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cheezydemon3
Well-Known Member
Infamous has a negative conotation, and so is not the same as famous. i agree that nor is it the opposite, but that one bugs me far less than irregardless.
Irregardless still isn't a real word
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Infamous has a negative conotation, and so is not the same as famous. i agree that nor is it the opposite, but that one bugs me far less than irregardless.
I hate "irregardless" to no end because it doesn't follow the rules of the English language. Every language has rules of syntax used to make up said language. Now, langauages are used to communicate. The more efficiently you can communicate the better the language is. So when you have a word that doesn't follow the rules thus confusing people it isn't an evolution, as one poster said, it's really a step back. There's a lot of rules I'm willing to break but those that increase or maintain the effectiveness of communication aren't among them.
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cheezydemon3
Well-Known Member
Not to mention adding a freaking syllable to communicate the exact same thing, the opposite of efficiency.
BPal75
Well-Known Member
"He's not just famous, he's IN famous."
Goddamn I love The Three Amigos
Goddamn I love The Three Amigos
JR_Brewer
Well-Known Member
The topic: the word "inflammable"
Discuss.
Discuss.
Relax dude, it's just a word. (Or perhaps not, but you get my point... he said nothing that warranted that kind of response).
France has tried to take this approach with French, and it's had some negative implications, resulting in a great deal of criticism.
Language is kind of like a living thing, and it really needs to be able to grow and evolve. If it had always been treated so rigidly, we wouldn't even be speaking English, and our language would in fact be both much less useful and much less efficient.
I can be quite the pedant, but what you (and a couple others) have described is exactly the way an autistic person would usually feel about it. Somehow making English a completely prescriptive language (hypothetically) could very well mean the beginning of the end for it, and I think turning it into the "English" described in George Orwell's "1984" just because a fraction of the population is uncomfortable with its plastic nature would be rather doubleplusungood.
And every language has exceptions.
Kinda like "infamous", but perhaps an even better example. Contrast with "invisible".
I agree wholeheartedly, but loss of efficiency does not achieve that goal.
Cromwell
Well-Known Member
Not sure efficiency is the penultimate goal of language, but rather descriptive capability. If efficiency were the most important point, things like "Moby Dick", anything by Tolstoy, and "Game of Thrones" wouldn't exist.
Further, we'd all happily embrace abominations like <gag> "delish".
If you really love syntactic rigidity, become a computer programmer.
Ok, I'm still just kidding around, but seriously - the objective of language is communication. Do you really not understand what someone means when they say "irregardless"? Because if it communicates what the speaker intended, it's the perfect word.
Further, we'd all happily embrace abominations like <gag> "delish".
If you really love syntactic rigidity, become a computer programmer.
Ok, I'm still just kidding around, but seriously - the objective of language is communication. Do you really not understand what someone means when they say "irregardless"? Because if it communicates what the speaker intended, it's the perfect word.
If the purpose of language were to communicate as efficiently as possible, we'd all speak Esperanto.
(Or, better yet, John Wilkins' Natural Language.)
(Or, better yet, John Wilkins' Natural Language.)
You can't just pick and choose though, and forcing it to deny any changes that are even slightly less efficient is a bit ridiculous... it would inevitably become an utterly boring and character-less language.
I'm not even sure why such supreme efficiency should be the ultimate goal. What do we get out of it? As much as I hate the word myself, why is the inefficiency of putting "ir" in front of "regardless" such a critical issue that we should interfere with the natural evolution of the language? The occasional sentence might be slightly longer, we might end up paying a fraction of a percent more in ink and toner costs, etc, but these are, ultimately, extremely minor issues. Constraining English in a way that would eventually result in a language entirely devoid of character is, in my opinion, a far greater cost to pay than the occasional use of unnecessary syllables and letters... they just aren't that big a deal.
Cromwell
Well-Known Member
Besides, who doesn't love a good sesquipedalianism?
"Irregardless" is a very specific case where people have taken a prefix which we all have agreed upon to have a certain meaning and tacked it onto a word that we also have all agreed upon to have certain meaning. That's not evolution, that's inbreeding of words.
CGVT
Senior Member
Irregardless is usually uttered by the same folks that use "at this point and time" and " on a daily basis" to try to make themselves sound smarter.
