[Solatar]

Worth noting that a lot of nitpicky English grammar rules were introduced in the 18th century as a result of grammarians trying to make English more "perfect" like Latin and have nothing to do with what English speakers actually use.  People have been trying to correct their "bad" habits ever since.  English has a history (when I say history, I'm referring to Old and Middle English, and stuff that was carried over into Early Modern) of using different cases than a Latin translation.

It's the difference between prescriptive grammar and descriptive grammar.  Prescriptive grammar is where somebody writes the rules based on whatever the hell he wants; descriptive grammar is based on what speakers actually use.  The desire for English speakers to sound educated has made prescriptive grammar king, although it's a relatively recent invention in English.

[Flipside]

I don't think it's so much a desire to sound educated, I think it's just a question of how easily the rules settle in, I was always quite an avid reader from a very young age and carried that with me, I cringe everytime someone says 'Axe' instead of 'Ask' for example, despite the fact that it's becoming more and more common in everyday English, I don't mind language drift, I use colloquialisms now that I didn't use 5 years ago, but when it comes to pronunciation, that's a lot harder for me to deal with.

[Solatar]

The original Old English verb was 'acsion' (hard c) and the two sounds switched in Middle English (as well as infinitives becoming two part and dropping the Germanic '-on'); now they're switching back.

[Scotty]

Personally, I think I'd like English better if there was only one pronoun for each person (1st, 2nd, 3rd, and the singular and plural of all three).

[Flipside]

I don't doubt most languages have drifted all over the place over the years, and I'm in no way saying that language should be nailed down, but the fact is that a lot of language drift took place because of a lack of anywhere to pin it down, that's partly the role the Oxford English Dictionary created for itself, it was also possibly something to do with it's similarity to the word 'action' that put it out of service.

If may be a simple outgrowth of English, but the spelling hasn't changed, which actually serves not to make the language more accessible, but actually to make it even less so.

Edit: As an aside, one thing that does always occur to me is why is it always English that's attacked when people try to preserve the language, many other countries have entire Government departments dedicated to preserving the language (France and Wales come to mind), and yet the moment someone mentions that a certain form of English is bad, it's language drift and English speakers are just being stroppy and not keeping up with the times. It just seems to be an odd stigma that hangs over the English language.

[Solatar]

@Scotty: There's a barrier island creole (in the Carolinas maybe) that uses them indiscriminately (I think they normally use 'she') because the African language that's part of the creole didn't distinguish pronoun gender.  I'll have to do some digging in books I've got lying around to find it though.

It's possible. . .English already got rid of its informal pronouns (thou, thy, etc.).  However with all the feminist grammar stuff drawing a load of attention to the gender specific pronouns, it's unlikely to change.

@Flipside (who posted while I was typing this): The OED exists to catalog words, nothing more.  They have etymologies for all their words.  You're right though, in that printing did a LOT for the standardization of English.  Before Caxton started printing English stuff, there was effectively no standardization (except for West Saxon Old English, which dominated literature before 1066).  However printing can also cause problems of its own.  English 'gost' and 'goul' became 'ghost' and 'ghoul' due to a Dutch printing error that caught favor as a better looking spelling.

For your perusal and general interest: (it also appears there was some dialectical variation of 'ask' in OE as well, however in the bit of Wessex Old English I've studied the 'aks' form is more common). 

From the OED:

Ask:

Etymology:  Common Germanic: Old English áscian was cognate with Old Frisian âskia, Old Saxon êscôn, êscan, Old High German eiscôn, Middle High German eischen, German heischen, Old Germanic *aiskôjan: compare Sanskrit ish to seek, ichchhā wish. The original long á gave regularly the Middle English (Kentish) ōxi; but elsewhere was shortened before the two consonants, giving Middle English a, and, in some dialects, e. The result of these vowel changes, and of the Old English metathesis asc-, acs-, was that Middle English had the types ōx, ax, ex, ask, esk, ash, esh, ass, ess. The true representative of the orig. áscian was the s.w. and w.midl. ash, esh, also written esse (compare æsceash n.1, wæsc(e)anwash n.), now quite lost. Acsian, axian, survived in ax, down to nearly 1600 the regular literary form, and still used everywhere in midl. and southern dialects, though supplanted in standard English by ask, originally the northern form. Already in 15th cent. the latter was reduced dialectally to asse, past tense ast, still current dialectally.

