Should we abide to rules provided by Dictionaries or should we simply say "what the majority does"?
I found this comment by Neil Coffey on another thread:
Remember it's the dictionary that is documenting language usage, not the other way round! If the dictionary claims that "electrocutar" must imply "mater", but in fact people don't always use it with this implication, then the dictionary is just inaccurate or out of date. (Dictionary editors are just poor human beings trying their best to document usage-- they don't have a direct line with God to ask what the "right" definition is!)
It's absolutely true that dictionaries have severe limitations in their ability to document language usage, and if they were able to include more detail, such as percentage usage with different meanings, percentage of informants that agreed that a word had a certain connotation or belonged to a particular register etc, then I think this would be hugely valuable. But in most cases, the reason they don't include such information is essentially practical (the data is too difficult to gather) rather than ideological.
But even if they did include such information, that doesn't suddenly mean you "should" take notice of it at all if you don't want to. Part of being an effective speaker and writer is continually judging what language to use based on how you believe your audience will react to and interpret it, in turn based on the whole of your "linguistic experience". A dictionary definition is essentially a compiler saying to you "I've found this usage in the corpus I was using to compile the dictionary", and a newspaper headline is saying to you "Here is a sentence that sounds "good" to me, that I believe fulfils the criteria of communicating the relevant information, having the right impact, and which I was able to come up with in the time frame dictated by my boss". In either case, it's up to you whether or not you take that usage into account when deciding what language to use in the future.
Do you agree to this''
39 Answers
steve said:
And you would have thought wrong. Take it from a mechanic, a pin needs no sharp point, and I don't even know what a round point would be. If it's round, is it pointed? Which puts me in mind of the square point shovel, which is what you use to shovel gravel off the road, but also, like this post, has no point.
Horse pucky!. You ask, "If it's round, is it pointed? " and add that you do not know "what a round point would be". My "point" was, precisely that (in "popular opinion") "pointed" means coming to a "sharp" point. I own (and have used a "square pointed" shovel) but the very fact that most people feel the need to say "square pointed" shovel suggests that it runs counter to the "usual" notion" of "pointed". (again, popular usage).
If popular usage is to be the sole guide, then this exchange is meaningless. There are only "shovels'' and the distinctions that might be suggested by the actual users of different kinds of shovels is meaningless.
In short, the argument of the descriptive camp, reduces itself to "let us ignore the (superfluous) distinctions made by
the numerically inferior speakers"). Since such distinctions do not serve our purposes , they should be ignored.
samdie said:
I heartily disagree. In my experience, when someone consults a dictionary (ignoring those unfortunate English speakers who are cursed with chaotic spellings and aren't interested in "meanings"), it is most often to find out the "real" (or, if you prefer the "precise") meaning of some word. [...] For better or worse, the typical user believes that there is a correct answer and that is what he expects to find in a dictionary.
It's absolutely true that there's a common misperception that "The Dictionary" (people often say "The Dictionary", even though there might be hundreds on the market in a given language, all with conflicting information in one place or another...) is some kind of purveyor of eternal truth. A few formal studies have attested to that perception. And there have even been court cases that have hinged on the definition of a word given in "The Dictionary"-- without it being stated which dictionary "The Dictionary" actually was on that particular occasion...! Some (meta)lexicographers refer to this as the "UAD" or "Unidentified Authorising Dictionary.
Unfortunately, most lexicographers smply aren't attempting to offer the "absolute infallible truth" that users somehow expect them to provide.
In the case of terminology, it's sometimes a little easier (but not always!) to come by a meaning widely agreed upon in that field, and many dictionaries indicate (by indicating the field in question) when that's the source of their definition. That sometimes means that they'll give both a specialist meaning and a "layman's" meaning. There may be times when you deliberately adopt one or the other meaning, depending on your audience.
Interestingly, in an admittedly fairly old study conducted by Quirk in 1974, 87% of science students reported having been dissatisfied with a dictionary definition because they felt they "knew more than the lexicographer" about the word in question (for humanities students, this figure was 72%, with about 120 students in each category).
And you would have thought wrong. Take it from a mechanic, a pin needs no sharp point, and I don't even know what a round point would be. If it's round, is it pointed? Which puts me in mind of the square point shovel, which is what you use to shovel gravel off the road, but also, like this post, has no point.
P.S. When was the last time that you saw a pin with a "rounded point"? I would have thought that one of the defining characteristics of a pin was that it had a sharp (not rounded point).
Mark Baker said:
Maybe, you are one of the 48 per cent along with 'the housewives' since the hammer is called a 'ball pin' hammer since the end is rounded like a 'pin' (not ball peen hammer)......since when has spelling had anything to do with definitions?
Odd! I was taught "ball-peen hammer" by my father (I mention this, not because I wish to suggest that I consider my father to have been an authority on matters linguistic, but, rather, because he was a big fan of using the terminology (argot) specific to certain trades) . My Webster's New World College Dictionary contains only "ball-peen". The OED contains no entry for "ball-peen" (nor for "ball-pin") but does (under the word "peen", as a verb) offers "trans. To beat thin with a hammer, to hammer out; to strike with the pein of a hammer." I'm inclined to suspect that whatever source it is that you have in mind, being unfamiliar with the word "peen", substituted the similar-sounding (and more familiar) word "pin".
