Hate to be that guy, but it’s “Should’ve” and not “Should of”.
Good meme btw
I assumed “spelt” was wrong, but an internet search tells me both are correct.
Fun fact, related to this: learned and learnt are also both correct. I always assumed learnt was a redneck thing (I’m from the south), but it turns out the Brits use it too. Who knew?
Most modern linguists consider “should have” to be a completely valid variation of should’ve / should have.
Yes, it does contradict what your english teachers in school taught you, and according to that world view “if we don’t have those rules then we wouldn’t be able to understand each other”. But the hundreds to thousands of languages where those rules don’t even exist and people understand missing/“incorrect” meaning from context, as well as the fact that you can proudly stand on your “i know what’s right” soapbox and say that “should of” is wrong, only serve to prove that these rules aren’t actually rules or part of the english language and are more like the linguistic equivalent of fashion.
Again, you understood exactly the meaning OP meant, enough that you could confidently barge in and tell them they’re “wrong”, and tell them what they should have used instead to fit your fashion rules.
Basically, absolutely nobody saw this meme, saw “should have” instead of “should have”, and thought “hmm, i don’t know what’s supposed to be being said in this case.” You dislike “should have” because you were told you were supposed to, and that if you didn’t stick to these rules nobody would respect you or understand what you’re saying. Now, you do the same thing and lose respect for people who didn’t (while also understanding what they are saying exactly). That has nothing to do with the language, and is, again, more akin to “you wore white after labor day” or “you wore socks with sandals” or whatever other fashion faux pas you committed — none of which are related to actual linguistics or the natural way through which languages evolve (or whether or not your outfit looks good on you on any given day)
Your phone auto correct has a preference as well it seems.
I mean sure, linguistic descriptivism is relevant for the evolution of language. However, why study language at all if that’s the sum-total of your perspective on language? We could all just speak however we want as long as we are understood… except then we end up with an uncountable number of dialects and creoles a la mainland china. This is also how you end up with linguistic rules that are basically impossible to teach I suspect.
Just my 2 cents.
I mean, we kinda already do speak however we want, people saying such speaking breaks the rules doesn’t really stop people from doing it anyway
why study language at all
To understand it, and how and why it evolves over time, just like any other study. There’s no such thing as prescriptivist physics, or math, or biology, or etc etc. We don’t get to tell the world how it works, and pretty much no science is focused on that assumption other than historical linguistics.
we could all just speak however we want as long as we understood
We do speak however we want, and we do understand, because we pick up new trends in language on an unconscious level and this is the way languages have always worked and evolved.
then we end up with an uncountable number of dialects and creoles
We’ve already ended up there, and that’s nothing new. Sure, new languages/dialects/creoles creep into the world, but that’s how all languages evolve — instead, the lines between “what’s a language”, “what’s a dialect”, and “what’s a creole” get grayed and more blurry and fuzzy.
The thing is, humans developed language a very very long time ago, and those languages evolve and split off due to large-scale trends in the lives of humans speaking those languages, for a multitude of reasons that interact and make the process essentially random.
Here’s one way to look at it: it’s the opposite of the “jurassic park” problem, instead of “your scientists were preoccupied with whether or not they could, they never stopped to ask whether they should”, linguists spent so much time arguing over prescriptivist/descriptivist arguments, and never asked whether prescriptivism actually can control the evolution of a language.
Anybody, even some random teen in some random neighborhood in any english speaking country, can come up with a new word, and it can catch on and eventually become a new accepted and widely-used word. That’s because it’s a “you can use this if you want” situation, whereas the prescriptivist version is “if you use ___ you are wrong, if you want to be right use ___ only”.
It should be obvious why telling someone they can do something is an easier argument than that they can’t, and this is why prescriptivism has failed. especially because, again, nobody saw “should of” in this post and thought “oh god i don’t know what this is supposed to mean”; instead people either understood and said nothing, or they understood but jumped in to tell people they’re wrong for making them understand in a way that contradicts what their own english teachers in school said they SHOULD be able to understand.
