atw: Re: Correct usage conundrum: "Match to" vs "Match with"

  • From: "Virtue, Chris" <Chris.Virtue@xxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: "austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Mon, 1 Feb 2010 15:30:33 +1100

Perhaps, when need help with usage, instead of asking the list for what is 
correct, we should ask “what would you do....” and range of opinions will come 
back, and we can decide which one suits the document.

Commonwealth Bank
Chris Virtue
Process Documentation
Group Property
Level 3, 120 Pitt St
Sydney
P: 02 9312 3928
M: 0413 189 976
E: chris.virtue@xxxxxxxxxx
Our vision is to be Australia's finest financial services organisation through 
excelling in customer service.

From: austechwriter-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx 
[mailto:austechwriter-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Geoffrey Marnell
Sent: Monday, 1 February 2010 15:08
To: austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: atw: Re: Correct usage conundrum: "Match to" vs "Match with"

Howard,

1. Your driving-test analogy erroneously conflates conventions with statements 
about conventions. A convention is not true or false, but a statement about a 
convention can be true or false. The imperative "You shall not drive at more 
than 40 kph in a school zone" is neither true nor false. A driving test will 
ask "In Victoria, what is the maximum speed at which you can legally drive 
through a school zone?" and will give you a couple of options. If you selected 
40 kph, you will have answered correctly. It's the same with language. A claim 
that "You must not join independent clauses with a comma", which is neither 
true nor false. But you can have a question on an editing test such as "In 
contemporary Australian English, a comma is not widely used to join independent 
clauses." If you answer Yes, then your answer is correct. My focus was on the 
convention, not on statements about conventions; thus your driving-test analogy 
misses the point.

2. Brian's and Ken's views are well known on this subject. Look at the 
austechwriter archives. But that is not really the issue. There are plenty of 
folk who believe that the rules of language are immutable and should not be 
broken (and thus we don't need to invoke Brian and Ken). If there weren't we 
wouldn't be having this debate. Think of Lynn Truss and all the other pedants, 
purists, sticklers and gerundgrinders. And think, too, of the folk who post 
messages on austechwriter who ask whether such and such a usage is correct 
(such as "Is it correct to hyphenate "email"?").The assumption behind such 
questions is that there is one and only way to do it; otherwise the questioner 
would not have left out the most important part of the question: the audience. 
Compare "Is it correct to hyphenate "email"?" with "In contemporary Australian 
English, is it customary to hyphenate "email"?". Only the latter question 
acknowledges the conventionality of language, and it's the only sensible one to 
ask.

Cheers

Geoffrey Marnell
Principal Consultant
Abelard Consulting Pty Ltd
T: +61 3 9596 3456
F: +61 3 9596 3625
W: www.abelard.com.au<http://www.abelard.com.au/>
Skype: geoffrey.marnell


________________________________
From: austechwriter-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx 
[mailto:austechwriter-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Howard Silcock
Sent: Monday, February 01, 2010 1:36 PM
To: austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: atw: Re: Correct usage conundrum: "Match to" vs "Match with"
1. Would you also refuse to use 'correct' (and 'incorrect') for answers to 
questions in a driving test?

2. What's the epistemological status of your assertion "Their use of 'correct' 
was in line with that definition"? Did you make phone calls to them and ask 
them exactly what they meant by the word? Or did you read through what they'd 
written and collect evidence for one interpretation and another, then decide 
that the only reasonable interpretation must be that they were talking about 
some absolute standard? They were very short posts for that process to be at 
all reliable! I can't see why you couldn't just as well interpret their meaning 
as referring to an 'established canon of usage' - i.e. as relating to 
conventions.

Sorry to be nit-picking - I'm trying to avoid that on this list now. However, 
you were the one to introduce all that philosophical guff!

Howard

On 1 February 2010 13:11, Geoffrey Marnell 
<geoffrey@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:geoffrey@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>> wrote:



"Correct adj.: In accordance with fact, truth, or reason: right."
Howard, there's a definition from the Oxford Shorter Dictionary.

