I often understand when people get mad at others for what is clearly improper use of grammar. To be honest, however, and in the most nonsensical-black-cowboy-twang I can conjure, I am often disappointed when I find people don't, as Stephen Fry put's it, combine words together just for the sound-sex of it all. Tell me what you think.

Anything with Stephen Fry is all right by me. He's the reason why I sit through all the LittleBigPlanet tutorials. 

Love that video.

Thank you.

Someone posted this in the thread that was arguing about that shitty Dead Space 2 review. 
  
Great video though.

But Stephen Fry is gay why should we listen to him?
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
kidding...

I misread the title of this post. I thought it read, "just me licking stuff."

Stephen Fry has great command of English, no doubt. But he's not a linguist. In fact, he's mocked by those linguists who care enough to pay attention:

http://badlinguistics.posterous.com/frys-planet-word-too-much-fry-not-enough-word

Remember people, if you don't take a scientific approach to language, then your opinions are just opinions.

@gakushya said:

Stephen Fry has great command of English, no doubt. But he's not a linguist. In fact, he's mocked by those linguists who care enough to pay attention:

http://badlinguistics.posterous.com/frys-planet-word-too-much-fry-not-enough-word

Remember people, if you don't take a scientific approach to language, then your opinions are just opinions.

....... No ones listening to you, thread bumper.

@gakushya said:

Stephen Fry has great command of English, no doubt. But he's not a linguist. In fact, he's mocked by those linguists who care enough to pay attention:

http://badlinguistics.posterous.com/frys-planet-word-too-much-fry-not-enough-word

Remember people, if you don't take a scientific approach to language, then your opinions are just opinions.

It's a good thing language isn't a science...it's an art if anything...

You can scientifically study language sure, but it's like scientifically studying art. You can dig deep into it and waste as much time as you want reading grammar rules, Stephen Fry is still more entertaining than that blog I'm sure was pounded out by a shrill person without any sense of humor.

Opinions are just opinions because that's all they can be when it comes to art...dawg.

@NlGHTCRAWLER said:

@gakushya said:

Stephen Fry has great command of English, no doubt. But he's not a linguist. In fact, he's mocked by those linguists who care enough to pay attention:

http://badlinguistics.posterous.com/frys-planet-word-too-much-fry-not-enough-word

Remember people, if you don't take a scientific approach to language, then your opinions are just opinions.

....... No ones listening to you, thread bumper.

It isn't spot on. Who the fuck gives a fuck?

All right, I'll call someone out for a badly formatted paragraph or a line of words that doesn't make sense, but when someone is arguing about whether it should be "five items or less" or "five items or fewer", then they're just being a completely useless twat.

@believer258 said:

@NlGHTCRAWLER said:

@gakushya said:

Stephen Fry has great command of English, no doubt. But he's not a linguist. In fact, he's mocked by those linguists who care enough to pay attention:

http://badlinguistics.posterous.com/frys-planet-word-too-much-fry-not-enough-word

Remember people, if you don't take a scientific approach to language, then your opinions are just opinions.

....... No ones listening to you, thread bumper.

It isn't spot on. Who the fuck gives a fuck?

All right, I'll call someone out for a badly formatted paragraph or a line of words that doesn't make sense, but when someone is arguing about whether it should be "five items or less" or "five items or fewer", then they're just being a completely useless twat.

*Being a useless twat they are.

@NlGHTCRAWLER said:

@gakushya said:

Stephen Fry has great command of English, no doubt. But he's not a linguist. In fact, he's mocked by those linguists who care enough to pay attention:

http://badlinguistics.posterous.com/frys-planet-word-too-much-fry-not-enough-word

Remember people, if you don't take a scientific approach to language, then your opinions are just opinions.

....... No ones listening to you, thread bumper.

Sorry, what's wrong with posting on an old thread?

