2000 Overnoy Poulsard And Other Reasons to Visit France

originally posted by fatboy:
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:

With regard to Fatboy's spelling of the word "the," I am reminded of what Talluleh Bankhead ostensibly said to Norman Mailer when the first met. Mailer rendered the word "fuck" as "fug" in Naked and the Dead, in deference to the state of censorship laws at the time. So Bankhead, upon being introduced, said, "Ah, yes, you're the young man who does not know how to spell "fuck."
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were it not for the dead hand of orthographic convention, english would make far less use of articles than it does (their functional role went along with the family silver when the vikings made off with the gender system; indeed, and at one point, the verbal gesture we render as "the" had all but vanished from much of the english spoken in the north). as far as i can see, the only reasons for writing "the" in many contexts are habit and the satisfaction of pedants, and so i've been trying in my own small way to breath life where there was none. i'm glad you approve.

"summulyey," otoh, i struggle with.

fb.
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Are you saying that if we didn't attend to spelling, we wouldn't use articles? I'm not up on the history of the language, so you could be right. The connection doesn't seem to me inherently consequential. And, while lots of grammatically necessary words don't have semantic content, "the" and "a" do. Still, it is the case that there are languages that do without articles, so you may be right. But it strikes me as non-intuitive that our conservativeness about them is connected to spelling. Still, lots of things are non-intuitive (certainly to me) that turn out to be right.

How's that for wishy-washy objection?
 
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:

Are you saying that if we didn't attend to spelling, we wouldn't use articles? I'm not up on the history of the language, so you could be right. The connection doesn't seem to me inherently consequential. And, while lots of grammatically necessary words don't have semantic content, "the" and "a" do. Still, it is the case that there are languages that do without articles, so you may be right. But it strikes me as non-intuitive that our conservativeness about them is connected to spelling. Still, lots of things are non-intuitive (certainly to me) that turn out to be right.
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Those of us who read newspapers (there are a few of us remaining, no?) have long been accustomed to the elision of articles in journalese, so why not more generally? Is "dog bit man" any less intelligible than "the dog bit the man"?

Mark Lipton

p.s. Your titillating Tallulah Bankhead quote reminds me of a fascinating review of a recent Hedy Lamarr biography that I recently read in the London Review of Books.
 
originally posted by MLipton:
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:

Are you saying that if we didn't attend to spelling, we wouldn't use articles? I'm not up on the history of the language, so you could be right. The connection doesn't seem to me inherently consequential. And, while lots of grammatically necessary words don't have semantic content, "the" and "a" do. Still, it is the case that there are languages that do without articles, so you may be right. But it strikes me as non-intuitive that our conservativeness about them is connected to spelling. Still, lots of things are non-intuitive (certainly to me) that turn out to be right.
Click to expand...

Those of us who read newspapers (there are a few of us remaining, no?) have long been accustomed to the elision of articles in journalese, so why not more generally? Is "dog bit man" any less intelligible than "the dog bit the man"?

Mark Lipton

p.s. Your titillating Tallulah Bankhead quote reminds me of a fascinating review of a recent Hedy Lamarr biography that I recently read in the London Review of Books.
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Well, the English teacher in me says that the sentence "the dog bit the man" also states that the speaker knows which dog in particular and which man in particular. Indeed, the sentence "dog bites man" is the example whereas, to my ear, the past tense is odd since a past tense suggests a specification that is missing while the present tense can be taken as providing an example rather than a particular situation.
 
originally posted by fatboy:
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:

With regard to Fatboy's spelling of the word "the," I am reminded of what Talluleh Bankhead ostensibly said to Norman Mailer when the first met. Mailer rendered the word "fuck" as "fug" in Naked and the Dead, in deference to the state of censorship laws at the time. So Bankhead, upon being introduced, said, "Ah, yes, you're the young man who does not know how to spell "fuck."
Click to expand...

were it not for the dead hand of orthographic convention, english would make far less use of articles than it does (their functional role went along with the family silver when the vikings made off with the gender system; indeed, and at one point, the verbal gesture we render as "the" had all but vanished from much of the english spoken in the north). as far as i can see, the only reasons for writing "the" in many contexts are habit and the satisfaction of pedants, and so i've been trying in my own small way to breath life where there was none. i'm glad you approve.

