Is there a right way to use language?
04 August 2005
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The US has no shortage of linguistic gatekeepers. Language pundits warn in the press, on the air, and even on the inside of matchbook covers that, if we don't clean up our linguistic acts, the doors of opportunity will be closed. Fear of not saying things the "right" way causes some of us to break out in a sweat when choosing whether to say "between you and me" or "between you and I."
What makes us so linguistically insecure? It's the idea that a language has only one correct form, and that we're not in step with it. But let's remember that the choice of the "best" or "most correct" way of speaking is just a matter of history. Saying "between you and me" -- like not wearing sneakers with a coat and tie -- is a convention, not a divine law. Power, money and prestige cause one variety of language to be preferred and therefore prescribed. In England, the focus of wealth, commerce, and government in London caused a variety of southern British English to be thought of as the best. In the US, where there was no such center, the language of the well-educated, higher classes became the preferred variety. Over time, that variety came to be seen as the only acceptable way to express ourselves.
There will always be people who prescribe how we should talk, who point out what they see as flaws in other people's speech. Because they think the preferred language is the only one that's acceptable, prescriptivists try to prove that other varieties of language are deficient.
If you say "I don't have no money," one of them may tell you that two negatives make a positive, and even in simple math, minus two plus minus two equals minus 4. Besides, does anybody really believe that someone who says "I don't have none" means they do have something? Are they ever misunderstood? Not likely. The test of a language's effectiveness is not whether its arbitrary noises or scribbles meet a standard, but whether it communicates. A speaker of impeccable English may say silly and illogical things; a speaker of a down-home variety may be logical and precise.
I feel kind of sorry for the watchdog pundits who try to tell us when to use "whom" instead of "who." It's a losing battle, because ultimately you can't prescribe how language should be used. Words don't have a "real" meaning. They only mean what we agree they'll mean, and there may be differences from one group to another about that agreement. Besides, language isn't a fixed system. It evolves. Some of yesterday's poorly-thought-of language may become today's preferred English. You may deplore it if you're a speaker of the preferred variety of a language, but most often, as language evolves, it adjusts in the direction of how lower-status speakers use it. That doesn't make it wrong or deficient. It's just what language does.
That said, another aspect of language is that it happens in societies, and societies always make judgments. It's a reality in the U.S. that speakers who use double negatives will earn disapproval from certain people, some of whom have power over what we hope for in life. If you're not a native speaker of the preferred variety of language, there are social and economic advantages to learning it, even though it's only a historical convention, no more logical or beautiful than the one you already speak.
Prescriptivists even want us to give up our native varieties. But we shouldn't let ourselves be bullied. Prescriptivism comes out of a desire for uniformity in behavior, in language as in other areas. It can lead to elitism, racism, and even silliness. When told not to end sentences with prepositions, Winston Churchill was said to remark: "This is arrant pedantry, up with which I shall not put." So should we all.
That's the language thought for the day, which comes from Dr. Dennis Preston, University Distinguished Professor of English at Michigan State University. And this is the Five-Minute Linguist at the College of Charleston, in cooperation with the National Museum of Language. Visit us at cofc.edu/linguist. And in the meantime, keep in mind that wherever you are, and whatever you do... language makes a difference.