I am worried

[sabotabby]

As my generation becomes old fogies, the distinction between "your" and "you're" will be forgotten by the vast majority of English-speakers, if it isn't already.

Comments

[marnanel.livejournal.com]

I wonder how long there's been a distinction made. I wonder how I'd even go about finding out.

[pofflewomp.livejournal.com]

Fowler's Modern English Usage? Hang on, I'll pop and check.

[terry-terrible.livejournal.com]

Strunk and White!!!!!

[jvmatucha.livejournal.com]

Oh come on! Your worried about nothing!

[chickenfeet2003.livejournal.com]

your rite

[cucumberseed.livejournal.com]

Your all depressing me.

[terry-terrible.livejournal.com]

oh plz, lol.

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

Well, as a teacher its all you're fault!

C whut I did thar!?

[chickenfeet2003.livejournal.com]

Being serious for a moment (I know!), what is the purpose of writing? From a purely functional point of view the you're vs. your distinction isn't of great value. Who is going to be confused? We don't confuse them when spoken. On the other hand, perhaps the purpose of writing is to fossilise the speech patterns of a particular time, place and class and thereby confer status on the person able to deploy that kind of language. That's basicallywhat happened with ltin as the spoken form morphed into the family of Romance languages while the written form stayed locked in the speech patterns of the first century CE patricians. I can't see English evolving that way given near universal literacy and especially given that, fogies like myself aside, huge quantities of linguistic complexity are being dumped, even by 'educated' people' in both the written and spoken forms of the language. I shall be sad to see the loss of the simple perfect tense and should the subjunctive survive I would be delighted.

[mistersmearcase.livejournal.com]

The subjunctive is about one foot and four toes in the grave. In our lifetimes it's been a pretty vestigal thing in English anyway.

[chickenfeet2003.livejournal.com]

I'd agree that it is all but dead but I don't think that was true when I was at school. English, especially British English, has changed a great deal in the last fifty years,

[pofflewomp.livejournal.com]

Would the subjunctive survive I too should be delighted.

[pofflewomp.livejournal.com]

Were the subjunctive to survive?

[curgoth]

They will all be replaced by "ur".

LOL! ^_^

[pluvka.livejournal.com]

i was gonna say this same thing

[cannibal-x.livejournal.com]

Me too :)

[hopita.livejournal.com]

Yore.

[ayoub.livejournal.com]

I worry about the same thing...

[genesayssitdown.livejournal.com]

wait wat do u mean??? lol

[northbard.livejournal.com]

Their all just kidding you. Don't worry...

[mistersmearcase.livejournal.com]

I had this weird thought for a minute the other day that written language might be on its way out. I mean you'd think not, because texting and IMing are a big thing, but...I wonder in a hundred years if most things won't be voice-based and written language will be only used for a few things.

It's weird how things like your/you're eliminate our (or at least my) anti-prescriptivist populist whatever. It bugs me, and then I think about it and think "it's still clear what is meant, and it's almost universal, so maybe my objections are based in some kind of meaningless, codified elitism" and...it still bugs me.

[frandroid.livejournal.com]

I was wondering about the same thing, but really it's all about being a utopian person, searching for order and justice*, where things happen for a reason, have a meaning and depth.

[pofflewomp.livejournal.com]

Or it could be just frustration that people can't manage something so obvious and simple, and fear that they might be incapable of grasping more important and subtle things in life if they can't master such basics.

[mistersmearcase.livejournal.com]

Good point, but I'm not entirely comfortable with the idea that rule-following is a quality I prize so highly.

[pofflewomp.livejournal.com]

Yes, I empathise! Exactly the same worry has kept me awake at nights too, well, almost! I don't like to be a rule-follower or rule-stickler, but I am very pro-spelling and grammar rules! Why oh why?
I have always been a pedant as far as spelling and grammar are concerned, although I have to give pedantry up now as with decline in brain my spelling and grammar are going all wobbly like.

I am very against the idea of changing standard spelling to look like how things sound, though. It makes no sense, as different accents make words sound different, and also it takes away the history of the word that is often shown in its spelling.

[cannibal-x.livejournal.com]

ur a radical in politics and a conservative in language :)

[stoneself.livejournal.com]

by the time people are complaining widely about a linguistic phenomena, it's too late.

in order for people to notice, the phenomena has to already have taken root.

the trick is that it is children who drive most linguistic change, and most people don't notice what children are doing until they've changed the language.

children dare to boldly go.

[frandroid.livejournal.com]

I don't think it's bold if you don't know any better. :)

[stoneself.livejournal.com]

with all these adults telling them so, they are sure to know.

[thegiantkiller.livejournal.com]

Not if they don't listen.

[stoneself.livejournal.com]

i think kids should ignore adults when they are telling them stupid stuff.

[frandroid.livejournal.com]

They usually listen to the stupid stuff and ignore the good stuff though :P

[stoneself.livejournal.com]

so says an adult

[chainsaw-hime.livejournal.com]

It doesn't help that my iPhone will auto-correct "your" into "you're" even when I am using the term that means "belonging to you." It will do similar with always changing my "its" to "it's".

[pofflewomp.livejournal.com]

Long forgotten, methinks. It's and its. There, they're, their. Wiggle, squiggle, piggledepop. Sploshmonster and foo.

[pofflewomp.livejournal.com]

hoary grammar, whorey granma, blah.

[thegiantkiller.livejournal.com]

I wish that were the worst of the problem. The assignments I'm grading now (from university undergrads, most of them in their second or more-th year) are by and large incomprehensible--never mind apostrophe placement, this is just agrammatical word salad.

[ironed_orchid]

This is our generation's equivalent of "you damn kids get off my lawn".

I'm going to fight to the very last!

[bike4fish.livejournal.com]

Youse are all funny.

[seanmonster.livejournal.com]

Whenever I see someone write "yea" when they mean "yeah", it aggravates me to no end.

[rohmie.livejournal.com]

I was once told that everyone born after 1972 would be incapable of reading an analog watch because every timepiece would be digital. Shortly thereafter, Swatches came out.

[eselgeist.livejournal.com]

ur rite