Pet Peeves

Losing Arguments


Sorry to disappoint. If you were looking for a discussion of debating styles, that’s not what you’ll find here. What I’ll be writing about is linguistic arguments. No, not discussions of theory but rather arguments that go with verbs. (If you’re interested in a brief theoretical discussion, Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verb_argument has a good one.) I’m going to keep it simple by saying that an argument is a noun or pronoun that is necessary to completing the meaning of a verb phrase. For example, if I say ‘is reading’ you don’t get the full meaning. Who am I talking about? I have to have a subject: ‘Mary is reading.’ ‘Mary hit’ again leaves out essential information. Who or what did she hit? ‘Mary gave money’ does not tell us to whom or what she gave it. (More on this later.) In traditional grammar, the first utterance – ‘is reading’ – is missing a subject; ‘Mary hit’ is missing a direct object; ‘Mary gave money’ lacks an indirect object. Okay enough of that terminology! I don’t want you to think you’re back in school.

Let’s consider ‘Mary gave money’ again. It actually sounds like a pretty good sentence AS LONG AS WE KNOW THE CONTEXT. If we’re talking about donations to a charity or gifts at a party, it’s quite easy to fill in the missing argument. ‘Mary gave money to the church’; ‘Mary gave the new couple money.’ English often allows the indirect object argument to be deleted if it is clear from context. However, subject arguments can almost never be deleted in English. Almost every sentence must have a subject even if it is obvious from context. In case you think this is not even worth talking about, it is. There are many languages – Mandarin and Korean come to mind – where the subject is regularly omitted if it’s obvious from context.

So, where am I going with this? One of the things that I find upsetting – sorry I know this is an inappropriate emotional reaction – is when people lose arguments in their speech. The example that comes to mind – and it’s the only one for now – occurs in snippets of conversation like the following: ‘We’re going to the mall. Do you want to come with?’ I just have to say ‘come with us.’ However, on many occasions, I’ve heard people lose the argument in this situation. What do you think? Do you find this acceptable? Do you have other examples?


Descriptive versus Prescriptive

My academic background is in linguistics. I was originally taught that when we analyze a language we should describe it as it is, not as we think it should be. For the most part, I agree with this perspective. However, as I’ve shown in the previous section, that is not always the case.

The Past Contrary to Fact Conditional

Now that’s a mouthful! But it’s very important to me. In fact it’s probably a greater pet peeve than losing arguments. Here’s an example:

If Obama had not raised so much money, he might not have won the primaries.

As I’m sure all of you will attest, what we often hear or read are sentences like the following:

If Obama did not raise so much money, he might not have won the primaries.

Yuck! For me. Every time I hear or even read utterances like the last one I get really upset. I’ve even been thinking of starting a society for the preservation of the past contrary to fact conditional! I may write more about how I find them system-destroying in a later blog. However, for now I’ll just ask what you think.


Language Fun

There are a lot of resources out there to help you get into the language you’ve chosen to study. Suzy in Thailand has sent me an example for Cantonese. She calls it “a funny and bizarre little language lesson.” In a follow-up communication, she says, “i wasn't 100% sure what was going on but it was funny and engaging.” Yes, it was, Suzy. UTube is a great source for material which shows you your language actually being used. Don’t worry about whether you understand everything. Just listen to the “music.” It will help. I promise.

Well, now I have to get on with the rest of my day. See you next time!


Ciao for now,

Eileen