Language Criticism and the Usage Panel

The role of language criticism in a multicultural society

Today’s Questions

What is the social context of conservative language criticism?

What do we learn from a longitudinal study of a dictionary’s usage panel?

Language Criticism in History In every age, language criticism has been

concerned with issues that in retrospect often seem incomprehensibly trivial. —G. Nunberg

Selected issues of eighteenth-century language critics:

Jonathan Swift, British author: mob (mobile vulgus), pozz (positive)

Samuel Johnson, British lexicographer: eccentric (meaning odd)

Noah Webster, American lexicographer: British spellings, e.g., honour and theatre

Benjamin Franklin, American statesman, linguist: notice (as a verb)

Language ChangesShakespearean EnglishDon Pedro: Runs not this speech like iron

through your blood?Claudio: I have drunk poison while he uttered it.

(Much Ado, Act 5, Scene 1)

Innovations may disappear or they may become respectable.

This is language change. Language change cannot be halted.

So why Study Language Criticism?

Uninteresting issueThe particular usages that critics object to.

Interesting issuesThe social issues symbolically at stake. The kinds of arguments that the critics use.

Social Issues in Language Criticism

Usages are linked to social groups.

Swift disliked words used by the idle aristocracy.

Webster disliked conformity to the British model.

Generally, critics ignore ‘substandard’ usages of traditionally recognized oppressed groups.

Usage Criticism often Targets Social Groups

‘Psychobabble’. Own your feelings. Passive-aggressive. Project. Process. In a good space. Vent.Work through your issues.

‘Youth speak’. I just spaced it. Really. He’s like, ‘Oh my God’. You know?

‘Politically correct speak’. Differently abled. The prison community. Eurocentric.

Arguments about Usage

Traditional language criticism assumes a shared conception of intellect.

Thinking about grammar had some intellectual merit.

John Stuart Mill: “the structure of every sentence is a lesson in logic”.

The Decline of Grammar

Nunberg: “If we are bent on finding a decline in standards, the place to look is not in the language itself but in the way it is talked about.”

An example. Agreement between a pronoun and anyone, each person. Everyone should take his/their test.

H.W. Fowler, Modern English Usage (1st edition, 1926)

Each and the rest are singular; that is undisputed; in a perfect language there would exist pronouns and possessives that were of as doubtful gender as they, and yet were, like them, singular; i.e., it would have words meaning himself-or-herself or his-or-her [...] We lack the power of saying in one word his-or-her. There are three makeshifts: A, as anybody can see for himself or herself; B, as anybody can see for themselves, and C, as anybody can see for himself. No one who can help it chooses A [...] it is so clumsy as to be ridiculous [...] B is the popular solution. It sets the literary man’s teeth on edge [...] C is here recommended. It involves the convention that where the matter of sex is not conspicuous or important, he and his shall be allowed to represent a person instead of a man.

The Harbrace College Handbook (1950s)

In formal English, use a singular pronoun to refer to such antecedents as anyone, someone and nobody. In informal English, plural pronouns are occasionally used to refer to such words.

No one Finds Grammar Interesting anymore

Nunberg: “The point of traditional grammar was to demonstrate a way of thinking about grammatical problems that encouraged thoughtful attention to language, not to canonize a set of arbitrary rules and strictures.”

Grammar as an Old-Fashioned Pursuit

Good grammar becomes one of many values that liberal America has forsaken.

Grammar is viewed as something that

schools used to teach, along with moral values, etc.

Grammar becomes identified with conservative politics.

Grammar and ConservatismThe fact that some people are too thickheaded to grasp, for example, that ‘anyone’ is singular, as the ‘one’ in it plainly denotes, does not oblige those who know better to tolerate ‘anyone may do as they please’ [...] And don’t let fanatical feminists convince you that it must be ‘as he or she pleases’, which is clumsy and usually serves no other purpose than that of placating the kind of extremist who does not deserve to be placated. —John Simon

What is the function of a dictionary?

Users of monolingual dictionaries are highly literate, and seek guidance in verbal self-presentation.

Flaunt vs. flout, disinterested vs. uninterested, hark back vs. harken back?

