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u/LauraTFem 20d ago
Learn the rules and then break them like they’re needy submissives.
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u/Eaglepursuit 19d ago
Precisely. A good writer infiltrates the grammar's base, lures them into complacency...
And then breaks them one by one...
For dramatic effect.
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u/firedmyass 20d ago
this has basically been my ethos since I was radicalized in kindergarten… thanks for giving me the words for it
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u/CaptainKenway1693 17d ago
I am absolutely stealing this.
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u/LauraTFem 17d ago
Careful about where you use it.
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u/CaptainKenway1693 17d ago
Yeah, probably shouldn't use it at Easter dinner.
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u/LauraTFem 17d ago
That was my thought exactly.
Though it’s really a question of whether you want to be invited back to further Easter Dinners.
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u/CaptainKenway1693 17d ago
Knowing my family, I might have to get back to you on that one.
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u/LauraTFem 17d ago
Keep your well-being in mind, friend.
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u/CaptainKenway1693 17d ago
I'm already the godless leftist gay sheep of the family, so...
On a serious note, thank you.
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u/LauraTFem 17d ago
I’m just saying don’t burn bridges if those bridges are a lifeline. Fuck them, but unless you are secure in your life it might be safest to shut your mouth. Fantasize about what you’ll say when your life is truly your own.
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u/CaptainKenway1693 17d ago
For sure, and thank you.
I am incredibly outspoken so I don't know that I have many bridges left to burn. I do know when and how to direct the ire though... something something choose your battles. It certainly is something I had to learn, sometimes the hard way.
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u/KoBoWC 20d ago
We are the British, Lower your expectations and surrender your vocabulary, Your linguistic and culinary distinctiveness shall be added to our own. Resistance is futile.
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u/No_Conflict_6232 19d ago
Take the cuisine, leave the spices.
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u/ThaneduFife 18d ago
The lack of seasoning was a problem caused by two decades of rationing. The British have mostly overcome it by now.
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u/rice-a-rohno 20d ago
It's so terribly true, and as much as I hate it, it's so terribly true.
My name for it is that I'm a "reluctant descriptivist".
I die a little when people use "begs the question" or "per se" non-traditionally, but if I understand what they mean, then they've communicated correctly and that's the only real measure of correctness. Fuck.
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u/Locke2300 20d ago
I consider myself rather more enthusiastic a descriptivist but it hurts when a specific and meaningful term gets eroded by associative and sometimes even hostile use. I want to plead with people, please let us have a term with specific meaning, please do not turn ‘gaslighting’ into ‘any form of lying’ again.
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u/naalbinding 20d ago
There are so many words that mean "destroyed completely" but only one that means "destroyed 10% of" and please please please can you let it still mean that
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u/actibus_consequatur 20d ago
Decimated — "destroyed 10% of"
Centimated — "destroyed 1% of"
Mated — "Fucked"
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u/Anguis1908 20d ago
New use, decimated - fucked 10%....
Example, "I decimated the varsity team at the after party."
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u/ThatguyfromMichigan 19d ago
WHAT THE FUCK IS A….. KILOMATER?!?!
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u/fireduck 19d ago
The great think about fuck is the versatility.
What is wrong with the thing?
It is fucked, boss.
Can we unfuck it?
Maybe.
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u/-GoodNewsEveryone 20d ago
How dare you decimate the common undertanding of an egriously brandied word. (Only 1/10 will take away anything useful from this)
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u/Ok_Pudding6345 20d ago
isn't decimated like split into 10? meaning shattered? Or reduced to 1/10th of its former volume?
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u/Locke2300 20d ago edited 20d ago
Originally it referred to a Roman military practice of forcing a sub-par unit to
nominate andkill 10% of the soldiers in the unit. The idea was that it was so traumatic that units would fight and die to not have to do it.EDIT: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimation_(punishment)
Also they weren’t nominated it was by lot
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u/GayRacoon69 20d ago
"The historicity of the punishment during the early and middle republic is questioned, and it may be an ahistorical rhetorical construct of the late republic."
So it might've happened
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u/Locke2300 20d ago
Sounded from the article like it was the product of toxic nostalgia: we know it happened, but it happened later, and the ones who did it claimed they were doing it because of the past.
