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From: rob@ptsfa.UUCP (Rob Bernardo)
Newsgroups: net.women,net.nlang
Subject: Re: Artificial vs natural language
Message-ID: <702@ptsfa.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 24-Jun-85 13:18:14 EDT
Article-I.D.: ptsfa.702
Posted: Mon Jun 24 13:18:14 1985
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Reply-To: rob@ptsfa.UUCP (Rob Bernardo)
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In article <351@spar.UUCP> ellis@spar.UUCP (Michael Ellis) writes:
>>>Does anyone have information on the success of attempts of 
>>>"conscious" linguistic change? -- Henry Pollard
>>
>>The removal of the double negative from English was such a conscious
>>change.  It is now considered "bad grammar" to say things like "I don't
>>like none of the things in that basket"...  -- Ed Gould
>
I have heard (but am not sure I believe) that the "in'" pronunciation
of the "-ing" verb ending was the standard pronunciation at some point
in history, but that the "ing" pronunciation was taught in schools as
the correct pronunciation by hypercorrect teachers. ['Hypercorrrect' is
a term used by linguists to denote a 'bending over backwards' in the
mistaken use of a certain linguistic habit as the historically original
or "proper" way of speaking.]

From what I remember learning in socio-linguistics,
it seems to me that the easiest
way to get people to make a linguistic change is to associate the
desired linguistic habit with desired self-image. It used to be that the middle
class would often adopt linguistic habits they believed to be those
of the upper class.
-- 


Rob Bernardo, San Ramon, California
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