It appears I'm not the only person who shouts at the radio. Language Hat has a good pointer to Geoff Pullum's rant about an NPR interview with James Cochran:
But for the most part it is a mystery why linguistic subject matter is treated so differently from other material in which science has been interested; it baffles all of us here at Language Log Plaza. Imagine if an amateur wrote a book on ecology (How Now Brown Cow: A Little Book of Threatened Animals) and said that mice have "practically become extinct" in America. Would the interviewer listen credulously and politely as the nutball pothered on, not even alluding to any evidence for the absurd claim?
Posted by Ben Brumfield at March 28, 2005 03:33 PM"Did he really say (possibly my ears hadn't quite woken up) that the modal verb form might was being eliminated in favor of may and "has practically disappeared from the language"?"
Could the interviewee have been referring to spoken English in particular? I have no idea - and he still may, erm, might, be wrong anyway - but there are as of course you know significant differences between the written and spoken vernaculars.
Posted by: Alan Allport at March 29, 2005 04:12 AMCould the interviewee have been referring to spoken English in particular?
Maybe, but I can't be bothered to listen to the actual interview. That might dispel the much more satisfying notion that the interviewee is "a mendacious pontificating old windbag."
Posted by: Ben Brumfield at March 29, 2005 08:39 AM