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	Re: Talk about misleading... silrana 2007-05-12 03:41 am UTC (link)
	I plugged eachother into several search engines, and he is right, there were many hits for it. In web posts, blogs, bad poetry... strangely enough, none from magazine or newspaper articles or other outlets where the writing is supposed to be correct. Funny, that. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	Re: Talk about misleading... njyoder 2007-05-12 03:45 am UTC (link)
	I wasn't aware that magazines and newspapers are the sole arbiters of correctness. I would have thought the people who speak the language, as a whole, do it, rather than having an elite few decide how language should ~~artificially~~ naturally evolve. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	Re: Talk about misleading... cookie_love 2007-05-12 04:06 am UTC (link)
	Oh. My. GAWD. You are not attempting to make that argument after trying to pass off the "elite few" as "common". Tell me you are not. Please. Convince me. :D (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	Re: Talk about misleading... njyoder 2007-05-12 04:11 am UTC (link)
	Who passed the "elite few" off as "common"? Are you confusing people with words? P.S. Have the voices in your head stopped? (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

Re: Talk about misleading...

cookie_love
2007-05-12 04:44 am UTC (link)

Who passed the "elite few" off as "common"?

I was referring to your attempt to pass off an obvious minority of search results (and obvious typos/spelling errors [I'm doing that for the LOLs]) as a common means of saying "eachother".

I mean, from what you've been pushing, the "elite few" that made a mistake in their typing are really just the overlooked "common" users of a word you're totally convinced is correct.

I just found it funny, is all.

P.S. Have the voices in your head stopped?
Don't confuse me with your druggie friends, please.

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Re: Talk about misleading...

njyoder
2007-05-12 04:51 am UTC (link)

Oh, so you were confusing people and words. Gotcha.

You see, we have over a billion English speakers in the world, so it's fair to say that they are an 'elite few.'

I already asked you about this and you just evaded. This is a 'minority of search results' compared to what? Of all possible search results for all English words? That would be analogous in this regard--the entire population of English speakers vs. all English words.

There are billions of pages indexed by Google, so any individual search would be a 'minority of the search results.' Any given word would also be a 'minority of the search results.' Compared to the massive amount you get from the aggregate of all searches for all English words.

You compared the search results of 'each other' and 'eachother,' and I previously asked how this comparison determines correctness. That is, what difference does it make if one happens to show up more than the other? You never answered.

I expect you to read this, engage in cognitive dissonance and then act as if it went over your head.

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	Re: Talk about misleading... cookie_love 2007-05-12 05:04 am UTC (link)
	You see, we have over a billion English speakers in the world, so it's fair to say that they are an 'elite few.'... ...and yada yada yada. You are still wrong. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	Re: Talk about misleading... njyoder 2007-05-12 05:06 am UTC (link)
	Do you get dizzy running in circles? (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	Re: Talk about misleading... cookie_love 2007-05-12 05:19 am UTC (link)
	Do you get dizzy running in circles? Do you get tired of being a twatwaffle? Still wrong, btw. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	Re: Talk about misleading... silrana 2007-05-12 04:07 am UTC (link)
	Well, I must say that by your standards my writing will be much easier. No more worrying about little things like getting their/there/they're correct, or its/it's. I'm not writing poorly, I'm evolving the language! (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

Re: Talk about misleading...

njyoder
2007-05-12 04:14 am UTC (link)

There's some other criteria here I didn't mention because I didn't want to make it any more difficult for cookie_love to understand, but I'll state some of it here just to be nice.

Usage exists within different contexts. If we are talking about writing informal writing, such as on a blogging/fora medium (like LJ), we are only held to the usage standards of informal writing.

Another criterion is coherency. Obviously a usage can't be correct if it intrinsically makes no sense. Substituting homonyms with distinctly different meanings to eachother creates incoherency and confusion.

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Re: Talk about misleading...

silrana
2007-05-12 04:27 am UTC (link)

Oooooh, a number of boards I frequent would eat you alive for saying something like that. Of course, they are crammed full of pro writers, editors, agents and such.

There is a difference between slang or lingo, which would cover leet speak or emoticons, and incorrect use of standard English. To say that an LJ or JF community is too informal for correctness is to say that you simply don't give a crap about putting effort into your post. And if that is the case, then why are you arguing so hard about it?

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Re: Talk about misleading...

njyoder
2007-05-12 04:35 am UTC (link)

They would try, but they'd fail. The problem with prescriptivists is that they don't have a real understanding of how language works. I've argued with them before and ultimately their argument goes one of two ways: either they state that they _do_ believe that there are an 'elite few' who dictate language for everyone else or they suggest that there is some complex criteria that exists, while refusing to specify what it is (because even they don't know what their own criteria is in any conscious sense).

I never said they were too informal for correctness. I'm being generous, so please read more carefully.

Correctness changes depending on the usage within the linguistic context that you're in. In an informal context, some things are correct that might be incorrect in, for example, a (formal) newspaper context. My usage of 'everyone' was quite correct within the context. There are different formal and informal contexts. Things correct in newspapers aren't even necessarily correct in books.