@believer258 said:

@NlGHTCRAWLER said:

@gakushya said:

Stephen Fry has great command of English, no doubt. But he's not a linguist. In fact, he's mocked by those linguists who care enough to pay attention:

http://badlinguistics.posterous.com/frys-planet-word-too-much-fry-not-enough-word

Remember people, if you don't take a scientific approach to language, then your opinions are just opinions.

....... No ones listening to you, thread bumper.

It isn't spot on. Who the fuck gives a fuck?

All right, I'll call someone out for a badly formatted paragraph or a line of words that doesn't make sense, but when someone is arguing about whether it should be "five items or less" or "five items or fewer", then they're just being a completely useless twat.

What's not spot on? I didn't accuse him of being wrong about anything.

Who the fuck gives a fuck? Consider this:

We have all been constructed with the light of God in us, and I don't mean a literal light, but the light of God that gives vision to all truth so that we can be guided by it. You shouldn't be surprised that I speak a different language from you. For if fire mingles with fire, a bigger fire results. But I match your logic with water, a substance fire knows nothing of. To you, I can only speak in parables, while you speak in concepts. Yet I know your rationality, will you come to understand mine?

It's really weird that you posted that video. I am, at this very moment, finishing up a documentary about Helvetica.

@Doctorchimp said:

It's a good thing language isn't a science...it's an art if anything...

Nobody is claiming language is a science? That doesn't even make sense. Linguistics is a science yes, and language a linguistic system.

@Doctorchimp said:

You can scientifically study language sure, but it's like scientifically studying art.

Opinions are just opinions because that's all they can be when it comes to art...dawg.

Art lies outside the scope of science? Is that because the methodology or technology of some specific body of scientific theory is incapable, in principle, of having any explanatory power in the domain of "art"? Or is because "art" is just defined as whatever lies outside the scope of science?

@Doctorchimp said:

You can dig deep into it and waste as much time as you want reading grammar rules, Stephen Fry is still more entertaining than that blog I'm sure was pounded out by a shrill person without any sense of humor.

The article is humourless? Do you know that from reading it? The article, by the way, is discussing the "linguistics" talk in the documentary, it's not a discussion on Fry's grammar. Because that would be boring and meaningless.

And you have got it absolutely wrong to say that Victor’s case suggests that languages are ‘not genetic’ but have to be learned. The two things are not in opposition. Human language is clearly a genetic inheritance, but its structures have to be learned from the environment.

That's about linguistic inaccuracies, not English grammar. Fry has made a scientific statement on a documentary film (many many in fact), about a well studied mathematically rigorous field of science, but it is wrong. And no it's not just the little technicalities of terminology, he's wrong on many of the big central ideas. But this is okay because the documentary is sort of a comedy too and so we cannot put it under technical scrutiny? Or because in discussions of English, or language in general, linguistics is a priori irrelevant and best ignored?

@gakushya said:

@believer258 said:

@NlGHTCRAWLER said:

@gakushya said:

Stephen Fry has great command of English, no doubt. But he's not a linguist. In fact, he's mocked by those linguists who care enough to pay attention:

http://badlinguistics.posterous.com/frys-planet-word-too-much-fry-not-enough-word

Remember people, if you don't take a scientific approach to language, then your opinions are just opinions.

....... No ones listening to you, thread bumper.

It isn't spot on. Who the fuck gives a fuck?

All right, I'll call someone out for a badly formatted paragraph or a line of words that doesn't make sense, but when someone is arguing about whether it should be "five items or less" or "five items or fewer", then they're just being a completely useless twat.

What's not spot on? I didn't accuse him of being wrong about anything.

Who the fuck gives a fuck? Consider this:

We have all been constructed with the light of God in us, and I don't mean a literal light, but the light of God that gives vision to all truth so that we can be guided by it. You shouldn't be surprised that I speak a different language from you. For if fire mingles with fire, a bigger fire results. But I match your logic with water, a substance fire knows nothing of. To you, I can only speak in parables, while you speak in concepts. Yet I know your rationality, will you come to understand mine?

