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Englitch - 6/14/2010 10:21:46 PM   
Termyn8or


Posts: 18681
Joined: 11/12/2005
Status: offline 		Been thinking about this. What makes certain things acceptable and others not ? One of my hillbillies uses, and possibly invented the word "clumb". It is the past tense of climb and when he uses it you know what he means, no explanation is necessary. It may sound funny the first couple of times but you get it, it means climbed.

I remember when I was young and people would say that "ain't" ain't a word. Well it is now. It is a cross between isn't and aren't, used intechangably and actually serves the purpose of a word, people understand it without a dictionary, and it aids in getting the point across more efficiently.

To wit : "You ain't clumb up there yet".

So imperfect, but do I really have to explain the sentence ? I think it's meaning is pretty clear, so as such, all of the words are doing their job. If that's the case, then they are words. But who says what is correct ?

I've spend about half my life learning how to use the English language, as the schools failed to teach it. I have also come to the conclusion in life that there is no such thing as teaching for the most part. It is more a matter of a proper presentment which will hold the students' interest enough to impel them to learn the subject matter. Here's another one - same difference - just like leading a horse to water vs making them drink.

I think this goes deeper than, for example the difference between there, their and they're. This is more in what is acceptable. People screw up the "there"s all the time regardless of educational level. I used to think those who would type you instead of your were literally deficient in some way, that is until I caught myself doing it. It is easy to just omit that last letter.

But it's more the spirit of language of which I write. Right now, for some just talking to someone, say English speaking either from the past or from aniother Enlish peaking country could have difficulties. I do right here in twon. The punkstas or whatever on the streetcorners or on the bus, half the time I really have trouble making sense of their lingo. But then the youngers always have their own flavor of slang and it takes us oldsters a minute to catch on.

And it depends on environment and venue somehow. I would estimate that fully twenty percent of the people in this country don't know what vig means. What it's short for and the actual (really simple) meaning of the word. Of course media has changed that. Perhaps that is a piece of silver lining in the cloud of the media that obscures alot of people's vision to the truth. One saving grace. Worth it ? Who knows.

This is not readily put into a coherent question, I guess I am more looking for comments. I have not found comments to be in short supply at CM :-) But if y'all turn this into another flame war I will personally come to each and every one of your houses (appointments at work are available on request) and shoot off your pinky toe just like Eddie Murphy did to that big broad in the movie Harlem Nights. (one of my favorite all time movies BTW).

LOL

With that, I yield the floor.

T
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RE: Englitch - 6/14/2010 10:59:48 PM   
peppermint


Posts: 5172
Joined: 10/18/2005
From: Montana
Status: offline 		Many small areas have certain words or phrases that are easily understood by others from their area, but might be hard pressed to be understood by others outside the area.  First time I was on the west coast and asked where the pop machine was I was given a blank stare.  Soda machine was the way to say it there.  "Kennywood is open" in Pittsburgh means to check your zipper because it's down.  It wasn't until I was in my twenties when I realized Esliberty was really East Liberty.  Where I lived we didn't wersh clothes like they do in many areas.  We wooshed them.  Friends from CA thought it was funny when I'd tell my kids to pitch something, meaning to throw it away.  We didn't have the wonderfully southern sounding ya'll.  For us, yuns was the plural of you. 

Language is a wonderful thing.  It changes over time.  It's very fluid. 

Thanks for the post.  It brought back some fond memories. 

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RE: Englitch - 6/14/2010 11:19:32 PM   
Termyn8or


Posts: 18681
Joined: 11/12/2005
Status: offline 		Now that you put it that way peps (if I may), I hope others come forth with colloquialisms and such. This could become quite interesting I suspect. But it's pretty clear already that language is not all in a book.

T

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RE: Englitch - 6/14/2010 11:35:26 PM   
Kirata


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quote:

ORIGINAL: Termyn8or

What makes certain things acceptable and others not ? One of my hillbillies uses, and possibly invented the word "clumb". It is the past tense of climb and when he uses it you know what he means...

