Him and I

[C John Edward Culver]

Carol:
> Rupert Grint (Ron) says in SS/PS, "*She* needs to get her
> priorities straight," 

CJ:
I took it as an example of contrastive stress, much along the lines of
"HE needs to get a haircut" when a shaggy-hair teen walks by -- HE in
particular, more than anyone else, is in need of a good trim.

But while American English rhythm and intonation patterns are a
special hobby of mine, I haven't attempted any cross-pond comparisons,
so I may be presumptuous in assuming British intonation works the same
way.

Carol earlier:

> BTW, logic is the basis of many of the rules of grammar that CJ
> finds so objectionable.

CJ:
Little old me? I LOVE grammar rules. Oh, except that that silly thing
that insists on atrocities such as "Neither they nor I am going". Did
I object to anything else?

Carol:
>the speaker sounds, to many people, uneducated or, at the 
>very least, careless. (Sorry to sound elitist, but many people 
>do judge others on their educational level, whether we like it or 
>not.

CJ:
Elitist, indeed. This certainly tells us a lot about the biases of
those "many people", but nothing about the speaker. In any case,
saying, "Double negatives make one sound uneducated" (a bias) is not
the same as saying "Double negatives are grammatically incorrect"
(also a bias, but a different one). Myself, I think saying "Neither
they nor I am going" makes one sound uneducated. But that's just me :-)

Carol:
>the expression should be "May I help whoever is next?"

CJ:
If we assume grammar rules are descriptive, then "May I help whoever
is next?" can't be a rule if nobody ever says it. I presume what you
have in mind here is consistency: because this is the way it's said in
other cases (e.g., "Give it to whoever's behind you.") then we need to
be consistent and do the same here.

I can't find your Six Cs post, and I only remember three of them:
clarity, conciseness and consistency. This is probably where we
differ: I attach a great deal of importance to clarity; language is,
after all, a *communication* medium. Consistency and conciseness are
largely important only insofar as they affect clarity. They are
important in certain settings -- e.g., academia, professional writing,
journalism -- because the implied erudition helps establish the
credibility and authority of the writer/speaker. But for the vast
masses (unwashed or otherwise) they are not in and of themselves a
matter of great concern. Whether I say, "He doesn't have any," or "He
don't got none." is not an issue of clarity. And the lack of
consistency is only important to those who value it.

Trying to correct an uptown Chicago teen's "He don't got none" tells
us a lot about what the corrector values -- consistency, "standard"
English, high education -- but it also presumes the teen values the
same things. The first presumption, that non-standard English is a
mark of low education, is often unfounded. My own brother, raised in
Texas, liberally pepper their speaking with "all y'alls", "fixin' tos"
and "ain'ts", yet he has a college degree.

The second presumption, that the speaker desires (or should desire) to
conform to the standard of the corrector is both paternalistic and
inconsiderate. In the case of the Chicago teen, in fact, insisting on
"He hasn't got any" does him a disservice in a community where
"standard" English carries a strong negative stigma.

Ultimately, it's the community that defines the standard. This means,
for example, that I don't try to convince my brother that "y'all" is
non-standard (which, in Texas, is not at all the case). Nor do I tell
a Chicago teen "He don't got nothin'" makes him sound uneducated when,
within his linguistic community, it does not. Now, should the teen
desire to pursue academics, he must learn the "language" of academia,
which includes conformity to "standard" English. But I wouldn't
presume to jump his case when, from the comfort of his college dorm
room, he calls home and slips back into the English of his youth.

CJ, who thinks academia should be slow to impose its own linguistic
standards on communities which may well have different priorities.