibly in the west of England and the north-west. I recall seeing isoglosses of Lancashire where rhoticity appears and there are other pockets.
msmeow
9 years ago
Frieda, my HS band director said "warsh", as in "warsh the car". I think he was from the Midwest somewhere. Most of my relatives on my Mom's side are from Georgia or South Carolina, so I didn't "heah" many Rs growing up! LOL

Donna
vee_new
9 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
My goodness Frieda, to think that people write books/teach classes on such an, at first glance, narrow subject.

Thank you for your speedy response. I'll do a bit of hunting, out in the ether.
friedag
9 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
Donna, my daughter-in-law who is from southeastern Kentucky recently asked me: "Do you want to rinch the dishes before we warsh them?" Sometimes she likes to exaggerate her Appalachian dialect to entertain me, but she says that the 'rinch' and 'warsh' pronunciations are not exaggerations -- they are wholly authentic. :-)

Vee, let me know what you find!
carolyn_ky
9 years ago
Yes, indeed, warsh and rinch are alive and well in the sections I know in Kentucky--not so much in Louisville where some people think they are "cultivated/sophisticated."
Kath
9 years ago
I remember last time we had a discussion on pronunciation I made a video with some of the words we were talking about in it. Things like dog, yawn, aunt (and aren't), and some Australian placenames like Geelong and Melbourne.
Rosefolly z5
9 years ago
Back to the word "almond". I have always pronounced it "ah-mond", almost like "amen" at the end of a prayer. An orchard advisor gave a speech here earlier today in which she told us that when she moved to the northern part of the state, people up there pronounce it "am-mond", the first syllable exactly like the word "am". She changed her way of speaking so that people would understand her -- but before that, she had pronounced it "all-mond"!

Beyond that, I am one of those stubborn, dig-my-heels-in grammar dogmatists. I get it that the tide of history is against me, and that there is no moral imperative to stick to the rules I learned. But darn it, I loved those rules. They brought clarity and meaning. I fail to see how sloppiness and obscurity are an improvement.

But then, I hate it when they re-arrange the grocery store, too.
kathy_t
Original Author
9 years ago
Rosefolly - Funny! And well said:
I get it that the tide of history is against me, and that there is no moral
imperative to stick to the rules I learned. But darn it, I loved those rules.

It truly is a bummer when the thing that we readers excel at is deemed not-terribly-important by society at large. I think it was rather clever of Brian Garner to rise above this trend by becoming a "language-change expert" in addition to being a grammarian.
woodnymph2_gw
9 years ago
Interesting about "warsh" and" rinch". I lived for a time in NW PA and was amazed to hear those pronunciations of "wash" and "rinse." And where I was living was far away from Appalachia. I assumed it was a midwestern thing, since the midwest is thought to start in Ohio and we were not far from the border.
carolyn_ky
9 years ago
Woodnymph, my husband was from East Liverpool, Ohio, at the juncture of Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia. (He said he used to ride his bike through three states on a Saturday afternoon.) Although the accent is different, the word usage of some of the local people there is similar to rural Kentucky--not our mountain area; I'm not familiar with that. I do have one friend from Wise, Virginia, on the KY borde,r who says "it's untelling" where we would say "there is no telling how many . . . " I find word usage very interesting. One thing that amuses me is "he's from off" to mean someone is not local.
yeonassky
9 years ago
We say allmond for almond. No L in salmon.

I like what the English language history Professor I've linked below says. When I get caught up in my pet peeve of the day I remind myself all these rules were made up by people and will continue to be. Besides as a poet and story writer I love having a poetic license. ;) I do like to do things right as well though. It's a real conundrance ;) (conundrum+hindrance)

Anne Curzan Linguist
vee_new
9 years ago
I have hunted around the internet especially 'youtube' to come up with eg's of rhotic speech patterns. After the challenge of rhotic diphthongs and lax vowel variants plus a few feeble 'home' video's obviously made in a student bedroom I rather gave up the will to live. I then moved on to a couple of interesting sites where old 'Hill Billies' of Appalachia chatted about this and that, which I found far more comprehensible and entertaining.