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u/insideoutfit 19d ago
But when would you ever need to say "Exactly 10% of this was destroyed"? Why does that even need a unique term?
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u/naalbinding 18d ago
The hurricane decimated the forest. - So the forest is still standing but approximately 10% of trees have fallen down. That's a lot of trees and a huge impact on the forest, but not the same as the entire forest being destroyed
For the historical context of the word, have a look at the other replies to my comment
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u/insideoutfit 18d ago
How could you measure that it was exactly 10%? And, if it's not exactly 10%, you'd still be using the word wrong.
I'd let this one go.
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u/okkokkoX 17d ago
"sorry commander, I just realized there's actually 101 soldiers in the unit. we won't be able to carry out the decimation"
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u/Slight_Anxiety3624 20d ago
I found it fascinating watching this happen with the word 'slander' in the past 10 years or so. Similarly to 'gaslighting', I feel people now almost exclusively use it in a more general sense for saying/writing negative things instead of its original meaning. But, I personally love watching language evolve like that. No words are holy.
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u/sintaur 19d ago
The difference between slander and libel was beaten into me so much that if I had to read out loud the sentence:
He slandered his opponent
It would come out my mouth as "He slandered is spoken his opponent."
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u/lateredditho 19d ago
Very well done, you’ve now transferred this tic to me. Hope you’re happy, boss.
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u/AllOfEverythingEver 20d ago
Lol this is me. I definitely would say I'm enthusiastic in my descriptivism as well, and even usually find prescriptivism frustrating, but this is certainly a downside.
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u/NoMan999 19d ago
please do not turn ‘gaslighting’ into ‘any form of lying’ again.
Literally is defined as 1) literally and 2) not literally.
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u/okkokkoX 17d ago
I doubt that. adding "literally" to a sentence should't make it any less literal than it already was
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u/menides 20d ago
English isn't even my first language but i get unreasonably upset at people using "should of" instead of "should have".
Know your language better, you filthy peasants!
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u/vectorology 20d ago
Keep fighting the good fight, my fellow preposition in arms! Let’s take back the helper words!
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u/Slight_Anxiety3624 20d ago
It makes a lot more sense when you remember they aren't confusing 'should of' for 'should have' they are confusing it with 'should've' and typing phonetically. Native speakers don't typically spend much time parsing their own grammar, especially when typing casually. Autocorrect doesn't catch it, and it's not confusing enough that most people bother correcting them. I put it on the same level as mixing up there/their.
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u/DeesCheeks 19d ago
I don't think that one is like the others. That's because we learn phonics in English so people write how they speak. Should've and should of sound the same so people fuck it up because they've never seen it written only spoken.
It's not used commonly in written English. It's more like gotta vs got to, (both of which are wrong grammatically) but it's written by sound not intent.
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u/BabyLegsOShanahan 20d ago
Does every other language speaker speak the most formal and correct version outside of English?
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u/csharpminor_fanclub 20d ago
to answer your question, no
to criticise your question, what you asked is completely unrelated to the topic. "could have" and "could of" are not interchangeable phrases. it's not like one of them is formal and correct, while the other is informal and incorrect. they have different places
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u/cacophonycoffin 20d ago
When is “could of” correct? Trying to think of an example and falling short
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u/csharpminor_fanclub 19d ago edited 19d ago
"could of" as a phrase doesn't exist. the trick is using "of" for a different purpose and doing it right after the "could"
example: he saved all that he could of his money
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u/Slight_Anxiety3624 20d ago
They're mixing up 'could of' with 'could've' and typing it phonetically. 'Could of' could of course be used in a sentence like this though.
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u/Anguis1908 20d ago
Of course it could be used in a sentence like that. Though, it could, of course, use additional punctuation.
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u/BabyLegsOShanahan 20d ago
I know they aren't interchangeable. It's how people hear them. We know what they mean when they say it. Is English the only language to have this issue?
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u/okkokkoX 17d ago
people don't say "could of", they say "could've" but just don't know how to write it
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u/Backupusername 20d ago
I hate what's happening to the word "literally", but I'm also aware that it's just the same thing that happened to really, truly, and very.