Note that I was responding to posts from Brian and Ken. Their use of "correct" 
was in line with that definition. I know that there is also a use of "correct" 
to mean in accordance with a set of conventions. But given the other meaning 
(the Oxford meaning above) isn't it wiser to avoid using a term that also 
connotes something else. If we agree that language is not immutable but mostly 
conventional, let's choose words that more strongly suggest that, not words 
that imply that violations of the "rules" of language deserve "zero tolerance" 
(as does Lynn Truss and her merry band of sticklers).

As for truth statements and category mistakes, we are of the same mind. Of 
course imperatives at the heart of traditional grammar are not 
truth-statements, capable of being proven true or false. That was my very 
point. If we can't verify or falsify them, then let's stop using the word 
"correct" in the Oxford sense when we refer to them. Yes, they can't be true or 
false .. and for some folk, that is a revelation.

Good communicators choose words for both their denotation and their 
connotation. I'm afraid that the strongest connotation of "correct" is "in 
accordance with truth" not "in accordance with some convention". That's why I 
refuse to use it when I'm talking about language. It is simply misleading.

Cheers

Geoffrey Marnell
Principal Consultant
Abelard Consulting Pty Ltd
T: +61 3 9596 3456
F: +61 3 9596 3625
W: www.abelard.com.au<http://www.abelard.com.au/>
Skype: geoffrey.marnell


________________________________
From: 
austechwriter-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:austechwriter-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> 
[mailto:austechwriter-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:austechwriter-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]
 On Behalf Of Howard Silcock
Sent: Monday, February 01, 2010 12:50 PM

To: austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: atw: Re: Correct usage conundrum: "Match to" vs "Match with"

Hi Geoffey

I agree pretty much with the first part of your post. We need, as writers, to 
be aware of what the general expectations of our audience are (including what 
they think of as 'correct'), so that they can focus on our message rather than 
having to struggle to work out our meaning, or even just be distracted (to use 
your word) - for example, by thoughts like "gee, this guy doesn't even know how 
to spell 'hear, hear'!" (sorry, couldn't resist turning that one back on you!).

However, most of us are also aware that there are many stupid rules that have 
been foisted on us by generations of pedants, usually inappropriately carried 
over from Latin - for example, the one you mention about starting a sentence 
with "And". A technical writer would probably be well advised to at least know 
about these [yes, I do know I just used a split infinitive!], because some 
people will object to them. And that means that, if you're writing a document 
for a company, they may be concerned that your document may not look good to 
their customers if they find you've used a split infinitive or a sentence 
starting with 'And' and they've been taught that that's incorrect. In these 
cases, you need to be ready to justify your usage. And you need to decide when 
it's worth fighting for. I'd fight for starting a sentence with 'And', but 
often avoid split infinitives when I conveniently can, just because it doesn't 
seem worth fighting for.

That covers your comments about usage. But I'm not so sure I can endorse your 
philosophical comments so easily.

First, I think it's arguable that for most words we can now identify a correct 
spelling - and that the use of the word 'correct' is appropriate in that 
context. Of course, you could say it's just a conventional spelling, but in 
normal usage the word 'correct' often means 'correct according to some 
standard', which is nothing other than a convention. If I take a driving test, 
my answers will be correct if they reflect the conventions of road usage that 
underlie our laws. According to this interpretation of 'correct', Shakespeare's 
spelling is often incorrect - but we all know that our current standards 
weren't around when Shakespeare wrote, so what's the harm? And a word's 
spelling can be correct according to American usage but incorrect according to 
Australian usage. Again, everyone understands that. The point is that it's 
ridiculous to restrict 'correct' to some absolute interpretation - that just 
isn't how we normally use the word.

I can't see how you can apply Ryle's notion of 'category mistake' to this 
usage. That amounts to claiming that the way we write isn't the sort of thing 
that we can judge correct or incorrect. Well, if that's true, what kind of 
thing could we apply that distinction to? Only to statements that are true or 
false in some absolute sense? That just doesn't correspond to ordinary usage. 
I'd say that, in ordinary usage, driving on the right side of the road in 
Australia is incorrect (as well as unlawful). So we're really arguing about the 
meaning of the word 'correct' - I just don't think it in any way corresponds to 
truth or falsity.