Most modern linguists wouldn’t take a position on this at all, and would tell you that you’re conflating Language and spelling. Most linguists don’t study writing systems, because they are a different thing from Language. Language is an evolving system that is always changing, and people develop the ability just by being around other people as they grow up, whether someone is teaching it to them or not. It just happens naturally. Reading/writing is more formalized, has to be taught, and many people in the world never master it. Many languages don’t even have an official written form. It’s not the same sort of thing.
slavery is too morally bankrupt to ever have a cool maintainer like the cURL dude
The only issue with this adaptation of a great comic is that it infers the Confederacy was a well built structure that depended on that one small thing. The Confederacy didn’t exist that long, it even didn’t have a single flag version for longer than a year or so. Change it to the southern states’ economy and it makes more sense.
It’s… blocks haphazardly balanced. Which is completely the point. Do you think that looks like a “well-built structure”?
It’s certainly a chaotic mess, but perhaps knowing the original subject of the comic tarnishes my take on it being used for other things in the same way. Analogies are often tricky.
Slavery was more like the central block two positions upwards from the tiny block indicated. It was their whole reason for secession.
And there should be an even bigger block under it called “Native land and resources that they didn’t have gunpowder to defend”.
It was a the death of 90% of the population to small pox within one generation that allowed colonization. The Europeans were dirty and diseased, untrained peasants. Their firearms at that time were inaccurate single shot rifles, that took minutes to reload. Analysis of indigenous bow techniques showed the common capability to accurately shoot multiple arrows in rapid succession.
And it goes beyond war: Indigenous people didn’t farm as Europeans did, we instead cultivated forests with eidble plant species that complimented each other to kept the soil healthy. The forests across the Americas were thousands of years into a cycle of land management that kept grown food naturally abundant and plentiful, without having to clear the land. Indigenous peoples were expert and managing the population of the animals of their areas as well. We understood which members of an animal population should be hunted, and which should be kept for the health of the species. We then knew how to fully utilize every part of the animals hunted. The core of most indigenous cultures rotated around ethical and efficient management of the land’s resources. What did the Europeans do? Accidentally gave an entire continent a super virus, then stripped the forests clear to plant shitty crops not made for this climate, and hunted countless animal species to extinction. Europeans were not technologically advanced at all. They were just diseased. That’s it.
Rest assured that without smallpox, the Americas would not have been colonized. Population density and technological differences would have made it too dangerous and expensive an undertaking.
ooof, lots of pent-up frustration here.
Europeans were not any more “dirty” or “clean” than any other group, also Native Americans adopted the use of fire arms from the Europeans and would generally trade foodstuffs for firearms, in the end you are only repeating the Noble Savage
The main advantage of early guns wasn’t that they were more powerful, it’s that they were easy to use. You can train someone to fire a gun in a day, while it takes months of training just to get an archer strong enough to draw a bow.
Also the whole “the Europeans were dirty diseased peasants” thing isn’t accurate, and I have to say that IMO the right response to racist depictions of indigenous people as unwashed savages isn’t to just turn around and say “actually the stereotypes are correct it’s just that it’s about the Europeans this time”.
And Indigenous people had more advanced technoglogy than many give them credit for but "The Europeans were technologically behind indigenous people in nearly every way. " is just blatantly wrong.
I do think you’re right though that without smallpox and other diseases the Europeans wouldn’t have colonised the Americas, though there were several other major factors in it.
P.S. I’m not a historian, grain of salt, etc.
You maybe would think about industrializing too before you split off…
To be fair, they couldn’t industrialise before they split off. Their industries wouldn’t have been competitive with the well-established ones already existing in the north. Only ways they could become competitive were (a) secede and put up tariffs, or (b) get a huge aid package from the federal government so they can run things at a loss for a few years. And the northern states would not have been happy with (b), so …
