quite interesting

Question

"It is not easy to have a rational discussion with people about the nature of their language.
They feel that the language belongs to them, and they are therefore entitled to hold cut and dried opinions about it.
And when opinions differ, emotions runs high. Arguments can easily stem from minor points of usage as from major educational policies.
In English, the origin of many popular misconceptionslies lies in the work of the linguists of the eighteenth century who first attempted to codify the English grammar. Unfortunatelly, they worked on the premise that English grammar is derived from Latin grammar and that the rules of the latter necessarily determine the former. It was this fundamental misunderstanding that resulted in the absurd but 'time-honoured' never-end-a-sentence-with-a-preposition' type of rules that many people still cling to. These days, many people complain that the Internet is the source of much unforgivable distortion of English, and that the ease and speed of email communication engenders a lazy approach to writing. This is possibly a short-sighted view: perhaps we should be more broad-minded and view such changes as potential enrichment rather than corruption of the language. Perhaps those who argue it is only the latter are guilty of stick-in-the-mud mentality which is often not confined to their own language. The American linguist Leonard Bloomfield tells the story of a doctor who was quite firm in his view that the American lanuage Chippewa had only a few hundred words. When Bloomsfield attempted to dispute the point, the doctor had no thoughts of backing down. He simply turned away and refused to listen."

Mister Micawber · Accepted Answer

...And there's lots more where that came from, IK!

Anonymous · Answer

This is from linguist Ron Wardhaugh's book "Proper English: Myths and Misunderstandings about Language":

Whatever a grammar of a language is, it is largely impervious to human intervention. That is, the really interesting rules and principles are so basic that we cannot do anything at all about them. What we can do is try to influence some of the minor outcomes, for example, try to insist that people say I drank instead of I drunk or It's I instead of It's me. Essentialy that is tinkering with matters of no linguistic consequence. To elevate the study of grammar to the task of trying to bring about "correction" in such matters is to trivialize that study. These matters may be of social consequence and often are, but that is a social observation and not a linguistic one, because I drunk and It's me are linguistically on a par with I drank and It's I. Furthermore, it is an observation that tells us much about social organization and the function of trivia in such organization and nothing about the structure of language.

Maple · Answer

There’re a lot of such "interesting" materials. Even a national English test here last year for non- English major students included a reading-comprehension text mentioned the book “Doing Our Own Thing: the Degradation of Language and Music and Why We should, Like, Care". Controversial as they are, those opinions are nothing new and maybe should not be made big fuss over.

What are modern linguists’ works like? See some important distinctions in linguistics.

Prescriptive vs. descriptive (from “A new concise Course on Linguistics, Shanghai Foreign Language education Press, July, 2002)

Prescriptive and descriptive represent two different types of linguistic study. If a linguistic study aims to describe and analyze the language people actually use, it is said to be descriptive; if the linguistic study aims to lay down rules for “correct and standard” behaviour in using language, i.e. to tell people what they should and what they should not say, it is said to be prescriptive.

Modern linguistics is mostly descriptive. It differs from earlier studies of language normally known as “grammar” in that the latter is based on “high” (religious, literary) written language. It aims to set models for language users to follow. On the other hand, modern linguistics is supposed to be scientific and objective and its task is to describe the language people actually use, be it “correct” or not. Modern linguists believe that whatever occurs in the language people use should be described and analyzed in their investigation.

And there're much more comparisons between traditional grammar and modern linguistics ......

Anonymous · Answer

something else I find interesting. Following prescriptive rules can sometimes lead to saying something downright strange.

Take the rule that says you must use the nominative after the copula - that is, you must use "I" after "be".

"Here's a photo of my old hockey team."

"Which one of these players is you?"

(pointing) "Oh, that's I."

Anonymous · Answer

Inchoateknowledge"It is not easy to have a rational discussion with people about the nature of their language. They feel that the language belongs to them, and they are therefore entitled to hold cut and dried opinions about it. And when opinions differ, emotions runs high. Arguments can easily stem from minor points of usage as from major educational policies. In English, the origin of many popular misconceptionslies lies in the work of the linguists of the eighteenth century who first attempted to codify the English grammar. Unfortunatelly, they worked on the premise that English grammar is derived from Latin grammar and that the rules of the latter necessarily determine the former. It was this fundamental misunderstanding that resulted in the absurd but 'time-honoured' never-end-a-sentence-with-a-preposition' type of rules that many people still cling to. These days, many people complain that the Internet is the source of much unforgivable distortion of English, and that the ease and speed of email communication engenders a lazy approach to writing. This is possibly a short-sighted view: perhaps we should be more broad-minded and view such changes as potential enrichment rather than corruption of the language. Perhaps those who argue it is only the latter are guilty of stick-in-the-mud mentality which is often not confined to their own language. The American linguist Leonard Bloomfield tells the story of a doctor who was quite firm in his view that the American lanuage Chippewa had only a few hundred words. When Bloomsfield attempted to dispute the point, the doctor had no thoughts of backing down. He simply turned away and refused to listen."

Excuse me,
Where does this text come from? Who is the author and which is the title? Could you write it? Thank you very much!

quite interesting

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