Fun with Apostrophes (LONG)

[GulPlum <plumeski@yahoo.com>]

Melissa wrote a bunch of stuff with which I agree wholeheartedly, but 
on which I have a few comments...

> Actually, there is a way: "A"s.  I got three "A"s on my report card.

Thanks. You took the words not so much out of my mouth as from under 
my fingers. :-)

<snip>

> Webster had a point.  Rules exist to make it easier to
> understand written language, and I would say that they're even more
> necessary with the rapid growth of electronic communication.

Quite. Incidentally, as it happens, something in the last few 
messages has made me scratch my head. Several people have mentioned 
Webster, but his was in fact one of the *last* great dictionaries, 
preceded as he was by Russian, French, Spanish and Italian 
lexicographers in the early 17th century, then Johnson in England in 
1755; Webster's first edition wasn't published until 1828. It's 
hardly as if Webster was a great inventor of standardising language. 

Actually, and germane to the issues at stake here, Webster wrote his 
dictionary specifically as an answer to Johnson's because as a 
staunch Republican he felt that American English needed to strike out 
on its own, in its own direction, and he invented a whole series of 
spellings in a deliberate effort to be different from Johnson. 

Lexicography at the service of politics. :-)

As a philologist rather than as a Brit, I find Johnson's achievements 
to be superior, in that his approach was quite the opposite to 
Webster's. Where Webster wanted to extol the great men of his time 
(he included proper nouns which Johnson deliberately omitted) and had 
a prescriptivist attitude to lexicography, Johnson saw his job as 
recording the history and usage of words, rather than imposing his 
views. Although Jonhson's was by far not the first English 
dictionary, he invented the idea of including variant spellings of 
words, and although his choices were frequently arbitrary, his 
primary spellings (which have come down to us as the "preferred" or 
even "correct" ones) were those used in the educated London circles 
he frequented, which is understandable. Even so, despite being an 
academic, his dictionary included an extraordinary number of utterly 
non-academic and regional terminology.

It is Johnson whom we should thank for the fact that unlike the other 
great international languages (French, Italian, Spanish, German), 
there is no body of august people telling us how we should use the 
language and imposing their vision of what is "correct". He opposed 
the creation of an "Acamdemie Anglaise" and the English language's 
fluidity and openness to change over the last 250 years would not 
have been so transparent if his objections hadn't been noted. 

So why are those underlining the natural mutation of language talking 
about Webster? :-)

> Melissa, who agrees with Orwell that people who are incapable of
> writing clearly are also incapable of thinking clearly

Now that is something with which I must strenuouly disagree. :-) I'll 
give you one example as an illustration. A friend of mine, with whom 
I've collaborated on several projects, is intelligent, well spoken 
and one of the clearest thinkers I know. However, he is almost 
incapable of putting his thoughts on paper and if he is forced to, 
tends to ramble uncontrollably (his handwriting, incidentally, is 
beautifully neat). I, on the other hand, am almost incapable of 
presenting a cogent argument in speech (I have no speech impediments 
or anything like that) and tend to spend ages trying to find 
*exactly* the word I want - people are known to have complete 
conversations in the pauses I leave between words. ;-) However, if I 
have the chance to put my thoughts on paper I tend to flow a lot more 
easily and *tend* not to ramble anywhere nearly as much. My 
handwriting, incidentally, is generally considered to be illegible, 
even to myself. :-)

Ever since I moved from London, our communications are usually emails 
from me to him, and telephone calls from him to me. :-)

In other words, some people are better at clear thinking in the 
written form, and some in oral. To be honest, I regard those with 
oral abilities more highly, as what they say can always be written 
down. People who think better when writing have to wait for someone 
to read their words. :-)