Oblivious to usage advice?
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Yesterday I posted about the history of the English word infer, including the fact that an often-deprecated usage — "evidence E infers conclusion C" — is one of the original meanings, has been used by elite writers since the 16th century, and is hallowed by inclusion in authoritative dictionaries like Webster's 2nd.
Rob Gunningham's comment was: "I'll bet you're not going to start using … infer instead of 'imply' yourself, are you?"
I hadn't thought about it, but on reflection, Rob is right. More broadly, I can't recall ever having changed my speaking or writing habits on the basis of a grammatical analysis or a historical investigation. This isn't a matter of principle for me, but it's a fact; and on reflection, I think that it's a fact worth thinking about.
There are some caveats and exceptions. From time to time, I learn something about English spelling, and I try to reform my writing accordingly. Similarly, I sometimes learn how to pronounce a word that I know only from reading, and again, I apply the new knowledge in speaking. And in languages other than English, where I'm not a native speaker, I accept and try to apply any usage advice I can get.
But in English, and in the core territory of usage experts — word meaning, number agreement, complement structure, and so on — I'm mostly oblivious. I don't use the sense of infer in which "evidence E infers conclusion C"; and as Rob predicted, it doesn't change my habits to learn that good writers have been using infer this way ever since Sir Thomas More introduced the word around 1530. Similarly, I do use the expression "could care less", at least in informal contexts, and the repetition of arguments that it's illogical doesn't make me stop. (Nor do I need the linguistic analysis of the historical process involved to excuse my habit.)
Why?
There are two reasons, both important. First, I share with most modern linguists the idea that language is a natural rather than an artificial phenomenon: an instance of what Hayek called a "grown" or "endogenous" or "spontaneous" order, rather than a "made" or "exogenous" or "artificial" order. (For more discussion, see "Authoritarian rationalism is not conservatism", 12/11/2007; and "James Kilpatrick, linguistic socialist", 3/28/2008.) And second, I feel myself to be a member in good standing of the various communities of English speakers and writers that I live and work in.
If I were trying to speak or write like a member of the British royal family or a Glaswegian shipyard worker or a San Fernando Valley teenager, I'd be happy to model my behavior on what I could learn about the practices of those speech communities. That would include attending to the advice of experts, though I'd reserve the right to evaluate the quality of that advice against the facts of community usage.
But I'm just trying to speak and write like a member of the speech communities that I grew up in. And I don't need expert advice to do that.
To avoid misunderstanding, I need to add a few additional hedges.
We're talking about general patterns of usage, not specific instances. Like everyone else, I often make mistakes: I substitute words, I start a sentence one way and end it another way, and so on. When someone points out one of these mistakes, I'm happy to correct it.
And my usage patterns are by no means immutable. I share with the rest of humanity a disposition towards what sociolinguists call "accommodation", the tendency to modify pronunciation, word usage and other linguistic features so as to conform with conversational partners. This is what creates speech communities in the first place, and a version of the same process applies in written language as well.
There's a broad area of usage advice that's rhetorical rather than lexicographic or grammatical in nature. Advice of this kind doesn't try to tell us how English is, or how English should be, but rather how to use English more effectively. I don't generally find advice of this kind very helpful, but I'm happy to try to apply it if it seems to work. I've even suggested that there could, and perhaps should, be a kind of "Prescriptivist Science" to provide a solid foundation for such advice.
Finally, I recognize the necessity to take account even of the kind of grammatical and lexicographical advice that's entirely incompetent and mistaken: which-hunting, prepositional paranoia, they phobia, and so on. I know someone who believes deeply that wearing white pants after Labor Day is an offense against decency, and who feels entitled to explain this to me at length whenever the topic comes up. I doubt the validity of this fashion advice, and don't care much one way or the other in any case; but I generally (well, sometimes) go along with this prejudice in order to avoid pointless arguments. Similarly, I sometimes regulate my use of which so as to avoid arguments with copy editors. It's cowardly, I know, but there you are.