What does nonplussed mean? What does internecine mean? How does one pronounce hegemony? Should I say a person like me or a person such as

myself?

The Usage Panel

In 1968, the American Heritage Dictionary hires 175 writers, scholars, public figures to rule on disputed usages.

In 1988, Nunberg asks them to rule on many of these usages again. He also asks them some new questions.

The Results

Did the panel become more permissive? Yes and no.

Their responses differed according to whether they were thinking about traditional usage concerns or usage issues inspired by political ideology.

Usage Recommendations Based on Latin Etymology

Anxious for ‘eager’ (angare ‘to press tightly’)1968: 23%1988: 52% Aggravating for ‘irritating’ (adgravare ‘to make worse’)1968: 43%1988: 71%

Transpire for ‘occur’ (transpirare ‘to breath across’)1968: 38%1988: 58%

Latin Etymology Issues (cont’d)

Cohort for ‘companion’ (cohors ‘a group’)1968: 31%1988: 71%

Decimate for ‘slaughter the majority of’ (decimare ‘to kill one in ten’)

1968: 26%1988: 66%

Has our Panel SimplyBecome more Permissive?

The answer is not that simple. The panel is still strict on certain issues: Disinterested for ‘uninterested’. Most Americans are

disinterested in politics.1968: 7%1988: 11% Hopefully as a sentence adverb. Hopefully, we will not

have to leave early. 1968: 44%1988: 27%

Why is the Panel Giving up on Latin then?

The diminished relevance and authority of Latin and Greek, and of western civilization, as a shared cultural context.

Etymology can help us figure out what a word means, but not what the word should mean.

The Panel Applies some Rules Mechanistically

They occasionally ‘hypercorrect’: Splitting an infinitive. (to boldly go)

It appears that much of my life as a journalist has been devoted to sedulously setting off firecrackers.

Acceptable to 28%

Modifying an absolute property (very false)The American Constitution is still nearly unique in that it offers no self-destruct mechanism.

Acceptable to 28%

Rigid Adherence to Traditional Norms

There’s not much intellectual merit in many of the questions that the panel is considering.

When they consider the usage issues, the panelists make comments like, “The shade of Sister Petra sits watch over this one.”

What do the Usage Critics really Care about?

They put thought into questions involving feminist usage issues.

These questions were new in 1988. These questions involved:

The feminine suffix -essThe use of the masculine pronoun as a

generic pronoun

The Feminine Suffix -ess When the ambassadress arrives, please show her to my

office.women: 13%men: 28%

Mary is such a charming hostess that her parties always go off smoothly. women: 74%men: 92%

His only hope now is to marry an heiress.women: 92%men: 95%

Mr. Bhutto’s daughter and political heiress, Benazir Bhutto, returned to Pakistan in April.women: 28%men: 37%

Fill in the Blank: Which Pronoun? A writer who draws upon personal experience

for____material should not be surprised if reviewers seize on that fact.

his: 50%other singular (e.g., his/her): 48%their: 2%

A taxpayer who fails to disclose the source of____income can be prosecuted under the new law.

his: 46%other singular (e.g., his/her): 53%their: 1%

Pronouns

A patient who doesn’t accurately report_____sexual history to the physician runs a risk of misdiagnosis.his: 37%other singular (e.g., his/her): 61%their: 2%

A child who wants to become a doctor should be encouraged by___ parents and teachers. his: 36%other singular (e.g., his/her): 60%their: 2%

Conclusion. Where a gender bias is possible, the neutral form is used.

Conclusions

“The feminist program has [...] succeeded, in that it has forced most literate speakers to reflect on the way in which usage might reinforce gender stereotypes.” (Nunberg)

There is no longer a shared conception of literacy or culture. We live in a socially and culturally fragmented society.

Conclusions

Public discourse is now about the competing needs and rights of social groups.

Radical language criticism targets usage that is perceived as perpetuating negative attitudes toward traditionally recognized oppressed groups.

The ‘politically correct’ usage program is the only form of language criticism that is meaningful today.

When we talk about ‘p.c.’ usage issues, we’re talking about vital social concerns.