Please, feel free to provide further information.
P.S. When was the last time that you saw a pin with a "rounded point"? I would have thought that one of the defining characteristics of a pin was that it had a sharp (not rounded point).
Maybe, you are one of the 48 per cent along with 'the housewives' since the hammer is called a 'ball pin' hammer since the end is rounded like a 'pin' (not ball peen hammer)......since when has spelling had anything to do with definitions?
samdie said:
It's absolutely true that dictionaries have severe limitations in their ability to document language usage, and if they were able to include more detail, such as percentage usage with different meanings, percentage of informants that agreed that a word had a certain connotation or belonged to a particular register etc, then I think this would be hugely valuable. But in most cases, the reason they don't include such information is essentially practical (the data is too difficult to gather) rather than ideological.I heartily disagree. In my experience, when someone consults a dictionary (ignoring those unfortunate English speakers who are cursed with chaotic spellings and aren't interested in "meanings"), it is most often to find out the "real" (or, if you prefer the "precise") meaning of some word. Lexicographers and linguistic philosophers may argue about how one decides (or who should decide) the real meaning but the average user is uninterested (and, quite probably, unaware) of such disputes. For better or worse, the typical user believes that there is a correct answer and that is what he expects to find in a dictionary.Consider carpenters (I trust that you will concede that they are not constitute the majority of English speakers): I've suddenly taken it into my head to wonder what is a "ball-peen" hammer, so I consult the dictionary. Carpenters may speak of framing hammers, claw hammers, tack hammers, ball-peen hammers, mallets (even mauls). The dictionary announces that 68% of the respondents suggest that "ball-peen hammer" means "hammer" (and that, of those, 48% are housewives for whom all of the preceding are, simply, "hammers"). My reaction would be, "Those housewives wouldn't know a hacksaw from a hammer!" and, so their opinion is completely irrelevant! I care not for the opinion of those who have no knowledge of such matters and are, therefor, careless of their distinctions. Give me, rather, the opinion of people who are knowledgeable in such matters."
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Neil Coffey said:
If you use the word "should", that implies some kind of obligation. Where do you perceive that obligation as actually coming from?
The "should" comes from the notion of "practical advantage" (as in "it would behoove us to ..."). You may consider it an unfortunate fact of life but it is, nonetheless, a fact of life. We are constantly judged/evaluated by our teachers, bosses, co-workers, etc. on the basis of our speech (as well as your clothing, haircut and other things). You might wish it otherwise (perhaps, you would prefer to be judged on the "purity of the flame of your inner soul") but we are, for the most part, superficial beings, and our judgments are equally superficial.
You want to dictate "correctness"/"acceptability" on the basis of popular opinion and, at the same time, ignore the fact that popular opinion seeks "authoritative" criteria for judging usage.
It's absolutely true that dictionaries have severe limitations in their ability to document language usage, and if they were able to include more detail, such as percentage usage with different meanings, percentage of informants that agreed that a word had a certain connotation or belonged to a particular register etc, then I think this would be hugely valuable. But in most cases, the reason they don't include such information is essentially practical (the data is too difficult to gather) rather than ideological.
I heartily disagree. In my experience, when someone consults a dictionary (ignoring those unfortunate English speakers who are cursed with chaotic spellings and aren't interested in "meanings"), it is most often to find out the "real" (or, if you prefer the "precise") meaning of some word. Lexicographers and linguistic philosophers may argue about how one decides (or who should decide) the real meaning but the average user is uninterested (and, quite probably, unaware) of such disputes. For better or worse, the typical user believes that there is a correct answer and that is what he expects to find in a dictionary.
Consider carpenters (I trust that you will concede that they are not constitute the majority of English speakers): I've suddenly taken it into my head to wonder what is a "ball-peen" hammer, so I consult the dictionary. Carpenters may speak of framing hammers, claw hammers, tack hammers, ball-peen hammers, mallets (even mauls). The dictionary announces that 68% of the respondents suggest that "ball-peen hammer" means "hammer" (and that, of those, 48% are housewives for whom all of the preceding are, simply, "hammers"). My reaction would be, "Those housewives wouldn't know a hacksaw from a hammer!" and, so their opinion is completely irrelevant! I care not for the opinion of those who have no knowledge of such matters and are, therefor, careless of their distinctions. Give me, rather, the opinion of people who are knowledgeable in such matters."
If you use the word "should", that implies some kind of obligation. Where do you perceive that obligation as actually coming from?
Heidita said:
I wonder what dictionaries are useful for in your opinion, Neil, We have a dictionary RAE made by highly qualified professors here in Spain and we do pay attention to them, as we should. A dictionary provides a standard and in this case (electrocutar) the word is simply misused and that should be amended not the dictionary! Silly thought.
