This document summarizes a presentation on language usage and stigmatization. It discusses how certain grammatical constructions and word choices become stigmatized over time, and how perceptions of correctness can differ between age groups. Examples are provided of non-standard usages found in literature and dialects. The document also addresses indirect and polite language, differences between French and English grammar rules, and contradictions in prescribed grammar advice. Key topics covered include Mark Twain's use of non-standard English dialects, changing views on correctness over time, and levels of formality in speech.

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Usage and Stigmatization
by Don L. F. Nilsen and
Alleen Pace Nilsen

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3. Kinetic Typology:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7E-aoXLZGY&feature=player_embedded
3

4. Perspective on Usage:
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6. Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn: Huck Finn is the narrator—Non-Standard English
Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer: Mark Twain is the narrator—Standard English
https://www.bing.com/videos/search?
q=youtube+huckleberry+finn+and+tom+sawyer&view=detail&mid=E943F327A9F4A
E26D67EE943F327A9F4AE26D67E&FORM=VIRE
Other characters in Huckleberry Finn also use non-standard English:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2znfvoCgG04
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“Its Academic, or Is It?”
• If you’re 35 years or older, you
probably identify a common
grammatical error at the top of this
slide.
• If you’re younger than that, 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.
…bores me to tears.
…foregone conclusion.
…going down a slippery
slope.
…in broad daylight.
…in the foreseeable future.
…is on the bubble.
It goes without saying.
It’s not for me to say.
…literally.
…opening a Pandora’s
box.
…playing God.
…pushing the envelope.
…who can say?
Has thinking “outside the
box” become such a cliché
that it’s now “inside the
box”?

9. The The Impotence of Proofreading (Taylor Mali):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_rwB5_3PQc
9

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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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13. Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar: “The most unkindest cut of all”
https://www.bing.com/videos/search?
q=youtube+shakespeare+julius+caesar+most+unkindest+cut+&view=deta
il&mid=2AD8BC6E0C70641B1DE82AD8BC6E0C70641B1DE8&FORM=VIRE
13

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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.

15. 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.”
• 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.

20. Star Trek: “To boldly go where no human has gone before”
https://www.bing.com/videos/search?
q=youtube+star+trek+to+boldly+go&view=detail&mid=C08E43CC745F942
24D35C08E43CC745F94224D35&FORM=VIRE
20

21. 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?”
• or “Is there any salt on the table?”
• We want someone to pass the salt, but we’re
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!’”

24. The Semicolon
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25. Star Wars: “Yoda’s Language”
https://www.bing.com/videos/search?
q=youtube+yoda+language&view=detail&mid=B1BDD43133C143DC5612B
1BDD43133C143DC5612&FORM=VIRE
25

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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.

29. Avoid double negatives.
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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
==============================
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.
10. Sign on Professor Nilsen’s office door:
“DEPARTMENT OF
REDUNDANCY
DEPARTMENT.”