Weird US English Part 436

[philo2009]

The British use "different to" instead. ;-)

Some may..!

 

[philo2009]

Now that's a revelation. Is that any better than "different than?"

Well, only marginally, since 'to' is at least the correct class of word (a preposition) for this sentence-position.

Unfortunately, however, it is not an appropriate preposition, given the etymology of the word 'different'!

 

[5jj]

Well, only marginally, since 'to' is at least the correct class of word (a preposition) for this sentence-position.

Unfortunately, however, it is not an appropriate preposition, given the etymology of the word 'different'!

Surely if 'than' is used and accepted, then it is pointless to suggest that it is not of the 'correct' class of word.

If 'to' is used and accepted, then it must be considered appropriate, by its users at least.

And if we start saying how words should be used today because of their etymology, then we are stepping back into the letters columns of The Times in the 1950s.

 

[Raymott]

Surely if 'than' is used and accepted, then it is pointless to suggest that it is not of the 'correct' class of word.
I think that's a fundamentally bad argument. People use and accept many concepts that are wrong. That's why we have scientists, scholars and teachers.

If 'to' is used and accepted, then it must be considered appropriate, by its users at least.
That's not saying a lot. Obviously a user of some word/concept thinks it's appropriate, or they wouldn't use it.

And if we start saying how words should be used today because of their etymology, then we are stepping back into the letters columns of The Times in the 1950s.

I partly agree with the etymology point. But I can't see how you can be a teacher and not be at least partly prescriptivist. Some people simply use words wrongly, for various reasons. If language wasn't for communication, it wouldn't matter. You can't define a usage as being right purely because its user thinks it's acceptable, or we'd all be using Humpty language.
(I'm not specifically referring to 'different')

 

[birdeen's call]

I think that's a fundamentally bad argument. People use and accept many concepts that are wrong. That's why we have scientists, scholars and teachers.

Right, but what if teachers and other enlightened people start accepting certain forms? And this is the case of "different than" and "different to".

 

[Raymott]

Right, but what if teachers and other enlightened people start accepting certain forms? And this is the case of "different than" and "different to".

Then you can accept it as a teacher, and object to it in your free time. :-D

 

[5jj]

Right, but what if teachers and other enlightened people start accepting certain forms? And this is the case of "different than" and "different to".

hmmmm.

I agree with the point you are making but -

'other enlightened people'.

This suggests that you regard teachers as enlightened people.

Try looking back at some of the postings from people whose membership type is given as Teacher and see if you'd care to modify what you said.

In my case, of course.....;-)

 

[Raymott]

hmmmm.

I agree with the point you are making but -

'other enlightened people'.

This suggests that you regard teachers as enlightened people.

Try looking back at some of the postings from people whose membership type is given as Teacher and see if you'd care to modify what you said.

In my case, of course.....;-)

I suspect BC was being a tad facetious.

 

[5jj]

I partly agree with the etymology point. But I can't see how you can be a teacher and not be at least partly prescriptivist. Some people simply use words wrongly, for various reasons. If language wasn't for communication, it wouldn't matter. You can't define a usage as being right purely because it's user thinks it's acceptable, or we'd all be using Humpty language.
(I'm not specifically referring to 'different')

OK. Back to being serious:-(.

I agree that teachers have to be at least partly prescriptive; the plural of child is children, not childs. That is an indisputable fact, and teachers must point this out.

However, I was suggesting that a consideration of the etymology of a word is irrrelevant when discussing current usage. I am not attempting to define a usage as being right purely because it's user thinks it's acceptable.

With specific reference to different, It appears that to is acceptable in BrE, than in AmE , and from in both. By acceptable I mean acceptable to educated speakers, teachers, and at least some reputable dictionaries.

 

[birdeen's call]

It's certainly not enough for a usage to be correct that it is (be? :-?) so deemed by its user. Was the singular intentional, Ray? Nobody says (I think...?) that one person is enough to estabilish new forms in language. It usually takes millions of users these days.

 

[Raymott]

It's certainly not enough for a usage to be correct that it is (be? :-?) so deemed by its user. Was the singular intentional, Ray? Nobody says (I think...?) that one person is enough to estabilish new forms in language. It usually takes millions of users these days.

'be'.
I didn't put a lot of thought into "user" instead of "users". It wasn't meant to be provocative. But since you've brought it up, I agree that if a certain subgroup of society wants to speak in a way that makes them incomprehensible to the larger community (say, as teenagers usually do), then they have a right to do that. I don't think it's the English teacher's job necessarily to teach that dialect, because the whole point of it is to be different from the mainstream. If you teach it, it has to change.

I think there will always be resistance, from people who take care to do things properly, to having to change because other people who couldn't care less are in the majority - just as there will always be resistance, from people who couldn't care less, to doing things properly.
Sometimes the definition of "properly" is not as defined as we'd like, but there are a lot of things about life that don't become true democratically.

