

Stack Exchange for English Language and Usage - SandB0x
http://english.stackexchange.com/

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pfeyz
Judging from the top questions that I read, this is not a site for linguists,
at least not ones interested in descriptive rules of language. Nearly all
questions asked about standards of written English, which are arbitrary and
uninteresting to a linguist, except in that the bickering over what is
“proper” might bring to our attention divergent forms among varieties of
English.

For people interested in the debate over whether a “correct” English (or any
language for that matter) exists, here is an interesting article by Geoffrey
Pullum:

<http://people.ucsc.edu/~pullum/MLA2004.pdf>

Re: written English vs. spoken English Spoken English is a primary linguistic
form while written English is secondary or parasitic on spoken forms, so
actually from a linguistic perspective, calling written English a language is
wrong. English exists in speakers’ minds and written English is a filtered
encoding of that language with certain non-linguistic constraints put upon it
(e.g. in my dialect of English, dropping an auxiliary at the beginning of a
yes/no question is completely okay, but in writing, I hardly ever do this,
unless in a very informal context. This is because written standards tell me
not to.)

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stcredzero
A lot of the signal in spoken English is carried by tone of voice and
emphasis. Which confuses people from cultures where emphasis is not part of
the signal, much as English speakers are often confused by tonal languages.

Written English is more formal presumably because it has to get by without
that part of the signal.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eats,_Shoots_%26_Leaves>

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jonpaul
My favorite word source: <http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/errors.html>

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Mithrandir
Why couldn't people use this more often?

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epochwolf
Because english isn't as standardized as we would like to think. The written
and spoken forms are not a one to one translation. Written english could
almost be classify as a seperate language that happens to share words and
similar syntax. At least the written version has a modest level of
standardization. The spoken language is very fragmented.

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Mithrandir
I wasn't referring to spoken language. I meant when people try to literally
"write like they speak" and end up sounding ridiculous because, as you said,
written English could almost be another language.

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hellrich
Several, don't forget dialects.

