"keep silence" vs "keep silent"

[Prezbucky]

The New York Times is a paragon of usage, but if that was their headline, then it was incorrect... or at least not as clean as it could have been.

...and nobody's perfect. Heck, there are usage issues in every book I read.

I mess up constantly. To be perfect, one would have to edit everything he said or wrote.

But when I say that "keep silent" is better than "keep silence", I say that based on my experience -- what i've read, said and heard through the years. I only hope others here will back me up. hehe
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Billie Jean is not my lover. Hee.

[Molly]

But when I say that "keep silent" is better than "keep silence", I say that based on my experience -- what i've read, said and heard through the years. I only hope others here will back me up.

So you would agree with most of my threads regarding the shakiness of native-speaker intuiton, right? Native-speakers can only comment on usage as far as their contact with certain utterances, dialect, age, social background, etc. is concerned, right?

[Prezbucky]

There's no easy way to explain it... it simply is. As gangsters say, "It is what it is."

I have listened to multiple PhDs speak, frequently conversed with many other highly educated people (including my parents, grandparents and sister). Heck, I've listened to people from (what must be) nearly every US demographic group imaginable, whether at work, in class or in social situations.

So has Jamie, so has Amy... et al. Alan surely knows UK usage very well.

I wasn't lying -- this is a conscientious effort to help solve this particular riddle of usage -- when I acted shocked at seeing the NY Times headline, because I really was shocked. That's the first time I've read "keep silence". Or it's the first time I can remember seeing it, anyway.

Your deeper question is this: Who makes the rules of usage?

Shouldn't it be our writers? Our teachers? IE, those who use it most, who have learned its rules (passed down)... who care about it and its main utility, which is to make ourselves as easy as possible to understand? Isn't that what grammar is for?

Crap, we're coming up on the end of the day here at work. I'm losing it. lol
_________________
Billie Jean is not my lover. Hee.

[Molly]

This is absolute nonsense: a few native-speakers getting upset because they have spoken in error or in haste. "Keep silence" exists, and it is wholly correct English usage. It may not be common, but neither are many other formal, register-specific, expressions.

Had you come across "on second thoughts" before today? Amy hadn't. That's life, even for native-speakers with 100s of university qualifications. Live with it.

[Prezbucky]

sure, but back to question 1:

Am I going to start spelling "skate" as "sk8" because 12-year-olds constantly represent the word that way on the Internet?

"On second thoughts" is incorrect -- it's "on second thought".

...because a second thought is -- read this carefully -- ONE THOUGHT. If they were thoughts two through, say, six... then, well wait, then it would be "on thoughts two through six".

"On second thought, maybe I will go to McDonald's after all."
_________________
Billie Jean is not my lover. Hee.

[Molly]

Am I going to start spelling "skate" as "sk8" because 12-year-olds constantly represent the word that way on the Internet?

I dunno. Am I going to start spelling "colour" as "color" just because some colonials once decided to make life easier for themselves? Are you going to start avoiding split-infinitives at all cost just because some university guy said you should?

[Prezbucky]

That was our way to decrease hand/wrist fatigue.

..but "sk8" and its ilk go too far.

hehe
_________________
Billie Jean is not my lover. Hee.

[Molly]

2 far 4 whom?

[Prezbucky]

good use of "whom"
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Billie Jean is not my lover. Hee.

[Molly]

C'mon, natives, there's a time to speak, to keep silence and a time to read (wider). Native-speaker intuition is simply not enough at times - as we've seen here recently:

http://www.pcusa.org/womensministries/history-theology/shouldwomenkeepsilence.pdf

....

Has Alan read his parliamentary history?

"House adjourned to Westminster Hall.

And the Lords being come thither, and seated;

And the House resumed:

Proclamation was made, in the King's Name, for all Persons to keep Silence, upon Pain of Imprisonment.

From: 'House of Lords Journal Volume 20: 24 June 1717', Journal of the House of Lords: volume 20: 1714-1717, pp. 509-512. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=38672. Date accessed: 13 May 2008.

[Prezbucky]

that was likely a typo

;)

and even if they noticed it, they weren't going to spend all the time necessary to fix it... what with the large, ungainly printing press with which to battle. I also remember reading that typewriter production was down that year, as workers were out on strike demanding higher-quality porridge.
_________________
Billie Jean is not my lover. Hee.

[Molly]

[Molly]

"Over the centuries, a few of the mum applications have fallen silent (at one time, mum was a verb that meant either "keep silence; whisper"; or "cause to be silent; mum" also once functioned as a noun naming "a silent person" or a person now known as a mummer)."

http://www.merriam-webster.com/cgi-bin/wftwarch.pl?090707