lugal @ lugal @lemmy.ml

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2 yr. ago

A thief threatens a social worker: " money for life" – "I have neither"

Holy hell!

A true descriptivist will describe the effects, prescriptivism has on language #toleranceparadox

But your right, it isn't linguistics since science is always descriptive.

Tbh prescriptivism has its place in official over regional communication and language learning. We wouldn't understand each other if we were writing each in their local dialect and when you start learning a language, you don't want to first need an overview of the dialect continuum.

That said, in unofficial writing it doesn't matter as long as you write intelligible and advanced language learners should learn about varieties. I for example was tought British English at the start and in the 4th year, we learned about American English and the differences to British English.

I heard a newspaper opinion piece in the radio here in German that clearly didn't know the difference between genocide and holocaust. I mean, c'mon, read a book before you publish a newspaper!

Reddit is beyond help, OP is police officer

If she was lesbian, she would have married a woman instead of staying unmarried. Checkmate atheist

Arguably, since "anything" is only used in negative sentences, it is kind of part of the negative. You wouldn't say "I have anything", only "I don't have anything". Then again, it can be used in positive sentences like "I would do anything" with a slightly different meaning.

But let's take "anymore". "I can't stand it anymore" is a common phrase but "I can stand it anymore" not so much. "anymore" is only used in negative sentences so the "not" is arguably redundant and therefore "not ... anymore" is kind of a double negative.

And even that's not true for all speakers of English. There are native speakers who would say "I go to town anymore" unironically.

Edit: I reread the comment you reacted to and to say it's "to emphasize" is wrong. That argument would work better for "at all" for example. My point is that "double negative" isn't as clear cut as it might seem to be at first glance. "I don't know nothing" is a double negative for sure, "I don't know anything at all" kind of in a way, "I don't know anything" maybe a little bit.

If you are ready to reflext on your biases, you should take the 4min and watch this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3jxC3zqkEE

Sorting by Hot and landed here

Not so strange actually. Sure, seen superficially, it seems that double negatives negate each other but that doesn't fit the empirical data. Many languages do this in their standard variety and English does it in many local, social and historical varieties. I think Shakespeare did it too.

Spanish for example has "sin nada", literally "without nothing" but meaning "with nothing"/ "without anything".

So the linguistic consensus is that the negative is expressed more than once. Depending on the language this might be optional or not. Slavic languages have a negative prefix "ne-" on verbs and this is obligatory if a negative word (like never, nobody,...) is used in the sentence.

No, but white people didn't identify as Americans before that. Neither did they think of themselves as white but as Brits or what ever.

The concept of whiteness only makes sense when it's in contrast to other, non-white groups. "We are Brits and the Germans aren't" morphed into "We and the Germans are white and the natives and slaves aren't". Hope that makes sense.

Italian American. Irish American. Etc.

My point exactly. They aren't Italians who happen to live in America but Americans with Italian heritage. And I'm not talking about first or second generation but like "white" people in general. The concept of whiteness exists since they started to be Americans.

who lived here first

Sounds like they still live here. And sounds like they were a homogeneous mass. There were differnt cultures living together and to choose a word they used, is a nice gesture, but still it was the whites who decided which one to pick

I don't live in America but I think most would consider themselves Americans. They are proud of the flag and the constitution and stuff. In the 1600s, you wouldn't have figured a white person when someone said "American". The whites were Brits or Germans or French, but not American. The natives were Americans.

They were. The American identity came later. Until the war of independence, settlers identified with the European countries of their heritage

And always will be

Yes, but there would be no handshakes involved

No, meta stickers aren't allowed but stickers that say that meta stickers aren't allowed are allowed, obviously

Yes, they are both Carnivora