@gakushya said:

@Doctorchimp said:

It's a good thing language isn't a science...it's an art if anything...

Nobody is claiming language is a science? That doesn't even make sense. Linguistics is a science yes, and language a linguistic system.

@Doctorchimp said:

You can scientifically study language sure, but it's like scientifically studying art.

Opinions are just opinions because that's all they can be when it comes to art...dawg.

Art lies outside the scope of science? Is that because the methodology or technology of some specific body of scientific theory is incapable, in principle, of having any explanatory power in the domain of "art"? Or is because "art" is just defined as whatever lies outside the scope of science?

@Doctorchimp said:

You can dig deep into it and waste as much time as you want reading grammar rules, Stephen Fry is still more entertaining than that blog I'm sure was pounded out by a shrill person without any sense of humor.

The article is humourless? Do you know that from reading it? The article, by the way, is discussing the "linguistics" talk in the documentary, it's not a discussion on Fry's grammar. Because that would be boring and meaningless.

And you have got it absolutely wrong to say that Victor’s case suggests that languages are ‘not genetic’ but have to be learned. The two things are not in opposition. Human language is clearly a genetic inheritance, but its structures have to be learned from the environment.

That's about linguistic inaccuracies, not English grammar. Fry has made a scientific statement on a documentary film (many many in fact), about a well studied mathematically rigorous field of science, but it is wrong. And no it's not just the little technicalities of terminology, he's wrong on many of the big central ideas. But this is okay because the documentary is sort of a comedy too and so we cannot put it under technical scrutiny? Or because in discussions of English, or language in general, linguistics is a priori irrelevant and best ignored?

Way to miss the bloody point, genius. My point was that taking so many pains to make sure that every last drop of language stays correct in such a scientifically rigid manner sucks all the fun out of it. Language is very malleable, it's not something that sticks to a never-changing rule-set like a game of DnD or a science like biology.

Are you going to call out Shakespeare on inventing a few thousand words?

@believer258 said:

Way to miss the bloody point, genius. My point was that taking so many pains to make sure that every last drop of language stays correct in such a scientifically rigid manner sucks all the fun out of it. Language is very malleable, it's not something that sticks to a never-changing rule-set like a game of DnD or a science like biology.Are you going to call out Shakespeare on inventing a few thousand words?

What? I agree absolutely with everything you have said so far.

taking so many pains to make sure that every last drop of language stays correct in such a scientifically rigid manner sucks all the fun out of it

It absolutely does, I am in total agreement.

Language is very malleable, it's not something that sticks to a never-changing rule-set like a game of DnD or a science like biology

Yes, that is true and I don't assert otherwise.

I have considered your points here, and I agree with everything you have said. I am in total agreement, what you say is demonstrably true, and I can't really improve upon what you have said. Now, please give fair consideration to my point: The fact is that Stephen Fry has borrowed haphazardly from science to present an over simplified and incorrect exposition on a scientific theory. My point, which no one here has yet addressed, is that not only is Fry doing bad science, but he is promoting the attitude that:

"When it comes to discussing language scientifically, we need not be scientific".

This is entirely different from

"When it comes to discussing language, we need not be scientific".

I am all for discussion about anything and everything, but you seem to be responding to the fact that I have said something, but not to what I have said. I would love to carry on here, but this is literally not a discussion, dialogue, or conversation until your response somehow relates to the thing you are responding to.

@gakushya said:

@believer258 said:

Way to miss the bloody point, genius. My point was that taking so many pains to make sure that every last drop of language stays correct in such a scientifically rigid manner sucks all the fun out of it. Language is very malleable, it's not something that sticks to a never-changing rule-set like a game of DnD or a science like biology.Are you going to call out Shakespeare on inventing a few thousand words?

What? I agree absolutely with everything you have said so far.

taking so many pains to make sure that every last drop of language stays correct in such a scientifically rigid manner sucks all the fun out of it

It absolutely does, I am in total agreement.

