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posted by janrinok on Monday October 24 2016, @09:18PM   Printer-friendly
from the open-is-better dept.

Quartz reports

Seven Rhode Island universities, including Brown and Rhode Island College, will move to open-license textbooks [1] in a bid to save students $5 million over the next five years, the governor announced [September 27].

The initiative is meant to put a dent in the exorbitant cost of college and, more specifically, college textbooks. Mark Perry, a professor of economics and finance at the University of Michigan Flint, and a writer at the American Enterprise Institute, estimated last year [Cloudflare protected] that college textbook prices rose 945% between 1978 and 2014, compared to an overall inflation rate of 262% and a 604% rise in the cost of medical care.

That is not the result of a general trend of higher costs in publishing, he notes: the consumer price index for recreational books has been falling relative to overall inflation since 1998.

[...] Open textbooks are defined as "faculty-written, peer-reviewed textbooks that are published under an open license--meaning that they are available free online, they are free to download, and print copies are available at $10-40, or approximately the cost of printing", according to a report by the Student Public Interest Research Groups (PIRGs) (pdf). They are part of the move toward Open Educational Resources, which has roots in the open-source software movement, it says.

Open licenses allow for content to be shared, unlike traditional textbooks which limit the use of their materials. [Richard Culatta, the chief innovation officer for Rhode Island] remembers teaching and replacing a section of a textbook with more relevant information for his class, only to be informed that he was infringing on international copyright law.

[1] A very bloated (webfonts) all-script-driven page.

Note: If you are thinking of using "begs the question" in the same way the state official did, that is a bad idea.

Our previous discussions of student materials and adoption of openness.


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  • (Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Tuesday October 25 2016, @01:20PM

    by AthanasiusKircher (5291) on Tuesday October 25 2016, @01:20PM (#418520) Journal

    Note: If you are thinking of using "begs the question" in the same way the state official did, that is a bad idea.

    Indeed. If you are an educated person thinking of using "begs the question" under any circumstances, that is probably a bad idea. In fact, one might say that it is begging the question to assume that "begging the question" has only one meaning.

    Why? "Begs the question" does NOT mean petitio principii anymore outside of philosophy journals (and occasionally law journals). Actual linguists who have tried to find uses of the "correct" meaning of this phrase in recent years -- even in educated, edited prose from publishers with high reputations -- have basically failed [upenn.edu]. The reality is that something like 95% of the time "begs the question" = "raises the question" for educated speakers and writers (as it does in the TFA). Of the remaining 5% or so, the vast majority of recent citations are not actual USES of the correct meaning, but rather people bitching about how no one uses the phrase right anymore. Grammar girl tried to "fight the good fight" for the "correct" meaning in her original column back in 2008 [quickanddirtytips.com], but when she was researching a book more recently [quickanddirtytips.com] and tried to find real-world examples in THOUSANDS of search results she couldn't find a single "correct" usage. (If you want even more stats and recent links, see here [wordpress.com], which surveys the surveys.)

    So, the usage of the phrase has changed. That ship sailed a long time ago. But pedants don't care, and thus educated folks are stuck in a quandary: if you use the phrase to mean "raise the question," you know that EVERYONE will understand you (even pedants, though they will grit their teeth and mutter stuff under their breath), but if you use the phrase to mean petitio principii, probably 99% of your audience will be confused, unless you're writing for a philosophy journal.

    My 11th-grade English teacher already taught me how to deal with such situation: you just avoid the problematic usage. I had asked him about some "technically correct" but weird-sounding grammar -- maybe something like "The person responsible is HE" rather than "him" -- and my teacher's response was, "Language is about communication. If you are trying to showcase your grammar skills but lose most of your audience who think you sound weird or confusing, then you're not communicating effectively. So, if you're thinking about using a construction in a way that your audience won't understand or will think 'sounds weird,' simply rephrase the sentence to avoid it." Usage expert Brian Garner calls such things "skunked" terms or phrases or uses. They're caught in the nether world where educated folks mostly speak or write one way while pedants think they should be used a different way.

    And really, "begs the question" is simply a terrible phrase. It was bound to "slip" meanings, since it barely made sense when it was coined in English as a bad translation of a Latin phrase which itself was a bad translation of the original Greek fallacy. Usage guides will tell you that "begs the question" meaning "raising the question" dates back to at least the late 1800s in educated prose. But when I got into an argument about this phrase a couple years ago, a few Google books searches brought up "bad" uses much earlier in the 19th century. I even found a use in the 1820s of a government official in the House of Commons or something actually punning on the two uses already, saying something like, "The learned gentleman 'begs the question' only to have his argument beg the question." It's clear from context that "raises the question" was intended for the first use, and that the "incorrect" use was common enough even ~200 years ago that people could knowingly joke about it.

    Despite my English teachers advice, I was a pedant for many years, though mostly a silent one, accumulating collections of pet peeves which I'd complain about knowingly with like-minded grammatical wackos. But in the past few years I've read a lot more about the history of English usage, and I've realized that maybe 70-80% of the "distinctions" that pedants make usually aren't even "correct" historically -- they're often just distinctions that were made up anywhere from 75 to 200 years ago by some other pedant who didn't like a particular use and created a new "problem" that never existed before.

    And thus I came to realize that pedantry is the real enemy, since I'm forced to avoid dozens of perfectly good words and phrases because of a tiny number of folks who stoically hold to these often arbitrary "rules" passed around by pedantic 8th-grade English teachers... but meanwhile the rest of the educated population has moved on and accepts the "new" (sometimes quite "old" or even "original") meaning.

