Lain, the Whom of the Verb World | Hacker News Reader

Lain, the Whom of the Verb World

chronicle.com

70 pointssamclemens27 comments

An interesting article but frustrating to read as a non-linguist/grammaticist.

While it's about the incorrect usage of the word "lain", the article only actually uses "lain" correctly once in a sentence ("Those skeletons had lain under that supermarket for centuries"). Additionally, the article uses but doesn't really define the terms "transitive" or "past participle"; ignorance of which are the key sources of confusion for regular speakers.

I was going to respond with an explanation of the obscure terms, but I'm sure without looking that Wikipedia can do a better job than I.

Instead, I would like to exhort you and everyone else to take an interest in linguistics[1]. I really wish we could replace our 12 years of mathematical education, which I think is overall quite useless[2], with 12 years of linguistic education. If we spent 12 years learning how all of the world's languages work, I also think we would go a long way to reduce xenophobia and racism. [3]

Now, don't get me wrong. I don't want people to learn how to speak correctly. I want people to expand their innate curiosity for just how goddam smart humans are at languages. Like the article said, the unusual thing isn't that we can't keep lie/lay/lied/lain/laid straight, but that we can keep almost everything else straight. Language is a unique human phenomenon. We have opposable thumbs, but so do monkeys, and elephants are quite handy (haha!) with their trunks. Even a raven can use tools, but no other animal exhibits the breadth of ability of language that we do. Birdsongs are complicated and maybe even culturally transmitted, but they can't be used to dictate laws or record writing or persuade others as I am now trying to persuade you.[4]

Linguistics is a science: it proceeds by gathering empirical data of how humans speak, then formulates hypotheses that will predict how they will speak, and confirms or denies these hypotheses. What more interesting object of study than ourselves! Language is something we all do on a daily basis, spontaneously, naturally. Ever wondered why we do it the way we do it?

Sadly, the beauty of this science is clouded behind the way it is taught today in schools, along with a jargon that further distances some of us from the actual object of study. To the prescriptivist grammarians, I say their objective is as futile as trying to educate ants on architecture: ants will build anthills as they see fit. But for the jargon, I am sad to say that some of it is inevitable, because we need the lens of analysis and classification in order to see the true attraction of our linguistic abilities.

Transitive or intransitive verbs don't occur only in English: virtually every human language has something like them. Participles are less universal, but they are also not a uniquely English phenomenon. But why does this happen? Why does every known language have verbs but only some has participles? Why do humans craft languages as they do? Therein lies the science! (or lays?)

So, try to learn some linguistic jargon. Underneath it lies a very interesting set of concepts that describe an ability that uniquely characterises our species. :-)

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[1] The language log is a good place to start finding interesting things:

http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/

[2] Particularly when calculus is the ultimate goal of elementary mathematical education. When was the last time you or most adults around you had an urgent need for calculus? Can you even state, say, Rolle's theorem without looking it up?

[3] For example, did you know that ebonics has way more verb tenses that express very nuanced moments in time, nuances which standard English lacks?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_American_Vernacular_En...

[4] Here is a pretty interesting that theorises that human language may have evolved from some characteristics found in birdsong!

http://phys.org/news/2013-02-human-language-evolved-birdsong...

> I really wish we could replace our 12 years of mathematical education, which I think is overall quite useless[2], with 12 years of linguistic education

I wonder why it is that people can never just say "you, know, X is quite important and maybe deserves more of our attention" and instead have to go all bombastic and pretend "X is the most important thing in the world and our modern society couldn't exist without it".

I do enjoy bombasticness.

Bombasticity?

It's probably actually just 'bombast', isn't it?

Bombasticitinessation.

Just improve education in general. People might study eg math for years at school, but most are not learning several years worth of material.

Interesting, sure, but so is math if you're not just performing arithmetic or memorizing equations without knowing what they mean, which many mistake for it. Why would linguistics be any more "useful" to a student to have their 12 years of math replaced with? Instead of replacing math, replace the kind of nonsense in English courses here with linguistics: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8812388

Why do we have to replace either subject? Both math and literature are generally poorly taught. That does not mean that understanding of both is not requisit for being an educated person.

I meant only replacing part of the English curriculum, not all of it.

The Language Log is great. Geoffrey K. Pullum, who wrote this article in the Chronicle, is a contributor there:

http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?author=3

He writes a lot of good stuff. I particularly enjoy his crusade, there and elsewhere, against Strunk and White:

http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=1485

http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=15509

http://chronicle.com/article/50-Years-of-Stupid-Grammar/2549...

http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/24/happy-birt...

I see he also weighed in on Girrafedata's quest to rid Wikipedia of "comprised of" (see HN passim):

http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=17636

Oddly enough we covered these terms in High School, but it was in Japanese class.

Did anyone else immediately think of Serial Experiments Lain[0]?

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_Experiments_Lain

Yes. I'm not sure if describing that as the "Verb World" is strangely accurate, or just strange ... should we adopt it as another term for immerse object-oriented, programmable, mediated, augmented and virtual reality? It has a nice ring to it: Come join us in the Verb World.

Java and OOP in general are already famous for being made fun of as the Kingdom of Nouns. So it would be funny to call something built with the Kingdom of Nouns as Verb World, lol.

I was thinking more along the lines of smalltalk/croquet, and the Alan Kay quote/talk "Doing with images makes symbols". But yeah, if all you have are nouns, great lack of verbing also.

- Object Oriented Programming, where the nouns modestly conceal their verbs in their underwear.

- Functional programming - refusing to change your underwear for fear of getting your knickers in a twist.