Kath, I remember enjoying your video and I know it was 'somewhere' on youtube but haven't been able to find it again.
friedag
9 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
yeonassky, thanks for the link to Anne Curzan's piece. Curzan is the kind of etymologist I enjoy, as I am a descriptivist by training -- and by nature (I think).

However, I certainly understand Rosefolly's point: . . . darn it, I loved those rules. Rules can be very comforting.

It truly is a bummer when the thing that we readers excel at is deemed not-terribly-important by society at large.

Kathy, sometimes it seems to me that nearly everything that I've always been good at is now hardly important at all. :-(
kathy_t
Original Author
9 years ago
Yeonassky - Thank you for the Anne Curzan Ted Talk. Very interesting and, well, adorkable.
woodnymph2_gw
9 years ago
Carolyn, I've heard "he's from off", as well, When I moved to SC 6 years ago, I was intrigued to hear about "come-heres" and "been-heres". (Meaning those newly arrived as opposed to "natives".) Charleston is a very insular city, filled with older families, albeit friendly.
friedag
9 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
Vee, I didn't see your post about searching for examples of rhotic speech on 'YouTube' until just a few minutes ago, although you posted right before I did last night (your morning?).

I should have warned you that a lot of linguistic jargon is nearly impenetrable. Unless you find the subject especially fascinating (as I do), it takes a lot of wading through arcane muck to find plainspoken explanations. I suppose linguists can't help themselves in making things much too complicated for persons with casual or just-beginning interest. See why I didn't think I could manage to explain it without being too tedious? :-)

Astrokath did a wonderful job creating her video with examples of her pronunciations. I listened to her many times. I particularly remember the dorg's pores which I couldn't imagine without actually hearing it. Spelling just doesn't always cut it. When we spell something the conventional way, there is no guarantee a reader will be "hearing" the same sounds or having the same images in mind.
carolyn_ky
9 years ago
Wood, I like come here's and been here's and didn't need your explanation to understand what they meant. Save your Confederate money. The South will rise again.
vee_new
9 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
Thanks for getting back Frieda, my post went 'in' probably before 10am yesterday although I'm sure I wrote it the day before!. I will never understand why some posts appear at the touch of a key pad and others wander through the ether for several hours!

Re reading/hearing the spoken word. I wonder at the very indifferent quality of some of the you tube sites, especially from people claiming to be speech experts etc.

A slightly better eg is one by an English man (wearing a cricket sweater) describing why we English can't hear the 'r' at the end of a word. All rather complicated but at least he keeps going.

The elusive 'r'
vee_new
9 years ago
Carolyn, in this rather rural neck of the woods, although folk now seem more at ease with outsiders they are often described as strangers. We moved here in 1980, from all of 7 miles down the road and were regarded with some suspicion for many years. People were not hostile or rude and would reply when greeted but we were made to understand we were from Ultima Thule for many years. Had we come from 8 miles away we would have been known as "them Welshies" and to keep a passport handy to prove our non-Welshness. ;-) Many 'locals' still like to put us right/in our place about what's what saying "You weren't here then" . . . meaning . . ."so what do you know about anything?"
kathy_t
Original Author
9 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
Vee - I enjoyed the video of the man in the cricket sweater. Along with being entertaining, I thought he made some interesting points. His comment about American speech being perceived as loud and aggressive made smile. I remember once being seated on the Tube in London, with a tight circle of four standing Brits crushed in close against my knees. They all burst into laughter, then one of them said in a stage whisper, "Stop being so loud. They'll think we're Americans."

By the way, I did not even notice the crooked picture until the video pointed it out.
carolyn_ky
9 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
One of my proudest moments happened on a plane when I was going to London. I had been chatting off and on with the woman seated beside me when she asked if I were going home. I said no that I was visiting London, and she said, "Oh, I thought you were English." She must not have had much of an ear for accents, me of the down-home country-style speech.
Rosefolly z5
9 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
It is flattering to be thought of as being in the know.

