Lies Your English Teacher Told You
By Erin NelsenPicture the worst English teacher you ever had. The one who made you diagram sentences and say “May I” instead of “Can I” and never, ever laughed, even if you packed five vocabulary words into one demonstration sentence. The one who made you read The Scarlet Letter. The one who told you that everything you wrote from that moment forward had to have an introduction, three body paragraphs, and a conclusion to sum up your claims, preferably beginning, “In conclusion . . .”
How would you like to break some rules you learned in that class? What if it turned out that you never really needed to follow them in the first place?
Here are some of the lies your English teacher may have told you—grammar “rules” that are simply myths perpetuated through hearsay and folklore and transmitted to generations of students. Let the deception stop with you.
- You can begin a sentence with “and” or “but.” There’s no reason not to. You shouldn’t begin all of your sentences with “and” or “but,” but if it sounds right, don’t fight it.
- You can end a sentence with a preposition—“with,” “to,” “for,” “against,” any of them. The idea that you shouldn’t end a sentence with a preposition comes from the fact that you shouldn’t in Latin. English is not Latin. In many of the most natural and simple constructions in English, a preposition falls at the end of the sentence. Don’t let a dead language complicate what’s not complicated.
- You can split an infinitive. Some poor misguided souls try to follow this rule, even to the point of phrases like “to go boldly where no one has gone before,” or “to reach home finally,” instead of “to boldly go” and “to finally reach.” Don’t let this so-called correct construction make your sentences weak and awkward.
Now that you know the truth, one quick reminder: these techniques are best used in moderation, just like other constructions. But don’t let misinformation from your youth stilt your prose and cripple your sentences. For invigorating, natural writing, unlearn these silly superstitions and rediscover how to write what sounds right. It’s a freeing experience—and with no Gorgon of Grammar breathing down your neck, it’ll be much easier this time around.
July 14th, 2006 at 9:19 am
And you can say ‘It’s me.’ The argument for ‘It’s I, She, etc,’ is based once again on the fact that Latin requires he nominative case with the verb ‘esse’, eg, Ego sum. However, Latin does not have the equivalent of he English ‘It’s ….’, and why it should to English whether Latin had a comparable construction or not, is beyond me, English being a Germanic language. Besides, even French (a Latin language) which has a comparable construction to ‘It’s ….’, ie, C’est …, does not have the equivalent of ‘It’s I’, but rather, ‘It’s me’, (C’est moi.)
July 14th, 2006 at 1:06 pm
My major was English at Radford U. (Virginia, USA) a little more than a decade ago. I aced the Advanced Grammar class where I diagrammed sentences and wrote papers 100% of the time in there. Unfortunately I was told that you were wrong in all 3 cases you list. I was told that if I turned in a paper with any of this, I would lose points.
However, in creative writing class, it is perfectly okay as long as you’re not in the 300, 400, and higher course levels your Junior and Senior year. You *might* slide by on your Sophomore year with these cases in college in your creative writing class.
After college I learned from a lot of books on Advanced Grammar that indeed you are correct and my teachers were not. Unfortunately those old teachers still wouldn’t care.
In business writing, you have to think about the lowest common denominator. The lowest common denominator is that it’s a fact of life you could have some school-marm types working there who may read your stuff, see these 3 cases, and think you’re uneducated in the way office politics play out. You might even lose an interview if applying for a job. Therefore, in business writing, all three of these cases, although valid, are to be avoided. I would say professional papers and any cases of journalism (whether or class or the real world) would be the same case.
So, kids, unless you’re in your junior year in college and doing a creative writing paper, or unless you’re including these examples inside “quotes”, or unless you have an agreement with your teacher, do not attempt these things or your grade could suffer.
July 14th, 2006 at 1:08 pm
Meant to say “perfectly okay as long as you are in the” instead of “perfectly okay as long as you’re not in the”, above, second paragraph down.
July 14th, 2006 at 1:47 pm
Interesting. I agree with Mike that you need to consider the audience, and how the reader has been trained. If a critical reader thinks you’re wrong, you might as well be.
Also, “ain’t” is a word. It’s a contraction that means am not. Perhaps not appropriate for a resume, though…
July 14th, 2006 at 2:53 pm
Interestingly, the split infinitive one is down to Latin as well. In Latin, the infinitive is one word, so cannot be split. And this has been carried over to English, to completely annoy us all.
July 14th, 2006 at 6:46 pm
Nice summing-up article!
