Between You And I: Please, Be I's Friend!: Is case-grammar just a matter of taste?

updated 12/31/19

In America everybody is of the opinion that he has no social superiors, since all men are equal, but he does not admit that he has no social inferiors... -- Bertrand Russell

I had an elementary public school teacher, call her Miss Taylor, who insisted that the correct way to pronounce the word "piano" was pee-ah-no.[1] She gave up trying to "correct" our normal pronunciation, pee-an-o, after many of my classmates began parodying it with such pronunciations as "bahnahnah", "run, rahn, run", "sit, saht, saht", "Mahs-ah-chu-sets". Or, using a popular song lyric, "If I didn't cahr".

Still, Miss Taylor was a good teacher, kindly, interesting and informative. She no doubt acted so as to prepare us to "climb up in the Cold War World," socially, if not so much economically. Had she lived into this 21st Century, however, she might have shaken her head sadly at the many linguistic traditions of "standard" English that have succumbed to an apparently historically uninformed pursuit of status.

Why does status matter? It opens or maintains pathways to wealth and deference. How does one acquire status? Through wealth, inherited or earned, random good fortune, or celebrity. What is somewhat perplexing is that people who already have above average status due to their having higher than average wealth, celebrity, academic degrees, social position, governmental office, or judicial position, appear to have abandoned distinctions of English grammar that, formerly, not even members of the "lower" classes seldom would have abused.

I have heard PhD's (even in the Liberal Arts) say such things as "This will be my wife and I's third visit to Cambridge this year." Not only academics, punctilious in so many a smaller detail, but major media and governmental spokespersons, overcorrect what should be formulated "between you and me" into "between you and I", as if "me" were some kind of dialectal aberration.

So, too, we not infrequently hear "This is a gift for you and we." Have I, him, her, us, them become taboo words? What is going on here? Is every or just any novelty an improvement? (Or, perhaps, a random manifestation of a need to belong?)


So, is it merely a matter of taste? Conceded, some people say "between you and I", others say "between you and me." So what? Perhaps it is a soon-to-be-discarded fad like that of the 18th Century French nobility's dressing up like shepherds or shepherdesses. Or, like American college students wearing pre-shredded pre-faded denims. Or, not so long ago, sporting "Leninist" wire-rimmed glasses and "Russian" workers caps. Even discourse that is at one time considered socially unacceptable, may, at another time be tolerated as "colorful." (See Philosophy, Race and Language. Conflicting Value Priorities )


However, there are three social functions, not necessarily beneficial nor ephemeral, that disappearance of grammatical markers might affect:

1. Maintaining variability in sentence structure while preserving action relationships, for example, in poetry or oratory, or very formal speech. "Let's consider John. Him I would trust with my life!" This is not clearly "merely" a matter of taste. (Compare, English with German "It's all the same to me." with "Mir ist das alles egal." Or, to English speakers, the redundant Italian "La ci darem' la mano.")

2. Maintaining traditions of in-group barriers and acceptance. Such barriers commonly dissolve and are re-erected by all kinds of groups along the lines of age, activity, language, religion, and so on. Slang, jargon, argot and other language variabilities are manifestations of such a function. So are schooling and work divisions, e.g. disciplines and departments. (See Becher, T. Academic Tribes & Territories: the Cultures of the Disciplines. 1989. Also see Multiculturalism & The Problems of Immigration )

3. Maintaining "Targets of Disdain, (TD's)" i.e. classes of persons-to-be-disdained. While still an undergraduate, (for many graduate students and professors, usually considered a TD) I was asked in class, "What does ethnic or religious or other diversity provide a tolerant individual?" I answered, "The opportunity to indulge their belief that "outsiders, although to be tolerated, are not quite so 'fully acceptable' as people of 'their own group.'" Class reactions ranged from a few chuckles, to a small minority of perplexed, to a vehement protestation from a large, apparently upset number -- still not a majority.

I was not championing any viewpoint. I thought I was merely stating a sociological fact. After all, the "holier-than-thou" attitude is so common even among those who ardently preach all kinds of tolerance, that a common joke-line has long been invented:

There are many people who hate others different from them. And I just HATE people like that!

For more examples and to pursue this issue, see The Case for Case

Cordially, EGR

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Footnote and Comment

[1] Academic Formalities: Just Making Teacher Clones?

Comment: For more on Grammatical Case, you might begin your inquiry on Wikipedia which has a good presentation with explained examples in many different languages.

The Virtues of Hypocrisy

edited 030919

Indifference and hypocrisy between them keep orthodoxy alive ...
-- Israel Zangwill (1906)[1]

When you're smilin', when you're smilin'
The whole world smiles with you.
Yes, when you're laughin', when you're laughin'
The sun comes shinin' through.
But when you're cryin', you bring on the rain
So stop your sighin', be happy again.
Keep on smilin', 'cause when you're smilin',
The whole world smiles with you.[2]

Hypocrisy is consciously and deliberately saying something which you believe to be false or doing something you believe or feel is not right while maintaining a public demeanor of righteous indifference or neutral sanguinity.

If what you say is a statement, e.g. "I have returned your book to the library," when in fact you haven't, then it would be commonly called a lie. But if your statement is intended to have some sort of moral force or focusses on an act which you would reluctantly, at best, perform yourself, then it would also be considered hypocrisy, e.g. "Stop your sighing', be happy again."

Hypocrisy is generally considered undesirable, especially, in theorizing (moralizing?) if possibly mitigating circumstances are not considered. However, there are many situations which arise where disregarding concerns for hypocrisy is reasonable. Human history abounds with examples.

Two common social situations follow: the first is when a person of less power is dealing with someone threatening. For example, when importuned by persons (whether true believers or hypocrites) who are authorized, capable and willing to cause you hurt or harm.[3] Such situations can be a matter of life, death or imprisonment.

