The subjunctive mood

[Novaheart]

Snotty or essential?

[Celeste Chalfonte]

Separates the sheep from the goats. Therefore, essential.

[Newman]

I wouldn't know.

[Gingersnap]

Soi Boi. You're neither here nor there.

[Newman]

Soi Boi. You're neither here nor there.

Oi.

[Celeste Chalfonte]

Would that everyone understood the question, at least.

I subjunct in 3 languages.

[daveman]

Would that everyone understood the question, at least.

I subjunct in 3 languages.

yoda worthless without pics.JPG

[Newman]

It would not be useless, were there photos.

Our cultural rage is to respect all interpretations of standard English, and while the brittle edge has Elvis singing, "I be so lonely I could die," the backwash changes countless little things. We say lay when we should say lie, for example, or end sentences with an extra grunt, at.

So we lose the subjunctive, mostly evidenced by saying was instead of were. The song lyric, "If I were a carpenter, and you were a lady..." is fast becoming "If I was a carpenter, and you was a lady...."

The subjunctive isn't essential. Poetry never is.

[Novaheart]

It would not be useless, were there photos.

Our cultural rage is to respect all interpretations of standard English, and while the brittle edge has Elvis singing, "I be so lonely I could die," the backwash changes countless little things. We say lay when we should say lie, for example, or end sentences with an extra grunt, at.

So we lose the subjunctive, mostly evidenced by saying was instead of were. The song lyric, "If I were a carpenter, and you were a lady..." is fast becoming "If I was a carpenter, and you was a lady...."

The subjunctive isn't essential. Poetry never is.

Good example.

[Celeste Chalfonte]

It would not be useless, were there photos.

Our cultural rage is to respect all interpretations of standard English, and while the brittle edge has Elvis singing, "I be so lonely I could die," the backwash changes countless little things. We say lay when we should say lie, for example, or end sentences with an extra grunt, at.

So we lose the subjunctive, mostly evidenced by saying was instead of were. The song lyric, "If I were a carpenter, and you were a lady..." is fast becoming "If I was a carpenter, and you was a lady...."

The subjunctive isn't essential. Poetry never is.

In the Maslovian sense, I disagree. Poetry isn't essential to physical survival, but to survival on a higher level, intellectual, cultural, and social survival, it most assuredly is. For purely physical survival, we could pare the entire language down to a handful of concrete nouns and perhaps a few action verbs. The vocabulary, perhaps, of a dull normal 3-year-old. I don't want to live at that level.

[Newman]

In the Maslovian sense, I disagree. Poetry isn't essential to physical survival, but to survival on a higher level, intellectual, cultural, and social survival, it most assuredly is. For purely physical survival, we could pare the entire language down to a handful of concrete nouns and perhaps a few action verbs. The vocabulary, perhaps, of a dull normal 3-year-old. I don't want to live at that level.

In point of fact, Celeste, you and I are in agreement.

The subjunctive is different than most grammatical terms in that it exists to express the author's intent beyond what the words themselves say. Thus "God help us after Biden is sworn in" isn't a command directed at God, but a plea, a distress call. Talk of losing the subjunctive puts me in a bad mood.

[daveman]

Semi-random thoughts on language:

Language is fun. Wordplay is a blast.

What is the primary source for the quote "the pun is the lowest tipe of wit"? How is it connected with Dr. Samuel Johnson and John Dryden?

This quote appears in various iterations that trace back to John Dennis, a playwright of the early eighteenth century. In The Gentleman's Magazine he remarked that "A man who could make so vile a pun would not scruple to pick a pocket." According to at least one account, Dennis was responding to a particularly bad pun, in which the lack of a waiter, called a "drawer," in a tavern was likened to the lack of a drawer in a table.

John Dryden was a friend of Dennis's who disliked punning in general, saying it would "torture one poor word ten thousand ways."

Samuel Johnson agreed, calling puns the lowest form of humor.

"A pun is the lowest form of humor—when you don't think of it first."
-- Oscar Levant

Puns are just one form of wordplay, and show, I believe a quick wit. A way of looking at a word and its use from more than one angle simultaneously. Dennis, Dryden, and Johnson were just peeved they didn't think of it first.

That aside, Celeste is right -- a language reduced to mere utility reflects a life reduced to mere utility -- and that's simply not worth living.