I remember waiting to cross a street in Paris some years ago. An elderly couple who were visiting, probably from the country, came up to me and asked directions. In French! Now I have a speaking vocabulary of maybe 100 French words (and maybe 500+ written ones), but no actual French person can understand them when I say them. ;-)

I smiled to myself all day that day.
msmeow
9 years ago
A friend of mine was visiting one of the cathedrals in England and the docent asked what language he would like a brochure in. He said English and she sniffed and said, "Of a sort!"

Donna
annpanagain
9 years ago
It seems that bad pronunciation of a word can be spread by hearing someone on radio or TV misuse it. Our presenters and newsreaders have been calling Las Vegas "Los Vegas" recently. I don't know who started that.

Years ago, for fun, I suggested to my radio newsreader husband that he pronounce the name of a local department store Boans as "Bow-ans" and not the common usage of "Bones".

Sure enough, it was picked up and repeatedly used on other local radio stations. Successful experiment indeed!
Kath
9 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
If anyone is interested, my video (made 8 years ago apparently, yikes!) is here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUtjbzq3QiY

As always, hearing my own voice is quite off-putting, but the accent is there.

My husband must have an approachable face as he is constantly being asked directions when he is in foreign places. He got asked directions when he was walking across a pedestrian crossing in San Diego from someone in a car when he'd been there about 2 hours.
vee_new
9 years ago
Kath, thanks for replaying 'your' video. You will be pleased to know that I pronounce all the words you mention in the same way! And I'm sure you don't look a day older . . .

I notice the, to me, new-ish American word 'snarky' which I hadn't heard until a US RP'er emailed me to tell me that it described me! Is it a corruption of 'sarcastic' and something else? I don't think it is in general use over here; we have plenty of other less than polite words to describe people. ;-)
annpanagain
9 years ago
Vee, I have Googled "snarky" which is described as a word for snide and critical. You are allowed to be critical here but I have never thought you were snide. Perhaps that RP'er doesn't understand your sense of humour...

I picked up a couple of paperbacks in a charity shop of Charlaine Harris's Harper Connolly series, which I read a long time ago. I borrowed the other two from the library to re-read, then passed all four to my D to enjoy. She hadn't come across them before and was pleased to discover them.

Neither of us usually reads fantasy but I could make a stretch to belief in Harper's gift after being hit by lightning. After all, who knows what could happen after such an event!
sheri_z6
9 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
Vee, I always think of "snarky" in terms of sarcastic, witty, and usually somewhat negative -- but negative in a way that is amusing, meant to point out the silliness of something, and not necessarily snide or critical (terms I consider to be much more harsh). Perhaps I've been using it incorrectly? I hope that makes sense. And you are definitely not snide!

Kath, I enjoyed the YouTube video, thanks for re-posting, I hadn't seen it before. My daughter was in Melbourne last year and I did learn how to pronounce that properly :)
carolyn_ky
9 years ago
Vee, you have a wonderful dry sense of humor that is by no means snarky. Keep it up. I, at least, am vastly entertained by it.

Ann, there is a book by Barbara Wood called Childsong in which a young girl was struck by lightning in a swimming pool and becomes pregnant. Being innocent and Catholic, she believes she is carrying a divine baby. It's an interesting book.
yeonassky
9 years ago
Glad you enjoyed it Frieda and Kathy. I enjoyed yours Kathy. I love the how I pronounce things game.

If I were to have one grammar wish, I would love it if people would say were instead of was after if and its friends. Of course that's not going to happen so I force myself to accept the new norm and move on. Pizza helps :)
Rosefolly z5
9 years ago
I have the exact same wish. Pizza does help, a bit. I also wish people understood when to use the word fewer and when to use less. And most of all, I wish people would stop saying process-ease instead of processes. But apparently they are not going to do that.
msmeow
9 years ago
I've never been clear on when to use "were" or "was", so thanks Yeonassky!

I found a grammar test online yesterday and I got all 25 questions right! I was pretty sure I'd missed at least one. Of course, who knows if the creators of the test actually know what they are talking about? There were several questions about "affect" vs. "effect" and several with "to" vs. "too", so those were pretty easy.