Rob Gunningham said,
August 12, 2008 @ 9:37 am
Credit for explaining the point much better than I did yesterday should go to John Cowan in Language Hat's post on infer/imply. Many people took my post to be rude and prescriptivist (ok, at least three), and I'm grateful that Mark didn't do that, it wasn't my intention at all.
Mark P said,
August 12, 2008 @ 9:57 am
Do you ever use an expression or pronunciation in a sort of contrarian way? For example, for a long time I did not know what "hydrogenated" meant. After some chemistry, when I learned that it meant to increase the number of hydrogen atoms to eliminate double bonds (and make a liquid fat solid), I started to accent the word on the first rather than the second syllable, so that it was obvious that it had something to do with hydrogen. I also pronounce "kilometer" with the accent on the first syllable instead of the second like most American do. I know these pronunciations are not standard, at least in the US, but they make more sense to me, so that's the way I say them.
Morten Jonsson said,
August 12, 2008 @ 10:24 am
Mark P, I do the same thing! For example, I pronounce "doge" like "doggie" because even though it's not standard, at least in the U.S., it sounds really funny. Unfortunately, it's not a word that comes up very often.
Martin said,
August 12, 2008 @ 10:37 am
Having been both copyeditor and copyedited (in that order) I have become much less of a frantic martinet over the years. I am constantly chastened by the memory of an email I sent that accused an author of inventing fictional characters in a business newsletter, because I didn't know the word "scuttlebutt" (sorry, Philip).
(And am I missing a point or has Muphry's Law struck Mark L? Myself I'm largely oblivous to it…)
Jonathan Mayhew said,
August 12, 2008 @ 10:52 am
I stopped caring about the rule about which and that in non-restrictive and restrictive clauses, based on some half-remembered language log analysis in the back of my mind. My copy editor at the University of Chicago Press changed some of my whiches to thats, and I happily let him do so, since "that" sounded just as good as "which" in those instances and because that's just the kind of guy I am.
I'm not about to start to use infer in the sense of "What are you inferring?" I still don't begin sentences with "however" in the sense of nevertheless. I probably follow many non-existent "rules" that have the status of mere personal preferences.
Jonathan Lundell said,
August 12, 2008 @ 10:52 am
There's another reason (besides cowardice) to avoid those out-of-season white pants, and that's to let your prose style fade into the background when you're (for example) trying to make a point that relies on logical argument rather than "mere" rhetoric. Those white pants can be a distraction even to those whose reaction is "Good man, boldly wearing whites on Columbus Day!" when all I want to do is to blend into the crowd.
Sometimes it's a matter of fine judgement. These days I take the singular "they" to have less potential for distraction than "he or she" [I had written "him or her"; how embarrassing would that be?] and ought to be my default choice. But some incompetent advice is harmless enough, and can be followed at no real cost.
Thanks for the infer/imply lesson. I've long since learned to check my references before popping off with a correction, but I'm not sure I would have bothered to check on this one.
Alan Gunn said,
August 12, 2008 @ 11:04 am
I'm unclear on this "speech communities" notion. Most of the people I've worked with (law professors and lawyers) tend not to follow the rules I learned when I was young, such as using the objective form of personal pronouns after a preposition even when there are two of them. They do mostly insist on which-hunting, though, and many of them (especially those who teach "legal writing") insist that verbs can't be "split." I have no desire to speak or write the way they do; why should I change? I have learned to disregard rules I was once taught that are silly ("no starting sentences with conjunctions, no singular "they," etc.). I suppose my "speech community" is that of the average high-school graduate of my parents' generation, tempered by advice from various sources (including usage guides, taken with a grain of salt). I also have many friends who freely use double negatives and words like "ain't." I'd think it odd if they didn't talk that way, but I think they'd think it just as odd if I were to start imitating that sort of speech–it just wouldn't sound right coming from me. Maybe people who teach linguistics are different. It seems to me that all the Language Log people adhere far more closely to traditional English usage than is the norm for college teachers generally.