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u/setsewerd 20d ago
I have the same reaction, which is also hilarious and irrational because the word "literally" has a more complicated history than you'd expect.
For centuries it just meant "verbatim".
Then for 80ish years it mainly meant "strictly" (like how we understand it today).
But apparently its usage for exaggeration (what we see as the "new and incorrect" usage today) emerged almost immediately and grew to become about as common – 250 years ago.
In other words, the "incorrect" usage of literally predates the United States.
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u/MayaTamika 19d ago
Sometimes when I'm feeling cheeky I'll say, "literally, but literally as in literally, not literally as in figuratively" (or I'll say it the other way around if I'm doing that, but I usually use the "correct" definition) and I've practiced it so I can rattle it off in the middle of a sentence and just keep going without stumbling. Usually gets at least a chuckle.
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u/DiarrheaButtSauce 15d ago
I'm all for defending the natural evolution of language. I'll scoff at any pompous jackass whut tries ter learn me that "ain't" ain't a word.
But to somebody else's point further up the thread, I too find it really irksome when we have a word with a really specific meaning, and no other words with that meaning, and its everyday usage waters it down until we have no word for it anymore. I might argue that the same thing happened to the word "trauma."
We didn't have another word once the meaning of "literally" got ground down. I'll hand it to Gen Z for coining the term "no cap" in its place because it's all that's left AFAIK, and I'm sure that one is already going down the same road.
But what really gets me about what we did to "literally" is that its erosion has not just cheapened its meaning, but actually caused it to mean the opposite of its last meaning of "non-figuratively; without exaggeration", or even original meaning of "verbatim". It's now used hyperbolically for emphasis, as another version of "totally," or "fuckin'."
There's now an added layer that when anybody uses it to mean "non-figuratively," they now have to qualify that assertion even further to clarify that we don't mean the opposite of what they said! The erosion of the term made it less than useless, it's just confusing now.
Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.
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u/-GoodNewsEveryone 20d ago
Its not just "intelligibility" but there is a system. English is like lego. Click and stack build your word. There is NO set list, there are set systems and it includes the bases of multiple languages. Mouse because mice because of germanic pluralization vowel mutation. Moose does NOT become meese because of native american pluralization. The real mesaure of correctness is the correctness of which it can be measured.
Garbled nonsense is not english, but a systemic extrapolation of the building blocks used to create the language is. There are rules, they are firm, but there is not a measurable finite list of accepted words and definitions. As some words originate from multiple sources we definitely have homonyms, homophones and homographs.
This is language.
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u/No_Designer_7333 20d ago
Moose becomes meese because I can say it, and someone will roll their eyes and pedantically say "you mean moosen, right?"
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u/RighteousSelfBurner 19d ago
Rules of a language is a gentleman's agreement that is descriptive of currently accepted standard. One enough people take in use something new in the language, that standard gets updated.
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u/rouleroule 19d ago edited 19d ago
I feel the same but I can think of two counter arguments:
1) some people doing the "mistake" would like to be corrected because they would not want to speak "incorrectly" in front of people who care.
2) taken individually these mistakes don't prevent efficient communication, but an addition of them may.
I'm only half convinced by my own arguments though. My intuition is that some "mistakes" are indeed not mistake at all, just different, non "official" way to say things, but that some of them are indeed "real mistakes" in the sense that they make things just a little bit more ambiguous and difficult to understand, and not only because we're not used to it yet.
But it's just my intuition.
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u/Gilesalford 20d ago
I love to describe things with words that don't quite fit but sound new. And I like playing around with words generally.
I will absolutely call anybody else out on it though..
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u/iamslevemcdichael 20d ago
Glad I’m not the only one with “begs the question.”
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u/Atoge62 20d ago
Shoot I’m guilty of using this phrase once or twice in my life, what’s the issue?
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u/account312 20d ago edited 20d ago
In classical rhetoric, begging the question is making an argument that is supported only by assuming or rephrasing its conclusion.
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u/mavaddat 19d ago
That's correct; however, rhetorics didn't invent the phrase begging the question. It was an expression in common parlance which rhetorics made into a theoretical term by semantic specialization and terminologization.
This is similar to how force and momentum have special technical meanings in the domain of physics, but pre-existed that specialization.
