Quote:
Originally posted by shakran
Really, losing "whom" to "who" is of far less concern regarding the perceived erosion of our language than is the PC concept that we must define slang and idiotic dialects as english. Case in point, the push several years ago in California to teach classes in "ebonics."
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Ah, now we're wandering into the rough waters of prescriptive v. descriptive linguistics--basically, the study of the artificial grammatical rules underlying a language v. how the language is actually used--which should get everyone all excited. Descriptive linguistics acknowledges that a language is an evolving thing, which prescriptive mostly doesn't; DL is also way more interesting and fun. In the wrong hands it can veer toward PCism, but it doesn't have to. (Part of the problem is that no one can agree on what constitutes a language, a dialect, slang, etc., and since to a great extent people identify themselves through their cultures, it ends up getting pretty sticky.)
The Calif. case shakran refers to was a resolution passed by the Oakland Unified School District with the best (if very PC) of intentions and the absolute worst of executions (resolution viewable
here). The linguist Charles J. Fillmore subsequently wrote a brilliant explanation (
here) of what the OUSD was trying to do and why it messed up so badly. Required reading if you're really into this sort of stuff.