I've always wondered about this. I remember getting into fierce arguments with my uncle about it...
It goes like this:
I am
You are
He/she is
etc.
And you would say:
You are going to the shops in a minute, aren't you? Pick up some aspirin.
or
You are going to the shops in a minute, are you not?
But a lot of people also say:
I am going to the shops in a minute, aren't I? I'll pick it up then.
In other words: Are I not
Now, I always equated the phrase "Amn't I" as being either juvenile or uneducated. But when you think about it, saying
I am going to the shops, amn't I? (i.e. am I not)
seems like the correct one, and "aren't I" is a mistake. But then you could argue that it is a mistake that has been ingrained in us to the point that it has become the correct way to say it.
I'm just wondering, would you say "amn't I" in every day conversation, or just use "aren't I"?
Wikipedia says:
Amn't is a contraction of "am not" occurring in some dialects of English, mainly Scottish English and Hiberno-English. The contraction is formed in the same way as "aren't" from "are not" and "isn't" from "is not". It has been suggested that the reason why "amn't" is not as widespread as other contractions is that English tends to dislike the nasal consonants /m/ and /n/ together.[citation needed] In Scottish English, amn't is generally used only when inverted as a question (i.e. "amn't I?"); in Hiberno-English it is also used in statements ("I amn't") and sometimes as a double negative ("amn't I not?"):
-I'm going home, amn't I?
-Amn't I coming?
-I amn't going to work today.
-I'm not late, amn't I not?
Standard English uses "I'm not" and "am I not?" or "aren't I?" in place of "I amn't" and "amn't I?". Other dialects use "I ain't" and "ain't I?".
In short, if you are speaking Scottish or Irish English, you can say "Amn't I?". If you are speaking Standart English, you can say either "Am I not?", "Aren't I?" or "Ain't I?"
It is great that many languages have a lot of accents and dialects. They make hiding your past identity easier.
I prefer "Am I not?". It makes words sound "heavier", with more confidence, when you pronounce/write them without contraction.
Uh-huh. But the thing is, nobody really thinks about what they're saying... "Are not I" makes absolutely no sense, grammatically.
People often say stuff without thinking. Control your own speech as you like it and let others control theirs as they like it.
Remember and don't forget, that speech was born before grammar and that it is speech that sets the rules of grammar, not vice versa. Also, an exception only confirms the rule.
I like GA (General American) where no matter what you just add huh?... or the classy Canadians with their ey?
Quote from: Lionmonkey on Tue 17/06/2008 23:21:37
People often say stuff without thinking. Control your own speech as you like it and let others control theirs as they like it.
But that completely goes against the fundements of language. Sure, I accept that language evolves through colloquial speech, and the rules of grammar are more diagrams to explain the language than parameters for the language to fall in to (i.e. speech came first, as you said), but when you start giving people free reign, the whole purpose of language -- communication -- is lost.
It's like the internet slang thing. Words like 'lol' and 'pwned' are actually beginning to creep in to the english vernacular. 'Pwned' is just a common typo, and 'lol' is an acronym -- it has no founding in linguistics whatsoever. It's a chaotic word defined only by general consensus.
Take another example: 'All your base are belong to us' -- the classic Engrish phrase used the world over. A lot of my friends and students like to emulate the 'engrish' style to the point where it's used in casual conversation. I can see some point in the future when grammar itself becomes so stretched and bent that dialects will begin forming based around
internet communities instead of the usual countries and cities.
I've considered writing my thesis on this topic, actually...
So where's the line between the evolution of language and the devolution of language? I don't presume to know, I'm just posing the question.
Quote from: skuttleman on Wed 18/06/2008 00:23:48
So where's the line between the evolution of language and the devolution of language? I don't presume to know, I'm just posing the question.
There really is no such thing as 'devolution', when you think about it. Devolution is just a term people use when they don't like the way things are evolving. Evolution really only goes in one direction -- it might look like we've gone backwards if we all suddenly start talking in olde english, but it's just the next step (kind of like how fashion designers constantly recycle old styles).
One can't say that the internet will kill modern language, because any means of communication
is a language. The primary difference is that as long as the internet continues to function the way it does -- with free information -- the language will 'evolve' so rapidly that it'll break apart.
Think about it -- before, only people like Joyce or Shakespeare or dictionary writers or university professors could make up new words and have them spread around. Then, radio and TV came along, and now you have celebrities coining words. Now,
anybody could just come up with a phrase and post it on their blog or whatever. With millions of blogs, you have millions of new words coming in, until eventually people who follow Blogroll A wont be able to understand Blogroll B, et cetera.
