Talk:Robert Lowth
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Bill Bryson dismisses Robert Lowth as uneducated. I just wondered, what was his basis for this crass accusation? I am not a fan of Bryson, because he gets so much wrong. Is he wrong here?
I have not read Bryson nor seen this particular charge that Robert Lowth was “uneducated”, but surely it has to be wrong on a technical point. That fact that Lowth was Prælector of Poetry at Oxford University and delivered his inaugural lecture (21st May 1741) in Latin, displaying a familiarity with English thinkers such as Bacon, and with the many poets and philosophers of antiquity, shows he was very well educated, or trained. That is, if “to educate” is to have as one of its meanings, “to train in a (intellectual) discipline.” Bryson, of course, may have meant that Lowth was badly brought up, or bad mannered. However, this I doubt, as “to educate” is rarely used in this context by English speakers.
- I've not read the Bryson in question; did he say "uneducated", or did he say "an idiot"? Because while the former accusation would be unfair, the second could easily be justified. Which raises the question: why is there virtually no mention in this article of the modern view of Bish Lowth? Reading this would give the impression that he contributed something useful to mankind, instead of a bunch of ridiculous rules (which could kindly be described as "arbitrary"), which have had absolutely no effect on standard English in two hundred and fifty years. 129.2.211.72 16:22, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)
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- After posting the previous comment, I found the Prescription and description article (which was not clearly linked to from this one, for whatever reason), and borrowed a hefty chunk about Lowth. While I freely admit my own POV, I think the addition was necessary to help neutralize an overly Lowth-friendly article. Now it contains accurate information about his life, academic career, and legacy. 129.2.211.72 16:41, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Lowth was not an "idiot"
I really don’t think your addition has helped “neutralize” the issue: you’ve merely removed one bias and replaced it with your own, which is even more biased. To describe Lowth as an “idiot” is wrong. I agree that Lowth made a mistake in trying to make the language conform to Latin rules, but he was by no means alone in doing this (both during his own and earlier periods). Many poets, possibly imitating Milton, used Latinate sentence structures (were they all idiots?). Bear in mind that not many years before Lowth’s grammar the lingua franca was Latin (Milton was Latin Secretary to Cromwell). Also, to enter the universities (Cambridge and Oxford), at matriculation, one was still expected to sit an exam in Latin. There were no such subjects as English literature, studies, or language: the study of poetry meant the study of antiquity. It was inevitable that in such an environment the former Professor of Poetry (in the Greek and Latin tongues) at Oxford should produce a text on grammar heavily influenced by Latin.
To call him an “idiot” might show at best a weak understanding of the period, if not our language and its etymology (heavily influenced by French and Latin). An idiot is “a person with extremely low intelligence.” If intelligence is to mean the “faculty of understanding”, then I don’t see how either you or Bryson (if he did) can refer to Lowth as an idiot. The possible genesis of intelligence is the Latin intellego, a compound of lego (“I choose, gather”, and by extension “read”) and inter (“between”). Lowth read widely, but made some choices in his grammar which might now seem redundant and pedantic. However, I wouldn’t call Fowler an idiot because he made a distinction between “shall” and “will”. Few people make this distinction now, and even fewer know what the distinction is. This does not reflect badly on them (language evolves) but it doesn’t make Fowler an idiot (incidentally, Lowth had noted a similar distinction between “shall” and “will” in his Grammar).
I object to calling Lowth an idiot because to do so makes a mockery of previous learning, which must be seen in its context. We should take issue with it, but to dismiss it is unhelpful. Lastly, you might add to your list of idiots: Aristotle, Plato, Bacon, Hume, Nietzsche, etc, all of whom expressed ideas which now seem less than convincing. We further our own knowledge by learning (warts and all) from those who have gone before us.
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- I agree that the neutrality of this article is questionable. Its accuracy is unquestionably bad, and its wording misleading. Lowth's judgments of grammaticality generally come from his own sense of what he would say, just like those of modern linguists: he supplements this with a (perhaps overzealous) application of analogy.
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- But the article suggests that Lowth blindly applied Latin rules to English: this is in fact against not only his stated purpose but also his practise. He may draw parallels with Latin, but he is always aware that a parallel can only go so far: see in particular his passage on the absolute construction, where he criticizes another grammarian for insisting that the absolute case must be the objective on the grounds that in Latin it is in the ablative: No, Lowth insists, it may be "illo" in the Latin, but in English we say "he", and it is no more reasonable to argue from the Latin than to say that we should use the genitive in the absolute construction because they do so in Greek (his example).
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- The article is inaccurate not only in its characterization of his general practise, but also in its description of specific instances. For example, in Lowth's discussion of whether we should say "who" or "whom", he does NOT cite latin grammar, but rather cites the analogy of the English forms where the pronoun follows the verb, and is clearly in the objective case. Also, Lowth does not really say that prepositions at end are "inappropriate" so it would be wrong to credit him with the creation of this "shibboleth" (which in any case goes back at least to Dryden before him): he merely says that he finds them chatty rather than majestic -- which I think we would all agree with.
[edit] Latin
On the basis of the above, I find myself wondering if it is true that Lowth based judgements on Latin at all, or if in fact this is just another example of making fun of prescription. There is a BIG difference between saying "Latin does this, so English should too" and saying "the kind of English I recommend does this, as does Latin". We have had discussions on this at Linguistic prescription and split infinitive, and have so far failed to come up with a single example of a serious authority ever having used arguments like the former (though some second-rate school teachers may have done, but that is of little interest). Now, given Lowth's stated principles, I would suspect that any use of Latin in his argumentation will be of the second kind - which is still regarded as perfectly valid today. Unless someone can find a clear example, I think that section needs to be rewritten. I shall add a "fact" tag meanwhile. --Doric Loon 21:33, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Tidying up
I've reverted some of the recent changes where they affect Lowth on the Psalms. This may be a bit obscure to those whose main interest in Lowth is as an English grammarian, but he is important for two different fields of intellectual history, with little overlap.
For any reader is looking to read what Lowth himself actually wrote on the Psalms, copies are available in many physical and cyber libraries, but it makes a big difference how readable one finds the text depending on whether one has the good fortune to have hit an edition which puts the scriptural quotations in English rather than Latin. --Browne-Windsor (talk) 14:43, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
