Status Anxiety: Grammatic irony

AlexM

I'm sorry, Mr. Young, but all your article (and that of Mr. Daniels 'Theodore Dalrymple') demonstrates is that you have not read (or understood) Professor Pinker's works.

Unless one is afflicted by various specific types of brain damage it is simply not possible for a human being to express himself ungramatically in his ideolect. Each ideolect is a valid and perfectly precise human language. This is exactly how all languages on the planet today, without exception, have developed.

What your perfectly valid complaint outlines is a diferently matter entirely: that speakers of a minority language/ideolect should be encouraged to speak a majority language in order to improve their chances in life. This is why the majority of Finns speak near-faultless English.

Black kids speaking 'street' converse in no less a valid variety of English than you or I do and it encompasses a faultless grammar. Indeed, I would wager that even if you could master the accent, children who speak this variety of English would easily rumble you in a recording if you couldn't master the grammar.

However, it is very important that these children are taught that if they wish to progress in life that they need to master 'standard' English in addition to their native language/ideolect. There is absolutely no reason why these people cannot maintain their own ideolect for use in private/family circumstances whilst they use 'standard English' in their communications with the wider world. It is no different from that the fact that speakers of the many Swiss dialects (which are incomprehensible to anyone outside their own valley) all learn standard German at school. I'm sure Professor Pinker would not disagree with this.

Paul Worthington

AlexM writes: “… it is simply not possible for a human being to express himself 'ungrammatically' [he
means 'ungrammatically'] in his ideolect.” Then, whoops, he goes an writes like as 'ow your complaint, Toby is “… a differently matter entirely.” I fink that’s a bit like 'im bein' 'oist on is own whatsit, innit.”

According to Mr. M’s lights, Finns learning English could have their own “ideolects”, largely conditioned by the influence of Finnish grammar, which would nonetheless be “near-faultless”. Most of the English-learning Finns are probably straining to achieve something other than that.

It is the habit of many in the blighted world of modern academia to use sophistry to pretend that a real problem, which people in the real world know from experience, “really” (in that sense of “O, how clever am I”) does not exist. Lack of essential communication skills (such as a grasp of grammatical rules and precision in vocabulary) in the kind of English which is widely understood, because it has shared rules of grammar, is a real problem for many people. And anybody who has listened to some of the more excitable juveniles in the more trendy corners of the BBC World Service, which used to set a spectrum of standard usage for the world, will have noted that this sometimes results in communication failure beyond the street.

I hope the young lady gets the job at the Spectator, where much fine writing is still at home.

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AlexM

With way too much time on my hands, I read virtually everything produced by the Spectator's bloggers and columnists and most of the attendant comments. My readership goes back five or six years, probably more.

Your contribution above would be definitely in the running for number one spot as the greatest load of tosh I've come across.

David

Interestingly, here in Scotland we're starting to witness increasing use of idiomatic language such as Scots, Doric, Lallans and my pet hate of Gaelic. For example, many idiot MSPs last week decided to do their swearing in ceremony in a language other than English.

Leaving aside whether or not these are languages, idioms or dialects or whatever, I think it's the same issue highlighted in the article.

The author is exactly right. We should be less tolerant of use of incorrect English rather than more accepting of these dialects, street slang etc. I don't think it will do our young people's job prospects any good at all if they're effectively speaking gibberish that few people outside our small country understands. It just adds to our insularity, parochiality and makes us look stupid.

Hardly the way to reduce inequality, class differences and improve social mobility if the people who most need it remain at the bottom of the pile due to our Educationalists and political class deluding them with the fallacy that they can communicate effectively and get on in life using these obscure languages / dialects.

John

As a fan of both Toby Young and Steven Pinker I was first surprised and then dismayed to read Toby's 'Grammatic irony'. Pinker is making points about language, not language education.

Toby refers to Steven Pinker as 'Stephen'. Could it be that he has not even read the front cover of any of Pinker's books? If he has not, let me recommend, even ahead of 'The Language Instinct', the brilliant and brilliantly cool polemic against contemporary soggy thinking, 'The Blank Slate'. I believe Toby would find it very much to his taste.

Toby, I wish you good luck with the school!