Why Do Experts Always Defend Language Mistakes 

You're suggesting that writing "it's" instead of "its" is perfectly fine because you're using the possessive "apostrophe s" on a... possessive. But that possessive happens to be a pronoun. Writing "linguistic form has a logic on it's own" is like writing "I have a logic on I's own".

@@gabor6259 You need to take like 20 steps back and re-assess what you're even trying to do.

You are a descriptivist 'expert' though. So, by definition, you are a little woke and will defend almost anything.

Talk about the Frankfurt school and Franz Boas corruption of the soft 'sciences'

Your globalist anti tradtional 'snobbyness' shines through you, it's so palpable. You don't have to be a wokist and educated. Be a realist.

And being from Saskatchewan when it is usually winter except for that brief period when it isn’t, we just follow the car in front. We get somewhere in the end.

@@karenm2669in Nunavut there isn’t a car in front to follow… or a road, usually.

Literally started dreaming of a city-state that functions with only one-way roads. Could it be done?

As is the natural order

Aussies drive below

I assume the experiment is we randomly cause someone's car to drive either on the right or left. A demon forces us to make this choice, left side or right? If we are utilitarian, right is correct. But, say your mother may be driving in traffic in London, pick left, in case her car is picked (but you are a bad human for doing so, endangering the majority).

@alexmac2551 this is the only correct answer

I guess I am dumb but for some reason I thought he was talking about different lanes on one side of the road 🤣 Like some people drive in the passing lane; others drive in the lane that has all the exits and entrances (on a highway). (Some people drive like continuously 5 m.p.h. in the passing lane for eons. But others go 900 m.p.h (excessive IMO), which makes me scared to use it to pass someone going 3 m.p.h in the slow lane.)

Are you named after the 1994-1998 Nickelodeon TV series titled _The Secret World of Alex Mack_ ?

Yeah, I thought this was the point he was going to make! It's not about correctness, but consistency!

I love that comment so much

When you have a degree in linguistic and English isn't your first language: Memoranda-memoranda

pronounced mem-or-and-i-bless of course.

Oh, beautiful! 🤣

Octopus, octopopolis!

I salute you Monssure

High intelligence pun

My magic all knowing flip flops that give me eternal power to be sure about everything

​@@mitchelmodine9197 I found Swiss linguist Saussure with an internet search, but could not find any internet reference to "Monssure". Please explain, if you would be so kind.

😂

Every time I read that I always think they missed a trick there by not writing: "Not judging you're grammar; just analyzing it." Just to troll. 😉

@@zak3744 Not jujjing your spelling, just analyzing it.

@@gabor6259 not djadjing yor speling; djast änälaizing it.

​​@@Idkpleasejustletmechangeitnöt dxudxıq jór sbêlıq; dxust änëlujzıq ıt. Edit: found one error - changed iq to ıq

@@brighthades5968 ok, þät djast das not iven häf äni internal konsistensi änimor. Sims ai wos rong. Ai probäbli djast did not päi enuf ätenshon. It dos definitli häf internal konsistensi.

Hi, Cat! Fellow language nerd! (First time I've ever bumped into a friend in RU-vid comments.)

@@sharonminsuk Hi Sharon! First time for me, too. I was just thinking about you the other day - sorry I don't see you at bi-f anymore. Would love to catch up sometime if you have the time.

@@Cat_Woods Definitely! Been forever. (Been meaning to do that for awhile.) I just emailed you... assuming the old email I have for you is still current.

Tell me about it!

"Everyone driving faster than me is a maniac. Everyone driving slower than me is a moron." I feel like we all do this sometimes, and it's a perfect example of unconscious bias in action.

Well, sort of. But, there's gatekeeping in any community or tribe. That gatekeeping is part of what gives a group an identity of its very own.

I find myself in the situation a lot of times where this is not the case. The way I interpret something another person wrote made them seem like an unreasonable person or otherwise rude, and I would prefer to give them the benefit of the doubt and they're a nice person that made a typo or grammatical error instead of giving them the benefit of the doubt and they meant what they said. I'd rather point out how they're being interpreted and see if that was their intention. Like, specific phrasings could make "peak" and "pique" mean opposite things; if spoken, you either get non-verbals to distinguish them or you'll end up choosing the one that doesn't make you feel bad, and you might not get that chance if you see written out that somebody has reached their capacity to be interested in what you have to say.

Well you're wrong 🤷‍♀️

I'm sorry that's rude. I'm looking to fight. It probably has to do with the fact I just dropped the apple I have been waiting all day to eat, bitten side down.

That's a lie I didn't do that I just like arguing online with people and lying.

​@@al3xa723Arguing with no one I see. Maybe you should take a break from the internet

@@BryanLu0 No maybe YOU should take a break. I argue with plenty people.

Yes!!! Some rules are just outdated. I know Portuguese but I'm French Canadian and we have a lot of written distinctions nobody cares about in speech

Every time I write I end up having to look those rules up because I can never remember which is which, it's just the worst

Exactly the same thing happens in Spanish (except the first one usually has an extra word in the middle so it's not common) and most people just write "porque" every time, to the point that Google autocorrects my "por qué"

Good for you! I'm not a Portuguese speaker but if I were I would do the same!

