This made me pull my old Morphology textbook off the shelf. It's been, cripes, ten years since I was taking Linguistics and Latin and similar junk... :D It's fun though - those were my favourite academic years by far.
Oh, man, I hope I don't seem combative. If so, I'm sorry, Muffie. Erp.
No apologies needed! You're not even close to combative. (Believe me, I know combative; I live surrounded by Leos.)
Besides, Muffie's one of those that if you were to throw down the gauntlet -- with footnotes -- I betcha she'd be all over that and having the time of her life.
Still not the same as being on a Harley, but, eh, second-best. ;-)
Yup! Too bad you can't read grammar books on a Harley. Harumph.
Combative is kinda the me thing. I'm trying very hard not to be. Ahimsa and all that. :) As long as it's all in good fun and S has plenty of sanding paper, we're all good.
Anyway, yeah, Lowth and his Latin-eros is anachronistic and mostly really stupid, but the simple fact is that in any given society, and language is just another facet of society, there is the elite folks and there's the peasants. I used to be petite-bourgiesie, but I married proletariat. Not that this is important in any way. It takes generations to change a mindset and that's when we tackle things by choice. Byron started the split infinitive fight and it wasn't until the '80s that it became "okay" to split infinitives in formal writing. By "okay" I mean that the average grammar snob could read a split infinitive and not be really bothered by it and the average well-read person wouldn't really even notice it was there.
Some things still dangle around and the elitist bias toward Latin based grammar/spelling is one of those. It's not English, it's society. Women earned the right to vote in the 20s, but female literature wasn't taught in basic literature courses in the average university until the 80s. Stuff hangs out. Like "flash in the pan". Most people don't even know what that means. It literally comes from flintlock rifles. The gunpowder and round was loaded in the barrel and a little pan was loaded with primer that burned hot and set off the gunpowder after it was struck with the flint. A flash in the pan meant the primer had been touched off, flashed, but the gun didn't fire. Flintlocks went out of general use over 150 years ago when matchlocks came out and put the primer inside the barrel. Linguistic elitist stereotypes persist just as easily. Which is why when there is an equivalence between a Latin based choice and a non-Latin based choice (even if the so-called Latin based choice has not etymological Latin in the old family tree), then the Latin based choice will have more prestige.
This isn't language, it's the I'm-better-than-you thing and ways to make people prove it.
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Date: 1 Mar 2007 06:38 am (UTC)Oh, man, I hope I don't seem combative. If so, I'm sorry, Muffie. Erp.
no subject
Date: 1 Mar 2007 07:17 am (UTC)Besides, Muffie's one of those that if you were to throw down the gauntlet -- with footnotes -- I betcha she'd be all over that and having the time of her life.
Still not the same as being on a Harley, but, eh, second-best. ;-)
no subject
Date: 2 Mar 2007 04:49 am (UTC)Combative is kinda the me thing. I'm trying very hard not to be. Ahimsa and all that. :) As long as it's all in good fun and S has plenty of sanding paper, we're all good.
Anyway, yeah, Lowth and his Latin-eros is anachronistic and mostly really stupid, but the simple fact is that in any given society, and language is just another facet of society, there is the elite folks and there's the peasants. I used to be petite-bourgiesie, but I married proletariat. Not that this is important in any way. It takes generations to change a mindset and that's when we tackle things by choice. Byron started the split infinitive fight and it wasn't until the '80s that it became "okay" to split infinitives in formal writing. By "okay" I mean that the average grammar snob could read a split infinitive and not be really bothered by it and the average well-read person wouldn't really even notice it was there.
Some things still dangle around and the elitist bias toward Latin based grammar/spelling is one of those. It's not English, it's society. Women earned the right to vote in the 20s, but female literature wasn't taught in basic literature courses in the average university until the 80s. Stuff hangs out. Like "flash in the pan". Most people don't even know what that means. It literally comes from flintlock rifles. The gunpowder and round was loaded in the barrel and a little pan was loaded with primer that burned hot and set off the gunpowder after it was struck with the flint. A flash in the pan meant the primer had been touched off, flashed, but the gun didn't fire. Flintlocks went out of general use over 150 years ago when matchlocks came out and put the primer inside the barrel. Linguistic elitist stereotypes persist just as easily. Which is why when there is an equivalence between a Latin based choice and a non-Latin based choice (even if the so-called Latin based choice has not etymological Latin in the old family tree), then the Latin based choice will have more prestige.
This isn't language, it's the I'm-better-than-you thing and ways to make people prove it.