However, don’t blame Latin for the failures of ancient English grammarians! Besides, Latin is not a dead language, it’s pretty much alive today, even if there’s only a handful of people speaking it, we are discovering ancient Latin text every year, so we keep on getting new Literature!
Let’s pedants eat their own bowels, and let’s enjoy a powerful, natural English, but let’s respect other languages as well, uh?
valete!
July 14th, 2006 at 7:11 pm
I beg to differ.
There is a reason to not begin sentences with conjunctions: conjunctions are designed to go between other words, and so when you begin a sentence with one, it indicates that what you’re saying really belonged in the previous sentence, you just weren’t organized enough to put it there.
Likewise, prepositions are called PREpositions because they belong BEFORE something else, so it’s just weak to put one at the end of a sentence.
On the other hand, if putting a preposition at the end of a sentence helps you avoid really cumbersome, clunky writing (and here I can’t resist quoting Churchill’s famous “That is the sort of nonsense up with which I will not put!”), then by all means it’s the thing to do.
These are rules of grammar that really do have purpose and functionality; this is not to say they can’t be broken, but there really is a reason behind each, and the goal is clarity and grace in communication.
July 15th, 2006 at 4:02 am
Commenting on Alazka’s post - note that we get the term “preposition” from Latin - so yes, it does come before the object in Latin, as it does in English, but in English (as well as other Germanic Languages) they can be stranded. I seriously doubt that any native speaker of English fails to strand prepositions in their spoken language. A few might self-regulate when writing (those few eager-beavers who feel compelled to follow the rules they learned in English class), but how many would actually say:
The chair on which you sat wobbles.
instead of:
The chair that you sat on wobbles.
Let’s be real!
July 15th, 2006 at 11:47 am
I understand Alazka’s point, but conjunctions can be so very useful at the beginning of a sentence. For example, you can say this:
Looking forward to an intimate dinner for two, Alice opened the door to greet Bob and his mother.
Or this:
Looking forward to an intimate dinner for two, Alice opened the door to greet Bob. And his mother.
July 15th, 2006 at 1:30 pm
[…] This was originally intended as a comment for “Lies Your English Teacher Told You“, I’d advise you to read it first. […]
July 15th, 2006 at 2:02 pm
It seems that Erin lifted the backdrop on the magic show and exposed the secrets.
Hundreds of thousands attend schools, universities, classes, seminars, and workshops in an attempt to learn the aspects of becoming a good, or even great writer; and rarely ever are they instructed to make their writing invisible.
Life changes, adjust.
Erin’s opinion about rule following, or the slight breaking thereof, will do much to aid the floundering writer find ways in which to remove exhibition from their writing and allow the much deeper meaning of his or her work to show through.
The most talented storytellers of all time are the copywriters of 30 second TV commercials. When one must tell a story, which is so compelling that it will cause millions of people to spend money, and you have 30 seconds in which to tell it, does anyone think they are concerned about breaking the rules of grammar? Few remember the words of a commercial, but most remember the message.
Other than trying to impress your professor, or someone else, all writing should be invisible, and Erin’s suggestions will certainly help.
Ralph Perry
July 15th, 2006 at 3:32 pm
While I agree with you that things like that are not hard and fast rules, the way we were taught they were (I went to grade school during the late 50’s-early 60’s), I will also say it is better to learn them as rules that have exceptions (as almost all rules do) than to just blanketly say they are okay. For one thing, you say that these are okay in moderation, but who decides what constitutes “moderation”.
July 15th, 2006 at 3:34 pm
Mayzie,
You’re incorrect. That second “sentence” in example 2 is not one at all. I’m not sure of the technicalities of using a conjunction at the beginning of a sentence, but you have a sentence fragment, which definitely shouldnt be used. If you want to use a conjunction at the beginning of a sentence, that’s fine, but the second sentence in the example you gave was neither a sentence, nor did it really follow that it should be one. There’s no reason not to just tack it on with the idea to which it belongs.
July 15th, 2006 at 4:18 pm
Interesting point made about “ain’t” by Paul above, who notes that “ain’t” is a contraction of “am not.” Problematically, It is also a contraction of “are not” and “is not,” and a further problem comes from the fact outside of American English, it is seldom used. In Hiberno-English (English as spoken in Ireland) the phrase “amn’t” is used as a contraction of am not, while the standard aren’t and “isn’t” are used.
