Rebuttal to "Language Standards Are Cool"

by Hobbes

Mr. Gottlieb appears to misunderstand some of the ideas I presented in an earlier editorial. Let it also be known that I take personal offense at his use of the word pseudointellectual.

First of all, Mr. Gottlieb misses the point of my discussion of resumes. Reasons why a resume must meet certain standards are not the issue, and Mr. Gottlieb's accusation that I do not like spelling or grammar are ludicrous. In my previous editorial, I in fact stated that resumes must conform to certain standards without bothing to explain why social convention holds that they should. The reason for this is that I was making a comparison between the standards to which resumes must adhere and showing that such standards have their place, but not in an RPGamer editorial. If I were to digress on why a resume must be written a certain way, I would wander far from the topic at hand. Mr. Gottlieb's dismissal of social convention as "nebulous blanket-explanation" is quite far-fetched, as it is an observation, not an explanation, of what happens. I never declared it to be an "arbitrary weirdness." As for grammar, it should be evident from reading my editorial that I do indeed follow a certain standard when I write. My beef is with those who claim there is only one standards.

Mr. Gottlieb goes on to defend prescriptive grammar without showing any sort of hint that he understands what I had to say. He claims that "a great way to help an editorial deliver its idea is to make it adhere to linguistic standards others will recognize," which is true but does not contradict my postion. To see why, one need only to look back at what I wrote:

"A few mistakes will not affect the validity of an argument."

Obviously, an editorial that does not follow the social conventions (standards) of its audience is not going to get its point across. Something written in Korean would probably not be understood by very many English-speakers. However, something written in English, even with typos and/or grammatical errors, is still written in English. Compare the following two sentences.

Sentence 1: "To whom did you give the letter?"

Sentence 2: "Who did you give the letter to?"

Both are English, and both say exactly the same thing. Moreover, any English speaker will overlook the "incorrectness" of the second sentence, since it does a good job of conveying its message. To appeal to a high authority on communication and "proper" English, remember how Winston Churchill said that not ending sentences with prepositions is a rule "up with which he [refused] to put."

Mr. Gottlieb's "proof by induction" (although is not a proof and does not use induction) falls even faster. The simple reason that a picture of a symphony does not constitue "good" English is that they do not fall within the social convention for what English is at all. English writing does not usually use pictures. Some writing systems, such as the one used in China, do, but no one will dare call that English. When someone mentions English, he or she is usually referring to a particular way of speaking or writing, not a particular was of drawing or playing music. Thus, my statement was not fundamentally wrong.

One of Mr. Gottlieb's most serious errors is his accusation that I attacked Mr. Maciel's language rather than his ideas. It should be obvious how false this is, but I now feel obligated to clear my name of the charge of hypocrisy. Note that I made no mention of the grammar employed by Mr. Maciel in his discussion of the fine citizens of Mississippie. "We and Hobbes know that Maciel's attribution of bad English to Mississippi hicks was not a crucial idea of his editorial," says Mr. Gottlieb, but Mr. Maciel did present that idea. I addressed it because I feel the premise behind it is widespread, mistaken, and dangerous. What's more, it is an idea. If I had criticized the way Mr. Maciel presented that idea, I would contradict myself, but I did not. I am merely convinced that the idea so nonchalantly dumped into Mr. Maciel's editorial is representative of a trend that has caused much suffering in society. While the idea is sometimes used rather harmlessly, as in commercials where firefighters always have New York accents to make them sound tough, it is not always so innocuous. Black people, for instance, are often put down because their speech is slightly different from "white" speech. Whiles these prejudices go back to the times when black people were considered inferior regardless of their language, those outdated racist feelings are perpetuated in linguistic prejudices.

