Words Mean Things: Cool

[Senator Jack]

Why pronounce height like it has a "th" at the end? I have heard local newscasters do that.

What the devil?!! Heighth?!! HEIGHTH?!! Surely, Bebop, you must be mistaken. Here I was all about to let this thread go and you drag me back into it with full rage. HEIGHTH?!! It's not possible. It can't be. 'Ax' - yes, that's very common here in NY, along with such idiocies as "Last Febuary I had nothing to do on Valentime's day so I went to liberry to research nucular physics and there was a kid there with chicken pops." But I have yet to hear 'heighth'. Indeed, if I did hear it, I don't think I'd be able to even work out what it could be. I'll be the first one to say that some accents are charming - when I was growing up in Brooklyn people still said 'kern' for coin, 'earl' for oil, and 'terlet' for toilet - but 'heighth' is right out.

Sorry again for twisting the thread. It's just too much to bear.

Regards,

Senator Jack

 

[jake_fink]

ON COOL
MK's and Jake431's comments on cool are interesting as they instinctively get at the sense of opposition or difference. The origin of the word in its colloquial usage is in opposition to HOT, and related specifically to jazz. From its beginnings through the twenties and just into the thirties, good jazz was "hot". But with time that style became "Corny", which refers to candy corn, as in sugary sweet or for the kids, as well as being a disparagement of the non-urban. So, the style that became most admired for a while was in oposition to the earlier style, it wasn't hot, it was cool. (Louis Armstrong was hot, Miles Davis was cool.) Cool stuck with us, possibly because it was so widely diseminated through mass media.

ON GRAMMAR
As far as "grammar Nazis" go, well, an extra "." in an elipsis is a minor infraction, so we'll let you off. Grammar rules may be broken to create an effect and that effect may be judged on how effective it is. If the effect is simply to demostrate that the writer is semiliterate, then that is the effect. Some people are communicating in a language other than their first, and so they may very well make a few mistakes. Others may be quick writers, poor revisers or just plain ignorant of the rules of English grammar. This becomes a problem or not depending on the formality of the communication. On a board like this, as the purpose is to simulate conversation, a few transgressions are to be expected. In a cover letter for a job, or a published article, or something submitted for marks in a post secondary course, the language should adhere to the rules more as they are more formal documents. Along with this issue comes the issue of register. Some papers, for example, are deliberately written down, in other words written for a readership with a low reading level (say, grade six equivalent), while others are written up, for readers with a higher reading level (say, college degree equivalent). That will affect the register and in turn the formality of the writing.

Spoken language is a different thing altogether. As long as it can be understood, I'm with it. So... axe instead of ask when spoken = axe instead of ask in writing = :cry: Except when it is meant to directly reflect the dialect.

Having said all that ^ (yikes), I will say that some things do leap out at me, even on a board like this. Badly misused words, homonyms in particular, and phonetic spellings of words that could easily be checked on an online dictionary or encylopedia. I'd never mention these, but I notice them.

So there.

 

[Bebop]

I can't help but mention what I heard the other day at my local dog park: "My rockwilder just had his first birfday". The words "rottweiler" and "birthday" being massacared. This all coming from someone that grew up in the U.S. Went to school and was passed from grade to grade. I understood what he said but how can you listen to that and keep a straight face, or even pay attention to the rest of the conversation? It sounds like a comedy routine right out of Mad TV. I think generally speaking, people that read alot don't use words like "ax" or "rockwilder" or "birfday" because they have seen how they are spelled time after time. I bet that most people that mispronounce a word do not know how to spell it either.

This has been one of the more interesting threads. I can't get into conversations about language with too many people in person. They think I am a lunatic after 3 hours of debate.

 

[android]

Yes, but....

There are few bits of verbage I have been dwelling on for a while

...

I am done rambling now. What do you think about this? How do you see it?

Interesting thoughts....

I hate to be the bearer of bad news but you're on the topic of words and verbage ain't one.

It's verbiage. Weird, but true.

 

[Senator Jack]

Christ Android, Bebop is from Argentina and from what I've seen he has a far better command of our language than 99.9999999999% of the natives. Taking him to task for a missed 'i' is just looking for a dig. By the by, you should be reading this in a friendly and good natured tone because although I've only discovered this site a week ago it seems to me everyone here is far above the American learning curve.

I know I'm a schmuck but I have to agree with Bebop. If a born and bred American doctor asked me 'When's your birfday?' be sure as hell I'd be finding another doctor PDQ. And while I emphatically agree with the theory that there are certain people who have a 'smarts' other than what is considered to be 'smarts', I do believe a professional should have the sort of smarts pertinent to his field. A boxer has to know how to box - that's all; I don't expect him to speak the Queen's English. But a professional should be above that. And yes, I do know I've been starting sentences with conjunctions and ending them with prepositions but as Churchill said, 'This is the sort of bloody nonsense up with which I will not put.'

As a final note, I enjoy this sort of polemic and never take any reply as an attack. Carry on!

Kind regards,

Senator Jack

 

[android]

Bebop didn't write verbage. Our leader MK did. And he had already claimed to to like to piss off grammar and punctuation nazis, so I just wanted to make sure he hadn't forgotten spelling nazis as well.

I don't care about the preposition thing. Some of those are "grade school" rules and not strictly rules of the language.

"To boldly go" is probably the most famous split infinitive around and I don't think anybody complains about that.

 

[Senator Jack]

Bebop didn't write verbage. Our leader MK did

I apologize for having missed that. My last post was on the heels of last night's drunkenness and before this morning's hangover.

I also apologize again to MK for having hijacked this thread. If anyone is still interested in pursuing the topic of speech, grammar, and all things metathetic, perhaps we should begin a new one. Till then, I remain...


Senator Jack

 

[Bebop]

Joseph Casazza, you are correct in saying that language changes because of popular use, but are you saying that you are ok with "Rockwilder", "ax" and "birfday" and that we should look at the mispronounciation of those words as "english changing"? Why not change "nuclear" to "nucular" in that case. President Bush pronouces it like that and claims it is because he is from Texas. Is "dumbing down" an acceptable form of change? I am not ready to go to that length.

 

[jake431]

I think Joseph Casazza's point was that, yes, what we think of and term "dumbing down" is in fact, language changing. The other thing with language is that while we may not want it to change, unless we can control people, language IS GOING TO change. So we can change how we speak, or we cannot, but the language will move on regardless.

There are plenty of words Americans misspronounce (and misspell), according to the British, Aluminum for one, but we still insist we speak English just as they insist they do, just as someone who says "axe" as in "axe you a question" does. Interestingly enough, I wouldn't be surprised that axe is still spelled "ask" by the speaker.

Not liking the changes is perfectly understandable, but I think language is going to change regardless of whether we are ready to "go to that length" or no.

-Jake