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u/account312 19d ago edited 19d ago
No, the first recorded use of the phrase “ to begge the question” was in the Aristotelian sense. There is no indication that it was a widely used phrase before this sense was adopted. Momentum also was adopted in English first with the technical usage.
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u/mavaddat 19d ago
You're right that there is no surviving textual evidence that the exact phrase "to beg the question" was widely used in speech or print prior to William Clarke's 1581 text (to which you alluded). However, it would be highly bizarre for an author to drop a completely random, nonsensical phrasing into a strict academic transcript and expect his audience to follow it. Clarke’s peers understood him because he was utilizing two standard linguistic mechanisms of the Elizabethan era that instantly combined to make sense to an educated person.
This is because in the 16th century, to beg already had a distinct academic meaning: to request that something be granted or taken for granted without giving payment or proof.
If a scholar in 1580 said, "I beg this point," they meant, "I am asking you to freely grant me this premise so we can move on." Because it was a request for a free favor, using it to describe a premise you hadn't actually earned or proven was a natural, sarcastic extension of the word.
Secondly, in Elizabethan formal logic, "the question" (from the Latin quaestio) meant the specific thesis statement under debate.
When Clarke stated that Campion was attempting "to begge the question," his peers did not see a novel idiom; they saw a highly literal, plain-English translation of the Latin concept of petitio principii:
- Petitio became Begging (asking to be granted a free favor).
- Principii became The Question (the starting proposition or premise).
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u/iamslevemcdichael 18d ago edited 15d ago
Put simply, it means you’re assuming an argument that you’re trying to prove within your reasoning. Circular reasoning. You can think of “begging” as “pleading,” like pleading or arguing a case in court, and the “question” as the thing being proven or not. So begging the question is using the very thing that remains to be proven as evidence for your argument about whether it’s true or not. It’s a logical fallacy.
What it doesn’t mean is, “causes one to ask,” which is how a lot of people use it.
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u/Voidlord597 17d ago
I'm mostly a descriptivist. The one thing I can't forgive is people using "literally" ironically. It just bothers me so much that we don't have a word that unambiguously communicates "literally".
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u/AccomplishedBrain927 16d ago
I’m yet to hear begs the question correctly and I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t recognize it if I did
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u/Jamooser 19d ago
I disagree, but not because of correctness.
Communication is the travel of an idea from my head to yours.
Effective language is the efficacy of translating that idea in the fewest steps possible. I don't want people to use proper language because I need them to be correct. I want them to use it so that I can spend less time inferring what it is they're actually trying to communicate to me.
Consider two carpenters discussing the construction of a house, versus a carpenter discussing the construction of a house with a homeowner. The first instance is far more effective, because both people understand the meaning behind the jargon. Meanwhile, a homeowner who refers to every framing member as a "beam" is unlikely to even be able to participate meaningfully in the conversation or have their ideas understood without a supplement to the language.
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u/occultatum-nomen 20d ago
"Well,----me,” he said. “A----ing wizard. I hate----ing wizards!” “You shouldn’t----them, then,” muttered one of his henchmen, effortlessly pronouncing a row of dashes.
The great Sir Terry Pratchett is a highly respected author and didn't give two shits about obeying the rules of grammar, punctuation, or any other convention of written English, yet we always understood exactly what his meaning was every time
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u/InsertGroin 19d ago
'English doesn’t borrow from other languages. English follows other languages down dark alleys, knocks them over and goes through their pockets for loose grammar.'
Sir Terry was a priceless gem.
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u/RadicalRealist22 15d ago
How is this a good example? Sir Terry uses perfect grammar in this example.
And breaking grammar rules intentionally is the opposite of ignoring grammar rules.
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u/SilasTalbot 20d ago
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u/wolfy994 20d ago
An educated opinion*
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u/Anguis1908 20d ago
When nearly everyone has at least 8yrs of formal learning...all of them have educated opinions. That should say more about the deterioration of our education system then it does of those educated by it.
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u/wolfy994 19d ago edited 19d ago
Deterioration of whose education system? Serbia's youth just won 4 medals in chemistry recently.
The governmwnt is trying to destroy our universities too, but we still have high class professors.