Well, there is a difference between porque and porquê. One is stressed and the other is not.

Agreed. I like the way your mind works

This is my most current bugbear.

The first time I say the brand "Titleist" I was thinking, "Tit lice? What the hell?"

My brain does that with a lot of words so I can spell them the standard way. Wed-nez-day. Miss-aisle. S-chew-ll. Sky-ence, but also, con-science.

I pronounce lingerie un-der-wear because it avoids the two vital challenges of figuring out how to pronounce it and having to say a French word.

Nanny Ogg used "lingerry" that fits my home accent so well that it's my brains default and I now just avoid saying "lingerie" out loud.

@@yurisei6732 It doesn't actually mean "underwear" though. Edwardian lingerie dresses were outerwear for summer, garden parties and other outdoor events.

Such a good comment. Respect! 😂

😂😂😂👍

the subject is about language mistakes and you came to learn about......driving?

@@rayoscrost6062 I'm not sure the subject is mistakes. Only the perception of mistakes.

@@stephenlee5929 it's about mistakes, as i said. perception of mistakes also involves mistakes therefore making it about mistakes.

the people in business should actually get off their ass and do their part to actually understand what the engineers are saying

@@rhael42 I agree, but thats just how the world spins. People are going to have their own version of a language and there'll be misunderstandings. We gotta do what we can to make sure were understood.

I agree with the argument that communication, and more specifically understanding, is the point. That's where I veer to the side a bit. Yes, many mistakes, especially common ones that are part of a local dialect, still allow communication and understanding to occur. This is especially true in the spoken language, when you often have other clues to help sort meaning. It is less true in written language - which is partly why emoticons are so often useful. Further, written language is far more frequently used to communicate with people who aren't local. Many people around the globe speak English, but across a wide variety of nations, cultures, dialects, and so on. Using a standardised form, and doing so according to certain norms, allows for better communication and understanding. Especially when trying for nuance, the transmission of complex ideas, precision of meaning, etc. I hate having to go over and over a written communication, in part or in whole, because their use of English is so inexact, so jumbled and full of 'not really errors' that their meaning is unclear. Worse still is a written communication that seems clear in its meaning but which contains 'not really errors' that in fact alter its meaning so that the writer means one thing, but the reader understands something different. If I've paid money for a book (or other written communication) that has such traps and pitfalls on almost every page, I not only resent it, it is so painful that I may not finish it - and I'm unlikely to buy more of their works. Writers who wish to make a living from it should surely try to avoid that happening. Informal and/or casual written texts fall somewhere in the middle. For the record, I don't perceive my version of English to be superior, nor myself to be superior to others by virtue of a higher level of formal education (if I even have that) or any other skill, bit of knowledge, or trait. I just value clarity, precision, and comprehensibility.

The problem is that, like you said, you have introduced inaccuracies by making sacrifices in the way you speak. These inaccuracies could then lead to misunderstandings. The reason we have developed complex language is for the purpose of accurately conveying complex ideas without having to compromise on the message. This is why it's important for people to be educated and sufficiently literate. It's true that you shouldn't be overly obtuse and purposely use complex language when you know that more understandable language will still get the job done. But similarly we should also not be so accepting of illiteracy that we then end up promoting the destruction of our language and our ability to express complex ideas to one another. It's good to correct people and teach them proper terminology and grammar in the long term for the sake of preserving the usefulness of our language. But in the short term you need to make some sacrifices to be understood in certain contexts.

@@NihongoWakannai I certainly wouldn't disagree with that! I said what I did, but my team also makes a conscious effort to attempt to train business on what the correct definitions and terms are for the project. It's an excruciatingly slow process that they still get wrong all the time, but it gets better everyday because like you said - if we allowed these inaccuracies to continue happening forever it could easily bite us back one day.

Welsh is particularly tricky, given it nearly died! Whilst it is pretty essential for bringing the language back, the standardisation has sadly killed all those dialects that existed before.

Love that, just goes to show one should never assume that the taught way is the 'right way'.

That was, in fact, only to be expected..After the initial adaption to the phonetic repretoire and phonotaxis of the borrowing country - which, admittedly, can be quite thorough - the pronunciation of loan words often changes less in the "borrowing" language than in the "donor" language.

same thing with African American English!!

Let me guess it's the Welsh language converts who get really really upset about it?

ROMANE ITE DOMUM

The person called "Romanes" he go the house?!

Romanes eunt domus!

@@mattchtx Conjugate the verb!

Nah that's just a practical thing, each person you teach Latin grammar requires a Roman palace to practice on. That's prohibitively expensive.

Yes! I found their reasoning to be very confusing. As a right handed left-eye- dominant person, I have to wonder just how often are those things in agreement?

My eyes and hands don't correlate either, I don't think there is any evidence that they would.

Amen!