Like Mark P, I stress the first syllable of "kilometer," partly perhaps because I learned in school that that was "correct," and partly because whenever I hear it said the usual way I think about what it would be like if people pronounced "millimeter" and "centimeter" that way. (To be sure, I was also told in school (Louisiana, 1951) that "extraordinary" was pronounced "extree-ordinary" and that black people shouldn't be allowed to vote, but I've gotten over those.)
Richard Hershberger said,
August 12, 2008 @ 11:14 am
Jonathan, you are certainly right about the benefits of avoiding distracting usages. On the other hand, we band of brothers who are interested in and notice this sort of thing (from either side of the debate) are a small minority.
A standard rearguard action among usage writers is to advise us to avoid a usage not because it is wrong, but because some people will think it is wrong. Discussions of sentence adverb "hopefully" often resort to this nowadays. The flaw with the argument is that by the time the discussion has reached this point, only a few die hards are left caring. How much effort should I put into appeasing their irrational prejudices? If I happen to know that such a person is in a position of authority over me, then I might care. But for general purposes I can rest easy knowing that the vast majority of my readers won't notice to complain.
Morten Jonsson said,
August 12, 2008 @ 11:41 am
On Richard's point: I think it's important to know what usages some people think are wrong–not necessarily so you can avoid those usages, but so that you have a better idea how your writing will be received. It's part of the process of understanding the range of meanings and associations of the words you use.
language hat said,
August 12, 2008 @ 12:24 pm
whenever I hear it said the usual way I think about what it would be like if people pronounced "millimeter" and "centimeter" that way.
I find this a strange argument. Those are different words; why should they be pronounced the same way, or another word in the same way as them? Do you also say CHRON-ometer?
I think it's important to know what usages some people think are wrong–not necessarily so you can avoid those usages, but so that you have a better idea how your writing will be received.
But "some people" are going to think virtually any usage is wrong; the question is how many people, and as Richard points out, "by the time the discussion has reached this point, only a few die hards are left caring." Do you really want to go around trying to avoid being looked down on by Aloysius Thistlebottom and his fellow half-dozen members of the Preserve English the Way it Was in Queen Victoria's Time (But Not Much Further Back Because Then It Gets to Be Too Much Trouble) Society?
Mark Liberman said,
August 12, 2008 @ 1:31 pm
Language Hat: Do you really want to go around trying to avoid being looked down on by Aloysius Thistlebottom and his fellow half-dozen members of the Preserve English the Way it Was in Queen Victoria's Time (But Not Much Further Back Because Then It Gets to Be Too Much Trouble) Society?
Certainly not. Especially because Mr. Thistlebottom is often badly informed about how English actually was in Queen Victoria's time. Also, some of his peeves, crochets and irks may be motivated less by cultural conservatism than by a crackpot theory about linguistic structure or logical consistency. So trying to stay on his good side is as difficult as it is unrewarding.
Mark P said,
August 12, 2008 @ 1:32 pm
"I find this a strange argument." Oh, I don't know. All of them are units in the international measurement system, which was intended to be rational, so why shouldn't the pronunciations be rational?
Morten Jonsson said,
August 12, 2008 @ 1:34 pm
My point is that if you know how what you write will be taken, and by whom, you have the choice to disregard the Thistlebottoms of the world. If you don't know, you'll forever be at their mercy, wondering whether every word you've said gives someone a reason to sneer at you. Of course, you could just disregard all of that and say whatever you bloody well feel like saying. But if that's the way you feel, then you probably don't have any use for these discussions anyway.
Peter said,
August 12, 2008 @ 2:12 pm
"I also pronounce "kilometer" with the accent on the first syllable instead of the second like most American do. I know these pronunciations are not standard, at least in the US, but they make more sense to me, so that's the way I say them."
