RAMANAM
In the Name of The Father, and of The Son and of The Holy Spirit, Amen.
Two people were viewing pictures of their family recently. One teaches primary school, the other retired some years ago from teaching primary school. The younger pointed to a picture and said, “That’s her.” The elder replied, “That is she.”
The younger maintained that usage is with her whereas the elder maintained that grammar is with her.
When I heard of this, it intrigued me. I wrote the younger as follows:
I can see what [the elder] was talking about, and you also. Certainly usage today follows your point. Her point is on grammar, not usage. It is that her is a genitive case of the personal pronoun whereas the sentence in question calls for a nominative case of the personal pronoun, which would be she.
Perhaps it has been declared modernly that usage trumps grammar, at least by some, but if that is so, perhaps the notion has not been universally affirmed as accurate.
On a related subject, there is a movement now to declare the majority usage of English in English-speaking nations, and especially the United States, white English and the language of the oppressors and, in consequence, to declare black English the only permissible English usage, on pain of separation from employment, loss of professional certification, loss of social position and services and, if possible, loss of human and civil rights.
A teacher college in Brooklyn, I understand, is enforcing just this doctrine and others are considering it, including Columbia, Dewey’s home, which happens to be directly across Broadway from Union Theological Seminary, my alma mater.
Since grammar is a structural phenomenon and usage a kinetic one, there always will be tension between these poles of life in society. These poles in fact have their being in one of the three ontological elements, which are polar, namely, the element of form and dynamics.
The need for precision drives usage to transform significantly over time, of course, whereas the same need drives grammar to remain constant over time, since there is a limited number of possible parts of speech and each, therefore, has to be stable over time in order for meaningful discourse to be achieved. All languages capable of supporting complex civilizations have the same parts of speech that are stabilized over time, regardless of usage.
The issue, of course, is the caveat capable of supporting complex civilizations. The drive to eliminate white English is really a drive to eliminate the complex civilization supported by the English language. Since English derives from Sanskrit, the same drive aims, consciously or unconsciously, to eliminate Vedic civilization by eliminating its iterations as nations around the globe.
Back to Africa indeed! 40% AIDS rate, median age 16 years, no redundant reservoir of professional wisdom or skill (teaching, medicine, law, government, including army and police), nor any wanted, perpetual tribal pogroms, genetic devolution from endemic malnutrition, etc.
I would estimate that the Veda-derived nations, among which is ours, will maintain their usage dynamics and their grammatical structures against efforts to dissemble both and drive all into African — or Semitic — anarchy, aka tribalism.
We have fought so long amongst ourselves just to eliminate from our midst tribalism — which is based on idolization of linguistic singularities — that it seems to me unlikely that we will allow tribalists to (1) treat us as a tribe — all they can see — or (2) impose their tribalism(s) on us.
The more likely scenario is that tribalists — who flock to this country because they can live free of tribalism — will appreciate and accept Vedic civilization through its national iterations or be abandoned to their own self-destruction.
AMDG
