Because of earlier Language Log posts on constructions like "Drive Safe" and "Think Different", a reader in Ridgefield CT thought we might be interested in the latest episode in this grammatical saga:
Recently, there's been a slight fracas at my local planning and zoning commission over signs saying "Shop Local". The board almost denied permits to put up the signs, with one member of the board saying they were "horrific grammar" and should instead say "shop locally." One board member (John Katz) was quoted in the local paper as saying "Just as art is amorphous, so is the concept of protecting the health, safety and welfare of the public. I believe exposing people to the horrific grammar of these signs is in direct opposition to protecting the public's welfare."
There's a related case, highlighted by the recent spread of locavorosity, where the distinction between local and locally seems to me to make a difference. Many of the 1,130,000 Google hits for {"buy local"} seem to come from the movement to buy locally-produced food. The top hits for {"buy locally"} are connected to the same movement, but there are only 353,000 of them. Some of these are from phrases like "buy locally-grown food"; some come from the catchphrase-substitution "think globally, buy locally"; others may be the result of a copy-editor's intervention to correct someone's attempt to write "buy local". But it seems to me that "buy locally" commits me only to carrying out the transaction of purchasing in the local area, without any implication about where the stuff I buy comes from. In contrast, "buy local" is naturally interpreted to mean "buy local stuff".
It seems to me that local is being used in this slogan as the object of buy, not as a non-standard adverb modifying it. I very much doubt that the slogan's proponents would countenance a form like "*buy food local" as opposed to "buy food locally" (though in either case, that's not what they mean). The same thing seems to be true of slogans like "buy American", which is about what to buy, not how (or where) to buy it.
The Ridgefield case may be different -- it's not clear whether "shop local" has something to do with sustainability and locavorosity, or is simply supposed to exhort us to buy from local merchants the stuff that they've had shipped in from California and China. And in the latter case, it's not clear whether local is a non-standard adverb, or some sort of adjectival appositive ("I wandered local as a cloud...").
My Ridgefield correspondent writes that "[t]he article's not up on [the newspaper's] web site yet", and I see that the minutes of the most recent meeting are not yet up on the Ridgefield Zoning Commission's website, but we'll look forward to addiitonal details when they're available.
[Update -- Ben Zimmer points out that the "local food" movement also often uses the slogan "eat local".]
[Update #2 -- the Ridgefield Press now has an article up on this: Chipp Reid, "Local or locally, shop signs are up in Ridgefield", 11/19/2007. And the larger context of Mr. Katz's remark makes the underlying constitutional issue clear:
Commission member Patrick Walsh and Mr. Katz engaged in a spirited discussion of whether the zoning panel could regulate grammar. "Is there anything in our regulations that allows us to regulate grammar?" Mr. Walsh said.
"No," said Ms. Brosius, a finding Mr. Katz quickly challenged.
"Just as art is amorphous, so is the concept of protecting the health, safety and welfare of the public," he said. "I believe exposing people to the horrific grammar of these signs is in direct opposition to protecting the public's welfare."
]
Posted by Mark Liberman at November 16, 2007 08:12 AM