I heard ‘keep silent’ to be used in a number of contexts. Teachers, when explaining the lesson, often address their disobedient students to be silent. At the same time I second Alex’s assumption that ‘keep silence’ can be a common mistake among the non-native speakers.
And can also be perfectly correct native English.
And that brings us back to square one. :lol:
I think it unlikely that you will hear the collocation ‘keep silence’ used very often. I agree with Alan that ‘maintain silence’ would be a far more likely collocation.
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Which leaves students thinking "but where and when can it be used? Half-answers are often not very helpful in the ESL world, Amy.
Is that an example of the shakiness of native-speaker intuition?
The BNC:
maintain silence 4
keep silence 4
The American Corpus:
maintain silence 8
keep silence 14
Google:
32,500 English pages for "maintain silence
282,000 English pages for “keep silence”.
“Keep silent” is the correct form.
I’ve not run across “keep silence” before… at least not while listening to, or reading, a native speaker.
now… one could maintain silence.
but “keep silence” is not common.
We either maintain silence or we keep silent.
Please, read the quote below and ask youself if your knowledege of the language is incomplete. If it is, that would put you in a group of millions of native-speakers and would be a natural situation. If, on the other hand, you think that your knowledge is complete, that you have come across every possible utterance there is to come across, that would make you a very special individual:
"But research in sociolinguistics has highlighted the variability of the competences of different native speakers belonging to different social groupings and even the dialectal varaibility of a single speaker’s language. As soon as the non-uniformity of the language is accepted as normal, it is evident that the native speakers’ knowledge of their language, as a social or cultural phenomenon, is incomplete. "
First you say that “keep silent” is the correct form then you say “keep silence” is not common. Does that mean that you admit that “keep silence” is also a correct form?
Molly, are you trying to pick fights with native speakers?
If you want to know my qualifications, they are these:
- BA-Journalism, University of Wisconsin
- MBA, Belmont University
- Copy editor, Daily Cardinal (UW student newspaper – worked there during my years at UW)
- A lifetime of speaking, hearing and reading English every day.
That is not to say that education is everything… though we wrote an awful lot in journalism classes. The MBA program was also full of writing.
I will say it again: “keep silence” is not common.
“Maintain silence” is used in lieu of “keep silence”.
The generally accepted forms are:
- Keep silent
- Maintain silence
(I would imagine one would hear “maintain silence” a lot in the military… sort of like “maintain discipline”.
Amy, re: “looking forward to see”
Google searches, IMO, are generally useless in determining correct usage.
If a million people are wrong but only four are right… which example should we follow?
I will say it again: “keep silence” is not common.
That, I understood, but “not common” does not mean incorrect. How can “keep silent” be correct, but “keep silence” not.
And , even with your BA in Journalism, you are not familiar with the work of major journalists:
U.S. Lawyers Keep Silence on Listening In
www.nytimes.com/2006/03/18/nyregion/18detain.html
And more…
So, when you say something such as this:
How do you want us non-natives to react?
It’s not about picking fights, it’s about asking native-speakers to be honest. IMO, more of you need to say “well, it may exist and be correct English usage, but I’ve not come across it, so I suggest you ask another native-speaker for their advice, use a native-speaker corpus, read a lot of native texts, search various text-types, and so on. And please, oh please, don’t take my word on usage as sacred.”
Could you do that?
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
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?
How on earth can you even suggest it was “incorrect” without searching out other uses of “keep silence”? On what authority do you suggest it is incorrect?
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
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.
If you want to hand it to them, go ahead.
They are still being made, revised, etc. Haven’t you noticed?
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.”
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?
That was our way to decrease hand/wrist fatigue.
…but “sk8” and its ilk go too far.
hehe
2 far 4 whom?
good use of “whom”
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:
pcusa.org/womensministries/h … ilence.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: british-history.ac.uk/report … mpid=38672. Date accessed: 13 May 2008.