Or decide which one suits the audience. Geoffrey Marnell Principal Consultant Abelard Consulting Pty Ltd T: +61 3 9596 3456 F: +61 3 9596 3625 W: <http://www.abelard.com.au/> www.abelard.com.au Skype: geoffrey.marnell _____ From: austechwriter-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:austechwriter-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Virtue, Chris Sent: Monday, February 01, 2010 3:31 PM To: austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: atw: Re: Correct usage conundrum: "Match to" vs "Match with" 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: <http://www.abelard.com.au/> 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> 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: <http://www.abelard.com.au/> 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 12:50 PM To: 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> 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: <http://www.abelard.com.au/> www.abelard.com.au Skype: geoffrey.marnell _____ From: austechwriter-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:austechwriter-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Virtue, Chris Sent: Monday, February 01, 2010 9:00 AM To: 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 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: Saturday, 30 January 2010 18:10 To: 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: <http://www.abelard.com.au/> www.abelard.com.au Skype: geoffrey.marnell _____ From: austechwriter-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:austechwriter-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Ken Randall Sent: Saturday, January 30, 2010 3:42 PM To: 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> wrote: From: Brian Clarke <brianclarke01@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Subject: atw: Re: Correct usage conundrum: "Match to" vs "Match with" To: 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. _____ Yahoo!7: Catch-up on your favourite Channel 7 TV shows easily, legally, and for free at PLUS7. Check it out <http://au.rd.yahoo.com/tv/catchup/tagline/*http:/au.tv.yahoo.com/plus7/?cmp=mailtag> . ************** IMPORTANT MESSAGE ***************************** This e-mail message is intended only for the addressee(s) and contains information which may be confidential. If you are not the intended recipient please advise the sender by return email, do not use or disclose the contents, and delete the message and any attachments from your system. Unless specifically indicated, this email does not constitute formal advice or commitment by the sender or the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (ABN 48 123 123 124) or its subsidiaries. We can be contacted through our web site: commbank.com.au <http://commbank.com.au/> . 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