The pronunciation of "kilometre" was briefly a political issue in Australia in 1975, when Prime Minister Gough Whitlam publicly disagreed with the pronunciation advocated by his own Minister of Science, Clyde Cameron. Whitlam had studied Greek at Sydney University under Enoch Powell, and claimed Greek language precedent for the pronunciation he advocated. Cameron, a former shearer and trade union official, was upset at Whitlam for having been demoted to the Science & Consumer Affairs portfolio from his previous position as Minister of Labour and Immigration.
Alan Gunn said,
August 12, 2008 @ 2:51 pm
"whenever I hear it said the usual way I think about what it would be like if people pronounced "millimeter" and "centimeter" that way.
I find this a strange argument. Those are different words; why should they be pronounced the same way, or another word in the same way as them?"
It's not an "argument," it's just a statement about how I react. Not all that long ago, all these words were commonly pronounced with the emphasis on the first syllable. One of them has changed. I have no opinion about how others should pronounce it, but I have noticed the change, and I personally haven't adopted it. I know you dislike prescriptivism in all its forms, but this isn't a case of it.
Simon Cauchi said,
August 12, 2008 @ 5:06 pm
Can someone please explain to this non-USian what is meant by all this stuff about white pants and Columbus Day?
John McIntyre said,
August 12, 2008 @ 5:27 pm
Largely obsolete fashion advice. White trousers and dresses are worn in the summertime, conventionally between Memorial Day at the end of May and Labor Day at the beginning of September. Same for the summer straw hat.
While I choose to observe this convention myself, I derive no sense of moral or fashion superiority from it.
Bryn LaFollette said,
August 12, 2008 @ 7:39 pm
I'm unclear on this "speech communities" notion.
A "speech community" is any group of people that share a common dialect or set of linguistic features, but often extends to include the socialinguistic practices of that group. In common sense of "accent", the speakers of that local or regional accent would constitute a speech community. This isn't really based on rote learned rules per se, but rather the features and conventions of speech that typify the way people talk in their community and norms of speaking and usage observed (whether consciously or not). If you grew up in a given speech community, you'd already be in full control of the dialect and norms of expression for that speech community, but if you come from another speech community your way of speaking and expressing yourself would mark you as an outsider, and you would need to carefully observe or get usage advice if you wanted to help yourself conform to this new community you are trying to conform to. Hence if you're a San Fernando Valley teenager and you move to Corpus Christi, Texas, you will stand out as not being part of that speech community; though in time you may be able to learn the local dialect to become a member of it.
Ellen K. said,
August 12, 2008 @ 7:49 pm
To Simon: Let me add to Mr. McIntyre's answer that Columbus Day falls in October.
Jonathan Lundell said,
August 12, 2008 @ 8:15 pm
Sadly, I have no white pants at all, so the fashion question doesn't arise.
If a usage question of this general type occurs to me while I'm writing, I consider the possibility that it may be a distraction to my readers. My style is not so fine nor well developed that I worry overmuch, and there are several usages (hopefully, singular they, that/which and others) that I'll employ without hesitation. And what the heck, maybe I'll throw in a More 1533, but only to annoy. And I don't always care to annoy.
Rubrick said,
August 12, 2008 @ 10:10 pm
I find that my knowledge of such things sometimes changes my behavior just enough to throw me into language paralysis. I'll type "I'll give it to whoever wants it", realize from long-ingrained pedantry that it should be "whomever", change it, realize that that sounds pompous and remember that "whoever" is perfectly acceptable, change it back, think about the smirking folks who will point out my "error"….
Simon Cauchi said,
August 12, 2008 @ 11:02 pm
But "I'll give it to whoever wants it" is correct! "Whoever" is the subject of its clause, and the indirect object of "give" isn't "whoever" alone but the whole clause "whoever wants it".