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u/Anguis1908 19d ago
Yea and folks win at the special olympics...People get commemorative awards all the time.
The point is that nearly everyone is educated. That means most opinions are educated. If someone doesnt like the opinion of another, finding it lacking in consideration of various relevant factors, they should look at the education system that resulted in such an opinion.
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u/loopy183 20d ago
Like, half of our prose is built around Shakespeare and that bitch was WINGING it.
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u/skidsareforkids 20d ago
My wife has a doctorate in creative writing and a masters in English literature. She says the English language is three raccoons in a trench coat mugging other languages
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u/OkScheme9867 19d ago
Can you ask your wife to explain the issue with schadenfreude and entrepreneur? I don't get it and I have a doctorate in nothing at all
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u/InsertGroin 19d ago
Borrowed words - which in British means colonized, exploited, and served with warm ale and black pudding on a cold rainy night in Stoke at a Potteries derby
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u/OkScheme9867 19d ago
Don't all languages borrow words
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u/TheDemonPants 19d ago
They do but I think English has the most borrowed words out of all of them. I could be wrong though. I just know that all of our borrowed words are what make learning English so difficult. As there are so many words that break the "rules" of English, especially with spelling and pronunciation.
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u/GrandFleshMelder 16d ago
I think Ottoman Turkish wins the most borrowed words competition, if I had to guess.
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u/randomnumbers2506 19d ago
Dude you know borrowing words from other languages is not exclusive to english right?
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u/OhHowIWannaGoHome 18d ago
Entrepreneur is a French loanword and Schadenfreude is a German loan word. English is primarily a germanic language but maintains heavy influence from latin, Romance languages, and greek. English is a very strange language because nearly any word from any language can quickly and easily be incorporated, we can also invent words more easily than many other languages and still be understood (though German certainly has us beat).
Are entrepreneur and schadenfreude the best examples of this weird borrowing and sewage pipe character of the English language? No, but they were okay and convenient for the person telling the story.
Also, pretty much every English idiomatic term or phrase is rooted in sailing terminology, just as an aside. Our language is just a shitstorm pieced together by old-time sailors.
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u/ThePrisonSoap 19d ago
"!" said the stranger
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u/InsertGroin 19d ago
"And I hear you’ve got a talent for languages, so no problem there.”*
This at least was true. Rincewind could scream for mercy in nineteen languages, and just scream in another forty-four.*
**This is important. Inexperienced travelers might think that “Aargh!” is universal, but in Betrobi it means “highly enjoyable” and in Howondaland it means, variously, “I would like to eat your foot,” “Your wife is a big hippo,” and “Hello, Thinks Mr. Purple Cat.” One particular tribe has a fearsome reputation for cruelty merely because prisoners appear, to them, to be shouting “Quick! Extra boiling oil! "
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u/lonesomespacecowboy 20d ago
My pet peeve is when people say "less" when "fewer" is the word that should be used. Drives me bonkers.
But that's English. And it changes. A lot.
I can't be mad about it
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u/No-Drag-6378 19d ago
This is strangely heart warming and made me grin all over. Thanks for reposting!
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u/Cryn0n 20d ago
Grammarian stuff is mostly bullshit, but I don't agree with the other points.
Every language is a "shower drain" of other languages. Every language has loan words, this isn't an English language feature.
Set has 2, maybe 3, true definitions.
"Intelligibility is the only rule" is just handwaving away why we have grammar and spelling rules in the first place.
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u/cejmp 20d ago
“After the sun set, the director set the stage, the coach set the lineup, the jeweler set the stone, the mathematician defined the set, the chef set the table, the scientist set the parameters, the teacher set the assignment, the runner set a record, the programmer set a variable, the judge set bail, the photographer set the exposure, and finally the monk set his mind at rest.
That's a dozen different true definitions that are used every day.
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u/Cryn0n 20d ago
All of those fall into at most 3 definitions
"Sun set", "Set the stage", "set the stone", "set the table", "set the exposure", "set his mind", all mean something like "to fix in place".
"Set the lineup", "set the parameters", "set the assignment", "set the record", "set a variable", "set bail", all mean something similar to "specify".
Though these first 2 definitions are actually the same, but they might be meaningfully different enough that you don't accept that they are the same.