As a native English speaker, and somebody who loves writing and languages, I grok most grammar discussions without thinking about the terms involved. Lay, lie, and so forth come fairly naturally to me. For example, if I really thought about it, I believe I would have spotted all the bad lie-forms in the songs the writer mentions.

But some things still bug me. What's the difference between "will" and "shall"? "Farther" and "further" still get mixed up in my writing even though I know better. Every few months I'll find myself typing in something quickly online and use a homophone "their" for "they're" -- which I absolutely know not to do! Some of these formations you only come across maybe once a year or so.

It's like one other commenter said here, it's not that the oddball cases are so complex, it's amazing that we manage to remember all the rest of it.

I am not a native speaker, but isn't "will" vs "shall" simply about matter of fact vs intent?

"I shall be king" implies you're actively setting events in motion that will make you king. "I will be king" merely expresses confidence that you will become king in the future (whether you know this to be a fact or are just hoping this is how things will work out).

Likewise "you shall not suffer a witch to live" is a bit more direct than "you should not" -- it not only expresses a moral stance, it is a direct command.

Anyway. The wonderful thing about language is that is defined by how it's used. If "carefully lain skeletons" becomes widely accepted, it becomes well-formed English. Whom knows what English will look a hundred years from now.

Not a native speaker either, but "will" vs "shall" is awfully complicated, at least if you try to speak Southern English: http://www.bartleby.com/116/213.html

For practical international usage, I was taught to always use "will", except in first-person questions such as "shall we go?".

Fascinating. As a native northern-US speaker, I literally had no idea how these used to work until now. (I guess most people know this, but here the sense you mentioned is the only one acceptable in speech; otherwise, "shall" sounds more commanding than "will" but archaic; and "should" always means "ought to".)

As a native German speaker, the way I understand it is (generally):

sollen = shall

sollten = should

werden = will

würden = would

i.e.

Werden wir gehen? = Will we go?

Sollen wir gehen? = Shall we go?

Sollten wir gehen? = Should we go?

Würden wir gehen? = Would we go?

At least Google Translate seems to agree with me (although of course it recommends "Are we going to go?" for the first one).

In other words:

"Would" is speculative but about behaviour: "If this happened, would we do that?" (i.e. does this accurately describe our behaviour?) "I wouldn't do that if I were you..." (you aren't going to see me engage in that kind of behaviour and it's probably a good idea to follow my example)

"Should" is speculative but about obligations: "If this happened, should we do that?" (i.e. are we morally obliged to do that?, or: is it a good idea to do that?) "I shouldn't eat this cake..." (I may or may not eat the cake, but I know it's not a good idea to do so)

"Will" is also about the future but fairly objective: "When this happens, will we do that?" (Yes/No/Maybe) "I will not buy this record, it is scratched!" (Me buying this record isn't going to happen and there is no reason to doubt this prediction)

"Shall" is about an imminent decision: "Now that this has happened, shall we do that?" (Yes/No/Maybe) / "I shall eat this cake!" (I have decided to eat this cake and wish to inform you about my intent)

Of course those rules of thumb aren't entirely foolproof.

"Thou shalt not kill" (or "You shall not kill") is different because it is a command. It makes the decision for you. If it were "you should not kill", it still leaves it up to you to actually follow through on that command.

I'm not entirely sure about Fowler's description of "I will" as "it is my will to". This seems to contradict the equivalent usage of "ich werde" in German (where "ich will" actually means "I want", merely declaring a desire -- e.g. "I want a pony" doesn't mean you are intent on acquiring a pony it just means you'd really prefer having a pony over your present state of pony-non-ownership).

EDIT: Also note that in German "werde" can also mean "to become" (and "bekomme" means "receive", leading to the common mixup "I become a hamburger" at fast food parlors). Going by that meaning "I will kill you" could also be read as "I {am most certainly going to become} {a person who kills} you"). There's probably a clever observation of the usage of nouns and verbs here for a proper linguist.

I've noticed that in the US, one will "lay down" in a bed. I have trouble knowing how to reconcile this in my mind. Would one day that in American English, a different dialect to British English, this is the correct usage? Can dialects have distant grammar rules? Or can it only be considered a colloquialism?

My ex-girlfriend was just very nervous about saying "lie" because it's "bad". So "I'm just going to go lay down on the couch" because "I'm not lying!".

Which results in amusing scenarios in which people don't realize that e.g. this song is about sex: https://play.google.com/music/preview/Txqbmvyo63hydudrvpj3gf...

You have probably hit on the real reason for the odd choice of verb 'lain' in the Guardian article - the sexual connotations of the word 'laid' (especially in the context of bodies, and given that the location was in France).

I suspect that 'laid' was changed to 'lain' after the first draft was submitted, possibly following some ribaldry from the copy editor and colleagues.

I wonder how much this was influenced by the common bedtime prayer[0]. "Lay" is the right conjugation with the reflexive pronoun added ("I lay [myself] down"), and people probably don't consider that "I lie down" needs to be conjugated differently.

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Now_I_Lay_Me_Down_to_Sleep

Use of "lay" as present tense equivalent of "lie" is not universal in American English, though it occurs in many dialects. (For example, I don't think it is prevalent in the coastal Northeast dialects. It sounds vaguely 'rustic' to me - I grew up in New York City.) It was traditionally considered incorrect by American English usage prescriptivists. Today perhaps it would be seen as a widespread colloquialism. I'm sure there are US-authored books on proper English usage that still call it out as incorrect or nonstandard.

Of course dialects have grammar rules which may be distinct (I assume that's what you meant instead of 'distant', 'distinct from what's officially supposed to be correct'). "Lay" for "lie" is not a matter of grammar, though, but vocabulary.

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