That isn't entirely true. An English sentence such as "me store hungry go" is not correct in any kind of English yet you still understand it. "Me film goed" is something you would understand but it is not correct, however, if Native English speakers began speaking English this way then it would become correct.

​@@thinking-ape6483Usually when the mistakes happen, they're made by many people, so it's very understandable to them, and slightly less understandable to people not making the mistakes. I don't think people would be saying "me store hungry go" because of how hard it is to parse, but I could see them possibly doing that for "me hungry go store"(stereotypical caveman speak). The latter is easy to say for those making the mistake, and easy to understand for those not. Likewise, "me go film" or "me goed film" is much easier to understand than "me film goed". Though there would probably be confusion over whether you're watching a movie or filming a movie.

what makes you call it scary. If this wasn't the case, then we wouldn't have all the dialects and even languages we have.

“The new norm” can be strange. Just in my own lifetime (~60yrs), I’ve noticed the pronunciation of the word “Monticello” change from the ‘c’ having an ‘s’ sound, to a ‘ch’ sound and now more recently, the favored pronunciation seems to have gone back to the ‘s’. The new-old form. (an especially strange example, being a proper noun but..🤷‍♂)

Hey, fancy seeing you here. You and Dr. Geoff are both pretty outstanding in your niches imo.

The ultimate goal of language is to communicate effectively. The ultimate goal of cooking is to eat something appetizing and nourishing.

I still buy Rao’s sauce.

wait, what? hello shaq. I request a video on indian curry luv u

It's incredible how much this overlaps with my work on educating people about subscriber farming! ✌️😆

"is a grammatically sound phenomenon in West Germanic languages, but not in Latin."

This is the sort of pedantry up with which I (and Churchill) will not put.

right hand drive, left handed here too! what a vindication after all those years of being discriminated for being left handed! :)

As a semi-ambidextrous who can't drive, I'm glad I can always blame it on the side of the road I'm driving on

Being a right-driving, left-handed writer, right-handed in all else, left eye dominant kinda person, I drive sideways leading overtly with my left side

ditto

I'm one of the lucky ones, I have two hands and two eyes.

Integrating bike lanes into preexisting motor vehicle roadways is so disgustingly halfassed.

This is such a woke opinion, did you not take into consideration the possibility that killing cyclists is intentional?

@@yurisei6732 If it worked, we'd have a perfect world

Well, it keeps them away from the pedestrians

@@CoryPchajek Jesus there's no satisfying you guys. They added the bicycle lanes without spending many more millions, and shutting down the road for a significant amount of time, at least they added them. I don't even see how this is much more dangerous than riding a bicycle on the side of the road, maybe a bit.

basically your argument is: it's okay when you do it

@@ventriloquistmagician4735 No. The point is that social rejection as a means of expressing political views is nothing new to humanity. It goes way back.

I've heard it either way.

I have the other issue: I don't know how to pronounce it! XD SO I am always second guessing myself, is it ee-ther, or aye-ther?

Lol where I'm from both fly, there's a saying? expression? "either, either" which I find really neat. Anyone correcting either would just be looked at as a bit of a lune cause both are fine lol.

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

I had to minimise my screen full of lingerie models to come and watch this video.

Yeah, there was an ambassadors wife who made that mistake sadly.

@@Elesario Intelligence officer, ironically. The airbase, RAF Croughton, is in a country area - it's much more unlikely to happen in town with all the extra cues.

"The greatest wisdom becomes pure folly in the opposite environment" - W. Ross Ashby

I find they're not too clever _lately_ either. ;)

@@KindredBrujah can confirm. Im one of them 😂

Or the surname "Featherstone-Haugh", commonly pronounced 'fanshaw'...

I have a hand-written recipe where the person wrote 'add a dash of whats-this-here sauce'

Same here, except with French instead of German. Learning another language really seems to offer opportunities to notice things you take for granted about the language(s) you know.

I worked for many years as a languages teacher in a high school and I can assure you that when members of the English department wanted to know anything about English grammar they used to head to our department for help.

I learned more about English grammar (beyond the basics like parts of speech) from Spanish than I ever did from English.

Same here. They never taught us English because they assumed we could speak it already, but French and German lessons introduced all sorts of grammatical concepts that were a revelation.

Studying German taught me that English modals are a mess, and that a preposition is a perfectly respectable thing to end a sentence with.

Eventually I think many of us learn that the only rules that really matter are those found in the style guide of whatever organization is giving you the money to pay your bills.

First person and third person are fine. But when you really want to confuse people for a laugh you write in second person.

It’s not that confusing if you write it correctly. “To replicate the experiment, you add 15ml of ammonium acetate to 170ml of supercooled sulfur hexafluoride. You then slowly heat the mixture to 18C. Then you…”

@@DeltaEntropy Then you observed that the resulting substance exploded and spread yellowish brown stains over your labcoat that you simply could not clean out.

when one of my professors was like "actually I encourage you to use first person pronouns because you're the one doing the research" my brain absolutely could not comprehend (communication/media studies)

I used to be a "grammar snob" and now I understand how silly that was. I don't know when exactly I changed, but one day I must have changed my mind. Or more likely, had my mind changed by someone. I don't think it's quite that hopeless!