(If you want an example of a category mistake, one possibility would be asking 
whether 'Never split an infinitive' is true or false. That sentence isn't a 
proposition, so it can't have a truth value.)

Howard
On 1 February 2010 09:32, Geoffrey Marnell 
<geoffrey@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:geoffrey@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>> wrote:
Hi Chris,

I'm not suggesting that anything goes, that everything should be acceptable. 
Drawing the line here is actually quite easy. If we write to communicate we 
don't communicate very well if the language we adopt distracts our readers. 
Thus we should use the language of our readers. Most readers are distracted by 
what you call "incorrect" spelling, so my advice would be spell as your readers 
are expecting. My point is that it is what the British philosopher Gilbert Ryle 
called a category mistake to call deviations from conventional spelling, 
grammar, idiom and the like "incorrect". By no common definition of 
"Correctness" are such deviations incorrect. They are merely unconventional. 
Otherwise we have to say that T S Eliot, William Shakespeare and and the like 
wrote incorrectly (or that we now write incorrectly by not writing like them).

Language changes and will always change. There is nothing to be gained by 
calling one particular variant of English correct and another incorrect. There 
is effective writing and non-effective writing. End of story.

Here's another angle: we come by knowledge by a priori means ("I think 
therefore I am") or by a posteriori means ("Water boils at 100 degrees Celsius 
at sea level"). Barring revelation, there are no other ways. How, then, would 
you justify or prove the truth or otherwise of "Never start a sentence with 
"and" or "but""? Or "Never split an infinitive"? Such claims are more like 
"Women must change their surnames after marriage": mere conventions that have 
no intrinsic epistemological value. Grammar is just like that. We need 
conventions so that we can understand one another. But that doesn't mean that 
conventions can't change or that they are up there with scientific truths. 
(Parallel:  to avoid mayhem on the roads, we needed a convention regarding what 
side of the road we are going to drive on. It doesn't follow that someone who 
drives on the right-hand side of the road in Australia is driving incorrectly. 
Unlawfully perhaps, but not incorrectly.)

Cheers


Geoffrey Marnell
Principal Consultant
Abelard Consulting Pty Ltd
T: +61 3 9596 3456
F: +61 3 9596 3625
W: www.abelard.com.au<http://www.abelard.com.au/>
Skype: geoffrey.marnell


________________________________
From: 
austechwriter-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:austechwriter-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> 
[mailto:austechwriter-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:austechwriter-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]
 On Behalf Of Virtue, Chris
Sent: Monday, February 01, 2010 9:00 AM

To: austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: atw: Re: Correct usage conundrum: "Match to" vs "Match with"

It’s tricky. There have been recent trends in school to have less emphasis on 
spelling and grammar and more on getting the meaning across. There are problems 
with this. Firstly, where does one draw the line? Secondly, and perhaps more 
importantly, the poor spelling, usage and grammar was so infuriating some 
people, including prospective employers, that it was getting in the way of the 
message. Some school teachers I know are now insisting on at least correct 
spelling.

I was given a copy of a major bank’s “documentation standards” when I started a 
contract with them. In the usage section, there were a number of things that 
were incorrect, but, they were paying the bills, so I rolled over. If in doubt, 
do what the client wants.

This issue isn’t just confined to English. I was in Singapore a few years ago 
and there were posters all over the place (in English) “Speak Mandarin, not 
dialect”.

Commonwealth Bank
Chris Virtue
Process Documentation
Group Property
Level 3, 120 Pitt St
Sydney
P: 02 9312 3928
M: 0413 189 976
E: chris.virtue@xxxxxxxxxx<mailto:chris.virtue@xxxxxxxxxx>
Our vision is to be Australia's finest financial services organisation through 
excelling in customer service.