Donna
yeonassky
9 years ago
Donna I work very hard at not being a grammar police so if you were to use was with if I would not say boo to you. :) Would you please link your grammar test? I'm notoriously bad at tests and don't ever get 100% so congrats. :)
annpanagain
9 years ago
I am getting off the point but I would like to mention behavioural changes as well as language ones.

Many years ago, in the UK, people just used to laugh at jokes at the theatre and on radio. Then clapping came in, much to the disgust of the older generation. Now people clap themselves for an achievement, such as on quiz shows. I find this annoying.

(Applauds self ironically and retires from the stage!)
vee_new
9 years ago
Annpan I remember this used to happen many years ago when Russian athletes received medals/prizes, which I took to be their traditional 'thing'. These days pre-recorded TV and radio shows seem to have worked the audiences into such a 'high' pitch that they over-laugh and clap at the most feeble/bad-taste jokes. I'm just waiting for the arrival of the US 'habit' of hollering, yelling and whooping at the merest sight of a star or even (God help us) a politician, . . .
annpanagain
9 years ago
Vee, those noises, along with piercing whistles, sometimes happen with live studio audiences here. Thank goodness for the mute button and subtitles!
msmeow
9 years ago
Yeonasky, it was a link in a FB post, so I'm not sure I could find it again. (I'm mostly a luddite where FB is concerned LOL.)

The "audience" (which used to be called the congregation) applauds for the music during worship at our church. I think that is just WRONG! To me, the music is part of worship and not a "performance". (The current church leadership uses both "audience" and "performance" when talking about worship.) I guess that's why I don't attend there any more.

Donna
Rosefolly z5
9 years ago
Oh, that is too bad, Donna. I would make an exception for a concert given in a church that is not a part of a service.
vee_new
9 years ago
I must agree with both Donna and Rosefolly. I am not much of a church-goer but think applause is only appropriate if the church building is being used as a concert/play venue. I'm still not quite at home with the now quite common habit of serving 'refreshments' after a service. I know that many medieval churches over here have no separate facilities for such things (some don't even have a cold water tap let along a church hall for meetings etc) but crumbs in the nave or Coke spilt in the choir-stalls doesn't seem 'quite the thing'.

Donna, does the congregation clap after a particularly rousing sermon? I seem to remember seeing on TV that in some US places of worship it is not uncommon to hear "Alleluia" or 'Praise the Lord" during an address from the pulpit.

I guess I'm showing both my age and my stiff-upper-lip Englishness . . . and am probably too old to change!
msmeow
9 years ago
Vee, there is rarely applause during or after a sermon. :). We do have the occasional "amen." It's a Methodist church; the "amens" and " hallelujahs" are much more common in other denominations.

Donna
woodnymph2_gw
9 years ago
Vee, in many of the very southern protestant churches, often the "Amen!" or the 'Hallalujah!" is said loudly by the congregation, in response to prayers, etc. It's a tradition found especially in Black churches, as well. As you probably know, also in the Episcopal churches, the "Amen' is said, at certain points during the collects or responses.
phyllis__mn
9 years ago
Do you ever find that you have pronounced a word incorrectly forever? I just recently realized that I have been saying "spoonsful" and "cupsful" instead of putting the plural "s" after the "l". It still seems incorrect to me.....we are talking about the item being plural, not the fuls! After a bit of googling, I found that my use was archaic, perish the thought.
kathy_t
Original Author
9 years ago
Phyllis - That's interesting. I believe I would put the 's' last (the "non-archaic" usage), but when I think about it, your logic seems correct to me. It would be like "daughters-in-law."
vee_new
9 years ago
Phyllis, it doesn't sound strange to me, especially if you consider it/they are really two words that have been run together. You would say "add six spoons full of flour" rather than "six spoon fulls of flour"
annpanagain
9 years ago
Phyllis, l also would say spoonsful of sugar because it sounds correct! Of course, I am nearly eighty so deemed archaic!
carolyn_ky
9 years ago
This is the second post today that assures me that I am archaic. I think it is the same principle as sisters-in-law rather than sister-in-laws.
Kath
9 years ago
And courts martial, governors general, and host of others. I always say spoonsful, so obviously I am archaic too.

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