@@br3669 Maybe! Sorry I sounded hopeless there, I just meant that a lot of people wake up to this realization pretty early, and I think those people often go on to study something involving linguistics including something like programming. There is a Malcolm Gladwell book where he states that people either are or are not programmers, and the whole test that determines this is whether they understand that variables change. People who see language as everlasting or set in stone have a certain kind of stupidity that is not easily overcome. I wasn't necessarily talking about Grammar Nazis but I actually consider myself to be one, because I find certain things very annoying. Just last night I heard someone say "shined" instead of shone and it drove me mad because they are words that are being lost, very beautiful words, like slept, dreamt, learnt, sought etc. I know language can change I just want American English to revive some of these beautiful lost words

Sadly that may be true

The video isn't about that. 😂

I mean, the last one is not really a duplicate. Tea is the word for tea in English. Chai is the word for tea in other languages. In English, chai tea refers to a particular sort of tea.

@@andyarken7906 Even better than that, nearly all countries who say some variety of 'tea' first received tea by sea, whereas nearly all countries who say some variety of 'chai' first received chai by land. Entirely just down to who it came from and how the word proliferated. I love that.

Ebonics, or AAVE, has been well-documented as being 17th Century Rural Wessex dialect, or Redneck/White Trash as it is also known here. Naturally enough, slaves picked up their English pronunciation from the English speakers that talked to them, the overseers and workers whose jobs they eventually took over.

@@Nakia11798 you are the most confusing person ive seen in the comments of this video

Would"ve

​@@christopherellis2663i can't tell if this is a joke or if you need to watch the video again

The comparison to covert seemed odd to me. By the sound of it covert's pronunciation changed through a "wrong" re-analysis of it being c + overt. But "would of" would be a re-analysis of how to write the pronunciation. So one was a change in pronunciation, but the spelling remained, whereas the other is a change in spelling, but the same pronunciation. It doesn't feel right to me to point at these two and say it's the same, even if they are both the results of a different re-analysis.

​@@giddycadetguy makes a video and is automatically irrefutable

@@knowledgeispower9736 i think you're more saying nuh uh than actually refuting him

Hear, hear! I second this request for a video topic!

Most might not, but one non standard usage mentioned in the video, double negatives, definitely can, especially in writing. Look at "I don't see nothing" for example - standard English would understand this as meaning someone does see (probably someone who sees very little, with emphasis put on the 'nothing'), whereas if you thought double negatives didn't cancel out, it would mean someone who was completely blind.

@@Revacholiere //Look at "I don't see nothing" for example - standard English would understand this as meaning someone does see// I find it very hard to imagine a fellow native English-speaker who would read this and, even without context, actually think this was an attempt to say that the person could see something. Were I to read this, I would immediately assume it was simply an example of a dialect in which the "double negative 'rule'" isn't of much concern. I don't think it would be reasonable to assume otherwise given how rarely such double negatives intend to express a positive.

@@DrunkenHotei double negatives should only matter in mathematics. Usually, using double negatives in language is to add emphasis.

​@@jokeassasin7733 Exactly. The fact that so many people think that double negatives are usually interpreted as a positive illustrates well how prescriptivist most people's approach to their own language is, despite them not following their own logic in how they actually interact with such language.

We're definitely good at noticing differences in speech and they can definitely tell us something about which social groups someone might be a member of. But I'd wager to say that most language-related wars are actually fought over spelling issues, which are entirely learnt. Both spelling variation and actual language differences are subjects about which we have a ton of normative ideas. So it is not per se our ability to notice differences that leads to prejudice, but rather that we're trained to adhere to language norms to the point that it stans out like a soar thumb when someone deviates from these norms. I'm not saying we shouldn't acquire such norms, but we fo sho aint learnin a lotta nuance and appreciation for deviating forms alongside this. The prejudice is not a direct consequence of noticing differences, it is a consequence of people feeling superior about their own variety, because it aligns better with their own language norms.

Also, most official standard forms of languages are politically motivated in one way or another, from creating a unified culture across an empire, to identifying class or caste interlopers for punishment.

@@Vinemaple case in point: official russian spellings of several countries differ between academic ones, which were used before 2014, and new putinist ones, even their dictator switched, they do it deliberately, and for some whatever reason West complies and now russian language Wikipedia lists Belarus as byelorussia, says "on Ukraine" instead of "in", and any attempts to change back to proper grammar get you instantly banned. They only make exceptions for direct pre-2014 quotes, but it's insane how much they bend over for a criminal regime. Language is very political, always has been.

We could predict the weather for years in advance, just give me precise measurements and analog computers...

That's the point he is making, though. Linguistic change are ultimately deterministic because everything on a macroscopic scale is deterministic. But it's impossible to predict and *practically* random and arbitrary (because it's chaotic); thus trying to assign cause is a fool's errand

"Contrary to popular belief, the butterfly effect has nothing to do with cause and effect, besides the name. The flap of a butterfly's wings doesn't ultimately cause a tornado." I think that's either incorrect or, at least, misleading. You can (in some scenario) say that the flap of the butterfly's wings *does* cause a tornado in the following sense. Take two initial conditions which differ in whether the butterfly flaps its wings at a certain moment or not. Now these systems will eventually diverge noticeably in their evolution. The can (after enough time) differ in whether a tornado forms at a particular place and time or not.