FYI, English evolved as an amalgam of two different languages. As a consequence, some of our verbs are conjugated by changing an internal vowel (run, ran), while others are conjugated by changing their ending (call, called). Thank the Norman Conquest. There is no rule you can apply to determine which verbs are which, you just have to know. But since we're used to both, we readily understand "he clumb the tree" or "he runned to the store".

K.



< Message edited by Kirata -- 6/14/2010 11:43:37 PM >

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RE: Englitch - 6/15/2010 12:06:06 AM   
Termyn8or


Posts: 18681
Joined: 11/12/2005
Status: offline 		K, good point, get to how it happpened mechanically. Think of the word thunk. Have you thunk about it now or thought about it ? That is more a matter of acceptance and kinda where I was going initially but there are other factors as alway. Climb, clumb. Think, thunk. Drink, drunk. Fits seemingly prefectly except for people's acceptance of it.

And there's another can of worms now open. Acceptance. I might be mistaken, but I think for example in German, you can make up words if you use the proper roots. They have a word that means tricellular combustion chamber, it is 43 letters long and describes a high performance engine's cylinder head design. I doubt that the word had been in hundred year old dictionaries to say the least.

Also, to be a doctor, researcher and so forth, pretty much worldwide, they require some background in the root languages, Greek and Latin id est. So when they discover a new virus, or develop a new procedure they can name it properly and peers accept that name, because it is descriptive in fact.

But holding those points out of contention, with what are we left ? In the end all I can see is that the listener or reader is the ultimate judge of the coherency or whatever of any statement, whether oral or printed. If we accept that, there is but one logical course.

This would be that we need to always consider the audience before trying to get our point across.

Smitty, with whom I used to work, we became friends but I haven't seen him in a while, both having moved on, told me one day. "I tend not to use slang because I have moved around the country and what means one thing in Cleveland can mean something totally different in Detroit and get your ass killed". Made sense to me.

And context doesn't really matter. If you know my sinister (sister) and call her a bitch we will laugh it off, but the revenge might be coming. It will be in the form of words, busting your balls so to speak. But if you don't know her and do that you might just find a carload of people kicking your ass into the ground. We are NOT talking about that, at least I don't think so. It's more like what words are accepted and what are not, not acceptable - accepted. Ain't got in edgwise I guess. Clumb, who knows and the question is, who cares ? You know what it means. If you know what it means it then meets the definition of a word IMO.

But where do we draw the line ?

T

< Message edited by Termyn8or -- 6/15/2010 12:11:13 AM >

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RE: Englitch - 6/15/2010 12:08:48 AM   
DCWoody


Posts: 1401
Joined: 10/27/2006
Status: offline 		Ain't is a word, and has been for hundreds of years. I agree with the broad point, language evolves, it is correct or incorrect in whether it serves its purpose, not whether it meets old and not very useful 'rules' (i before e except after c.....except a whole load of times when it's both ways round before and after c).

I tend to think of spoken languages in the same way as computer languages. If you write something that works, you did it right enough. Putting in the smaller words between the brute globish you encounter in online gaming 'you me kill andy please' can be thought of as good practice in this context. You don't really need them this time, but getting used to using them by default will help you out when you want to string something more complex together.


As far as I'm aware, English is the only major language without some sort of governing body defining what is and isn't 'proper english', and IMO it benefits from that. Usage and comprehensibility is king.

Oh, and clumb is new to me, but I've done the same thing with other words, it just makes sense. On a similar note....I spent a considerable part of my childhood thinking that 'yot' was a slightly different sort of boat to the 'yachts' I read about. Until one day I pronounced it....

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RE: Englitch - 6/15/2010 12:26:47 AM   
Termyn8or


Posts: 18681
Joined: 11/12/2005
Status: offline 		You program ? Awesome (no matter how much I hate that word). I did BASIC on a COCO, and then Qbasic. I only wrote two, one was to quickly calculate the new displacement of an engine after being bored out. It worked, you put in number of cylinders, the stroke and current bore sixe, and then the new cylinder size. Bam, the answer was there. Then the other one was meant to be an aptitude test, for those newbies entering my field way back then, neither had any commercial value whatsoever, but I did it just for the hell of it. Pertinent to the thread ? Well, at least I can say that I've seen the words "syntax error" enough times. But a computer is not a human being.

