atw: Re: Pronounseeashun

Jeff, I wouldn't refute your observation about language transition. I was taught that any common language practice is, by definition, correct - even if the practice is only used by a microcosm of speakers. I struggle with that concept daily.
It pains me when I hear the word "myself" used in a context where "me" is both more efficient, and correct and "myself" is neither. There's a perfectly good definition of how a reflexive pronoun should be used, but the bulk of speakers flout that rule. (Some flaunt it, since abundant malapropism apparently makes a case more strongly.) Does that make the rule wrong? No, it doesn't. Common usage has established a convention in which a specific rule is ignored. Therefore, since I can't control the masses, I have to accept even professional writers (script writers, specifically) misusing a word in a way that I find reprehensible. But I don't have to promulgate the misuse in my own work.
Nice touch in your closing sentence, and no doubt we agree. "Youse" strikes me as idiotic. How do you pluralise a word which is already plural? Although "youse" does establish a collective pluralism which is not obvious from the word "you"; I could equally ask who thought it was a good idea to have a word which is singular and plural with the same spelling, and where plurality might not be obvious even in context. The local dialect "yins" does the job perfectly well in Pittsburgh, and works for the same reason that "youse" might. Although I wouldn't expect to see either word in written form. No doubt when "youse" starts to appear in print in Australia, it will contain an apostrophe.
So by your logic, please feel free to prove to me that I shouldn't address you as "Jeff".
Your logic suggests to me that as soon as a large enough group of people choose (chooses?) to express language differently, that expressed language becomes correct. And since a shift has to start with one person's usage, the single use by that one person would be correct also. So I won't tell you that your logic is wrong, but I will suggest that the same logic removes your right to insist on the spelling and pronunciation of your own name, even though you appear to have a rule, convention and preference for what you call yourself.* BTW, I don't know that's a rule, I only imply infer that from your signature line.
As a communicator, the measure of my work is whether the intended audience achieves rapid comprehension. Um... I'm sure I could have expressed that better. As a writer I struggle daily with changes in language and style, but I feel professionally compelled to deliver work which observes fundamental rules of grammar and spelling, as modified by the preference of my client (whatever those rules are, and however shifting. I accept that my customer has the right, backed by the Golden Rule, to be the final arbiter, in the interest of continued employment).
Anyway, that's how it struck myself before having me first coffee. I will now tiptoe out of the room. No, I think I"ll run. 

John
* although you retain the right to not respond when the source and target names don't precisely match.
Good grief. It truly staggers me that, in the twentieth-first century, we are still harbouring the illusion that any particular linguistic practice is correct or incorrect. Does anyone today speak, spell, construct or punctuate as Shakespeare did? No. So is the way we write today incorrect because it differs so markedly from the writings of an acknowledged master of the English language? Or was Shakespeare a crap writer? Likewise, do the Americans punctuate incorrectly because they use the serial comma when it is not used in most other contemporary Englishes? Anyone game enough to tell the Americans that?
The whole application of the concept of correctness to a mere convention (as language is) is a category mistake pure and simple. A linguistic practice might be conventional or unconventional, effective or ineffective. But it cannot be correct or incorrect. (Yes, I deliberately started that last sentence with a conjunction. Feel free to prove to me, by either a priori means or a posteriori, that my usage is incorrect. Show me the logic; show me the evidence. How might you even start?) Or if you want to be relativistic about it­and say that correctness can be applied to majority conventions even if the conventions are changeable­then you would have to say that those women who refuse to change their surnames after marriage are behaving incorrectly. A bit silly, eh?
It further staggers me that contemporary folk are judging others by the way they pronounce their words. I thought we had defeated this sort of class-ridden snobbery during the cultural wars of the 1960s and 70s, along with judging a person?s worth by the clothes they wear or the length of their hair. 

I?ll talk as I please, thank you very much. ?Acceptable? my arse.

Do youse understand?

Geoffrey Marnell



John P Maizels
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