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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[–] 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...
[–] SteelKidney [S] 0 points 1 point 1 point (+1|-0) ago
Also a fascinating topic. Your example of "broken English", Cajun patois, and if anyone here remembers it from the early 90's, the whole "Ebonics" controversy. But then, dialects start bleeding over into the root language.