    Bottom line: If you mean "raises the question," say "raises the question." If you mean petitio principii, say "assumes the conclusion" or some other perfectly normal English phrase that means the same thing. (Or, if you're writing for a technical audience, use the Latin.) And if uses of "begs the question" like this Rhode Island official causes you to grit your teeth and trot out internet links to show how awesome you are and how everyone else the world is a moron... well, maybe you might consider a different hobby.

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  • (Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Tuesday October 25 2016, @01:31PM

    by AthanasiusKircher (5291) on Tuesday October 25 2016, @01:31PM (#418526) Journal

    Just to say one more thing -- I wrote the preceding quickly and did not edit thoroughly. Upon re-reading, I'm aware of several places where I missed a word or punctuation or things like that. If anyone wants to disagree with what I've said, please let's make it about the content of the argument, rather than "Ahh... gotcha! You screwed up the grammar there too!"

  • (Score: 1) by Z-A,z-a,01234 on Tuesday October 25 2016, @02:25PM

    by Z-A,z-a,01234 (5873) on Tuesday October 25 2016, @02:25PM (#418557)

    Your English teacher was a visionary. The language is a living thing. What most people are using every day is THE LANGUAGE, in spite of the grammar books and the academy.
    David Graeber has a very nice piece on this in his "The Utopia of Rules" book.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 25 2016, @09:07PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 25 2016, @09:07PM (#418710)

      Visionary? Maybe, but the "language evolves" is the biggest cop-out for the illiterate. Caught using a malapropism? No worry, "language evolves". There are no wrong uses because "when I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less." Alanis Morissette can write a popular song that purports to demonstrate to everyone what is ironic through a bunch of examples, but ironically none of her examples are actually examples of irony. But who cares? Let's just say that language evolves end it there.

      I am forever thankful that the fields of physics and engineering aren't dominated by frustrated and failed humanities majors. "Hey Joe, that model of a bridge you made is horrible. It's going to fall over!" "Don't you know Steve, physics evolves. Don't be so closed minded."

      • (Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Wednesday October 26 2016, @02:31PM

        by AthanasiusKircher (5291) on Wednesday October 26 2016, @02:31PM (#418995) Journal

        There are no wrong uses because "when I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less."

        That's pretty much the complete opposite of the English teacher's argument. Rather than saying, "I know what my word means and to heck with the rest of you!" the English teacher was arguing that language is fundamentally about communicating with an audience. There are all sorts of words that Shakespeare or Chaucer or whatever historical writer used that now mean different things. If I try to use them the way Chaucer would in front of a modern audience, I might be greeted with blank stares and confusion. Communication has failed. Language has failed.

        So, the English teacher's argument is -- in such a case, rather than confusing your audience with something that sounds archaic and weird (even if, by some arbitrary standard, it's still "technically correct" for some people), instead choose a DIFFERENT word or phrase that better communicates your meaning.

        Nobody here is arguing that educated speakers should adopt incorrect usage. Only when usage is disputed and changing, it's best to find a word or phrase that communicates your meaning clearly.

        "Don't you know Steve, physics evolves. Don't be so closed minded."

        Actually, um, physics DOES evolve. Physics is a science created by humans and is thus limited at any time to current understanding. Ptolemaic systems gave way to Copernican and Tychonic systems, which gave way to a Newtonian understanding of the solar system, which then evolved as Einstein clarified things further, etc. Insisting that a word still means the same thing as in Shakespeare's time when no educated speakers use it that way anymore is like claiming that Ptolemy is still right and the planets really DO go around the earth.

        (And please note that this whole discussion is focused on educated speakers, not pop stars or rednecks or Cockney slang. There is a "standard" English used in most formal writing, but when most of the people educated and familiar with that style don't adhere to a meaning anymore, then the meaning has shifted.)

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 25 2016, @09:15PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 25 2016, @09:15PM (#418713)

    So the best course of action when facing adversity is to suck it up, shut up, and fit in with the common masses. Go grab a Bud, watch some reality TV and pretend to like it, and above all, don't do anything to stand out from the crowd. It is far better to fit in than to be right.

    • (Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Wednesday October 26 2016, @02:12PM

      by AthanasiusKircher (5291) on Wednesday October 26 2016, @02:12PM (#418983) Journal

      So the best course of action when facing adversity is to suck it up, shut up, and fit in with the common masses.

      Given that members of parliament were using this "incorrectly" 200 years ago (and you can find a number of citations in good writers of the late 19th-century), I don't really think this has anything to do with "the common masses."

      Go grab a Bud, watch some reality TV and pretend to like it, and above all, don't do anything to stand out from the crowd.

      Actually, I didn't argue that an educated person should USE this "incorrect" use. I said that there's no way to use the phrase without offending or confusing some segment of your audience. The answer is not to "grab a Bud" but rather to find a better beer that works better, to use your analogy. (i.e., pick a phrase which is uncontroversial and actually clearer to your audience, regardless of what you mean)

      It is far better to fit in than to be right.

      As I mentioned, my skepticism toward pedantry started when I realized that something like 70-80% of supposed usage "rules" that people have pet peeves about were actually not reflections of historical real usage (i.e.,the only "correct" form among educated speakers), but rather were just made up by some second-rate author of a grammar guide in 1875 who didn't actually know what he was talking about, but just wanted to complain that something he heard "didn't sound right" to him. The "begging the question" thing is NOT one of those cases, since it actually did have a prior usage that meant one thing and its meaning subsequently migrated.

      But again, language is about communication. It's not a "game" that you win if you score all the "correct" grammar and usage points. If >90% of educated speakers (not just "the common masses") won't understand you if you use a phrase in its old meaning, then the meaning has changed. It's not a matter of who's "right" or "wrong" -- it's just what happened.