When Grammar Matters

I've avoided posting about the Canadian election, but I want to comment on this exchange because it concerns the English language, and particularly listening and speaking it as a second language, an area in which I have some knowledge. Here's the exchange:

"If you were prime minister now, what would you have done about the economy and this crisis that Mr. Harper hasn't done?”

“If I had been prime minister two-and-a-half years ago?” Mr. Dion replied.

“If you were the prime minister right now.”

At this point Dion begins talking about his plan for today. But he stumbles and again he asks for clarification: "“If I was prime minister starting when? Today?”

The question is a difficult one, grammatically--you've got the second conditional, and you've got present perfect. Add to that something I haven't seen mentioned in the media: The question isn't grammatically correct. Asking what Dion would have done (which is a question about the past) if he were prime minister now (in the present) doesn't make sense. The question, as Dion appears to recognize, should be: "If you had been prime minister since time t, what would you have done..." (if the interviewer wants to know about the past) or "If you were prime minister now, what would you do..." (if the interviewer wants to know about the present). As it is, it's unclear what he wants to know.

Sarah Palin Makes Intermediate Language-Learners Look Like Churchill

I teach the English language to Korean learners from the beginner to advanced level. And I can say, with absolute confidence, that my intermediate-level students would perform better than Sarah Palin did in her latest interview. I linked to an excerpt last time, but this answer is even worse (or better, if comedy is what you're looking for):

COURIC: Why isn’t it better, Governor Palin, to spend $700 billion helping middle-class families who are struggling with health care, housing, gas and groceries? Allow them to spend more, and put more money into the economy, instead of helping these big financial institutions that played a role in creating this mess?

PALIN: That’s why I say I, like every American I’m speaking with, we're ill about this position that we have been put in. Where it is the taxpayers looking to bail out. But ultimately, what the bailout does is help those who are concerned about the health care reform that is needed to help shore up our economy. Um, helping, oh, it’s got to be about job creation, too. Shoring up our economy, and putting it back on the right track. So health care reform and reducing taxes and reining in spending has got to accompany tax reductions, and tax relief for Americans, and trade — we have got to see trade as opportunity, not as, uh, competitive, um, scary thing, but one in five jobs created in the trade sector today. We’ve got to look at that as more opportunity. All of those things under the umbrella of job creation.

Actually, I shouldn't even compare her answer to the kinds of things my students say. My students make sense.

Bank Note 2

Yesterday's post was full of jargon, and likely difficult to parse for those who don't read the business section of the newspaper. So I'll leave the topic with this: the answer to the question I posed yesterday appears to be, "I would." Hardly surprising.

Bank Note

A brief note about the Fed's AIG bailout, and the financial meltdown in the US: Suppose I'm a hedge fund manager who wants to get rich in a bear market. In the wake of the AIG bailout, why wouldn't I short the stock of some investment/insurance house that's, like AIG, wrapped up in CDS, and that's, like AIG, "too big to fail." I continue shorting until the stock tanks, which causes the firm's credit rating to drop, which in turn cripples the firm's ability to raise capital. With the stock in the toilet, credit unavailable, and with CDS coming due, the firm can't remain solvent, so it turns to the US government for assistance. The US government bails out the firm, wipes out the shareholders, and I get rich. So, tell me, why wouldn't I do this?

Addendum

Actually, I should clarify the claim in my last post. I believe that what we call "morally good" and "morally bad" is meaningful only relative to culture, which gives our actions meaning. Sometimes this is taken to mean that those concepts aren't really important. Here's the logic: If "good" and "bad" are meaningful only relative to culture, then they are highly malleable, since culture itself is highly malleable. If they are highly malleable, then they are arbitrary. If they are arbitrary, then they can't be important. That's a possible view, but it's not mine. I certainly do not think that they are unimportant. To be clear, while I do believe that "morally good" and "morally bad" are highly arbitrary, I do not believe that all virtues and vices are likewise arbitrary, and I do not believe that, even if they were, they would be unimportant. I might write more on this in the future.

Just Words? Part 2

Last time I argued that words at least sometimes constitute actions, and that there are no good or bad actions without a society to provide us with an opportunity to act in a morally good or morally bad manner (or courageously, or maliciously, or any other virtue or vice). I don't think these points are all that controversial. This time I'll argue that society does something else, too. It gives our words and our actions meaning. And because of this, in Part 3, I will argue that we have strong reasons to believe that language does change people--make them better or worse--as was suggested to me.

Society acts as the judge of our actions. Society imbues us with a sense of what a good person is. We judge people against that standard. Of course, we have some freedom to accept or reject those standards and create our own (though, as far as I can see, we don't have as much freedom as some would like to believe). For the most part, though, in order to judge people and actions, we measure them against real world examples. Want to know what you should do? Ask yourself what the virtuous person would do. What would the virtuous person do? Theorizing alone can't tell us; only our own thoughts and feelings can.

Critics object to this characterization of moral decision-making, charging it with relativism. If society is the judge of our actions, then an action could be good in one society and bad in another. And, indeed, I admit this; my view is relativistic. Actions are good or bad measured against actually-existing pracitices, not non-existent ideal types. I think it's ridiculous to suggest that there could be a society in which no individuals are virtuous people, yet non-relativists must argue that there could be such a society, at least in principle. So relativism is a strength of my view, not an objection. The charge of relativism is a red herring.

Just Words? Part 1

"I strongly believe that words can change the human being itself." I've been thinking about this statement. It struck me when I heard it as a bit counterintuitive but thought-provoking. It countered my intuition because of the context. We had been talking about strong language in general and expletives in particular. The idea that, say, swearing too much could change a person puzzled me. It wasn't something I had thought about previously, but it got me thinking. This post is the first part of my attempt to explain my thoughts.

Back to the original statement: Can words change people? Actually, this statement must be true. I don't think there's any doubt that words at least sometimes constitute actions. The bride who says "I do" at her wedding isn't merely saying those words; she's making a commitment, and she's embracing a set of norms bound up with marriage. She is saying "Yes!" to her husband, and also "I accept this" to the institution of marriage itself. She isn't just saying something; she's doing something. Once we admit that words are, or can be, actions, it's easy to see how words can, and do, change people.

Words change people insofar as people are products of their actions. Some would say that people just are their actions. That overstates things, but it's not far from the truth. We label people "good," "bad," "selfish," "warmhearted," etc. not based on what's in their heart; we apply those labels after we see how people manifest their thoughts and feelings in relation to others. There are no good, bad, selfish, or warmhearted people without a society to provide us with an opportunity to be good, bad, selfish, warmhearted, etc. Society provides an opportunity for people to express the virtues and vices. This is an important point, but it's not the only one. I'll write more on this in Part 2.