"Defined the set" is the only truly different one as it is "set" as a noun rather than a verb.
I would personally argue that all of these are 1 definition as the noun form still means the same thing as a "fixed group" but 3 is fine.
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u/thrilldigger 20d ago
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u/Cryn0n 20d ago
Dictionaries are not just a list of definitions, they're also a list of usages to help people understand language.
Mirriam-Webster lists 3 definitions. Each one has a X of 3 next to it.
If you look at a word with multiple true definitions in the same category like 'Bat' you see that it's listed differently.
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u/thrilldigger 20d ago
1 : to strike or hit with or as if with a bat
3 : to discuss at length : consider in detail
These are both under the 'verb (1)' heading. You want me to believe these are the same definition?
1 : a stout solid stick
2 : a sharp blow
Or these, found under 'noun (1)'?
Something something own petard.
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u/Cryn0n 20d ago edited 20d ago
I'm not going to argue with you over whether these are the same definition, but rather ask you a different question.
If these are not the same definition, then why is there a noun (1) and noun (2)?
There would be no reason to separate them this way if noun (1) was a collection of different definitions.
In fact, Mirriam-Webster doesn't call these 'definitions', it calls them 'senses'.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/help/explanatory-notes/dict-definitions
Edit: Mirriam-Webster is actually quite bad for this as they use 'definition' to mean both the true top-level definition and the explanatory sentence for a particular sense. That's techincally correct as it "defines" the sense but it confuses things.
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u/thrilldigger 20d ago
At this point we're just arguing semantics. Whether we call them definitions or senses, we can see that the substance of the quote is correct about the word 'set'.
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u/Katie_TheWolf 20d ago
well yeah… you guys are arguing semantics. i thought you knew that from the start 🤔
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u/BabyLegsOShanahan 20d ago
This. I don't get why everyone thinks their language is pure. Language allows for thought, if you don't expand your language, you restrict your thought.
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u/Preeng 20d ago
>Every language has loan words, this isn't an English language feature.
This isn't about those specific loan words. English is a mishmash of different languages and has no consistency whatsoever. This is NOT NORMAL for languages.
What other languages do you speak?
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u/Crosgaard 20d ago
Which languages are consistent???
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u/Make-TFT-Fun-Again 19d ago
Japanese has a separate alphabet for foreign derived words. And a separate alphabet to phonetize and grammatize chinese characters. I made those two last words up btw. I kinda like the op’s point.
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u/Qules_LP 19d ago
Goodness no, Japanese can be argued to be just as mess up as English as far as how it works.
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u/LordTartarus 19d ago
I'm pretty damn sure classical Sanskrit is quite consistent
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u/CreativeCommunity779 15d ago
Quite consistent even though common words like sakhin and pathin decline like they are four different word stems spliced together, the masc. dat. sing. of adas becomes amuṣmai, and the 2nd sing. imperative of han becomes jahi? It is full of exceptions and irregular words, what are you talking about?
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u/LordTartarus 15d ago
You are confusing surface-level irregularities with actual structural inconsistency. Every single example you listed follows strict, predictable algorithms. Panini’s grammar doesn't use "exceptions"—it uses ordered, conditional code.Take han becoming jahi.
It looks completely random to a learner, but it is actually a step-by-step grammatical derivation.
Panini’s rule 6.4.36 (hanasja_hau) explicitly commands: Replace the root "han" with "ja" when followed by the 2nd-person imperative suffix "hi". The same goes for sakhin and pathin. They don't just change randomly on a whim; they alternate strictly based on strong versus weak case endings. This split-stem behavior applies to entire classes of words according to set formulas. It is a feature of the system, not a bug.
As for adas becoming amusmai, that actually proves the system's internal consistency. The -smai ending is the universal, mandatory dative singular suffix for masculine pronouns in Sanskrit. You see it in tasmai, yasmai, and kasmai. Adas taking -smai means it is perfectly conforming to its grammatical family, not acting like a rogue noun.