Contractions are very important for the evolution of language; it is largely vowel shifts that are responsible for the change in accent between English-speakers, and also for the change in pronounciation through time (for example, the word “saw” would have been pronounced like the way we say “say” nowadays in the Fourteenth Century). Contractions, therefore, follow a natural evolutionary pattern which suggest that in our present age, we are saying certain word patterns quicker and quicker. The reason why contractions look awkward in print, is that they exist to faciliate spoken English and in written English this facility does not always translate. Written English, however, always follows spoken English at some juncture, so perhaps conjunctions will look less awkward - and indeed more correct - in the future.
July 16th, 2006 at 12:30 am
Thank you Erin. I cringe every time I hear someone authoritatively denouncing a split infinitive. In response to Alazka’s comment that “these are rules that really do have purpose and functionality”, I beg to differ. Both the injunction against split infinitives and the injunction against ending a phrase with a preposition were unilaterally created by 19th-century English writers who wanted to make English have a more scholarly feel by making it adhere to conventions in Latin.
July 16th, 2006 at 4:37 am
Kevin, thank you for the info re “amn’t”. I’ve used that for years and been taken to task for it time and again.
July 16th, 2006 at 4:07 pm
I’m an English professor who teaches a lot of composition, and I spend a lot of time trying to disabuse my students of similar teacher-inspired myths:
It is not a LAW that you cannot use “I” or other first-person pronouns in a formal paper. Scholars do it all the time.
The grammar police will not come for you if you use a perfectly good small word, like “use,” for example, rather than “utilize.”
You don’t have to have a conjunction between penultimate items in a list if you don’t want to, as long as there are no comma splices at stake: “I have an ugly, hairy, scary, nasty, smelly, evil teacher.”
Likewise, at the risk of sounding like a pre-schooler, you can use as many conjunctions as you like in a list: “I am sick and tired and ready to scream.”
I am a big fan of structure, but
audience, purpose, and occasion should dictate your grammar and word choices, not rigid adherence to rules.
July 17th, 2006 at 10:35 am
Hi, Andy - Yes, complete sentences are needed in formal writing. But sometimes (in fiction or marketing, for example) a bit of informality and humor are appropriate.
In my two examples, the second makes the point (and emphasizes the humor) better. After all, It just wouldn’t have been the same if the Wicked Witch of the West had said, “I’ll get you and your little dog, my pretty!” It was the “And your little dog, too!” that made the line memorable. (Thank you, L. Frank Baum!)
There are times when we need not be so anal about the rules. As Amy says, “audience, purpose, and occasion” are the keys.
Now please excuse me while I go hide from the Grammar Police. And my editor.
July 17th, 2006 at 11:12 am
In my experience as both student and educator, English teachers who are writers themselves tend (I say “tend”) to be less obsessive about some of these tired, outdated, and imposed rules of “English” (actually Latin) grammar, while those who do not write and are not comfortable with writing are more likely to adhere to one rule or another that they themselves had drilled into them. Only a general trend, mind you, and I’m sure readers can thing of many exceptions in their own experience.
My son, for example, had a middle school teacher who was a lovely person but was known for making up all sorts of misinformation (like telling the class that Hindus who own butcher shops won’t brush the flies away from meat for fear of harming the flies because they don’t believe in killing things — somehow she missed the entire non-sequitur there), who would not let the class use “because” in their writing. She claimed it made their writing sound juvenile, and that no professional writers ever used it. I’ve met English teachers who insist on making students write 5-paragraph essays because, they say, all their college professors will demand 5-paragraph essays. I teach college and I’ve never assigned a 5-paragraph essay, nor have any of my colleagues. I know our writing department does 5-paragraph essays in the remedial writing classes, but that’s about it on our campus. Maybe other schools are different.
Split infinitives and “pre”positions at the end of a sentence, impossible in Latin, are not only possible in English but often make a sentence run more smoothly, while avoiding split infinitives and keeping prepositions well away from the final punctuation can make a sentence sound ponderous. Conjunctions at the beginning of a sentence, though they can be overused, sometimes make for a smooth transition, or can be used for effect. Sentence fragments, which Andy says not to use, are also used to good effect for a dramatic beat, as Mayzie shows. (Making “And his mother” a sentence fragment changes the whole emotion of the sentence. It’s not just Bob and his mother. It’s Bob. And (oh, crap) his mother.” That might also have been accomplished with a dash: “…Alice opened the door to greet Bob — and his mother.”)