 

[birdeen's call]

I don't know, I wish I had learnt more about English dialects when I was younger. Like African American Vernacular, Cockney or Scots. I found myself unable to understand very simple English sentences just because they were dialectal. It's better to be prepared. Now, we have this new internet slang and again there's a lot to learn. Not because I want to use it, that would seem inappropriate to me, but because I encounter it everywhere and want to understand. And I believe there's no harm in teaching such things to advanced students, with proper warnings of course.

 

[Raymott]

I don't know, I wish I had learnt more about English dialects when I was younger. Like African American Vernacular, Cockney or Scots. I found myself unable to understand very simple English sentences just because they were dialectal. It's better to be prepared. Now, we have this new internet slang and again there's a lot to learn. Not because I want to use it, that would seem inappropriate to me, but because I encounter it everywhere and want to understand. And I believe there's no harm in teaching such things to advanced students, with proper warnings of course.

There's no harm in a student learning internet slang the same way everyone else does (or doesn't). There's also no harm in offering special slang classes. But an English teacher can't be expected to have knowledge of every species of slang that a student might want to know about. It seems almost too much these days to ask an English teacher to be competent in formal English.

 

[philo2009]

fivejedjon wrote:

Surely if 'than' is used and accepted, then it is pointless to suggest that it is not of the 'correct' class of word.

I do not believe that it is fully accepted for formal/careful use by anything like all AmE speakers, although I would be most interested to hear from any contributors in a position to comment...

If 'to' is used and accepted, then it must be considered appropriate, by its users at least.
And if we start saying how words should be used today because of their etymology, then we are stepping back into the letters columns of The Times in the 1950s.

I disagree: if I were suggesting the resuscitation of a previously obsolete or entirely archaic construction simply on the basis of some research that I had done into the etymology of an expression, however 'logical' the locution might be in terms of basic semantics, you might well be justified in saying so.

The fact of the matter in this particular case, however, is that 'different from' enjoys just as widespread a use by educated (BrE) users today as does semantically identical 'different to'. Where, therefore, the choice is between two functionally identical options, one etymologically sound and the other questionable, there doesn't seem to be any particularly compelling reason to recommend the latter!

 

[timtak]

I do not believe that it (different than) is fully accepted for formal/careful use by anything like all AmE speakers, although I would be most interested to hear from any contributors in a position to comment...

I am not exactly in position to comment but, if one does a search for "different than" and limit to American university webpages ones finds that there are more than one million hits with examples from Princeton, Harvard and Berkley on the first two pages of hits. Very few, if any, of the referenced usages appear to be discussing whether the usage is acceptable. I am not sure if that is proof of the accetability of the usage, but for me it suggests that "different than" is acceptable in formal AmE.

I am very surprised.

 

[birdeen's call]

there doesn't seem to be any particularly compelling reason to recommend the latter!

If we're discussing which forms a teacher should recommend to his students, you may well be right. If we're discussing which forms a teacher should familiarize his students with, "different than" and "different to" are such forms.

 

[timtak]

438

Most everyone likes ice cream. (I would probably have marked this wrong!)
Almost everyone likes ice cream. (This is what I thought it should be)
But then I did a search on confusing words
Confusing Words

And I read the note at the bottom, and I was almost about to write to the author to point out his typo ("almost modifies everyone etc, not most") before I realised that "most everyone" is probably correct over there.

Or is it correct in the UK too?

Most all teachers know the answer?!
Almost all teachers know the answer, surely?

Sob. (I mean I am crying)

Tim

 

[philo2009]

If we're discussing which forms a teacher should recommend to his students, you may well be right. If we're discussing which forms a teacher should familiarize his students with, "different than" and "different to" are such forms.

I have no argument with that.

 

[Raymott]

438

Most everyone likes ice cream. (I would probably have marked this wrong!)
Almost everyone likes ice cream. (This is what I thought it should be)
But then I did a search on confusing words
Confusing Words

And I read the note at the bottom, and I was almost about to write to the author to point out his typo ("almost modifies everyone etc, not most") before I realised that "most everyone" is probably correct over there.

Or is it correct in the UK too?

Most all teachers know the answer?!
Almost all teachers know the answer, surely?

Sob. (I mean I am crying)

Tim

"Most" isn't right in AusE for this context. That would be like using "cause" for "because".

Look at the authority for the site:
"In 1990 my wife Anne came home from school and asked me if there was an easy way to collect the words that her students confused so that they might refer to their own personal list on their own personal computer. "

I guess if someone's wife Anne can say it's right, I can say it's wrong. Did you find an email address?

 

[timtak]

Thank you.

The email address for confusing words is rwanderman at gmail dot com

But before you conside writing to him to tell him that "most all" is a typo, please be aware that Google has more than one million hits for "Most all teachers" (though many of them contain punctuation).

I really have been marking that wrong, even though over there it is correct, I think.