Roy Peter Clark has a new book out on our favorite topic, grammar. He, if you're not familiar with him, is a prescriptivist, who has been discussed on Language Log . While I don't agree with his philosophy (or his using the Urban Dictionary!) I did think these points were cogent:
quote:
* The Internet is not a pleasant little garden. There are more snakes than robins, and no writer should enter without being prepared to be handled roughly, at times venomously. * If you are willing to venture in you can learn an awful lot, including from commentators who are, at times, uncivil or worse. * When you comment on a person’s work, especially when he or she is not part of the conversation, it’s good to envision that person a real and not virtual – as someone who you might run into the next day on the cafeteria line. * In an area as vast as language, there are many so-called discourse communities that sometimes express themselves as factions: linguists, poets, journalists, deconstructionists, semanticists, composition teachers, prescriptivists, descriptivists, free lancers, and many more. All pilgrims should be prepared to encounter reflexive misunderstanding of their motives, values, and intentions.
I was particularly enamored because a favorite logophile of mine, Ammon Shea (and he has posted on Wordcraft), weighed in on the new book, The Glamour of Grammar: A Guide to the Magic and Mystery of Practical English. Here is Shea's review.
Two things. What do you think of citing the Urban Dictionary? If you read the Language Log comments, many thought it has its place. I, frankly, never ever trust it. Second, I agreed with the "factions" that Clark cited (above). I, too, have never quite understood the differences between all of them.
September 02, 2010, 01:16
arnie
From Ammon Shea's review:
quote:
... he recommends that readers visit places like soccer clubs and gay bars to “listen to the specialized language” of their patrons.
Somehow I suspect the 'patrons' might be offended by someone earwigging on their conversations. It sounds like a recipe for getting beaten up to me.
EDIT: I forgot to give my opinion of The Urban Dictionary.
I give little, if any, credence to the (often contradictory) definitions shown there, and possibly even less to the attempts at describing etymology. However, if someone is trying to find out roughly when a word first became used on the street, it could prove useful - assuming it was within the lifetime of the UD, of course.This message has been edited. Last edited by: arnie,
Build a man a fire and he's warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
September 02, 2010, 18:56
Kalleh
quote:
I give little, if any, credence to the (often contradictory) definitions shown there, and possibly even less to the attempts at describing etymology. However, if someone is trying to find out roughly when a word first became used on the street, it could prove useful - assuming it was within the lifetime of the UD, of course.
That's fair, I think. I just hope no one uses it like they would a Webster's or the like.
