Recs!

[secretsolitaire]

Happy 2011, all! Anybody mind if I start the year with a PSA? "Anyways" is NOT A WORD. I have been seeing it in fic all over the place and it's like nails on a chalkboard, especially in the mouths of well-spoken characters like Hermione, Spock or Uhura. >:-(

ETA: I knew ranting would get me in trouble, LOL. atdelphi quite correctly points out that "

Comments

[atdelphi]

*puts on linguist hat*

"Anyways" might not be dialectically in-character for Hermione, Uhura, or Spock, but it most certainly is a word, and it is in fact closer to the original "anywise" than "anyway" is. :-)

[secretsolitaire]

Hee, I had a feeling even as I was typing that someone was going to chime in with disagreement on this! I didn't look up the origin of the word so I didn't know about "anywise" -- very interesting. Found this, which completely backs up what you're saying. I'll edit. :-) (Though it still sounds just awful to me. *g*)

[court1429]

Linguistic history aside, I am SO WITH you on this. Whether I read it or hear it, I wanna slap somebody!

And the people who say "anyways" know absolutely nothing of these cited examples, they're just lazy speakers.

[secretsolitaire]

Well, glad I'm not the only one!

Love your icon. :-P

[atdelphi]

And the people who say "anyways" know absolutely nothing of these cited examples, they're just lazy speakers.

I say it, and I say it as I say everything: carefully.

[letmypidgeonsgo]

I second all of this ^^

[letmypidgeonsgo]

(err, what court said, that is)

[atdelphi]

You're quite right that it's not correct for certain characters-it's just that coming from a couple of minority dialects myself, I'm prickly about the whole "not a word" thing, or assuming someone's intelligence by how they conjugate. *g* Language varies and changes, and all of us use forms and pronunciations that were once someone else's pet peeves ("It's 'god be with ye'-'goodbye' isn't even a word! And what's with the uneducated rabble using 'you' instead of 'thee'?") and that's what makes language great.

[secretsolitaire]

Which dialects are more likely to use "anyways"? I'm curious now.

You're right, of course, about language evolving and changing. An example off the top of my head is "emails," which I do use but probably makes many people grit their teeth.

I'm sorry if you were offended by my post, and I appreciate your taking the time to set me straight. :-)

[atdelphi]

It's certainly more of a North American phenomena, but I'm not sure of the exact distribution. Personally, I use the 's' form when it's serving a resumptive role in the sentence, but not as a conventional adverb.

Thank you for listening. I wasn't offended, really-I'm just a huge language geek of the descriptive rather than prescriptive sort.

[darla_isabelle]

Interesting discussion.

I'm allergic to anyways too, so it's definitely good to know that it's not necessarily wrong :-) Thanks for the other examples as well, I'd never even tried to make sense of them.

Happy New Year, y'all!

[court1429]

Oh, sure. Just like it's not "spittin'" image, it's "spirit and" image said quickly and with a southern accent that became spittin' and which makes zero sense. Interesting to know that about goodbye.

But hearing or reading "anyways" will, now and forever, irritate the hell out of me! ;D

[darla_isabelle]

Thanks for the link, that article is quite enlightening, plus there are some interesting links on that site.

I hope all is well and wish you a wonderful 2011!

[secretsolitaire]

Happy 2011 to you too, hon! ♥