WHAT SCHOOLS
SHOULD TEACH
ABOUT ENGLISH
© 200712-22/14 by Orchid Land Publications
Revised 20080728
[send correxions for my goophasms to orlapubs@orlapubs.com]
FIRST, the diverging origins of English. As with the various daughter languages of English, French, etc., that have been investigated in recent decades, the sounds come from the general populace—in this case, Anglo-Saxon (there never was an “Old English”)—while the grammar comes from the overclass—the Norman French in England at the birth of English. What comes from the language of the underclass is some of the vocabulary, what few inflections survive, and a few productive formatives like English -ness. The syntax and many formatives come from the language of the overclass. Thus, we say “It’s me” like French “C’est moi” and “Him and me did it.” But many extend or generalize the principle to yield or “to he and I” and “to we in North America.”
SECOND, Latin prefixes derived via French can take two forms. Consider pre+ in pre+s~ent (the adjective; “s” is pronounced as [z] and syllabized with the preceding stressed vowel; ~ is a syllabic boundary) or pre+d~e+cess+or; pro+ in pro+g~ress or pro+m~ise; and re+ in re+s~ident, or re+s~urrect. (If the syllable following the prefix is stressed, the syllabization will be different, but “s” will be [z], as in re+serve (but [s] in rē#serve). Contrast rē#serve, where “s” is [s], and rē# has a meaning (viz. “again”), . . . like prō# (“in favor of”) prē# (“prior to, earlier than”). Consides further prē# in prē#de+cease; prō# in prō#con+serv+at+ive; and rē# in rē#sent (contrast rē#sént “sent again,” with [s]). Pre+ in pre+di+lection and pro+ in pro+gress have different vowels from the same formatives with #, found in prē#date and prō#military. It is not correct—or, if you prefer, well-formed—to say rē#pre+sent for re+p~re+sent (in both of which +sent begins with [z]); prē+sent+a+tion for pre+s~ent+át+ion (cf. pre+f~er+ence); or prō#gress for pro+g~ress. Note the word prē#pre+sented.
|
WHAT IS CORRECT ENGLISH? Good or correct English (there is no "standard" English since there is no Academy to standardize it) consists of constructs and pronunciations that accord with the principles of English structure; exceptions used by many educated speakers (who are hard to define) of a traditionally significant geographical or political territory, if they can be argued for according to some legitimate principle of languages, are acceptable. Language is always changing and adapting itself to new needs and fashions. Some novelities survive in certain styles among certain speakers; others do not. But in the end all have to conform to what the principles of language allow to survive. Vertebræ ends in mid-stressed “ee” (cf. the stressed vowel of Caesar and of incoh[a]erent) and is not singular! (If one is using the Italian pronunciation of Church Latin, one can call the services tenebray; but when treated as an English word, as in the Church of England, tenebrae are tenebreeeee. Why? Latin æ and œ became two different kinds of “e” in Late Latin and were borrowed into Anglo-Saxon as such—long or short according to the principles of the borrowing language. When the Great Vowel Shift and other events yielded a new language called Middle English, Anglo-Saxon contributed to its sound system and meagre inflections; Old French was formative with respect to its syntax. Latinate æ in præ- (found in predict and presence) and œ in fœtus and p(o)enal and p(o)enalty have the “close” or “open” sound descended from Anglo-Saxon vowels according to the sound rules of English. (English no longer has structurally long vowels except in varieties that “drop r” and lengthen the preceding vowel.) Some notable problems on the media are:
―mediæval has
FOUR
syllables! (with the first vowel as in
Caesar
p(a)edagogy
and pr(a)esence, which
have different kinds of
―Like vertebræ, algae
(whose second syllable is like Gee!),
ph(a)e-
―Greek -eus is a single
syllable in Zeus, Orpheus, Morpheus, etc.
―rē#pre+sént
vs. ré+pre+sènt Note
that # is a “boundary” that
―prò+gréss (verb) : pró+g~ress
(noun); cf. also pro#libery,
where ~ ―then there are gynecology and androgyne. The principles of English phonetology require gyn- in the first to sound like "gin"; at the end, -gyne sounds like jine. The conventions of English orthodography treat "g" before "e i y" as "j"; like "i," the "y" in these words. (Cf. algæ.) Note incidentally that paradigm rhymes with dime; "dig" in paradigmatic sounds like the word dig. Do not transcribe Greek ypsilon (Y u) as "u"; it is English "y," as in hypnosis, dynamic, dysfunctional, etc. Note especially hybris and hybrid (two forms of the same word in Greek). If you mis-say hubris, you should mis-say hubrid unless you wish to be very inconsistent! Note that kýdos in Greek is not koûdos. Grimáce is stressed on its final syllable. IT SHOULD BE NOTICED that we are not aware of the sounds we naturally use according to the principles of English phonetology; e.g. many say hábmt for haven't in informal tempos. In faster speaking, many say idn't for isn't and hadn't for hasn't--as well as for hadn't. These obey the principles of English phonetology for faster or more informal speech. By failing to make such changes, non-native speakers often give themselves away to the native-speakers' ear. Differences exist across the English-speaking; some differentiate choral from coral, whereas others do not; some distinguish they're : their : there, while others do not do so. English has many examples of paired contrasts made by some but not by others. |
THIRD, most of the several scores of intensifier adverbs do not take -ly (always unstressed); this is often (contrast un-English *oftenly) not recognized by some claimants to the title of “grammarian.” Of the many examples that could be cited, consider most : mostly, hard : hardly, sure : surely, right : rightly mighty (as in mighty good) : mightily. Fine in that works fine is not the same as finely in finely tuned. While not strictly intensifying, thus and so are similar; *thusly should be avoided.
