[Psychonaut]

I was reading Steven Pinker's "The Language Instinct" earlier today. It's an amazing book for someone going into linguistics such as myself.

When Pinker began discussing how Black English Vernacular (BEV) has fully formed grammatical rules and structures, I began thinking about some of my own peculiar grammatical constructions.

One which I routinely use in place of something like "Would you like me to call him?" is "You want I should call him." (said as more of a statement than a question.) I don't know how I began to use it, but it seems strange to me.

Do any of you all use constructions or phrases that strike you as strange or ostensibly ungrammatical? How did you acquire them?

[Oisín]

Originally posted by Psychonaut:
One which I routinely use in place of something like "Would you like me to call him?" is "You want I should call him." (said as more of a statement than a question.) I don't know how I began to use it, but it seems strange to me.

It's not so strange, it's fairly common. Probably not grammatically correct, though (I think 'want' requires a 'that' if its object is a phrase, but apart from that there's nothing wrong with it).

I use some very quirky grammar, er, quirks, but almost only in Danish, and nearly always on purpose. Most of them are sort of puns involving switching parts of words in fixed phrases and idioms around. I inherited it from my dad, he does it too.

Like... it's a fixed phrase in Danish to say, "ikke at have en skid forstand p� noget" [not to know sh*t about something, or lit. not to have a **** (of) knowledge of something], and I change it into "ikke at have en stand forskid p� noget", which doesn't make the slightest bit of sense, but sounds funnier and never causes any comprehension problems whatsoever.

Oh yeah, and I love being sequipedalian, especially in colloquial speech

[MallyMal]

Could you give an example of BEV?

[sugar_coated]

What good is good grammar when one has nothing great to say?

[Ghoser777]

Originally posted by sugar_coated:
What good is good grammar when one has nothing great to say?

How ironic...

[undotwa]

Originally posted by Psychonaut:

"Would you like me to call him?"

I always thought of that construction as reminiscent of a Latin accusative+infinitive construction. If you treat it like that, it is grammatically correct.

SUBJECT (you) + VERB (would like [auxiliary principle + semantic principle verbs]) + accusative (me) + infinitive (to call) + him (accusative of the infinitive).

[sugar_coated]

Originally posted by Ghoser777:
How ironic...

[Oisín]

Originally posted by undotwa:
I always thought of that construction as reminiscent of a Latin accusative+infinitive construction. If you treat it like that, it is grammatically correct.

Of course they're reminiscent - they're the same. And the sentence is completely grammatically correct, no question about it. Note that Psychonaut said that he used the "Do you want I call him?" form instead of this more commonly used, and more grammatically correct, form.

[roberto blanco]

Originally posted by Psychonaut:
When Pinker began discussing how Black English Vernacular (BEV)...

language always reflects a "complete" scoio-cultural model before it is recognized as being "valid".

Originally posted by Psychonaut:
One which I routinely use in place of something like "Would you like me to call him?" is "You want I should call him."

i'm very sure this isn't grammatically correct.

[Big Mac]

Originally posted by undotwa:
I always thought of that construction as reminiscent of a Latin accusative+infinitive construction. If you treat it like that, it is grammatically correct.
SUBJECT (you) + VERB (would like [auxiliary principle + semantic principle verbs]) + accusative (me) + infinitive (to call) + him (accusative of the infinitive).

Impressive grammatical breakdown, but the OP was not wondering about the correctness of that construction but was instead referring to his New York style permutation thereof. I first heard "You want I should call him?" from Gary Kasner, the late boyfriend of Hank Hill's mother on King of the Hill.

[ghporter]

The funny thing is that the statement sounds a lot like German grammar. English comes from (among other sources) Old German, and we've kept the basic structural background of the language. But we've also simplified it immensely. You can make yourself understood quite well with some really horrendous constructions that are completely contrary to actual English grammar rules; this shows the flexibility of the language.

In fact, the variations of grammar rules from one region to another were the foundation of regional dialects. Drifting away from formal English, but not quite establishing another dialect is often considered "rustic" (which is a nice way of saying uneducated). Not that this is "correct English," but rather that it is understandable and conveys a significant amount of additional information.