I agree with cheezy. If you use irregardless, you aren't getting the job or the benefit of the doubt.
I agree with cheezy. If you use irregardless, you aren't getting the job or the benefit of the doubt.
What's wrong with "on a daily basis"?
CGVT
Senior Member
Fluff to try to make a person sound smarter.
What's wrong with "daily" or "every day"?
What's wrong with "daily" or "every day"?
BarnyardFunk
Active Member
I agree, that is an incredibly stupid word.
Irregardless, I am guilty of using this word for a couple years of my life.
Irregardless, I am guilty of using this word for a couple years of my life.
Varmintman
Well-Known Member
I can see the logic behind trying to maintain a standard for language. I grew up in Pearl Harbor as a kid back in the sixties and pretty much had to learn a new language since pidgin was very rampant then.
My wife is a Kiwi and speaks the Queens English. You have no clue how many times I have stood dumbfounded trying to figure out what she has said and we both speak English.
My wife is a Kiwi and speaks the Queens English. You have no clue how many times I have stood dumbfounded trying to figure out what she has said and we both speak English.
TNGabe
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Wow. Living in Kentucky has got to be tough on you.
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cheezydemon3
Well-Known Member
You are forgiven my son.
Honestly, right after I was concieved by virgin birth, I heard the word "irregardless" uttered by a good guy who obviously didn't feel that he filled his shoes.
At that tender age, I declared him a buffoon and banished him to the 7th level of hell.
I then realized that there is no god, and that linguistics is one of the few sacred things we have.
Amen.
What a silly thing to say! (And by "silly", I mean "noble and pure", which is what the word meant before people started using it wrong in the 14th century.)
And, yes, linguistics is a divine knowledge.
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cheezydemon3
Well-Known Member
What a silly thing to say! (And by "silly", I mean "noble and pure", which is what the word meant before people started using it wrong in the 14th century.)
And, yes, linguistics is a divine knowledge.
You are right silly yourself my friend!
I've always wondered if our intelligence is limited by our language. Do we think in words?
Of course, without any language I could hunt and defend myself and do alright with the ladys, but what about much, much deeper philosophy? Isn't most knowledge founded on a bunch of ideas, each idea dependent on the last, like a geometry proof? Can that structure exist without language?
Corollary question: If it is true, that we require a language to build knowledge, then is one language mechanically better at doing this than the next? Were some cultures held back by their language while others thrived because of it? Or do languages morph to adapt and express advanced ideas? I find it interesting that some languages do not have words to express certain ideas, and that the languages that lack these words will assume the another language's word.
Of course, without any language I could hunt and defend myself and do alright with the ladys, but what about much, much deeper philosophy? Isn't most knowledge founded on a bunch of ideas, each idea dependent on the last, like a geometry proof? Can that structure exist without language?
Corollary question: If it is true, that we require a language to build knowledge, then is one language mechanically better at doing this than the next? Were some cultures held back by their language while others thrived because of it? Or do languages morph to adapt and express advanced ideas? I find it interesting that some languages do not have words to express certain ideas, and that the languages that lack these words will assume the another language's word.
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cheezydemon3
Well-Known Member
Dude becomes a mod, and suddenly he speaks in philosophical eccentricities......
You are very right.
No wonder I am offended by such shortcuts, inflations, and downright inexplicble mutations of English.
If you're interested in this question, consider looking into Daniel Everett's work on Pirahã. The world is far weirder than we know.
Language changes very quickly, or at least it can. I think it's unlikely that any group of people is held back by their language for long, simply because communities are very quick at hatching up new words and syntactic structures when the need arises. But, you can learn a lot about what a group of people find interesting and what they find not worthy of attention by looking at their habits of language.
Cromwell
Well-Known Member
Language needs to change very quickly I think, to keep up with the fact that communication needs today have changed dramatically from recent history.
Consider this: Someone from 30 years ago pops into the present and asks how the world has changed.
You tell them, "I have in my pocket a device with which I can access the entirety of the world's combined knowledge. I use it to look at pictures of cats, and pick arguments with people I do not know."
Consider this: Someone from 30 years ago pops into the present and asks how the world has changed.
You tell them, "I have in my pocket a device with which I can access the entirety of the world's combined knowledge. I use it to look at pictures of cats, and pick arguments with people I do not know."