SEMANTIC means “meaningful”; those who treat
semantics as “meaningless” are
meaningless themselves!
DIALECT refers, not
an inferior variety of a language; it
refers simply to a variety above individual peculiarities.
SUBSTANDARD is also often used ignorantly; it is best
avoided in favor of “erroneous usage” or perhaps
“unfashionable usage."
Many manufacturers show complete ignorance of the principles of English writing in the way they name their products, not least in pronouncing "u" as "ew" in the places English does not do so. Zetia should rhyme with Lucretia but is pronounced as though Zettia. Examples of this ignorance abound.
It is thinkable that poor spellers are children or adults who are unable to perceive or understand a sytem (or something approaching a system), being unable unconsciously to connect the dots of a pattern. The list mentality has no problem with alphabetical order, but connecting the rows and columns of a table is something else.
Another term often misused is phonetic, which refers to a certain scientific discipline in which speech sounds are analyzed physiologically and acoustically. Note that this term should not be used to refer globally to the sounds of a language or to its usual orthography. The sound system of a language is phonological—or, if the analysis embracing not only abstract underlying representations but also phonetic representations, phonetological. A more general term vaguely referring to how sounds and orthography are paired is phonics.
|
LIKE FRENCH, ENGLISH DOES NOT HAVE "CASE" FORMS; A STRICTLY PRESENT STATEMENT Since we can say, "That child ordinarily behaves but just now s/he is not behaving well," it is clear that behaves is not a present or even a tense. (See present tense and exochronous modality in the index to Bailey, Essays on time-based linguistic analysis (Oxford University Press, 1996). The default use of forms like behave/s is in a future dependent clause; cf. "If she behaves tomorrow, . . ."; "When/Until/As soon as he behaves, . . ." "Does you grammar book tell you why we cannot say, "She has lunched at noon" but we can say, "She has always lunched at noon"? Take the word demean ("behave"; cf. demeanor). If you use it in the sense of bemean, it shows that you have not learned that be- is a causative prefix like such affixes as -ize and -ify. Cf. bemoan, besmirch, and so on. One could think of the pre-Shakespearian play (I cannot remember which) in which a drunk man is said to have "bepissed himself." (You'll find other expressions there which you had thought to be very contemporary!) |
|
CLICK HERE
FOR MEDIA GOOPHASMS―PART
ONE |
Incidentally, some manuals of grammar deplore sentence-adverbs (or sentential adverbs)—those that modify an entire sentence to which they are external; cf. incidentally in this sentence. English uses scores of these. Absolute constructs containing a participial or infinitival predicator are also sentence-adverbials. Examples are “To tell the truth, . . .” and “Everything being in order, . . ."
It's hard for me to see why so many would say a meaningless disect for bisect or, as the case may be, for dissect; why they replace lie ("recline"; past lay) with lay-laid (maybe the sense of "tell a falsehood" monopolizes lie); and can't treat proved : proven like predicative-attributive rotted : rotten.* But since these uses, except for the first, prevail, there is not much to gain by losing spleen over them . . . one is always free to follow the principles of the English system. As for -ize and -ise, why not follow the Oxford University Press's way of preferring -ize where Greek has -iz―i.e. generally―but write -yse in analyse and paralyse, where Greek has -ys- and English has -ysis?
――――――
*Predicative rotted and proved are verb-like; attributive rotten and proven are adjectival. Contrast It has rotted or It was rotten yesterday when I picked it up and It has been proved or It was proved years ago with a rotten apple or a proven theory. More complicated examples are It is rotten and It had been thought to be a proven theory, an apple [that is] rotten on the ground and a theory [that is] proven to everyone's satisfaction. Click L0.html for Orchid Land Publications booklets that discuss other ways of differentiating predi-cative and attributive anterior participles.
――――――
PART TWO
Why do we say (of several things) that "this one is better" but "the other one is best"? The answer is to be found in the origin of English syntax in Old French syntax. French makes the difference between comparative and superlative forms simply by using the word for "the" before the latter. Mystery solved!
Few speakers of English realize that in ordinary conversational tempos, we make many unnoticed natural changes; cf. I'b bin (for I've been) and habm't for haven't as well as bag girl and bab boy―with [b] or [g] for //d//). Some readers may be interested in checking English phonetic transcription, published in 1985 jointly by the SIL in Dallas and the University of Texas at Arlington. Many changes are currently occurring in English pronunciation in all educated vareities, as will be evident to those who listen attentively to the media. Corrigenda over the past years are found at L23.
__________________AN ANGSTASM; NO RHAPOSDASM__________________
Why do professionals on the media say cullinary for culinary; kwahsee for quasi (normally kwayzye in English); the "e" in era (æra) ike the "e" of error, when it should be like "ee" in beet?