So many of the concepts humans discuss and sing about and write poetry about can't be expressed in any other way than a complex language of intangibles. Think of all the things we try to explain to toddlers, who are limited in language (but eagerly soak it up like a sponge!). Somehow, they get it, or at least store it away until they have the vocabulary with which to think about it and then ask more complex questions and get more complex answers. In this way, we all continue learning new ideas.

Orwell understood the use of language for control. Oceania's official adoption of Newspeak in 1984 was intended to so control the language as to make ideas that did not support IngSoc completely inexpressible -- and if you can't say it, you probably won't be thinking of it. Therefore -- Big Brother had complete control over his subjects, and Society Will Be Perfect No Really.

That's why I mistrust the motives of anyone who tells me I can't use certain words.

[Newman]

Daveman, sending a slow, fat one right over the plate:

Orwell understood the use of language for control. Oceania's official adoption of Newspeak in 1984 was intended to so control the language as to make ideas that did not support IngSoc completely inexpressible -- and if you can't say it, you probably won't be thinking of it. Therefore -- Big Brother had complete control over his subjects, and Society Will Be Perfect No Really.

That's why I mistrust the motives of anyone who tells me I can't use certain words.

Newman takes a swing:

Univ of Mich dept releases list of acceptable words, Tucker and Mark Steyn offer some words of their own

The University of Michigan’s “Words Matter Task Force” has issued a list of about two dozen words/phrases that could be offensive and lack inclusivity, along with a list of more politically correct replacement terms.

In an appearance on FNC’s Tucker Carlson Tonight, Steyn pointed out that memo seeks to ban picnic based on an urban myth of sorts that it has something to do with lynching. “It’s not; it’s been around for the best part of half a millennium,” Steyn declared.

Alluding to that “off the reservation” is also deemed unacceptable at Michigan, Steyn claimed that Michigan officials are ironically trying to keep people on “a linguistic reservation…if you lack the word to express a thought, in the end, you can’t think a thought, and that’s actually something that’s in every single bit of dystopian literature, whether it’s George Orwell or whether it’s H.G. Wells…You don’t go to a university to shrink your vocabulary.

“Pull your kids out of this school, folks; this isn’t a school anymore,” Steyn advised.

Later in the discussion, Mark Steyn declared that “it is a basic component of liberty for an individual to decide when he’s gonna use any particular word.”

Tucker Carlson and Steyn agreed that as officials become increasingly and obsessively worried about harmful words, they are perversely less concerned about physical, person-to-person violence.

In the context of the modern left, Steyn responded that “at a certain point, if you lack the vocabulary to hold a debate, it’s easier just to lob a piece of concrete through a store window.

In the beginning of the segment, Carlson explained that “you need words to think. The fewer words you have, the less thinking you can do. And of course, that’s the entire point of restricting our available vocabulary down to just a few sanitized grunts. And that’s where we’re heading — fast.”

Separately, Dictionary.com has identified what it calls problematic words/phrases and provides alternatives. The online dictionary encourages people to stop using the terms spirit animal, Sherpa, guru, ninja, and scalp or risk cultural appropriation. Hysterical was also flagged because of the implications of misogyny.

[Celeste Chalfonte]

Daveman, sending a slow, fat one right over the plate:
Newman takes a swing:

Univ of Mich dept releases list of acceptable words, Tucker and Mark Steyn offer some words of their own

There are, in fact, legitimately offensive words and phrases. Social and professional censure works well to eliminate those, although it sometimes takes time. For example, whenever my opposing counsel called me "little lady" (outside the courtroom, where it's the judge's sole prerogative to correct anyone), I would cordially answer and tagline my answer with "old gentleman" or "big gentleman" or "little gentleman." Once usually sufficed.

[Newman]

There are, in fact, legitimately offensive words and phrases. Social and professional censure works well to eliminate those, although it sometimes takes time. For example, whenever my opposing counsel called me "little lady" (outside the courtroom, where it's the judge's sole prerogative to correct anyone), I would cordially answer and tagline my answer with "old gentleman" or "big gentleman" or "little gentleman." Once usually sufficed.

Of course, and there is also a germ of goodness in every socialist, autocratic impulse. Gosh, you want a better world? Sign me up!

There's a Bad Mood Rising, though: Would that such impulses bore the fruit we want.