Dude drinks some beer on friday night, and suddenly he speaks in philosophical eccentricities......
ftfy
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cheezydemon3
Well-Known Member
ftfy
touche'
Although (to kiss a mods ass...
) your thought was enlightening. Though I subconsciously sensed that, I could never have put it so.That is why "irregardless" gives me an ever so slight sense of drowning, should it be accepted as good english.
nasty_rabbit
Well-Known Member
cheezydemon3 said:
The correct method of speech is "Proper" english.
EllisTX
Well-Known Member
This thread is, for all intensive purposes, full of fail!
Oh okay, I see. So the same the thing with, "at this point and time," then?
But as MalFet indicated, there's not a whole lot to support the idea that certain languages are much more conducive to this than others, as languages adapt pretty easily to the needs of their speakers. And IMO, this probably provides one of the strongest arguments AGAINST linguistic prescriptivism.
Oh okay, I see. So the same the thing with, "at this point and time," then?
There is actually a great deal of philosophical work dealing with exactly this kind of stuff. Short answer is that language itself certainly allows us conceive of much more advanced ideas by permitting virtually infinite levels of abstraction simply by defining them.
But as MalFet indicated, there's not a whole lot to support the idea that certain languages are much more conducive to this than others, as languages adapt pretty easily to the needs of their speakers. And IMO, this probably provides one of the strongest arguments AGAINST linguistic prescriptivism.
CGVT
Senior Member
Yep. The same thing. Fluff. Trying to sound smart.
What is wrong with "now"
"What we have to do at this point in time is..." How about "What we have to do now is..."?
And let's add "price point" to the list.
"I'm not buying at that price point." What is wrong with "I'm not buying at that price"?
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cheezydemon3
Well-Known Member
I disagree. At this point in time (
) we sometimes need to communicate with random anonymous people on the aforementioned interwebs, sometimes on the other side of the world. If your community has mutated speech quickly, we may not understand each other too well. Communication will break down, or at the very least, one of us will sound less intelligent than we are to the other one because we use made up words.Varmintman
Well-Known Member
Not to distract to much from the thread but I think at times certainly the use of improper language is OK depending on how it is used. For instance a poet might use language that if used elsewhere would not be proper.
Written and spoken might be another time that you might write or say something different. Descriptive language of a indescribable abstract like pain would be another reason to change the way we speak.
Bother I never wuz any good at writin and figuring hehe. But it really does make you think how as a species our language has evolved.
Written and spoken might be another time that you might write or say something different. Descriptive language of a indescribable abstract like pain would be another reason to change the way we speak.
Bother I never wuz any good at writin and figuring hehe. But it really does make you think how as a species our language has evolved.
I meant to reply to this thread but I irregarded to do so. (?)
I disagree. At this point in time (
Because the Internet makes the "community" very much a global one, I just don't see this happening. In both biology and (as far as I know) linguistics, evolution "branches off" when communities are largely isolated from each other. With the Internet, changes that take place in America would likely be taking place in most other English-speaking areas as well. If anything, I would expect that dialects and perhaps even entire languages would MOSTLY converge rather than diverge at this point, or at least much more than at any other point in history.
I would like to see MalFet's take on this though, being his actual area of expertise.
You want to be careful when applying evolutionary metaphors to social phenomena. This is a good example of why: people, unlike genes, can do things on purpose.
There's a famous study by William Labov that looked at the Martha's Vineyard accent. In the 50s and 60s, Martha's Vineyard became a popular tourist spot, and the expectation was that increased contact with mainlanders would gradually pull the local dialect closer to mainstream (Boston) English. It turns out exactly the opposite happened. The accent got stronger as locals exaggerated their way of speaking to distinguish themselves from the outsiders.
In the jargon, this is called "schismogenesis", and it is extremely common. So, language contact causes convergence, if that's what people aspire to. But, if they don't, it can just as easily cause sharper divergence.
Ha, hadn't thought of that. But of course it makes sense that langauage will diverge if a conscious effort is made to do so (or even just to resist convergence). It seems to me that most groups would still converge, though, but of course you would have a better idea. And, as that post was responding to cheezy's notion of a quickly developing "breakdown in communication", it would seem to me that the minority(?) of groups that would be the most affected by this were kind of counting on it anyways.