Action:

Etymology:  < Anglo-Norman accioun, acciun, actione, actioun, Anglo-Norman and Middle French accion, Anglo-Norman and Middle French, French action (of a person) performance of deeds, activity (1223 in Old French), exercise of a claim before a judge, pursual of a lawsuit, legal proceedings (1260), way of proceeding (14th cent.), effect, influence (1426), public discourse (a1564), (in drama or oratory) gesture (a1592), operation of a physical or immaterial agent (1646), events occurring in a play (1660), financial title representing a share of capital (1669; 12th cent. in Old French as acciun), in Anglo-Norman also (in law) matter in dispute (13th cent.), right to bring a legal action (first half of the 14th cent.), and its etymon classical Latin actiōn-, āctiō activity, doing, act, deed, dramatic incident, proposal, measure, policy, (of an orator) delivery, speech, speaking, legal process, suit, right to bring a suit, plea, statement of claim, in post-classical Latin also conduct (6th cent.), canon of the Mass (7th cent.), thanksgiving (from 8th cent. in British sources in actio gratiarum; also 1244 in a British source as actio), mystery play (c1225 in a British source), record of proceedings (16th cent. in a British source) < āct- past participial stem of agere to do (see act v.) + -iō-ion suffix1. Compare Old Occitan accion, acihon (1385), Catalan acció (14th cent.), Spanish acción (c1250), Portuguese ação (1257), Italian azione (a1306).

EDIT: So, possible that 'action' influenced 'ask', but hard to prove either way.

You guys get to ramble all day about your engineering and physics and maths, I'm taking my turn.

[Flipside]

No problem, there's no doubting who's the expert on this

I suppose the real concern is that the 'official' spelling is still 'Ask', that may change over time though, but I think it's less likely now that it was 100 years ago.

Interesting about the words Ghost and Ghoul though, didn't know about that, makes you wonder how many other 'silent' letters appeared in that fashion.

[Bobboau]

I think a lot of good could come out of a methodological cleaning of the language, straighten out all the inconsistencies and special cases.

mouses should be acceptable plural form of mouse.

[Solatar]

If I recall correctly, it's easier for some people to pronounce the 'k' before the 's'.  So, it IS a result of people being lazy, as is all language drift.

OE: mus is singular, OE mues (German ü).  Since that vowel no longer exists in English, it was raised to an 'i' (for unrelated reasons the 'oo' changed to 'ow').  I've actually always used 'mouses' as plural of a computer mouse; not sure where I got that from though.

There have been a lot of academics looking at standardizing the English language, because it's SO etymologically diverse.  It'd be a VERY tough thing to get people to use though, and for your effort you might as well teach them Esperanto.  I know the Brits will hate it, but Webster's spelling changes were in large part an attempt to make the spelling match the pronunciation (of course three hundred years later and it's wrong again).  It would certainly aid in teaching others the language.

EDIT: Bobboau, that also opens up the can of worms of who creates language? Is it a community trying to communicate with itself, or is it something that's imposed on people?  A lot of people would argue that the speakers are the final authority on what's correct.

[Bobboau]

well, there are currently authority figures who have a written 'correct' version that they are imposing on the people, I propose that these people try to make there version more logically consistent or in the least don't make such logical inconsistencies mandatory and allow 'mouses' to be accepted when you write a paper for an ivy league university.

[SypheDMar]

I've actually never heard of "John and me" as a subject  before, and I only hear "Me and John" is on TV. I didn't realize it was common.

[karajorma]

Worth noting that a lot of nitpicky English grammar rules were introduced in the 18th century as a result of grammarians trying to make English more "perfect" like Latin and have nothing to do with what English speakers actually use.

IIRC a lot of the nonsense people think are rules of grammar come from that too. Stuff like not splitting infinitives or not ending sentences with a preposition.

[redsniper]

Wait, you mean it is okay to split infinitives?

[NGTM-1R]

Wait, you mean it is okay to split infinitives?

In English, sure.

In Latin, they'll set you on fire and dump what's left into the Marianas Trench.

[Qent]

What, is it even possible in Latin? Amare is one word.

[Solatar]

That's the point and why it's so funny.  They brought the "rule" that you couldn't split an infinitive over from Latin, which was dumb because there was no logic in applying that to a two piece infinitive.

[Solatar]

Wait, you mean it is okay to split infinitives?

Sometimes it's not worth the effort to try to snootily explain why you're actually right to whomever says it.

"Pretending" you know good grammar just keeps you more friends.

[Qent]

That's the point and why it's so funny.  They brought the "rule" that you couldn't split an infinitive over from Latin, which was dumb because there was no logic in applying that to a two piece infinitive.

Ohhhh...

* Qent bonks himself on the head.

[Polpolion]

Just so you guys know, on the Forum Index, this thread shows up as "Re: Quick survet - prono..."

I thought I'd let you know how disappointed I am.

[Mongoose]

...or not ending sentences with a preposition.

I seem to distinctly remember being taught in grade school English class that a preposition used at the end of a sentence was essentially functioning as an adverb and so was fine to use.  That's why I've always been puzzled when I see people throwing fits over them.