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[WalrusMcFishSr]

They are mistakes in the sense that they are not found in the standard lexicon of English vocabulary. Microsoft Word would draw a red squiggly line underneath them.

They are "mistakes" in the sense that while they might not be technically correct, everybody knows what you're talking about anyway, and isn't that the point of language to begin with?

Hopefully this understandablizes the point a bit more.

[theory]

They are "mistakes" in the sense that while they might not be technically correct, everybody knows what you're talking about anyway, and isn't that the point of language to begin with?

This argument bothers me.  It is like saying, "Well, this code is written poorly, unextensible, undocumented, etc., but it works, and isn't that the point of the program?"  There is usually a reason for technical rules.

[WalrusMcFishSr]

They are "mistakes" in the sense that while they might not be technically correct, everybody knows what you're talking about anyway, and isn't that the point of language to begin with?

This argument bothers me.  It is like saying, "Well, this code is written poorly, unextensible, undocumented, etc., but it works, and isn't that the point of the program?"  There is usually a reason for technical rules.

Didn't mean to bother you theory! Unfortunately a lot of my code does end up looking like that 

It's not as if I was completely bucking the technical rules either. For example, my faux word "understandablizes" follows the basic grammatical form of English; I took a root word and added some suffixes to it in a logical and coherent way. I would guess that most people reading it knew exactly what I was talking about immediately. On the other hand, if I had written "xkjwo(&W&$ifjwos", well that would be a syntax error for sure. This lack of rigidity makes the language more extensible, not less!

I understand the importance of precision in certain contexts. To take an example from music, if I'm playing a Bach concerto, it's really important whether that note was a B or B flat. If I'm rocking some 12 bar blues, I can wing it...but if I stray too far from the overarching rules then I'm not playing the blues anymore. In computer programming or formal mathematics every little semicolon matters. When talking informally to a flexible associative network of 100 billion neurons that evolved in a noisy environment--not so much.

It is also my belief that in the future, computer programming and operation will be much more linguistic in nature, while still allowing for rigor. I think the progress from punch cards to FORTRAN to scripting languages supports this theory, and you can catch a glimpse of the future in something like IBM's Watson project. I imagine that in a couple generations I'd be able to describe what I want my program to do in plain English, and the compiler could basically just figure it out and do all the hard work of optimization itself. Maybe you find this idea to be abhorrent. But I find it to be awesome!

All that being said, it secretly annoys me when people use "John and I" when they should have used "John and me."

[AJD]

I just don't understand in what sense verbing nouns per se can be considered either a "mistake" or a mistake.

Would you not consider it a mistake to use a verb (or any word) that is not found in any dictionary or even used in any dialect?

Not automatically! Consider the following sentence:

"It's not a good idea to build an engine around Tribute because, even though it can act as a village, its nonterminalness is unreliable."

Was it a mistake for me to use the word nonterminalness in that sentence? if so, why?

Verbing a noun can mean entirely novel constructions, like nonsense words,

On that level, almost every linguistic act is an "entirely novel construction". The noun isn't novel, and the act of verbing nouns isn't novel; though the act of verbing a particular noun may be novel, language is all about combining a finite set of elements into an unlimited number of novel constructions.

except that the root noun allows someone to interpret the meaning.

Yes. So why should it be considered a mistake?

(Note: I'm not contending that any individual instance of verbing a noun might not be a mistake for one reason or another. But "English allows for 'mistakes' like verbing nouns" makes it sound like you're saying that verbing nouns can be characterized in some sense as a mistake in general, which is what I take exception to.)

[AJD]

They are "mistakes" in the sense that while they might not be technically correct, everybody knows what you're talking about anyway, and isn't that the point of language to begin with?

This argument bothers me.  It is like saying, "Well, this code is written poorly, unextensible, undocumented, etc., but it works, and isn't that the point of the program?"  There is usually a reason for technical rules.

It bothers me too. A closer approximation to the fact of the matter might be: they are "mistakes" in the sense that, while they are technically correct, some people have made up additional rules that they falsely claim apply, and they don't obey those.

"Everybody knows what you're talking about anyway" isn't sufficient for something to be grammatical. Everyone knows what Cookie Monster means when he says "Me want cookie," but that doesn't make that an actual sentence of English.

[WalrusMcFishSr]

Cookie Monster is simply speaking a different dialect of English. Certainly it is comprehensible and self-consistent. To call it ungrammatical would be insensitive and quite frankly a bit racist.

http://theleagueofnerds.wordpress.com/2013/08/13/talk-like-a-monster/

[AJD]

Cookie Monster is simply speaking a different dialect of English. Certainly it is comprehensible and self-consistent. To call it ungrammatical would be insensitive and quite frankly a bit racist.

Well, everyone's a little bit racist sometimes.

[GeoLib]

Cookie Monster is simply speaking a different dialect of English. Certainly it is comprehensible and self-consistent. To call it ungrammatical would be insensitive and quite frankly a bit racist.

http://theleagueofnerds.wordpress.com/2013/08/13/talk-like-a-monster/

This was about 1000 times more interesting than the lab report I'm supposed to be writing right now. I need to study some linguistics.

Cookie Monster is simply speaking a different dialect of English. Certainly it is comprehensible and self-consistent. To call it ungrammatical would be insensitive and quite frankly a bit racist.

Well, everyone's a little bit racist sometimes.

I'm in a production of Avenue Q right now

[Kirian]

Cookie Monster is simply speaking a different dialect of English. Certainly it is comprehensible and self-consistent. To call it ungrammatical would be insensitive and quite frankly a bit racist.

http://theleagueofnerds.wordpress.com/2013/08/13/talk-like-a-monster/

That was a wonderful article.

[eHalcyon]

I just don't understand in what sense verbing nouns per se can be considered either a "mistake" or a mistake.

Would you not consider it a mistake to use a verb (or any word) that is not found in any dictionary or even used in any dialect?

Not automatically! Consider the following sentence:

"It's not a good idea to build an engine around Tribute because, even though it can act as a village, its nonterminalness is unreliable."

Was it a mistake for me to use the word nonterminalness in that sentence? if so, why?

Verbing a noun can mean entirely novel constructions, like nonsense words,

On that level, almost ''every'' linguistic act is an "entirely novel construction". The noun isn't novel, and the act of verbing nouns isn't novel; though the act of verbing a particular noun may be novel, language is all about combining a finite set of elements into an unlimited number of novel constructions.

except that the root noun allows someone to interpret the meaning.

Yes. So why should it be considered a mistake?

(Note: I'm not contending that any individual instance of verbing a noun might not be a mistake for one reason or another. But "English allows for 'mistakes' like verbing nouns" makes it sound like you're saying that verbing nouns can be characterized in some sense as a mistake in general, which is what I take exception to.)

Well, that is why I put "mistake" in quotation marks.

[AJD]

Well, that is why I put "mistake" in quotation marks.

So I still don't understand what you meant by "Well, I guess the quotation marks are inappropriate there". (Or, with the quotation marks, according to who it's supposed to be a mistake.)

[eHalcyon]

Well, that is why I put "mistake" in quotation marks.

So I still don't understand what you meant by "Well, I guess the quotation marks are inappropriate there". (Or, with the quotation marks, according to who it's supposed to be a mistake.)

I don't know either anymore.   I put the quotation marks originally because maybe it shouldn't really be considered a mistake, and then your question made me question my thinking... so yeah.  I don't know!