Words have nothing to do with thought or the ability to think. They are just a means of _expression_ of those thoughts. The autistic can be brilliant, but can have great difficulty in expressing it. Their thoughts are no less valid. They can act on those thoughts and come up with wonderful work in many different fields. Ask them to speak or write, and they often have great difficulty.
Many that have gifts in one area will dangle a participle with the best of them. Some that can write so smoothly using absolutely perfect grammar couldn't find their backside with both hands without someone telling them which hand goes on what cheek. That you see in the media every day.
Ain't is nothing more than a contraction for am not. It has its uses. Id lots rather hang out with a "hick" that would give you the shirt off his back if you needed it, than an elitist that would look down on someone because they used the word ain't. Many would call one of my favorite authors a hick. That's ok. Will Rogers made more sense with ordinary language, than any college educated philosopher of the time. I suspect they will still be reading "Common sense ain't so common." long after any of us are around to argue.
By that standard every photograph for publication should exactly follow the rule of thirds, be absolutely perfectly exposed, be done at exactly the perfect time because it follows all the rules. We know we rarely get to photograph at exactly the time we wish. The exposure may or may not be spot on, but we have to compensate. Many great photos don't follow the rule of thirds.
Looking down on someone because of their language is a bit like looking down on a photograph because it was created in digital and not film.
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: 2010 Book
From: David Dyer-Bennet <dd-b@xxxxxxxx>
Date: Fri, August 06, 2010 1:46 pm
To: List for Photo/Imaging Educators - Professionals - Students
<photoforum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
On Fri, August 6, 2010 11:44, Marco Milazzo wrote:
> De-lurking to weigh in on the side of English teachers.
>
> Words are the medium of thought as well as communication. When we ignore
> rules of language by saying "you know what I mean," we're eroding our
> ability to think as well as to communicate, because thinking usually
> depends on communication. Socrates or Sherlock Holmes develop their ideas
> by speaking them to another person. So do we, or otherwise, why are we in
> this group?
>
> An average American teenager and a philosopher can have the same thought,
> but the teenager expresses it as vague, amorphous mish-mash of imprecise
> words. He suggests the "flavor" of the thought, while the philosopher
> expresses the thought precisely so that other people can understand it.
> He does this by putting the idea into the accepted, standard form, not
> some personal style.
I'm thinking you haven't tried to read Kant or Hegel....
But okay, I'm generally in favor of precise language.
There's rather a long history of fads in "rules" of English grammar, many
of which were never valid rules at least by today's standards (the
Victorians for example imported lots of Latin rules into English, where
they make no sense; splitting infinitives and ending sentences with
prepositions for example are English traditions from time immemorial).
And a lot of the rules are more class markers than issues of precision.
"Ain't" is clear to everybody; it just marks you as a hick.
> Rules can be relaxed for casual, everyday conversation. But you should
> know the rules and observe them when we're trying to express ideas..
>
> Can you imagine Socrates saying "Life isn't good, if you don't think about
> stuff," instead of "The unexamined life is not worth living."
That's a nice example.
--
David Dyer-Bennet, dd-b@xxxxxxxx; http://dd-b.net/
Snapshots: http://dd-b.net/dd-b/SnapshotAlbum/data/
Photos: http://dd-b.net/photography/gallery/
Dragaera: http://dragaera.info