From: 
austechwriter-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:austechwriter-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> 
[mailto:austechwriter-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:austechwriter-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]
 On Behalf Of Geoffrey Marnell
Sent: Saturday, 30 January 2010 18:10
To: austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: atw: Re: Correct usage conundrum: "Match to" vs "Match with"

Loosen up lads. Next you'll be saying that American spelling and punctuation is 
"incorrect". It's certainly not the same as our usage. Or maybe you'll be game 
and say that Shakespeare's English was "incorrect". Well, no-one writes like 
that these days, do they. So who is correct: Shakespeare or us? Or perhaps you 
think that the grammar of Yorkshire is "incorrect" because it is different from 
the grammar of the Home Counties (and hence Alan Bennett is a poor writer). If 
so, you are forgetting legitimate variety and unstoppable flux. One more 
example of a thousand possible examples: less than a hundred years ago, it was 
considered standard English to place a space between the last word in a 
sentence and the final question mark or exclamation mark. Was that practice 
"incorrect"? Or are we "incorrect" because we don't do that now ? Will you 
still be saying that "disinterested" means objective and impartial when 95% of 
the population understands the word to mean bored or lacking in interest? 
Perhaps a villain really is a serf, not a crook.

 It's really time to stop using words like "incorrect" and "wrong" when it 
comes to what is purely conventional and forever changing. Words like 
"unconventional" or "unusual" are far better. In which case media might well be 
a legitimate source (one of many) of information about conventional usage. And 
in which case descriptivist dictionaries like the Macquarie are better friends 
than old-fashioned prescriptivist dictionaries.

Let's go back to basics. Do you write to communicate? Or write to instantiate a 
set of supposedly immutable laws of grammar? If you want to write according to 
the so-called immutable rules of ninetieth-century grammar books, you risk 
communication breakdown as readers become increasingly distracted by what they 
perceive as quaint, odd or even stuffy. Put another way, if you write to 
communicate, it pays to adopt the language of your intended audience, whether 
you like it or not. Your prejudices shouldn't enter into the equation.

Here's to the Macquarie Dictionary, the only authoritative source for 
information about how Australians use their language. And why shouldn't we use 
our language? I suspect, Brian and Ken, that you would rather us Australians to 
spell "organise" as "organize". (Wasn't that the spelling of so-called standard 
English?) And you are no doubt tut-tutting at the "and" at the start of this 
sentence, even though it is a common practice and has been so for many hundreds 
of years, by writers renown and otherwise. Shakespeare too.

Finally, a pertinent quote from George Orwell, written in 1946:
" The defence of the English language … has nothing to do with setting up a 
‘standard English’ which must never be departed from [nor with] correct grammar 
and syntax, which are of no importance so long as one makes one’s meaning clear 
…”
Here, here. A grammatically perfect sentence punctuated majestically can still 
fail to get its message across. I'm with Orwell: it's time we worried more 
about communicating and less about what is supposedly correct and incorrect.

Geoffrey Marnell
Principal Consultant
Abelard Consulting Pty Ltd
T: +61 3 9596 3456
F: +61 3 9596 3625
W: www.abelard.com.au<http://www.abelard.com.au/>
Skype: geoffrey.marnell


________________________________
From: 
austechwriter-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:austechwriter-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> 
[mailto:austechwriter-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:austechwriter-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]
 On Behalf Of Ken Randall
Sent: Saturday, January 30, 2010 3:42 PM
To: austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: atw: Re: Correct usage conundrum: "Match to" vs "Match with"
I was using the media as an example of incorrect usage.

--- On Sat, 30/1/10, Brian Clarke 
<brianclarke01@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:brianclarke01@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>> wrote:

From: Brian Clarke 
<brianclarke01@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:brianclarke01@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>>
Subject: atw: Re: Correct usage conundrum: "Match to" vs "Match with"
To: austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Received: Saturday, 30 January, 2010, 2:59 PM

Only the Macq uses the media as an arbiter of correct usage. I use the media as 
Aunt Sallies at which to throw shies.

Matched 'against' is another possibility - as in sports contests.

Brian.


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