What do you think about Geoff's implication that arithmetical mistakes aren't regular in the same way as pronunciation ones? I would have thought there would be quite a few common patterns in how people miscalculate.

That’s interesting. I’m not a native speaker, I’ve learnt and always pronounced it as a two syllable word. Oxford dictionary lists one or two syllable pronunciations depending on the meaning. BrE /drɔː(r)/ NAmE /drɔːr/ a part of a piece of furniture such as a desk, used for keeping things in. It is like a box in shape and has a handle on the front for pulling it out. BrE /ˈdrɔːə(r)/ NAmE /ˈdrɔːər/ a person who produces a drawing or design BrE /ˈdrɔːə(r)/ NAmE /ˈdrɔːər/ (formal) a person who writes a cheque (= a printed form that you can write on and sign as a way of paying for something instead of using money) Cambridge dictionary on the other hand doesn’t make this distinction, it gives only monosyllabic pronunciation for all the meanings, and it gives the two syllabic one only as a US variant.

Where are you from?

@@ikbintom I'm Australian!

Now i am curious. Did he come up with a possible explanation?

@@a.h.9902 I honestly can't remember. If I answered it would probably just be a impression of what I'm pretty sure he said.

Same here, and remember that sometimes the left side is the right side.

Quite right too.

Many language mistakes do decrease the ability of people to understand each other. Besides, the ability to understand the literal words that each person is saying is not THE ONLY function of language. Language has many functions, and they include things like making ingroup/outgroup distinctions, communicating status and place in society, show respect or disrespect, and on and on. There are many ways people can use language wrong and still be understood perfectly. The problem with both the dumb prescriptivists and the "woke" people is that they don't take all of this nuance into account and just want a simple rule that applies to all situations.

I was taught to drive on the left. The safest way to drive when I went to the Philippines was on the right, because otherwise I would have crashed into the cars and bikes that were driving on the right.

​@davidonfim2381 if you're still understood and the syntax is consistent, how is it really a mistake? And how are those "mistakes" a bad thing? Enough "mistakes" and you have a new dialect, which isn't a bad thing It's also strange how you chose to say prescriptive vs woke instead of prescriptive vs descriptive, because that is the real distinction. Seems like you're trying to imply something negative of descriptive language and being "woke" at the same time. Not to mention, woke is a relatively new word, but you seem fine with using it here.

Pronouncing "February" as "Feb-yoo-ary" communicates. Saying "imply" to mean "draw a conclusion" does not merely fail to communicate; it MIScommunicates.

@@msjkramey Let me give you an example. Let's say you email your doctor about the medical tests you just had, and their email very consistently (they weren't typos or one-time mistakes) uses "would of" instead of "would have", "their" instead of "there" or "they're", as well as a number of other "mistakes". None of those mistakes affects your ability to understand the content of the email one bit, and you don't feel any confusion whatsoever about what they were trying to tell you. Do you continue going to that doctor? If that happened to me, I'd run like hell in the opposite direction. I'd ignore every single thing they said or did, and I'd get all the tests re-done and re-analyzed. There is no way in hell I'd trust my health to someone like that, and I'd wonder if they were real doctors or if they had just cheated their way through med school (and all other levels below that too) This is just an extreme example, and I'm not picking on "uneducated" language. Try speaking like a harvard professor giving a lecture, but to a low-socioeconomic status community, and see how that goes. Even if they understand the content perfectly, you are still making a massive linguistic mistake. Using certain words or language in certain contexts is absolutely 100% wrong. There IS such a thing as language mistakes, and we are all strong "prescriptivists" if you take context into account. It's only if you ignore all nuance and all context that you can be at that "woke" end of the spectrum. As for my choice of words- that was deliberate. I am not arguing against descriptivism, and I would consider myself a descriptivist. True descriptivism acknowledges the fact that there ARE right and wrong ways of using language in certain contexts. It acknowledges the fact that there IS such a thing as language mistakes that need to be avoided depending on the context, and that language absolutely does not exist JUST to communicate the denotation of words. It's only against the "woke" version of so-called "descriptivism" that I'm arguing against. It's that common framing that implies (whether by explicitly stating so, or through the omission of a discussion about the context) that anything people say or write is just as valid as anything else, and that there is no objective way of distinguishing between different ways of using language. (it's also worth noting that I've avoided the most trivial examples of how using language can absolutely be wrong. 4 exumple eef eye speek laik dees, you can probably still understand me... but I'm pretty sure even the strongest "woke descriptivist" would say that that's not real English and that it's improper or wrong).

When they claim, "You know what I meant," just inform them that you, in fact do not. You only know what they said (or wrote). While there is some responsibility on the listen/reader to make a good faith effort to understand what someone said/wrote, they are ALSO under a good faith effort to be understood. If they can't do that, you shouldn't be forced to try and untangle what they meant from what they said.