Oh shit, that sounds like a whole nother can of worms.

(nother ?)

T

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RE: Englitch - 6/15/2010 12:40:57 AM   
DCWoody


Posts: 1401
Joined: 10/27/2006
Status: offline 		Only actionscript and only badly. But ya.

If anything, humans should be more flexible.....

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RE: Englitch - 6/15/2010 1:57:40 AM   
LadyEllen


Posts: 10931
Joined: 6/30/2006
From: Stourport-England
Status: offline 		Aint is perfectly good, as well as its here local correspondences ay and en

Clumb would have to be less acceptable since its incorrect however you look at it, in the same way that thunk is incorrect (thought is already carrying the irregular verb change as in German denken/dacht/gedacht).

Ultimately it doesnt matter though, 'cause the point is communication and as long as communication is achieved its all good.

(except "aks" instead of "ask")

E

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RE: Englitch - 6/15/2010 2:11:04 AM   
Termyn8or


Posts: 18681
Joined: 11/12/2005
Status: offline 		LE, the aks you stuff there ? Sorry, that's off my possible list of destinations.

T

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RE: Englitch - 6/15/2010 2:42:54 AM   
LadyEllen


Posts: 10931
Joined: 6/30/2006
From: Stourport-England
Status: offline 		Its come from over there T I'm sure; its one of those words the "cool" Afro-Caribbean types use and has spread into the "I wannabe a black gangsta too" white population (think Ali G). I'm pretty sure I never heard it ever in Handsworth in the late 80s when I worked there for a while (Handsworth is a neighbourhood in Birmingham, predominantly black; nicest folks ever apart from Stokies, (from Stoke On Trent)) 'cause if I had then I'm sure I'd have noted it, cause its annoying as hell!

E

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RE: Englitch - 6/15/2010 4:47:25 AM   
DesFIP


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Joined: 11/25/2007
From: Apple County NY
Status: offline 		People who use aks should be axed. Pet peeve.

But English will have huge variations because it's spoken in so many different places. I would be surprised if Australians hadn't developed their own slang; sheila, barbie, etc.

In the U.S. alone, there are regional variations. Soda or pop? Unless you're in Atlanta where it's all Coke even when it's Sprite.

Do you bag or sack your groceries? Another north/south divide there. I'm a Yankee, I bag.


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RE: Englitch - 6/15/2010 8:07:35 AM   
JstAnotherSub


Posts: 6174
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quote:

ORIGINAL: DesFIP

People who use aks should be axed. Pet peeve.

But English will have huge variations because it's spoken in so many different places. I would be surprised if Australians hadn't developed their own slang; sheila, barbie, etc.

In the U.S. alone, there are regional variations. Soda or pop? Unless you're in Atlanta where it's all Coke even when it's Sprite.

Do you bag or sack your groceries? Another north/south divide there. I'm a Yankee, I bag.

haha so true!

Here in Atlanta, we use a buggy to get our groceries in, then we sack em up and carry them to the car.  I could also carry a friend to the doctor, but it would not be on my shoulders.

Jeet yet?  Foxworthy did not make that one up....I heard it all my life.

slight hijack...funniest thing I ever heard Foxworthy say.....if ya momma ever yelled "Ya'll come look at this before I flush".....ya might be a redneck.

I love the south.  Yall yankees talk funny as shit.  So glad we aint got that to worry bout down here.

Yall come back now ya heah?



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RE: Englitch - 6/15/2010 9:10:41 AM   
Termyn8or


Posts: 18681
Joined: 11/12/2005
Status: offline 		Gots my shoes off and everything.

T

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RE: Englitch - 6/15/2010 5:54:52 PM   
MasterG2kTR


Posts: 6677
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From: Wisconsin
Status: offline 		If you need some new words for your vocabulary check THIS out 

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RE: Englitch - 6/15/2010 8:10:19 PM   
Termyn8or


Posts: 18681
Joined: 11/12/2005
Status: offline 		"If you need some new words for your vocabulary check THIS out  "

Added to favorites and going to be rernamed "dicshunary".

T

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