English is, happily, a flexible language that allows all sorts of liberties with sentence structure and word choice that may be limited in other languages, where word order can affect the meaning of a sentence and where the vocabulary may not be so broad. While there are interesting nuances that can be created in German or Latin, where word order affects meaning and a slight change in word order can add layers of meaning, the flexibility of English grammar allows a skilled writer to pack a sentence with meaning and spring a surprise at the end.
July 17th, 2006 at 11:59 am
I’m a teacher of English as a foreign language, I hope I’m not THE teacher you mention in the beginning.
I’m reading the discussion about “mistakes” above with great interest.
In my experience, students are not writing very much and I’m wondering whether it is because we give them so many rules they shouldn’t break.
Personally I wouldn’t mind split infinitives, conjuctions in the beginning of snentences as long as they write something
July 17th, 2006 at 3:15 pm
I’m an English teacher and do teach all those rules. I have to say I’m sometimes dismayed by how easily our society accepts the “easier” route. I will never forget sitting in an undergraduate grammar course 15 years ago and listening to the students convince our professor that the only difference between “may” and “can” is formality. There is nothing wrong with learning the rules of the English language. Once you’ve learned them, you can break them to meet your needs, but to blow them off from the start is pretty ridiculous. It is also absolutely true that you don’t know what your audience might know. I’d rather err on the side of caution and do things correctly until I know what’s acceptable. Let’s stop voluntarily dumbing down the language. Well-educated ESL speakers often have a better grasp of English rules than the majority of native English speakers I’ve heard, and that’s a tragedy of modern American education.
July 17th, 2006 at 6:36 pm
Kelly-
That’s not the point. The point is that these rules simply are not rules in English. They were implemented by 19th century English authors who had a yearning to make English conform to the rules of Latin. Because English is a Germanic language, where prepositions regularly go at the end of sentences, there’s no reason to fumble around for a sentence structure that isn’t awkward–a task that is all too often difficult. This post is only exposing these rules as the fakes they are, bringing English closer to its true roots and making it less cumbersome in the process.
Teachers who insist on sticking to rules that aren’t really rules only frustrate smarter students later on when they discover that they’ve essentially been misinformed for the majority of their education. Now “that’s a tragedy of modern American education.”
Here’s a sample sentence in German with a word for word translation. Ich (I) raeume (pick) mein (my) Zimmer (room) auf (up). I didn’t just get that sentence off the Internet either, I’m a German major.
July 18th, 2006 at 3:17 am
As an English Linguistics major, I can’t say that I am surprised at some of the opinions expressed on this page, but I am dismayed by them. We can huff and puff and tell everyone that these rules are artificial creations that mean nothing, but people will still keep perpetuating these beliefs, especially in the classroom. Until we have true, tolerant linguistic education from the grade school level that stresses what everyone who bothers to take those “worthless” linguistic classes in college learns on the first day- i.e., that every variety of every language on the planet is equally complex and equally valid, etc.- people will continue to perpetuate these ridiculous and erroneous myths about “pre”positions not belonging at the end of sentences and the supposed “inability” to split infinitives.
Oh, and one more thing- what would you grammarians say if I told you that the english language doesn’t really have indirect objects?
July 18th, 2006 at 10:47 am
I think that the most important thing to remember is that you need to know these rules before you can break them. If you’re just breaking them without knowing why, then you shouldn’t be breaking them.
With that said, I view English as a living, breathing language, which means it changes, it grows old, and it re-invents itself. One of the only ways for this to happen is to break some of the rules often enough that they become their own rules.
July 19th, 2006 at 1:36 pm
I absolutely agree with Kelly the teacher: “Let’s stop voluntarily dumbing down the language.” I am a newspaper columnist as well as a book editor and proofreader, and I am often appalled at what lands on my desk, written by professional “experts” and other well-educated people. Rules for grammar were created to ensure clarity of communication, something we’re missing out on in much of today’s writing. I’m not about to arrest someone for leaving a participle dangling, but I strongly disagree that “It’s me” is all right. There is casual and informal, and then there is sloppy.
July 19th, 2006 at 2:12 pm
I disgree with Kelly the grammar freak. The english language is a tool of communication, we invented it. But we have kind of edited the language on accident, we break the rules. The american people mix up There with Their and They’re but everyone who corrects them understood them. UNDERSTOOD THEM. If you were able to correct the speaker than you knew what they were talking about. I think the language isn’t about following rules, rather it is conveying your message. Dumb the language all you want, we will still understand you. Martin Luther Kings message would still be the same if he said “Me had a dream” maybe he’d sound like an uneducated fool but does that mean we had no idea what he meant. when i dont capitalize or use punctuation you still understand me. If you could not understand this message because or my many grammar mistakes than I am wrong. But if ye’ gets what im sayin’ than me is right. Take that Kelly… Grammar is useless.