Rob Gunningham said,
August 13, 2008 @ 1:39 am
I get language paralysis over the toilet, the word toilet. Growing up in England it wasn't part of my speech community's vocabulary, you were supposed to say loo in polite company, 'bog' (or describe the action: 'go and 'ave a slash') at school, but never under any circumstances say toilet. Living in New York as a student I quickly had to get used to the toilet unless I was going to start with restroom or bathroom; actually the bathroom was convenient sometimes, but in my job as an architect I was always writing TOILETS on drawings, and I kind of decided never to return to the loo, to stick with the toilet. So then I'm in Germany, and I'm writing a letter to a fairly important person in London: what to use? I used the toilet and in his reply he used the loo, and with both of us being English it was quite embarrassing. So now I get the paralysis; but luckily the subject rarely comes up.
Nathan Myers said,
August 13, 2008 @ 5:07 am
When I read to my kids, I always pronounce the "k" in "knife" etc. and the "g" in "gnaw". I usually pronounce "bear" as "bar" and "dog" as "dawg". It doesn't seem to have affected their pronunciation, but I like to imagine it will help them somehow, someday (although I would be hard-put to suggest how). They're onto me, now, about "bear" and demand I say it "right", but I still get away with the rest.
I happily say "kill-o-meter" and "cro-no-meter" when I get the opportunity, without loss of comprehensibility. My cowardice shows in saying "seezer" when I want to say "kyzer", (knowing full well that neither is what a Roman would have said), and saying "giga-watt" when I'd like to say "jiga-watt".
I find myself explaining to people that James Prescott Joule was a proud Englishman and would have been furious at having the SI unit of energy, the watt-second, pronounced as "jool" rather than his own "jowl" (or if you prefer, ˈdʒaʊl"). According to Wikipedia, the OED disagrees with me, but I've had some success.
Rob Gunningham said,
August 13, 2008 @ 6:41 am
I say kill-o meeter on purpose, too, on the grounds that -lommeter is too affected, even if practically everyone does say it. There's harmless enjoyment to be derived from this sort of thing: to boldly split an infinitive with your speech community is just asking for some very mild trouble — it's so mild that my family would probably tell me to get a life, but it's hard to stop.
Mark P said,
August 13, 2008 @ 8:43 am
Nathan Myers, my thesis advisor insisted that Joule should be pronounced "jawl" and I have pretty much done that ever since, when it comes up.
An Indian I knew at school sometimes exaggerated his pronunciation of words, like the state of Georgia. He said "Jaw-jaw." He said it helped him remember how they were really pronounced. I guess that means in Georgia, a lot of people still pronounced it something like "Jaw-juh."
language hat said,
August 13, 2008 @ 9:48 am
I have noticed the change, and I personally haven't adopted it. I know you dislikike prescriptivism in all its forms, but this isn't a case of it.
Fair enough, and thanks for explaining.
When I read to my kids, I always pronounce the "k" in "knife" etc. and the "g" in "gnaw".
How bizarre. Good thing kids mostly ignore their parents.
I find myself explaining to people that James Prescott Joule was a proud Englishman and would have been furious at having the SI unit of energy, the watt-second, pronounced as "jool"
Well, except that that's how he himself said his name. But don't let the facts get in the way of a good idiosyncrasy!
Nathan Myers said,
August 13, 2008 @ 3:40 pm
language hat: Yes, that's what I said.
Evan said,
August 14, 2008 @ 4:18 am
apparently you won't be using infer for imply even if you want to: http://typicalprogrammer.com/?p=68
outeast said,
August 14, 2008 @ 4:31 am
I've changed a number of usages over the years due to linguistic analyses – most recently dropping the use of 'and/or' following the good professor's highly convincing case for the inclusiveness of 'or'.
That said, certain prejudices have proved hard to dislodge: unless the result is clearly ambiguous or tortured I will generally eschew split infinitives, for example, and I try to avoid ending sentences with prepositions. But I no longer make a fool of myself by sneering at others for doing differently.