Yet another error Mr. Gottlieb makes is his assumption that, because I did not bother to provide evidence for two statements that are fairly axiomatic in the linguistic community, there must not exist such foundation. Mr. Gottlieb goes so far as to declare them flimsy on the basis of his own analysis rather than the analysis of many years of professional study. Alas, his one small voice falls flat, as I shall demonstrate. First of all, Mr. Gottlieb states that my assertion that one cannot judge a person based on that person's speech is obviously flawed. However, his reasons amount to a "proof by blatant assertion." He simply declares that one can tell a person's level of education from the way that person talks. While it is true to an extent that one's speech may reveal that person's origin, that is hardly a prejudice in and of itself. It even hurts his position, because in order to judge someone based on their growing up in Mississippi, one must first be fairly sure that the person is indeed from Mississippi. Furthermore, the deep-seated prejudices Mr. Gottlieb says can be learned from language are merely a reflection of certain sociolinguistic trends. One might notice that men's and women's speech in certain Asian contries is quite different. This, however, says nothing about the individual men and women; it merely shows that the social conventions in those countries allowed men's and women's speech to develop differently. To give an example, many aspects of feminine Japanese can be traced to the nuances of the speech employed by women working in the Imperial Capital and in red-light districts. These are retained, to some extent, in modern Japanese, even though the situation of women in Japan is much different now from back in the Tokugawa era. What's more, any attempt to say something about an individual based on such minor points is nothing more than guesswork.

Mr. Gottlieb's short paragraph attacking the second linguistic maxim I presented is yet another flawed "proof by blatant assertion." Rather than back up his claim, he states, "Seems to me that, to the extent we can tell anything about anyone's intelligence at all, how a person speaks speak is a wonderful indicator." His examples of ways in which it does this are flawed.

By his logic, I could claim that he is dumb on the basis that he said, "how a person speaks speak..." Such a claim would be unfounded, of course. He says that a person's speech might reveal that person to be articulate or creative. He does not mention the fact that being articulate is a somewhat nebulous concept that applies only to speech, not to intelligence. He also ignores the fact that creativity has many, many outlets. Someone who "grunt[s] a lot" might be extremely smart. Take, for instance, Abraham Lincoln.

He was an awful speaker, yet he was a brilliant, creative man. Consider also the former Chair of the Mathematics department at my university. He has the strongest southern accent I have ever heard, and the immediate reactinon most people have upon hearing him, without knowing his credentials, is to dismiss him as a hick just like any other southerner. Yet another counterexample would be my Korean and Linguistics professor. She, being born in Korea, has countless problems with first to second language interference, which means her speech would be considered "bad" by many. However, she is yet another example of a brilliant professor. None of these people would be considered "good" English speakers by the standards of Mr. Gottlieb, Mr. Maciel, or most Americans. However, Mr. Gottlieb, Mr. Maciel, and most Americans would be wrong to assume that these people are dumb or incapable of mastering English based on the fact that their speech is different. Another thing that should be pointed out is that Mr. Gottlieb claims that some people are too dumb to master "linguistic norms." I'll assume he means (or at least should mean) that some people cannot acquire language to match that of the culture in which they live. While it is true that some people suffer brain damage and incur certain types of aphasia, to assume that these people are less smart or even the usual object of linguistic prejudice is to assume incorrectly. Simply put, every child acquires language, does so quite easily, and does so in accordance with the language spoken in its environment while it matures. Mr. Gottlieb finishes up his paragraph by restating his "proof by blatant assertion," which is equally flawed this time, as well.

The opening sentence of the concluding paragraph again misinterprets my view. In it, Mr. Gottlieb seems to imply that I do not think there are any of what he calls standards and linguistic norms. Unfortunately for him, I do hold that certain standards (plural) exist, and that they exist because of society. My argument, sans a couple of digressions, was that editorials sent to RPGamer should not be held to the same standard as should a resume. The lack of any final objective standard for English merely supports this. My digressions into dangerous prejudices were icing on the cake. I maintain that one should not judge an editorial writer, a Mathematics, Korean, or English professor, a resident of Mississippi, or a former President of the United States based on a false standard derived from cultural elitism.

-Hobbes31415