"summulyey," otoh, i struggle with.

fb.
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The other problem with the English language is the plethora of extraneous words. For example, why do we have words like "bad" or "awful" when it would be more efficient just to say "ungood" or "doubleplusungood"?
 
originally posted by Sharon Bowman:
It'd just be more "a dog bit a man," no?
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If you believe, as I do, that articles provide information, even "a dog bit a man" is a specification that the speaker doesn't know which dog or which man. But you are right that the past tense allows either. It doesn't seem to tolerate, however, dog bit man, except as a grammatical anomaly.
 
During grad school, my thesis advisor was quoted on the front page of the NYT. I told him he shouldn't allow them to refer to him as "a chemist at Columbia University," but should instead insist on the definite article.
 
originally posted by SFJoe:
During grad school, my thesis advisor was quoted on the front page of the NYT. I told him he shouldn't allow them to refer to him as "a chemist at Columbia University," but should instead insist on the definite article.
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The New York Times is a master of this art. Woe to those on the Weddings page who work for "a New York law firm" rather than "the New York law firm." If they really want to twist the knife, it's "a law firm in New York."
 
There was a period during which a president of my university insisted on its being called The American University. This went on for enough years so that I got into the habit of answering the question "where do you teach?" with the response "The American University." To which someone once replied, "Don't be coy, which one is it." Which goes to show that sometimes a definite article isn't a definite article (this would also be true for "the law firm in New York," really). Fortunately, we are back to taking American as a proper name rather than an adjective and thus use no article.
 
There was a period during which a president of my university insisted on its being called The American University. This went on for enough years so that I got into the habit of answering the question "where do you teach?" with the response "The American University." To which someone once replied, "Don't be coy, which one is it." Which goes to show that sometimes a definite article isn't a definite article (this would also be true for "the law firm in New York," really). Fortunately, we are back to taking American as a proper name rather than an adjective and thus use no article.
 
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
There was a period during which a president of my university insisted on its being called The American University. This went on for enough years so that I got into the habit of answering the question "where do you teach?" with the response "The American University." To which someone once replied, "Don't be coy, which one is it." Which goes to show that sometimes a definite article isn't a definite article (this would also be true for "the law firm in New York," really). Fortunately, we are back to taking American as a proper name rather than an adjective and thus use no article.
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At least you don't try the UVa gag.
 
originally posted by SFJoe:
During grad school, my thesis advisor was quoted on the front page of the NYT. I told him he shouldn't allow them to refer to him as "a chemist at Columbia University," but should instead insist on the definite article.
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Hey! What about the rest of us, huh??

Mark Lipton
 
originally posted by Keith Levenberg:


The other problem with the English language is the plethora of extraneous words. For example, why do we have words like "bad" or "awful" when it would be more efficient just to say "ungood" or "doubleplusungood"?
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because it wouldn't be more efficient to do that.

fb.
 
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:


Are you saying that if we didn't attend to spelling, we wouldn't use articles? I'm not up on the history of the language, so you could be right. The connection doesn't seem to me inherently consequential. And, while lots of grammatically necessary words don't have semantic content, "the" and "a" do. Still, it is the case that there are languages that do without articles, so you may be right. But it strikes me as non-intuitive that our conservativeness about them is connected to spelling. Still, lots of things are non-intuitive (certainly to me) that turn out to be right.
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it's not so our much attention to spelling as the conventionalization that orthography imposes. it acts as a fossilizing force on languages. and no, i'm not saying we would never use articles, but rather, that in all likelihood we would omit them in many places where we now use them.

How's that for wishy-washy objection?
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very reasonable. it will never catch on here.

fb.
 
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
There was a period during which a president of my university insisted on its being called The American University.
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This was a common nineteenth century usage. Hence, references to, e.g., "the Southern Pacific Railroad" (or just "the Southern Pacific") out here that continued until its merger late in the twentieth century, and I'm sure its successor, Union Pacific, does the same. Law faculty, students, and staff at Yale frequently say "the Yale Law School" and I'm virtually certain that it's the same at Harvard.
 
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