Learn them or Teach them? Which is grammatically correct?

Question

My DH used the sentence "that will learn them" the other evening. I challenged this as being grammatically incorrect as I believe it should be "that will teach them". He says his boss who has an English Language Degree uses the former, I think his boss is just being sarcastic.

How can I prove I am correct?

Thanks

Yankee · Accepted Answer

Anonymous"that will learn them"

Hi Anon

I would call that a very informal usage which is often used humorously. The American Heritage Dictionary calls that usage "non-standard".

http://www.bartleby.com/61/7/L0090700.html

AlpheccaStars · Answer

I've heard many people saying "that will learn them" when they are speaking in the African American Vernacular English dialect.

Patrick Lockerby · Answer

AnonymousMy DH used the sentence "that will learn them" the other evening. I challenged this as being grammatically incorrect as I believe it should be "that will teach them". He says his boss who has an English Language Degree uses the former, I think his boss is just being sarcastic.

How can I prove I am correct?

Thanks

From a purely grammatical point of view, "that will teach them" is correct.
Teach and learn are word pairs which describe giving and receiving, where teaching is the giving action.

Language is used to command, to inform and to have fun. So, when someone who knows that it is more accurate to say "That'll teach them." says "That'll leran them.", he or she is just having fun.

You can prove you are correct by pointing to your question and its answers on this very site.
That'll learn them!

( Provided, of course, that they accept that people like me know what they are talking about. )

Clive · Answer

Hi guys,

I would challenge the suggestion that 'That will learn them' as a sentence is incorrect grammar. It doesn't break any of the standard grammar rules.

Meaning and vocabulary, not to mention idiom, are not really matters of grammar. Consider Chomsky's famous grammatically correct but semantically curious example

"Colorless green ideas sleep furiously".

Best wishes, Clive

Yankee · Answer

Patrick LockerbyThat'll learn them!

Or: "That'll learn 'em!"

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/learn's has an interesting usage note:

Learn in the sense of “teach” dates from the 13th century and was standard until at least the early 19th <made them drunk with true Hollands—and then learned them the art of making bargains — Washington Irving>. But by Mark Twain's time it was receding to a speech form associated chiefly with the less educated <never done nothing for three months but set in his back yard and learn that frog to jump — Mark Twain>. The present-day status of learn has not risen. This use persists in speech, but in writing it appears mainly in the representation of such speech or its deliberate imitation for effect.

Patrick Lockerby · Answer

Clive: Chomsky's followers often use the words 'grammar' and 'syntax' interchangeably. Also, Chomsky, at least in his earliest papers, tried to derive rules of a mathematical grammar free of context, i.e. free of semantics. Chomskian grammars are more like computer languages than human languages. However, what I call a natural grammar, the observable grammar of a language using community, has many more components than just syntax and semantics.

In terms of traditional grammars used for teaching purposes, "That will teach them." is more formally correct, or as some grammarians say, preferred within the largest English language using communities. I added the proviso, in italics, because there are English variants such as Jamaican, Nigerian, Pakistani etc. which have developed their own variant grammars.

I apologise if this is over-technical. Perhaps I spend too much time in linguistics research.

Patrick Lockerby · Answer

Thanks for the reference, Yankee.
Mark Twain is one of my favourite authors.

Clive · Answer

Hi,

From a purely grammatical point of view, "that will teach them" is correct.

I read this as meaning that 'That will learn them ' is not grammatically correct.

For myself, I'd omit the reference to grammar and simply say 'It's not correct English', and then focus on the other explanations given in the thread.

Best wishes, Clive

AlpheccaStars · Answer

I'm reading a light novel set in London during the WWII blitz.

The main characters are two petty organized crime ring leaders. They use phrases such as "that will learn them" quite fequently when they describe their techniques of intimidation to sell their "protection insurance" to the owners of bars in their territory. Using local dialect in dialogue is a very common writer's device.

Anonymous · Answer

"That'll learn 'em" is actually correct Scots, which is a language very closely related to English, so close, in fact, that most people (including its own speakers) think that it is English (albeit "bad" English). In my experience, this phrase is always used humorously and by well educated people, as the English speaker using it (and listener hearing it) knows that it is non-standard in today's vernacular. It would appear (from other people's posts) that it would have once been grammatically correct in English too, but no longer. It is used to express smug satisfaction. That'll learn 'em!

Learn them or Teach them? Which is grammatically correct?

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