Situation I examples. Austrian Lutherans, for example, when offered the options by Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II (1623-1637) of emigration, death, or conversion to Roman Catholicism, pretended to convert.

The Russian Communist Party membership purge under Stalin 1929-1930 resulted in the execution of over 3,000 people and tens of thousands who lost their positions and privileges for either former membership or sympathy with those who resisted Bolshevik dominance. The "Great Purge" of 1937-39 resulted in the deaths of from 600 thousand to over one million Communist Party and government officials, and wealthy landlords. We can imagine that the victims would have felt no pricks of conscience at vehemently, though hypocritically declaring their loyalty to the Party.

German resistance to Nazism was generally unable to mobilize political opposition that would lead to a coup against Hitler. However, 77,000 German citizen resisters, presumably non-Jewish, were killed by Special Courts, or People's Courts. "Tens of thousands" more were said to be sent to concentration camps.

During the years 1947 - 1954 many Americans were pressured by US government officials and police as to whether they were communists or communist sympathizers. Rumors abounded and jail was not an unlikely outcome for many. In order to be eligible for employment as a substitute teacher in 1965, I, myself, at age 22 had to sign a document attesting to the fact that I was not, nor ever had been, a member of or sympathizer with the Communist Party of America.

I signed easily since, having had little political experience at my age, my declarations were true. If they had been false, I would have signed anyway, since I badly needed a job and I considered such documents to be irredeemably stupid and counter-productive. It seemed to me that anyone who was actually a Communist would sign it, anyway; rather than draw back and say "Sorry, I can't sign this oath for reasons of conscience." Back then in 1965, such a declaration, divulged as a lie, might just get you, not a job, but a prison sentence.

Situation II, where hypocrisy is a matter of course, occurs with a tactful inquiry, "How are you?" where the conversants lack sufficient intimacy to reveal the truth. Tact is hardly even imaginable as being other than a virtue except, say, when a normally tactful, if rather informal, question is severely out of place. For example, upon being presented to the Queen of England to receive the CBE, one extends one's hand and asks, "How's it goin', Toots?" Whatever fault we might find with this, it is not likely to be that of hypocrisy.[4]

The Values of Hypocrisy. If you are in a position of relative power or authority over some persons then your own hypocrisy (often reconceptualized as "leadership discretion") may facilitate any of the situations mentioned above: examples:

To reinforce the legitimacy of organizational or social status. [4A]

To maintain the hierarchy deriving from an ethos.[5]

To intimidate persons of inferior status to forestall defiance or resistance.[6]

As a procedural step in the initiation of military or academic recruit training.[7]

To maintain a of veneer of respectability or sanguinity.

These are no small incentives for hypocrisy. Such hypocrisy, if at all held to be morally objectionable, is likely to be considered a "Lesser Evil" than the likely consequences of "Transparency".

James G. March (1976) suggests that we would be better off with less rationality. And that we would be well served by a concept of "sensible foolishness". Freed from the constraints of pre-existent purposes, the necessity of consistency and the primacy of rationality (formal or algorithmic approaches, e.g. policies, mathematical theories) often appear less salient. [8]

We could use the act of intelligent choice as a planned occasion for discovering new goals, unpredicted and attractive value consequences. We become intelligently foolish by treating goals as hypotheses, intuition as real, hypocrisy as a transition, memory as an enemy and experience as theory.

For a continuation on these issues, See March, J. G. & Olsen, J. P. (1976) Ambiguity and Choice. Bergen: Universitetsforlaget. Accessible at
Rationales for Intervention: From Test to Treatment to Policy: generalizing the Rationale.

REFERENCES

[1] Zangwill, I (1896) Children of the Ghetto. A study of a peculiar people. New York: Macmillan and Co. page 510

[2] Written by Joe Goodwin, Larry Shay, Mark Fisher (1928). See, also B Ehrenreich (2009)Smile or Die ISBN:9781847081735

[3] See Hurt, Harm & Safety

[4] See Good Lies, Wise Evasions

[4A] See Merchandizing Science (...or Religion? ...or Politics?)

[5] See Constricting Social Ideals: breaking the values-action link to ensure "stability."

[6] See Good Lies, Wise Evasions

[7] See Teaching Values: basic lessons in hypocrisy?

[8] See Choosing The Lesser Evil: a Moral Failure?

What Does a Diploma Mean? Just Another Sheep Skinned?

Some people are born on third base and go through life thinking they hit a triple. --Barry Switzer, US football coach (1937 - )

We’re very proud of ourselves when we, or those we love, earn an educational certificate or degree. It’s just so coooool, great, wonderful, awe-inspiring, etc, to parade up onto a stage to be handed a diploma – or reasonable facsimile thereof – whilst wearing a medieval gown with accompanying mortarboard or tam and multicolored hood. Even kindergartners do it.

The diploma is supposed to represent skills achieved, attitudes inculcated and knowledge acquired – or some reasonable facsimile thereof. We don’t really look too hard.

But would you choose to go to, or take your loved ones to, a licensed physician who got through school by cheating, sleeping through classes, copying other’s notes, and memorizing test preparation booklets the way that a large minority – I am being optimistic here about numbers – of students in higher education do? (In ancient times when I went to high school we read Arrowsmith by Sinclair Lewis: a source, no doubt, of my worries.)

Everyone “knows” that where you go to college gives you a status advantage in the competition for jobs. But do you really get more from third-base universities? Does status indicate anything more in the practitioner in skills achieved, attitudes inculcated and knowledge acquired?

To examine these issues further, see Educational Assessment: 
confusing status with achievement.


Cordially
--- EGR