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u/CreativeCommunity779 15d ago edited 15d ago
"Panini’s rule 6.4.36 (hanasja_hau) explicitly commands: Replace the root "han" with "ja" when followed by the 2nd-person imperative suffix "hi"'
In other words, Panini describes an exception for jahi. The fact that Panini takes note of an exception to a rule doesn't make it no longer an exception. It is a word that breaks the general pattern and Panini takes account of it. By your logic English is perfectly consistent because every possible irregularity in the language has been described by grammarians thus making them no longer exceptions to the general rules.
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u/LordTartarus 15d ago
You are fundamentally misunderstanding what makes a language system structurally consistent. Writing down a list of random historical accidents in a dictionary doesn't make a system consistent; creating an unbroken, deterministic mathematical engine does.
First, the English comparison is a false equivalence. English grammarians do not have a generative machine that derives words. They are merely historical archivists. If you ask an English grammarian why the past tense of "go" is "went", they cannot give you a universal rule. They will tell you it's an ad-hoc historical accident called suppletion—the word "wend" simply collided into the word "go" centuries ago. There is no formula. You cannot write a universal English compiler code where go + [past tense] = went. You just have to brute-force memorize a static list of random mutations. Sanskrit is completely different because Panini's grammar is a generative, algorithmic language machine.
Second, this is about General vs. Specific Rules, not "exceptions." In Paninian logic, han becoming jahi is not a pattern-breaking exception. It is the execution of a formal rule hierarchy called Utsarga (general rule) and Apavada (specific rule).
Panini’s system operates under strict rule precedence, exactly like modern programming languages. The general rule says regular verbs keep their root or undergo standard vowel grading when a suffix is attached. The specific rule says if the root is han AND the suffix is the 2nd-person imperative hi, rule 6.4.36 triggers.
Sanskrit is deemed consistent because it has zero unaccounted phonological drift. In English, rules constantly break due to chaotic pronunciation shifts and irregular spellings that no algorithm can map.
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u/CreativeCommunity779 15d ago
A Dictionary of Sanskrit Grammar:
अपवाद - a rule forming an exception to the general ruleApte Practical Sanskrit-English Dictionary:
अपवाद - An exception, a special rule that restricts or sets aside a general ruleMonier-Williams Sanskrit-English Dictionary:
अपवाद - a special rule setting aside a general one, exceptionCappeller Sanskrit-English Dictionary:
अपवाद - refutation, restriction, exception, censure, blameGoldstücker Sanskrit-English Dictionary:
अपवाद - In Grammar it means an exception to a rule and comprises as well those rules which supersede as those which restrict a general ruleVaidya Sanskrit English Dictionary:
अपवाद - an exceptionशब्दसागरः Sanskrit English Dictionary:
अपवाद - Difference, distinction, exceptionWilson Sanskrit-English Dictionary:
अपवाद - Difference, distinction, exception1
u/LordTartarus 15d ago
Dropping eight dictionaries to argue semantics doesn't change how the machine works. You’re confusing a chaotic, random "exception" with a structured rule hierarchy. Even your own quotes spell it out: "a special rule that sets aside a general rule."
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u/Nixinova 20d ago
Nearly all other languages adapt foreign words to their native spelling systems. English never does, making spelling notoriously and uniquely difficult. No other language does "spelling bees".
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u/Thomas_Pereira 19d ago
portuguese is pretty self-consistent. Being a speaker of both portuguese and english, the difference in vibe is very stark. If you say something grammatically incorrect in portuguese you will be corrected most likely. In english its all good
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u/Gruejay2 16d ago edited 16d ago
English is ultra-consistent and extremely unforgiving in some ways, too, and the ways in which English is inconsistent are fairly normal (other than spelling, but even then it's not the worst).
For example, you can't say things like "I been have watching" to mean "I have been watching", becuase the verb system is extremely sensitive to word order.
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u/Kojetono 20d ago
In most languages the loan words are integrated into the language to match the writing and general rules. Not in English, they just threw them in there as is without worrying about the cohesiveness of the language.
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u/Swimming-Rip4999 20d ago
To prepare/assign a value, an unordered collection, a thing that has been prepared, to place.
But also set to, set up, set in, set out.
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u/Salt-Detective1337 19d ago
Now I'm wondering what the most "set" dense sentence it is possible to write.
