USAGE AND

STIGMATIZATION

by Don L. F. Nilsen and

Alleen Pace Nilsen

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Perspective on Usage:

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 “Its Academic, or Is It?”
• If you’re 35 years or older, you probably
identify a common grammatical error in the
heading on this page.

• If you’re younger than that and, you likely

have a different opinion

• Age appears to be the demarcation here.

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 Clichés You May Want to Avoid

…boggles the mind. …literally.

…bores me to tears. …opening a Pandora’s
…foregone conclusion. box.
…going down a slippery …playing God.
slope. …pushing the envelope.
…in broad daylight. …who can say?
…in the foreseeable future. Has thinking “outside the
…is on the bubble. box” become such a cliché
that it’s now “inside the
It goes without saying.
box”?
It’s not for me to say.

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 The Computer Generation:
More Words—More Grammatical Errors
• Patricia O’Conner says that rather than being
obsessed by error, we should nurture our love of
talking about words, about language.

• She adds that thanks to the computer, Americans

are communicating with one another at a rate
undreamed of a generation ago—and they’re doing it
in writing.

• People who seldom wrote more than a memo or a

shopping list are now producing blizzards of words.

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• The downside of the digital age is that our
grammar isn’t quite up to the mark. We’re
writing more, and worse, than ever before.

• The ease and immediacy of electronic

communication are forcing the computer-
literate to think about their grammar for the
first time in years, if ever.

• O’Connor says that it’s ironic that this back-

to-basics message should come from
cyberspace.

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 French vs. English Usage
• In his Growth and Structure of the English
Language, Otto Jespersen said,

• The French language is like the stiff French garden

of Louis XIV.

• In contrast, the English language is more like an

English park, which is laid out seemingly without
any definite plan.

• You are allowed to walk everywhere according to

your fancy without having to fear a stern keeper
enforcing rigorous regulations.
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The Grammar Police

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 Bad Usages in Literature
• In Hamlet, the King says, “Nor what he spake, though it lack’d
form a little, Was not like madness.”

• In Othello, the Duke says, “Yet opinion…throws a more safer

voice on you.”

• In Othello, Desdemona says, “My life and education both do

learn me how to respect you.”
(MacNeil [2009]: 67)

• In Julius Caesar, Caesar says to Brutus, “That was the most

unkindest cut of all.”

• In Star Trek, the narrator says, “To boldly go….”

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• David McNiel noted that axe, meaning “ask,”
which is so common in black American
English, is standard in Chaucer in all forms—
axe, axen, axed.”

• Ernest Hemingway believed that American

literature did not really begin until Mark
Twain, who outraged critics by reproducing
the vernacular of characters like Huck Finn.

• These characters used colloquial language—

they spoke the way people speak, not the way
they write.

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• In reality, we have levels of formality in
speech as in our clothing.

• There are very formal occasions, often

requiring written English: the job application
or the letter to the editor—the dark-suit,
serious-tie language, with everything pressed
and the lint brushed off.

• There is our less formal out-in-the-world

language—a more comfortable suit, but still
respectable.

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• There is language for close friends in the evenings,
on weekends—blue-jeans-and-sweatshirt language,
when it’s good to get the tie off.

• There is family language, even more relaxed, full of

grammatical short cuts, family slang, echoes of old
jokes that have become intimate shorthand—the
language of pajamas and uncombed hair.

• Finally, there is the language with no clothes on; the

talk of couples—murmurs, sighs, grunts—language at
its least self-conscious, open, vulnerable, and
primitive.

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The Importance of
Punctuation

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 Indirect Language and
Politeness Phenomena
• When you are at a dinner party and want the
salt, you don’t blurt out, “Gimme the salt.”
Rather you make your language polite by
asking “Do you think you could pass the
salt?”

• We want someone to pass the salt, but we’re

doing making it more polite by asking about
the prerequisite conditions for making a
sensible request.

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• The underlying rationale is that the hearer not be given a
command but simply be asked or advised about one of the
necessary conditions for passing the salt.

• Your goal is to have your need satisfied without treating the

listener as a flunky who can be bossed around at will.

• In an episode of Seinfeld, George is asked by his date if he

would like to come up for coffee.

• He declines, explaining that caffeine keeps him up at night.

• Later he slaps his forehead: “’Coffee’ doesn’t mean coffee!

‘Coffee’ means sex!’”

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The Semicolon

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 A Usage Test
• 1. Find all of the “incorrect” usages in the following
sentences.

• 2. Using metalanguage (e.g. “infinitive,” “past

participle,” etc.), explain each.

• 3. Rate each “incorrect” usage from 1-10 in terms of

stigmatization.

• 4. See if you can find any usages with reverse

stigmatization—usages where the “correct” form is
more stigmatized than the “incorrect” form.
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1. He decided to never again loan money to a person who ain’t got no security.

2. I will always choose the piece of cake that has the least calories.

3. That was the exact person who I was thinking about.

4. If I was able to drive slower, perhaps I might could avoid getting speeding
tickets.

5. She done all the work, but he don’t appreciate it.

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6. These here books are different than them there books.

7. Dey about ready to study dey book.

8. Is this John book or yourn?

9. He drunk the most fastest of anybody there.

10. She been dancin all night.

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11. We was answering as good as anybody else.

12. He hurt hisself yesterday when he jump off the roof.

13. He was open a bottle of wine while him and me was called over the
loudspeaker.

14. Dose two boy very tin.

15. I done been finished before anyone knew it was me.

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16. Wasn’t it the magnificentest movie youall had ever seen?

17. She had learn to answer “No” irregardless of the question.

18. He thought the boid be purty.

19. He bought a SHOWance policy from the POlice academy.

20. Dey a lot of eviDENCE that everyone forgot dey homework.

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21. Can I go to the bafroom?

22. The reason he a rat fink is because he only done half of his homework.

23. My work finished, but I used to could finish it faster.

24. I going to school early because I’m disinterested in staying home.

25. We divided the cake between all five of us, just like Paul do.

26. Walking briskly to school, the hospital suddenly came into view.
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CONTRADICTIONS TO EXPLAIN

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1. Don’t use no double negatives.

2. Make each pronoun agree with their antecedent.

3. Verbs has to agree with their subjects.

4. Don’t write run-on sentences they are hard to read.

5. Don’t use commas, that aren’t necessary.

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6. Try to not ever split infinitives.

7. A preposition is something which you should never end a sentence with.

8. Correct spelling is esential.

9. Proofread your essay to see if any words are left.

Sign on an office door:

“DEPARTMENT OF REDUNDANCY
DEPARTMENT.”

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 Usage Web Site:

“Superlatives!!!!” by Kali Lux:

[Link]

The The Impotence of Proofreading (Taylor Mali):

[Link]

Kinetic Typology:
[Link]
ed

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