@@SlimThrull That reminded me of the related thing that people do online: say something, then claim it's not what they meant and blame the reader for responding based on what they actually _said_ and not what they claim they meant. For some reason this always seems to happen after someone proves what they said wrong.

@@Bacteriophagebs Yes. This is where I first developed this idea. I've found it works very well offline, too. Though, I don't understand why people online get upset. I can literally scroll up and quote what they said. Not paraphrase, but quote. C'mon, we both know what you wrote. It's in black and white. Don't lie by telling me something else when I can literally quote you. Some people are dumb.

There’s data for soccer penalty shootouts, and data that fighter pilots use to pick a direction to beat a surface-to-air missile, based on people’s slight preference to reflexively jump to one side. This informs head-on collisions but is a wash in the statistics of safety.

​@@SlimThrullsometimes people don't proofread or they write too quickly or they say something without meaning to imply what they did

Yous? I like using yous. Like use but it's plural you. Yous. I like yous.

@@galdoug8918 yeah yous seems nice too, I guess it's just that a lot of my informal English I've picked up from online circles where I happened to run into y'all first and more frequently than yous

it's very interesting coming from a region where plural second person pronouns are taken for granted how much revulsion some native english speakers express towards the options that have been introduced to english. more utility is good as far as im corncerned. come to think of it, i guess it's another expression of the same phenomenon on display when people here in sweden get super upset about singular nongendered third person pronouns.

But actually, "thou" is the familiar form of the singular pronoun (compare French _tu_ and German _du_ ), while "you" is the formal version of the singular pronoun as well as the plural form of both (French _vous_ and German _Sie_ ).

​@@ib9rt yes i am aware, and my first language also uses the second person plural as formal/polite form. And when I'm chatting with online friends, or really even strangers online, I definitely would not address them formally, I don't do it when talking in my first language either

Wouldn't you just say needs painting?

@@nicholasvinen I wouldn't.

​@nicholasvinen that would be correct, but English speakers love to be incorrect.

​@@Nakia11798In my experience those making these kinds of mistakes are also idiots. It's practically a strereotype that racist Englanders are also semi-illiterate and don't know their own language but demand it of foreigners.

@@Nakia11798 Didn't watch the video yet, I take it?

Like, how?

I usually hear of overt/covert actions and covert surveillance. It's usage is within a security/intelligence context. The older pronunciation would confuse me with archaic verb to covet and the usage described seems uncommonly rare. The people I hear say hidden or discreet or in a hidey-hole.

I just assume they're mega fans of Terry Pratchett 😉

That sounds great, but be honest. Everyone I've met that pronounced it that way was uneducated and ignorant

Well ask/axe seems similar to people saying Asterix instead of asterisk, some of them for fun, some by habit perhaps mishearing something they haven't read, others are optimising out careful annunciation speaking rapidly. It's clearly featured in regional dialects so those presuming ignorance are snitching on themselves.

Far more commonly, the core driver behind language policing is a feeling of discomfort or irritation at the incongruent sound. "I had to learn this so you should too" is more often the justification created later on for telling the person the "correct" way to speak. There's nothing you can do to get rid of the discomfort, it's a physical reaction, you usually just have to learn by experience that correcting people doesn't accomplish anything.

I'll never forgot how my piano teacher got mad at me for saying "yeah" insisting its not a real word and asking me to spell it then getting angrier when I did

@@tubthungusbychumbungus that's ridiculous hahah

Classic example of "hypercorrection". Also things like "I don't know whom did it"

to things like that I always say "well, you knew exactly what I meant, so language successful"

I heard somewhere that the prevalence of "the wrong pronoun form" in such formations is evidence that the pronouns don't actually work the way we are taught that they work. If "me" is not always an object form but sometimes a subject form, and "I" is not always a subject form but sometimes an object form, and the switch is for different reasons, that could explain some of the oddities and how they've stuck around so long. An intriguing idea.

​@@Arkylie French recognizes "stressed" pronouns that work this way, and some of them sound like their accusative counterparts. It's bizarre that we don't use the same idea in describing English.

To....me

So if someone wrote say "the dog is in it's kennel" (mistakingly using it's instead of its, as is quite common) what certain logic would that follow?

I don’t know the linguistics behind this, but I feel it’s enough to say that if so many people are writing it that way then it’s probably fine. Yes, etymologically speaking it doesn’t make any sense to write its as it’s, but it’s fine. The world won’t end. You know what they meant. There’s tons of now-standard grammar and spelling we use nowadays that used to be regarded as incorrect just like the its/it’s thing.

@@stuartbeacham Dr. Lindsey mentioned that exact example in the video you're commenting on. The logic is extending the rule for possessive nouns (which do use an apostrophe) to possessive pronouns. Compare "it's kennel" to "the dog's kennel".

@@JonathanSharman I get what you're saying but it's a bit dubious to say the least. 'Its' is the possessive form of 'it' in the same way that 'theirs' is the possessive form of 'their'; and you never see 'theirs' written with an apostrophe.