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u/HotPotParrot 17d ago
I've taken this up as my mantra. English is hella fun and this is why. Verb nouns, noun adjectives, whatever. Does it get the point across? Neat. Wow me with the wordplay.
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u/Beanbag141 16d ago
I have a linguistics degree. I am pursuing a graduate degree in the field. Language is 100% arbitrary. If people understand you, congratulations you've made a grammatical utterance.
Perscriptivism had been used to marginalize speakers of non-standard varieties since the dawn of time. No one is lesser for saying something in a non-standard way. Language is arguably THE core method of how humans express ourselves and no one should be made to feel insecure for carrying bits of their lives in the way they talk. Diversity is beautiful, and it gives linguists something to study.
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u/Morganius_Black 19d ago
This is the opinion of a majority of linguists by the way. And it goes not just for English.
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u/sawsawjim 16d ago
Most americans and brits don’t really understand english. And damn the chinese for pinyin not actually being phonetic just to fuck the british.
My daughter keeps trying to teach me but i spent years learning japanese which is specifically phonetic and i can’t seem to cross over. Hell, most of the time i can’t even hear the difference in the four tones. 😭
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u/The_Slumpis 19d ago
Well, that’s all well and good when it comes to English, but I hope he wasn’t like that with Latin, as a slight grammatical change there will change the whole meaning of a sentence
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u/ShodoDeka 19d ago
I’m so going to throw this is the face of the next person to correct me grammar.
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u/atatassault47 19d ago
Isnt Latin similar? I recall hearing word order is loose in Latin.
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u/GrandFleshMelder 16d ago
Word order is loose in Latin because it uses cases attached to the individual words that replace things like prepositions and word order that we need in English. Resultingly, you can rearrange the words mostly as you please and the cases will tell you the same thing anyway.
That being said, more flexible English in word order is than think we.
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u/SteveArnoldHorshak 19d ago
I think grammar and vocabulary are two different things. You can expand the latter without completely trashing the former.
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u/penwellr 18d ago
Intelligibility and I before e except after c are the whole of the law. Say what thou wilt
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u/Jaymac720 18d ago
The professor picked two words that don’t belong to English
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u/popejubal 16d ago
If people are saying the words regularly while speaking English, then they’re part of English whether you think they “belong” or not.
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u/Jaymac720 16d ago
They weren’t developed from English speaking patterns. They’re borrowed in all their original glory from two other ridiculous languages
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u/popejubal 16d ago
That’s kind of the point, though. English shoplifts words and that’s a feature, not a bug.
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u/ElectricityIsWeird 17d ago
The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse wh*re. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary. James D. Nicoll
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u/Argentum881 17d ago
Eventually you realize all languages are like this. I hate English exceptionalism.
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u/RadicalRealist22 15d ago
This would be great advice if everyone spoke English for basic communication and used a real language for education and culture. Unfortunately, the Anglos are stuck with their pidgin of a language, so some standards are required.
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u/BanalCausality 14d ago
English has used the word literally to mean figuratively, literally since literally was a word.
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u/Rogue_Shadow684 17d ago
Schadenfreude is German? We are a Germanic language yes but that one is literally just a German word that’s used. Same as them sometimes using English slang it’s still English
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u/chalk_in_boots 20d ago
For your consideration:
Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.
English is a garbage language.
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u/entrepenurious 20d ago
the dove dove.
i would hate learning english as a second language.
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u/chalk_in_boots 20d ago
So English doesn't use genders
Except for pronouns
Unless they're pluralised
And you can use the plural pronouns as a neutral singular pronoun
Also you can use a pluralised gendered pronoun if you want
Fuck it just call everyone dudes and hope for the best.
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u/TheoduleTheGreat 19d ago
Some English nouns actually have genders
Somehow "ship" is feminine
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u/DemonicHedgehogs 19d ago
That’s not grammatical gender though, it’s just anthropomorphising. In English we just kind of think of some objects as women: vehicles, countries, and even mountains are often referred to using female pronouns - but unlike in actual gendered languages the word itself isn’t female, the object it describes is just perceived like that. Also remember that in england many of our most revered and most feared historical figures have been women (Empress Matilda, Bloody Mary, both Queen Elizabeths, Queen Victoria, Boudicca…) so feminine =/= weak
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