I agree that devolution doesn't exist.
However, I'm not sure if I understand what this thread is really about, because language and communication are two different things. I've both witnessed and been party to completely lucid communication without the use of written or verbal language. I've also witnessed (though luckily, NOT ever been party to) and complete and total lack of communication during the course of the articulate use of language.
So I agree communication is important, and I sure would hate to see it go, but language by nature is temporal and I don't think that communication is going to go away just because language is failing that function.
Quote from: skuttleman on Wed 18/06/2008 00:49:51
I'm not sure if I understand what this thread is really about...
Emerald said:
QuoteI'm just wondering, would you say "amn't I" in every day conversation, or just use "aren't I"?
Quote from: Lionmonkey on Wed 18/06/2008 01:11:56
Quote from: skuttleman on Wed 18/06/2008 00:49:51
I'm not sure if I understand what this thread is really about...
Emerald said:
QuoteI'm just wondering, would you say "amn't I" in every day conversation, or just use "aren't I"?
I meant that as a conversation starter. The beginning of a thread of discussion which could lead anywhere.
Not some lame survey where we all post whether or not we say "amn't" one at a time as part of some odd exercise in validating our own existence...
I hate those.
Nobody cares about your boring, predictable answers!You might as well start a thread with the title "What's your favourite colour?"
It's Pantone 293 M. Thanks for asking.
Additionally; I've never used amn't and plan to keep it that way. Aren't I may not be grammatically correct, but it's the common form for a reason.
It's awkward to say "amn't", end of story. It's interesting that you've chosen to highlight this particular grammatical anomality, out of the gazillion irregularities any living language will offer you.
Quote'Pwned' is just a common typo, and 'lol' is an acronym -- it has no founding in linguistics whatsoever. It's a chaotic word defined only by general consensus.
I don't get this...in what way does the Internet operate differently than any other media or forum? The only difference I can see would be that Internet makes things happen quicker. How were words concieved if not by some sort of concensus? Through word-generating machines, licensed by the government?
QuoteThink about it -- before, only people like Joyce or Shakespeare or dictionary writers or university professors could make up new words and have them spread around. Then, radio and TV came along, and now you have celebrities coining words. Now, anybody could just come up with a phrase and post it on their blog or whatever. With millions of blogs, you have millions of new words coming in, until eventually people who follow Blogroll A wont be able to understand Blogroll B, et cetera.
Dictionary writers never came up with new words! It's always been the people, the average Joes. The encyclopedists merely recorded what they heard on the streets. If they heard it often enough, that is.
The only reason Joyce came up with new words was because it belonged to his stream-of-consciousness style of writing to do so, and only if people started to actually use those words would they be included in dictionaries. Which I doubt actually happened.
You severely exaggerate the effects of blog-neologisms and Internet lingua in general. How can the introduction of slang words like "lol" in any way obscure the message of a blog text to a degree that it gets lost? It's not like people suddenly form brand new sentence structures after reading "Fully Ramblomatic", or start using previously unheard of tenses after browsing a WoW-forum.
How many changes must a language undergo in order to completely lose its original meaning? Well, certainly more than spelling "owned" with a p.
Reality is defined by words, which is why we have words now that reflect technologies and ideas related to those techs that didn't exist before. Internet slang is no different than any other eras' slang, in that the previous non-"up to date" generation won't understand it unless they make the effort, and in ten/twenty years new slang words will arise while the old ones are largely forgotten or just not used as much. I don't think this is quite as true with the net since the net obviously is only growing and evolving, and words like lol and pwned become permanent parts of the net culture.
It's not amn't, but the word "ain't" used to be a rich person's upper-class word until the poor started copying it, then the rich abandoned it and decided it was low-class and bad grammar. True story!
Didn't know amn't existed.. I actually considered it wrong so I've never tried or thought about trying to use it in any conversation and/or use of the english language.
Quote from: Emerald on Tue 17/06/2008 23:48:48
Quote from: Lionmonkey on Tue 17/06/2008 23:21:37
People often say stuff without thinking. Control your own speech as you like it and let others control theirs as they like it.
But that completely goes against the fundements of language. Sure, I accept that language evolves through colloquial speech, and the rules of grammar are more diagrams to explain the language than parameters for the language to fall in to (i.e. speech came first, as you said), but when you start giving people free reign, the whole purpose of language -- communication -- is lost.
It's like the internet slang thing. Words like 'lol' and 'pwned' are actually beginning to creep in to the english vernacular. 'Pwned' is just a common typo, and 'lol' is an acronym -- it has no founding in linguistics whatsoever. It's a chaotic word defined only by general consensus.