@@stuartbeacham I admit I don't see it as often, but you can readily find grammar guides that caution against "their's", which I think indicates that at least some people make that mistake. That said, I think the fact that the word "it's" actually exists (though with a different meaning) and *looks* like a possessive noun contributes to those being mixed up more often. In contrast, forming a possessive from "they" analogously to nouns would produce "they's", which I don't think any native speaker is likely to do. On the other hand, I seem to recall certain L2 English speakers for whom "he's" and "his" are homophones use the former when they meant the latter. That feels like a very similar kind of error to "its" -> "it's". Anecdotal, but I do think there is a logic to this kind of mistake, as the OP said.

Stuff like this is why history and more generally context as a whole is so important. It's easy to make assumptions about the modern world, and people seem to do it particularly easily about black communities - oh they don't know how to speak properly, they're poorer on average because they deserve to be, or their communities have more crime because they're aggressive - when in reality it's all just missing context: they speak differently because of historical development of language in different areas, they're poorer because they were historically oppressed (and in some ways still are), and their communities "have more crime" *because they're poorer* and because police patrol them more frequently and with less lenience. These "racist knots" as you call them are everywhere. But on linguistics people just desperately need to realise that someone speaking slightly differently to you is not a personal attack on your intelligence. Theirs being a legitimate way to speak does not make yours illegitimate, nor does it invalidate your intelligence. Being a d*** about it however very much does.

This may be coincidence, as subjunctive forms are largely exactly the same as the infinitive form. What I do find interesting on this topic is that past subjunctive is mostly the same as past tense, but not completely - but when I insisted to an Irish lady that it should be "if I were rich", she was completely unaware that this is a thing, and insisted on "if I was".

@@alansmithee419 what I find interesting about AAVE is that the special past forms ("I done finished" and others) are much more complex than it appears at first. There are more possibilities than in standard English, but there are clear rules when to use which one. It can't be a matter of being "uneducated" when they use a more complex system.

The subjunctive use of 'be' instead of 'is' would occur in sentences such as 'it is vital that he be on time'.

@@andyarken7906 This reminds me that in an English class for accountants as part of my master-level studies, a class everyone had to take in order to make sure people could write "proper" English, the instructor was unaware of the fact that contrary-to-fact conditionals should use the subjunctive, as you stated. I understand it's a totally arbitrary rule, but she "taught" us so many other completely arbitrary rules that we were supposed to follow, I was very surprised when she didn't realize that was such a rule.

I'm an ambidextrous driver - the only time I've got confused is in the USA because they mix British sensibilities (ie not Napoleonic) with RHT. And throw in insane laws favouring drivers over ever other road user. And another thing (cont pg 69)

The approach to language maintenance needs to be different to the approach used by phycisits because the latter are attempting to understand unchanging natural laws whereas language users need to ensure that their tool for communication does not become entirely blunt. We do not simply describe how our homes deteriorate with items being left at where we last used them and dirt accumulating everywhere, do we? Sometimes care is needed to maintain utility and enjoyment.

We kind of do do it that way in natural science, though. "You need do test it exactly like this so we can see if you get the same result I did." The difference there is that scientists are testing things to learn about them. Linguists are examining things to learn about them.

I'm pretty sure the science on that is flimsy AF. My guess would be that it makes no difference. If it really did we would all drive on the same side because it would be obvious how much safer it is.

honestly the "safest" side of the road to drive on is the one you have the most practice with, and if people still crash more often in the states vs europe then I'd call that a flaw with our road design (there's a lot) and with our education (also a lot)

I was slightly annoyed cause I expected there wasn't any real research in trivial stuff like this and if there were I would be outraged we don't even try and conform to the scientific consensus. 😂

I recall hearing an experiment of having Americans driving on the left and everything eent as usual. The thing about driving on the left being safer though just sounds like BS.

Changing it would be far less safe than any real or imagined benefits of driving on the opposite side. Not only would everyone have to learn to drive on the wrong side at once, it would take literally decades for all the cars to switch over. It's less safe driving in a car designed for the opposite side of the road it drives on.

What about... ... a Lindsey-Roper-Crawford crossover, the SuperWhoLock of RU-vid linguistics?

@@Leofwine I'm up for it... but it might be too much for the Internet to handle. ;)

i use "what's that mean?" in writing, so there's confirmation that it eggsists at least

In Italy there is a similar complaining about subjunctive being slowly replaced by the imperfect "Credevo che tu fossi arrabbiato" -> "Credevo che tu eri arrabbiato". It's so annoying. For everyday conversation imperfect works like a charm... Validating its usage in informal contexts doesn't mean subjunctive should be removed from school and in writing, or formal contexts.

The "natural way" is often the path to the least common denominator. Why should human kind allow the least able language users to drag down language for all of us?