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Lazarus -- perhaps I didn't express myself very well, but that wasn't really the argument I was having! I hope that people will see that my argyment wasn't about the usage of an individual word-- it was about the "bigger picture" of the nature of the dictionary and what it represents. If you tell me that you observe that in 95%/99% or even 99.99999% of cases, "electrocutar" is used to imply "kill", I have no grounds to disagree with that observation!
lazarus1907 said:
Well, my argument with Neil was that, regardless of the dictionary, which I had never checked before to find out the meaning of "electrocutado", to me it the word meant "dead and fried by electricity", intuitively. That's how my parents used the word, my friends used it, newspapers used it, books used it, the TV used it,...
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From the New American Descriptive Dictionary:
oxymoron (definitions):
50% - Uh, I don't think that's a real word.
15% - A really stupid cow.
15% - The name of a laundry detergent.
13% - A flat musical instrument that you play by hitting it with sticks.
7% - A figure of speech in which opposite or contradictory ideas or terms are combined.
Mark Baker said:
As far as Samedi is concerned, they knew the Earth was round when Aristotle saw the sails of a distant ship appear above the horizon before seeing the hull. Greek Geometry and Sacrabosco proved it by using radians hundreds of years before Columbus. God only knows what he's is thinking about jejeje
Having read a fair amount of Aristotle in my misspent youth, I'm well aware that (some) Greeks realized that the earth was not flat. My point was not, who first figured that out but, rather, the more general question of "How much weight should be given to popular opinion and in what circumstances'" It seems to me a short step from "popular opinion should be the arbiter in matters linguistic" to "popular opinion should be the arbiter in matters scientific", etc. If the average European (in the 15th century) could be wrong about the earth being flat, why cannot the average person today be wrong about the meaning of a word'
So now you want to take on chimney-sweeps? Dick Van Dyke Would not be happy.
samdie said:
TThey have not solicited the opinions of chimney-sweeps and street cleaners. Nor do they cull their quotations from today's headlines. I'm not sure that they have a fixed policy but one would be hard pressed to find a citation from the past twenty years.
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There are two main points of view on this subject: "descriptive" and "prescriptive".
In its extreme form, the prescriptive approach holds that there are absolute rules of grammar, spelling and word usage. Follow the rules and you're "right"; deviate from them and you're wrong. Again, in its extreme form, this position usually maintains that the rules are "fixed" (if not for "all time", at least, for a very long time) and that the rules are decided by some group of "experts".
The descriptive approach, in its extreme form, maintains that there are no rules and that the concept of "correctness" is meaningless. There is only prevailing usage (the vox populi) which may (probably will) change at any moment. For them, the ideal "authority" would be the result of an instant survey (presumably, in which everyone was polled).
There are, unsurprisingly, more moderate versions of these two positions as well. The prescriptivists will admit (perhaps, reluctantly) that some change is inevitable and occasionally "update" their rules (though they may drag their feet). In a similar vein, the descriptivists may decide not to poll the inmates of insane asylums, denizens of "Skid Row", non-native speakers, children under the age of (say) six, etc.
English language dictionaries in the US tend now to support a more "middle-of-the-road" approach (where, up until the '50s, they tended to be more prescriptive). Mostly in definitions or examples of usage, they will sometimes add a qualifying phrase .e.g. "some people say ..." or "widely used to mean ...". When applied to dictionaries, the (modified) prescriptive approach is easier to defend since people typically consult dictionaries to find out the "correct" spelling/meaning. In that respect, the descriptivists have a philosophical problem. If popular opinion is the only standard and if, as certainly seems to be the case, most people rely on dictionaries to provide the correct answer, the descriptive dictionaries would not (by their own definition) be dictionaries. One might also expect them to eliminate 40-90% of the words found in a "standard" dictionary because for the "average" person, such words don't even exist. Finally, one might suggest that, for the remaining words, they should include all of the popular variant spellings that the "average" person produces, since there's no such thing as the "correct" spelling.
In contrast to the American dictionaries, the OED (not the ConcOx or the SOD) is essentially descriptive but with an implied prescriptive nature. In addition to the marvelous etymological information, most entries consist primarily of quotations to illustrate the uses/meanings of a word. So it could be called descriptive in that the primary message is "this is how the word is (has been) used". On the other hand it's prescriptive, in that the quotations are taken from (usually) well known authors/works, so the message is "this is what literate, informed people take the word to mean". They have not solicited the opinions of chimney-sweeps and street cleaners. Nor do they cull their quotations from today's headlines. I'm not sure that they have a fixed policy but one would be hard pressed to find a citation from the past twenty years.
Have a good one
Mark Baker said:
steve said:
'Right, and those new entries are there because of usage and time. My comments on class and education were in reply to samdies comments(byway of Heidita) on the same. Mr. Steve, my reply was in response to Mr. Lazarus. As far as Samedi is concerned, they knew the Earth was round when Aristotle saw the sails of a distant ship appear above the horizon before seeing the hull. Greek Geometry and Sacrabosco proved it by using radians hundreds of years before Columbus. God only knows what he's is thinking about jejeje
Everyone has mis-read the essence of the post left by Neil Coffey!!!!
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