Take another example: 'All your base are belong to us' -- the classic Engrish phrase used the world over. A lot of my friends and students like to emulate the 'engrish' style to the point where it's used in casual conversation. I can see some point in the future when grammar itself becomes so stretched and bent that dialects will begin forming based around internet communities instead of the usual countries and cities.
I've considered writing my thesis on this topic, actually...
Language is a chaotic discourse defined only by general consensus. You can print a dictionary to try to assert control over it, sure, but everybody else can (and will) ignore it. Dialects have always been formed around communities of interest - it's called
jargon.
That might be an interesting idea for an essay, but really, it all boils down to globablization. Whereas language used to evolve as a result of class and location, "location" no longer has any real meaning in a world where real-time communication between people on opposite poles of the Earth is possible and easily accessible for a large percentage of the Earth's population.
Dear <Emerald's side of the argument, whoever subscribes to it>,
You might want to read a basic textbook on linguistics. It sounds like harsh criticism, but that's... well, honestly, that's exactly how I mean it. Many of the crucial premises here are basically nonsense from the perspective of our knowledge of how language actually works. While I could be happy to leave my remark at the "this thread is full of nonsense" point, I'll address some particular issues as well, in the order that I consider most efficient for my literary purposes (if you wonder why the chronology is screwed). I've tried to be as concise and to-the-point as possible, though I'm aware that this post is pretty massive. Sorry.
Quote from: Emerald on Tue 17/06/2008 23:48:48
It's like the internet slang thing. Words like 'lol' and 'pwned' are actually beginning to creep in to the english vernacular. 'Pwned' is just a common typo, and 'lol' is an acronym -- it has no founding in linguistics whatsoever. It's a chaotic word defined only by general consensus.
OK.
Pwned is one among many words that originate in one way or another from a mistake. And most of its pals are what we at this particular time would call "standard English". How about
apron? Everyone ought to know we should say
napron, like we did back in the days of Middle English, when we still perhaps recognized it as our own version of the Middle French
naperon, and a relative of "napkin". Then all those idiots who lack the sense to leave language alone heard people say
a napron, and misinterpreted the word boundary so that it became
an apron instead. (Actually even
naperon is the result of some even earlier idiots who decided it was easier to pronounce the Latin
mappa with an [n] instead of an [m].) I'm confused by your phrasing "it has no founding in linguistics whatsoever", but although blatant typos are indeed a rather uncommon source of lexical variation (widespread literacy is in itself is a rather young phenomenon), the basic principle is well founded.
But even if we accept that aspect, what is the reason people consciously say or write
pwned even when they're perfectly familiar with the "correct" form "owned", other than simple bastardizing and corrupting our beloved language? They both mean the same thing, right? Well, the basic driving force behind pretty much all language change is the desire to
communicate your thoughts as accurately as possible, with as little effort as possible. A change of any kind tends to either increase the communicative possibilities, or decrease the effort required to use them.
Pwned has many properties that
owned lacks--properties that are obviously relevant to people, because otherwise they would not use it. This is how linguists typically think of these things: there's no reason to doubt that a new word that is gaining momentum has some kind of advantage compared to similar words. If you can't for the life of you imagine what it is, you just haven't thought hard enough. Some more or less speculative ideas on my part:
*) usage of
pwned identifies the speaker as a member of a particular group (gamers, geeks, hackers)--this is probably a major component in this particular case. This is a fairly common phenomenon, certainly not limited to our time. A linguistic term for such a word is
shibboleth.
*) the nonstandard spelling, in itself, can be seen as a type of intensifier--if you're
pwned, you're way beyond
owned.
So how about
lol? While I've already expressed my confusion as to the purpose of your "no founding in linguistics" claim, I'm obliged to say that acronyms are also a relatively uncommon source of new words, but it is certainly not unheard of (even if there were no other examples,
lol would still be one!), and in the particular area of textual internet communication, examples abound, even though few have transfered into speech. As for the purpose it serves, at first glance it ought to be even more obvious than in the case of
pwned: I for one can't think of a comparable word as equivalent as
owned to
pwned. But whatever synonyms you may think of, here are a few ideas:
*) obviously,
lol is also to a some extent a shibboleth, although considering that it is more widespread than
pwned, it also carries less weight in that function.
*) in the context of textual communication in the style of IRC or instant messaging,
lol solves the problem of expressing an inherently non-verbal action in text. If we consider alternatives like "I'm laughing", or "I find this amusing", its comparative grace is obvious.