@@coolcat23 I would like to know what you mean by "dragging down" a language because, even though I'm no expert, I would guess that it has happened before multiple times in the history of German, which lead to the language we now use and which we are afraid it will get dragged down, even though it might have already happened. I get your point but I do wonder what the alternative is? Letting an elite of very able language users decide how other people should talk? I think, should language naturally develop because of these mistakes, it's because the majority of people makes them, and then, I don't think the natural change of a language is a disaster at all.

@@Leo-qw4gh I'm sure that in some of the historic changes to German, the language lost some of its richness/beauty. That does not mean that we should surrender to future onslaughts, does it? For sure, some change may be for the better and then could be adopted, but I do not think that dropping a case belongs to this class of improvements. I don't see the need to put a small elite into power, we just shouldn't normalise all mistakes people tend to make. FWIW, I think it is better to give people the opportunity to rise to a challenge (using a non-trivial language) then to give in into the laziness or inability of casual users. N.B., dialects and informal oral conversations have a role to play in making it easier for people to communicate. I'm not suggesting that these should be eradicated; I'm just arguing that official German should not be eroded from the bottom up.

​@@esachanThe imperfective form is also a lot more natural for some speakers because it allows you to drop the "you" ("credevo che eri arrabbiato") by removing the ambiguity between different person forms (che io legga, che lui legga, che egli legga vs. leggevo, leggevi, leggeva) thus putting it in line with all the other verbs in the language :)

As a right-handed, I think it's safer using the gear stick with my right hand.

It's hard, especially when the two inevitably overlap. i mean like LOL you know my parents keep telling me that i will never get a job if i don't type right but im a leftie smh

Yeah, I realize that the point of the driving question is to make you reflect... but the idea that the dominant eye is better used on the big, brightly-lit vehicles that tend to stay in their lane instead of on the smaller, darker things that tend to enter directly into your lane from the other side is... questionable.

the thing is dominant eye has nothing to do with dominant hand, the first thing you do in archery classes is to find your dominant eye

The dress code analogy is not a good one, AFAIC, since there is no harm associated with the notion of everyone wearing what they like. Refined communication, in contrast, depends on a rich, agreed upon vocabulary. Once the last word has been skunked and grammar has been reduced to its bare minimum by inconsiderate language users, we'll be out of options to express nuance and communicate effectively.

@@coolcat23 if that were the case then everyone in the world would be speaking the same language, and we would not have some people speaking Mandarin Chinese while others speak Russian. There are times when Russians want to speak to other Russians in a language that is not French, and Frenchmen want to speak to other Frenchmen in a language that is not Russian. Similarly, there are often advantages to be had in people wearing relatively uniform clothing (whether it is to symbolise their profession or simply to symbolise their shared culture). There is a reason why nurses wear a nurses uniform, or aeroplane cabin crew wear a uniform by which they can be easily identified. Even just attending an event that is intended for a particular class of people, if you attend that event with the wrong clothing you will stand out as likely not to belong to the intended class and possibly even a troublemaker. Similarly, a doctor would wish to talk to a doctor in a different language to that which an IT specialist would talk to another IT specialist. Many job interviews I have had focus as much on my knowledge of the language used in the profession as about my technical knowledge. This is not to say that my technical knowledge was irrelevant but my ability to discuss matters with other people of my profession was equally important. As a mathematician and someone who buys or sells household goods what is a set and you will have different meanings given to you.

Not to mention, as a matter of etiquette, it’s probably best to ignore “mistakes” other people make.

A lot of English could be improved. Personally, I'm a big fan of the far more phonetic spelling of English the Malay/Indonesians use. Meet me at KL Sentral. Ahhh. It just feels more correct.

@@myne00 There have been _many_ attempts at spelling reforms in English, but since pronunciation continues to change as Dr. Lindsey mentions about the word "covert," they always wind up becoming useless and even adding to the lack of consistency in the spelling patterns of English.

​@@DrunkenHotei yeah, I know. But it's nice to dream. Don't you love that "mistake" of using "but" after a period? My English teacher would CRY - but it is convention now! On the topic of spelling, I argue that if you say a word like "enough" with a Scottish accent, you can hear the deep throated "ogh" that justifies the spelling. I wonder if that's why it's like that. Enough, rhyming with loch, not enuff rhyming with fluff.

@@myne00 Haha indeed! How wrong my primary school teachers were about so, so many things related to language... And yeah, most spelling issues have some convoluted historical explanation that can sometimes be partially explained by looking at pronunciations in different dialects. Everything went so cattywampus after the great vowel shift though that I feel any attempt to rectify English spelling is doomed. I once saw an old chain email that explained a way to make English spelling consistent, and it wound up making English basically look like German. You can read it yourself by googling _"An old chestnut. In its globalized incarnation below, via Steven Gearhart."_

We have to be speaking the same language

I agree. If all the traffic is coming directly towards you, you are probably unsafe.

Pssh. Sheep.

It's a great analogy because that's also the answer to the first question. The "correct" pronunciation is the one everyone else is using so everyone can be understood.

What I love about the analogy is that it shows conflict when we don’t agree, and harmony when we pick a side. I don’t actually want this for cultural life, but it would apply to technical standards.

Let's make a compromise. Everyone drives in the center (or centre, if you prefer).