Let's consider a different example. 'Hacker' in common usage, even in many formal writing contexts (including newspapers), is used to mean a malicious person who breaks into computer systems. The original definition of the word hacker, as created by the computing community itself, is one of a skilled programmer who understands the inner workings of computer systems well--with no particular good/evil connotation.

Now, if we go into a newspaper context and use the former definition (which is also the colloquial definition), it would be acceptable. But if those same newspaper writers, who more often than not don't know the true origins of the word, were to try using is former way in, lets say, an ACM (computing) publication--they'd be very wrong.

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Re: Talk about misleading...

silrana
2007-05-12 04:50 am UTC (link)

Please. I would *love* to see you take on the editors of Tor books. The woman who introduced the term disemvoweling to the literary world would cower before your intellect. Right.

And I agree, 'everyone' is perfectly fine, inside or out of a newspaper. But that is not what we are arguing over. You used 'eachother', which is not correct anywhere.

Hacker is slang, which I have already mentioned. It is not an incorrect use of a standard word or phrase.

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Re: Talk about misleading...

njyoder
2007-05-12 04:59 am UTC (link)

Yes, I meant 'eachother,' not 'everyone.' You can say

I could easily take on their editors. They'd probably acknowledge that they have certain strict guidelines to follow, but they aren't universal...assuming they were reasonable.

They can't use "ain't," for example, but it's a real word. It was added to the OED in 1998, IIRC. Is it universally incorrect in spite of widespread usage and being recognize by the OED because the newspapers won't print it?

If you think I'm wrong, why don't you propose a criteria for correctness? Is it whatever the elite few say? If so, who appoints them and what gives them the right to control language for the billion+ people who speak it? If you don't answer this, I won't bother replying, because it i ndicates that you're not interested in being intellectual honest.

Even if 'hacker' is slang, it's still a legitimate word. Being slang doesn't mean you can use it arbitrarily, either. (It's also in the OED at this point, in any case.) Did you bother reading my example? If someone were writing for a computing publication (like an ACM or IEEE one), using 'hacker' to mean 'malicious person who breaks into computers' would be _wrong_.

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Re: Talk about misleading...

silrana
2007-05-12 05:18 am UTC (link)

I can say what?

You could not easily take on the Nielsen-Haydens. Better people than you have tried, and been left with nothing but disemvoweled posts and the laughter of many in the professional writing community. But I was not talking about what would be acceptable as, say, dialogue in a book. I mean your argument that correct language is whatever you say it is at that particular moment because a web board constitutes informal usage.

As far as a criteria, it is already in place in the thousands of dictionaries, grammar textbooks and editor's bibles all across the English-speaking world. While they can change as new words are added to the language, such as your hacker example, change has to come from a more stable source than teenagers writing bad internet poetry.

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Re: Talk about misleading...

njyoder
2007-05-14 04:46 am UTC (link)

So your criteria is "whatever [insert random books like]" say? Who appoints them as arbiters of language? That's the problem that people like you can't address: it's a circle of self-appointed arbters of language. How about I appoint myself as King of the English Language, then? You can't challenge it, because it's all by self-appointment.

I never said "language is whatever you say is at that particular moment," but if I did, that would be no less valid than you panel of self-appointed experts who proclaim the same exact thing.

FYI, since you think this argument is so easy to form against me and that they've tried and failed--why don't you point me to the arguments, then? I want to see them. So far all you've done is present the same view that other ignorant prescriptivists have: "it's whatever people I decide to appoint as arbiters of language say."

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	Re: Talk about misleading... (Anonymous) 2007-05-14 05:44 pm UTC (link)
	strikes up Entrance of the Gladiators What an encore! All over a typo. I'm going to need more cotton candy! (Reply to this)(Parent)

Re: Talk about misleading...

greenling
2007-05-12 06:36 am UTC (link)

Perceived grammatical-ness, or lack of, is part of language, and used to study language just like every other part of it.

Conservative elements of culture exist on the same level as radical ones, and are no more or less artificial.

You're right; those standards are artificial. So is using the standard of "what do native speakers actually say". So is language. Descriptivism is mostly a way of making sure we don't ignore a bunch of things that contribute to our understanding of language, not a support group for people who were horribly scarred by their seventh-grade English teacher.

Thanks, I've been wanting to bitch at someone about that.

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Re: Talk about misleading...

njyoder
2007-05-14 04:49 am UTC (link)

It's not artificial, because it relies on how the language naturally changes within a given population. It's not as if people in general are making any deliberate effort to control their changes in made to language.

The criteria for correctness is an analysis of people from the outside looking in and see _the way things already are_, instead of groups of prescriptivist ilk diving in and declaring "this is the way things will be made by us." Deliberate declaration of change is what makes it artificial.

In any case, I probably won't respond because I'm receiving a flood of comments from this and other posts.

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	Re: Talk about misleading... njyoder 2007-05-12 03:59 am UTC (link)
	WOAH. I wouldn't be defending this guy if I were you. He just got done proclaiming that 'typo' and 'spelling error' were synonymous. He didn't know what the word 'typo' actually meant and he was fervent in accusing me of making one. I cry for teh stoopids :( (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	Re: Talk about misleading... cookie_love 2007-05-12 04:29 am UTC (link)
	I hope you don't choke on your own snot or anything. BTW, I'm a "she", you condescending twit. (Reply to this)(Parent)

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