Language is very malleable, it's not something that sticks to a never-changing rule-set like a game of DnD or a science like biology

Yes, that is true and I don't assert otherwise.

I have considered your points here, and I agree with everything you have said. I am in total agreement, what you say is demonstrably true, and I can't really improve upon what you have said. Now, please give fair consideration to my point: The fact is that Stephen Fry has borrowed haphazardly from science to present an over simplified and incorrect exposition on a scientific theory. My point, which no one here has yet addressed, is that not only is Fry doing bad science, but he is promoting the attitude that:

"When it comes to discussing language scientifically, we need not be scientific".

This is entirely different from

"When it comes to discussing language, we need not be scientific".

I am all for discussion about anything and everything, but you seem to be responding to the fact that I have said something, but not to what I have said. I would love to carry on here, but this is literally not a discussion, dialogue, or conversation until your response somehow relates to the thing you are responding to.

I have looked back and read the thread. Overreacted a bit, I may have, but your point was not very well stated at all, and Stephen Fry's point was very frank and clear in the video.

What you're saying is that language is a science. That may be true from a perspective of studying how it works now and how it has worked in the past, but it is not a science from the perspective of creation and interpretation. That would be an art, and that would be the perspective from which Stephen Fry is speaking; that language can't be enjoyed as a science, that you can't have the "sound-sex" of language if you're looking at it from the detached and passionless views of a science. Science simply deals in facts, rules, and empirical evidence, which can be applied to language (hence the existence of linguists), but it cannot be applied to subjective art and opinion, and language most definitely grows and evolves through the latter and not the former.

EDIT: You don't seem to be saying much of anything, now that I think about it. The differentiation between those two quotes isn't much - make your point clearer.

@believer258 said:

Science simply deals in facts, rules, and empirical evidence, which can be applied to language (hence the existence of linguists)

if you're looking at it from the detached and passionless views of a science

Let me rephrase your convictions to explicate your intentions:

high school science simply deals in facts, rules, and empirical evidence
if you're looking at it from the detached and passionless views of high school science

Continuing,

What you're saying is that language is a science.

Science simply deals in facts, rules, and empirical evidence, which can be applied to language (hence the existence of linguists), but it cannot be applied to subjective art and opinion, and language most definitely grows and evolves through the latter and not the former.

I'm sorry, I tried for about 30 minutes to respond to you, but your ideas, or at least the way you have formulated them, are so vacuous and aphoristic there simply isn't anything to think about. All you're giving me to think about and respond to are facile metaphors, meaningless diction and analogies, and irrelevant philosophical sentiment. Language grows and evolves through subjective art and opinion? This statement is just so cryptic and aphoristically obscure there's no way anyone can agree or refute its contents. I'm sorry, but whatever kind of discussion we were having, I think it would be best to end it here.

@gakushya said:

@believer258 said:

Science simply deals in facts, rules, and empirical evidence, which can be applied to language (hence the existence of linguists)

if you're looking at it from the detached and passionless views of a science

Let me rephrase your convictions to explicate your intentions:

high school science simply deals in facts, rules, and empirical evidence
if you're looking at it from the detached and passionless views of high school science

Continuing,

What you're saying is that language is a science.

Science simply deals in facts, rules, and empirical evidence, which can be applied to language (hence the existence of linguists), but it cannot be applied to subjective art and opinion, and language most definitely grows and evolves through the latter and not the former.

I'm sorry, I tried for about 30 minutes to respond to you, but your ideas, or at least the way you have formulated them, are so vacuous and aphoristic there simply isn't anything to think about. All you're giving me to think about and respond to are facile metaphors, meaningless diction and analogies, and irrelevant philosophical sentiment. Language grows and evolves through subjective art and opinion? This statement is just so cryptic and aphoristically obscure there's no way anyone can agree or refute its contents. I'm sorry, but whatever kind of discussion we were having, I think it would be best to end it here.

So what was your point? I asked you to elaborate and you never did.