Aug 22, 2008
All words are real words.
Like this post?
If an utterance is purposefully said by one person and understood by another, it’s real.
Nonstandard, perhaps, but not fake or wrong.
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© 2012 Abuyo. All rights reserved.
Aug 22, 2008
If an utterance is purposefully said by one person and understood by another, it’s real.
Nonstandard, perhaps, but not fake or wrong.
* * * * *
Unthaw is a good example.
I’ll stand by that one no matter what anyone says.
While thought provoking, this is SO not the post I was hoping for coming here this morning. Can’t wait to hear the announcement! Praying for you all today.
One of my classics is “conversating”
Would you say this applies also to words that are used differently from the standard? Example: Fixing.
Around here, if I am heading to the store I’d say: “I’m fixin’ to go to the store…”
Now in some parts, people respond with something like, “what’s broken? What are you fixing?”
I refuse to try to understand what people from WI mean when they say “bubblers.” My stubbornness to remain ignorant (however fake) then makes that not be a real word…..right?
Once a polly tito, a remarkibold mannyo by Stanley Unwin namey dib notice this, and so he did demonstriollow it. Deep joy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkFP3YvLyAc&feature=related
ED..
Usage defines grammar, not the other way around. We have grammatical rules to aid in understanding each other. If the speaker is understandable, then the rules are irrelevant.
In that vein though, I have to take issue with “unthaw”. To thaw means to warm up from being frozen, so does unthaw mean to refreeze it? :-) That doesn’t pass the understandable test in my book. If you want to use a negative word for it, then use defrost.
B-)
My personal favorite is the use of the word
“functionable” as an adjective to describe the ability to function as needed–or not.
“This new phone is really functionable”
My husbands always smiles when I say it, but never corrects me because he just understands my love for that word!
We know “fixin to” in our part of the country…When we were in Germany we attended a Baptist Church just off the USAF base for those of us who did not want to attend the regular base chapel services. We were known for exuberant praise and the young Catholic priest from the village wanted to come to one of our praise & worship practices to see what songs we were singing.
He had been encouraged by some of his younger parisheners to make their praise songs more like ours…He spoke reasonable English and came this particular Thursday evening to sit in on the practice.
I was speaking with him when he pulled out his pipe to light it…One darling little 4yr old standing by us turned to him and asked…”Are you fixin to smoke”… Puzzled and looking askance at me to find out what “fixin to” meant… before I could even answer, the child without hesitating at all finished with..”That’s not good for you…Jesus won’t be happy.” The young priest quickly returned his pipe to his pocket while I explained “fixin to” …Out of the mouths of babes.
Peter Leithart wrote an interesting post on this a while back:
http://www.leithart.com/2008/08/19/brick-hermeneutics/
In layman’s terms, we have a basic responsibility to try to be understood and to understand, not to be stubborn on either end of the dialogue.
I know what someone means when they say, “I’m fixin’ to get me a chicken samwich,” “Y’all need to fill one these here forms out,” or “We be lookin at this sitchation bass ackwards.”
I’m responsible to act like I understand, not raise false obstacles to communication by insisting upon niceties.
Good point, but aren’t you a little busy this morning to be blogging?
I’ve been thinking this week about how you might be the most committed blogger I know of (in my limited blog reading) and this proves it!
May God give you a great and sweet day.
Myrddin-
Your post is convicting me to recognize “bubbler” as a word. I don’t have to like it, do I?
I was hoping for 22 words informing/announcing something important taking place today?
It was very thundery here last night.
Why in the world are you blogging about this on a day like today?
One of the grammtical nuances I have had to get used to working with people from the UK is prepone instead of postpone. As in, “the meeting has been preponed until tomorrow”. The first time I saw that in an email I had to read it three times just to make sure I was reading it correctly.
A delightful post today:)
“Couth”