*) aside from the obvious direct meaning of indicating laughter or amusement,
lol carries connotations, I'm sure you'll agree, of things like immaturity or "noobdom", which allows another dimension of ironic usage. Handling that irony correctly also functions well as a shibboleth in itself.
If a word "defined only by general consensus" is a "chaotic word", then I wonder which words are not chaotic. Those invented by dictionary authors or official language-regulating bodies? Oh, wait...
Quote from: Emerald on Wed 18/06/2008 00:40:53
Think about it -- before, only people like Joyce or Shakespeare or dictionary writers or university professors could make up new words and have them spread around.
OK, I'm thinking about it. And it's utterly wrong. Now I advice you to read about it.
Quote from: Emerald on Tue 17/06/2008 23:48:48
I can see some point in the future when grammar itself becomes so stretched and bent that dialects will begin forming based around internet communities instead of the usual countries and cities.
There has always been substantial dialectal variation correlating not necessarily with geographical location, but with social classes, professions, or other communities or subcultures. This is nothing new.
Quote from: Emerald on Wed 18/06/2008 00:40:53
One can't say that the internet will kill modern language, because any means of communication is a language. The primary difference is that as long as the internet continues to function the way it does -- with free information -- the language will 'evolve' so rapidly that it'll break apart.
The rate at which language changes is quite variable, and there have certainly been periods in the history of the English language in which it has been very rapid indeed, but not once has a language been known to have changed so rapidly as to break apart. The phrase conjures up the image of a machine running faster and faster, until it literally breaks apart or overheats or something, and it's an effective rhetoric figure--but once you think about it, it is very dubious if it can at all be transfered into this particular context. A phenomenon doesn't automatically exist just because you can come up with a catchy formulation of it.
Quote from: Emerald on Tue 17/06/2008 23:48:48
But that completely goes against the fundements of language. Sure, I accept that language evolves through colloquial speech, and the rules of grammar are more diagrams to explain the language than parameters for the language to fall in to (i.e. speech came first, as you said), but when you start giving people free reign, the whole purpose of language -- communication -- is lost.
What, then, would you say is the nature the fundaments of language? If we're just now starting to give people free rein, what did they have before, and who held the reins then? I'd be interested to hear examples of developments that you consider detrimental to communication (which I agree is the fundamental purpose of language), because as far as the examples you give here go, it appears to me that it all follows the basic trend that ultimately explains all language change: maximal communication through the most efficient means. Maybe you've discovered previously unheard-of evidence of language change in the opposite direction... or you just haven't looked at it at sufficient depth.
Language, much like biological life, is under constant evolution, spurred by a very large "population" of possible constructs competing for survival, with evolutionary pressures forcing them to attain, on the one hand, sufficient complexity to carry all the information we need to express, and, on the other hand, sufficient simplicity to convey that information with a minimum of effort. These are the mechanisms by which language change has always worked, and claiming that it would all fall apart if we "give people free reign" is like claiming that
if you allow animals to go out and eat and reproduce any way they like, evolution will cease. Hopefully I don't have to explain why that line of reasoning is fallacious. Ultimately language change has always worked in the same way, and always will--and though it is essentially governed by a few simple principles, it is an immensely complex mesh of countless factors, far too intricate to be simplified into a basic argument of "older is better", or analyzed from one perspective alone without taking others into account.
Quote from: EldKatt on Fri 20/06/2008 17:59:04
Above post
So true...Emerald, please don't tell EldKatt to suck your balls.
On the subject of internet slang becoming "real"words
http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a2_250.html I enjoy the story behind OK/O.K./Okay/Oll Korrect
My girlfriend (nelly) says 'amn't', it's adorable.
She's from the north east of England, where a few Scottish terms (like bairns) survive.
Quote from: Ali on Sat 21/06/2008 10:05:19
My girlfriend (nelly) says 'amn't', it's adorable.
She's from the North-East of England, where a few Scottish terms (like bairns) survive.
I'm a Northerner too, and yes, we are adorable.
I've a fairly heavy accent, and frequently baffle people at AGS meets with my archaic terms when I forget to moderate my language. Far-Northern English does seem to hang on to quite a few odd and old terms and phrases, aye instead of yes, bairns for children, "why aye" for "yes, certianly!", and all kinds of others.
Non standard and near backwards syntax is common too. I know a few older people who still use Thee and Thou to show stres and irritation with whoever they're talking to.
Language is a funny thing, and it's pretty cute how accents seem to be reamining, dispite tv and movies and all, which you'd think would have left us all speaking identical and standard accent free.
Ta-ra for the now, me bonny lads and lasses.