Mark P said,
August 14, 2008 @ 9:22 am
Language hat, can you cite an authoritative source for how Joule pronounced his name? I have read that the pronunciation was not standardized during his life. There appears to be some evidence that he did pronounce it to rhyme with cool, but there still seems to be some ambiguity about it.
Arnold Zwicky said,
August 14, 2008 @ 9:46 am
To Mark P on Joule's pronunciation of his name: the OED says (I've replaced the OED's IPA transcriptions with more ASCII-friendly ones):
"Although some people of this name call themselves [Joule with an [aU]] and others [Joule with an [@U], where @ represents schwa] (D. Jones Everyman's Eng. Pronouncing Dict. (ed. 11, 1956), G. M. Miller BBC Pronouncing Dict. British Names (1971)), it is almost certain that J. P. Joule (and some at least of his relatives) used [the vowel [u:]]. For evidence on this point see Nature (1943) CLII. 354, 418, 479, 602."
The Cambridge Encyclopedia and NOAD2 follow the OED in listing only the [u:] pronunciation. AHD4 lists both [u:] and [aU].
Arnold Zwicky said,
August 14, 2008 @ 10:27 am
To Evan, about Typical Programmer's piece on apostrophree, "a proxy service that corrects common errors of spelling, pronunciation, grammar, and usage and blogs, and especially comments and discussion forums": this is clearly satire (Bolus Venture Capital!) — well worth reading. Check out the comments, which are all over the map, and comments on other blogs (which you can find by googling on "apostrophree").
Nathan Myers said,
August 14, 2008 @ 2:03 pm
outeast: "I will generally eschew split infinitives" contains at least the moral equivalent of a split infinitive. If you're going to avoid splitting infinitives, you must get used to moving the adverb someplace unnatural and awkward, so that helper words that would have been rendered as inflections in Latin are kept adjacent to the verb. Otherwise, why bother?
Bill Tarr said,
August 21, 2008 @ 1:43 am
Why promote ignorance? Kilo in kilometer is the prefix for one thousand. As in all units of measure, the accent MUST be on the first syllable. It's not ki-LOH-meter, mil-LIH-meter, cent-TIH-meter. Try to remember this: MIC-roh-meter is one miilionth of a meter but mic-ROH-meter is a measuring instrument. Ki-LOH-meter would be an instrument for measuring "kilos" aka. a SCALE !
[(myl) With respect, this is nonsense, and you're the one who is promoting ignorance. For many speakers, the main word stress shifts in kilometer, relative to kilo, for the same reason that it shifts in photography relative to photograph, or in medicinal relative to medicine — because of the sound patterns of English. According to the AHD entry, more than 2/3 of their usage panel preferred to pronounce kilometer with second-syllable main stress. The Encarta entry gives only second-syllable stress. The Merriam-Webster entry says:
Did it occur to you to consult a dictionary, or are you convinced that the English language "MUST" revolve around your personal preferences and rationalizations? I considered deleting your comment due its toxic combination of arrogance and ignorance, but decided to leave it as an object lesson. ]
Bill Tarr said,
August 27, 2008 @ 3:19 pm
Merriam-Webster 1847 was a good vintage.
Farmers' Almanac 1796 is also a valuable source.
[(myl) And your point is? ]
Bill Tarr said,
March 16, 2010 @ 5:35 pm
"Those who object to second syllable stress say that the first syllable should be stressed in accord with the stress patterns of centimeter, millimeter, etc."
Obviously, but who cares about consistency? Most Americans can barely read and write anyway.
Bill said,
July 26, 2011 @ 12:03 pm
"Most scientists use second syllable stress, although first syllable stress seems to occur with a higher rate of frequency among scientists than among nonscientists."
Half (__!__) scientists use second syllable stress. Real scientists use the first.