Archived How should we view "Irony" and "Their/They're" in terms of language drift? (askgoat)
submitted ago by SteelKidney
Posted by: SteelKidney
Posting time: 4.9 years ago on
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Archived on: 2/12/2017 1:51:00 AM
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Archived How should we view "Irony" and "Their/They're" in terms of language drift? (askgoat)
submitted ago by SteelKidney
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[–] omegletrollz 0 points 3 points 3 points (+3|-0) ago
I don't think these examples have enough merit to become a change in language, no matter how prevalent they are. They are more a misunderstanding of language to me than anything else and language should be enforced to a certain degree.
I mean: "their" instead of "they're" is not any kind of organic proposal of a new English grammatic, it's just really bad orthography.
[–] SteelKidney [S] 0 points 1 point 1 point (+1|-0) ago
Although an extreme example, Chaucer would consider every word written today as bad orthography. Assuming he realized we still speak English.
That said, I tend to agree. But when does today's bad grammar become common and then drift into a correct usage? A hundred-ish years ago, English schools began teaching English as a Latin based language, which is where we get the rules of Split Infinitives and not ending a sentence with a preposition. Something up with which they would not put. But as English is more Germanic-based than Latin, natural usage has made these rules obsolete. I chose the above examples because they're actual mistakes- and mistakes of different sorts. Incorrect definition and poor orthography. However culture drives language changes as much as anything else, if not more. And our culture changes rapidly.
[–] omegletrollz 0 points 1 point 1 point (+1|-0) ago
We are the same. I too hesitant and reluctantly gave my opinion before - but I maintain that we should be careful not to promote crude mistakes as a "new language". In my own language I know crude mistakes that could become a new and easier coherent grammar but I don't think your examples are on par with that - they are isolated cases.
I think linguists should start studying "broken english" - the de-facto language of the Internet, where "u" is you and "their so weak, we pwned easily" are actually within the norm. I wouldn't been surprised if many native English start adopting broken-English as a second language of sorts, but I wouldn't personally call it a new English when I could say these mistakes are loan words.
This all is very hard to define properly but I would rather call a native English speaker using "their" instead of "they're" a mistake or a broken loan word that the new norm. Maybe I'm being too conservative here and I"m fully aware of that - but as long as it's a matter of opinion...