July 21st, 2006 at 8:47 am
Dear Johnman,
The fact of understanding something is rarely a proof that this same thing is right. I do understand you and I hope you have sound reasons to state that “Grammar is useless” but “grammer” means “literacy”…
July 30th, 2006 at 12:47 am
Language is meant to express thought.
So long as one focuses on the mathematics (structure) of the written word, one will no longer focus on the thought that created it.
I’d pay money to convince the world of this. I’d pay twice as much to convince the rest of you that grammar “rules” are only purposeful within one (singular) social milieu.
“i;m soo sad today because my mother passed awsay she was lovely and unieque and I will never forget her because she loved me she loved me like no one could”
Does the feeling or the importance of the emotion change simply because I forgot to add a comma or a period? Does the emotion change because I didn’t spell certain words right?
Academic English is analogous to painting by numbers….And, sadly, painting by numbers is only important when one is in university.
We spend a good fifty years after that wanting to communicate–without restriction–with those around us.
4 compared to 50? Says what?
Cheers,
James–the-muffin-man–Majoros
August 4th, 2006 at 9:06 pm
Grammar, usage, spelling, etc. are all ‘markers’ of social and economic class, location, group membership, etc. Certainly you can use any words which will get you understood, HOWEVER, you will also be sending meta-messages which may undercut your goals. “Me want job. Me do goodness working” will be “understood” but not result in a job offer unless you’re applying for a ditch digger position.
Whether you like it or not, your so-called correctness and adherence to certain artificial standards has social value and, ultimately, economic value in our society.
So, have a day. Ain’t it?
August 10th, 2006 at 12:59 pm
My understanding is that an UNNECESSARY preposition should not be used at the end of a sentence. For instance, “Where are my glasses at?” is incorrect. The sentence “Where are my glasses?” is complete and does not need the preposition at all.
August 25th, 2006 at 9:29 pm
I find it remarkable that in all the comments on this article, the rules of grammar, with the exception of Mayzie’s comment, are being followed even when commentators are advocating otherwise. Interesting.
August 28th, 2006 at 1:11 pm
Let us be clear on this, the language spoken in the USA is not English. The normal rules of English grammer simply do not apply. (More is the pity.)
October 6th, 2006 at 2:20 am
I have taught English now for nearly ten years. My Master’s Degree is in Linguistics and I will soon be working toward a Doctorate in Rhetoric and Composition.
To clarify these issues a little bit, we should look at where the rules mentioned come from. The rules described above did not always exist in the English language. Two of the three came into being between around the 17th and 18th centuries. The linguistic doctrine behind them being adopted and integrated into our language by men who held to the belief that English was a flawed and grotesquely inferior language which needed improvement to bring it closer to what was then considered the language that had retained most of its sacred nature and “linguistic perfection.” The language in question is indeed Latin. Prominent and self-proclaimed experts such as John Wallace, Dean Swift, and Bishop Lowth created rules and guidelines to change English so that in both structure and terminology it fit with Latin.
The idea of a split infinitive being incorrect is considered outdated by most Linguists. The reason for the original rule is simple; in Latin you cannot split an infinitive as it is always written in one word, the ending er, ir, etc … being the equivalent of our word “to.”
Before the inception of “prescribed grammar” as enforced by grammatical purists such as those listed above, it was perfectly correct to split your infinitive and end with a preposition. It was also very common and good practice, to use double negatives. In Chaucer’s writings, one can find examples of quadruple negatives.
So, to correct Kelly, it is not actually a “dumbing down” of our language, but rather returning it to its original form, omitting unnecessary and ridiculous prescriptive rules forced on the language by a few who erroneously viewed Latin as the proper reference in attempting to attain linguistic perfection.
Language is always changing. It is never static or stagnant. The Oxford Dictionary adds thousands of new words yearly. Linguistic, grammatical, and mechanical rules of language and writing are constantly changing. Though older teachers will still adhere to these “old rules,” they do so merely because they have failed to keep up on current standards and trends. Browsing a textbook written twenty years ago and comparing it to one written recently will reveal such changes. The best way to keep current is to update your MLA and APA Writing Handbooks at least every two years.
This is especially important if you are teaching English, as you may be passing on faulty or outdated information to your students.
In response to those who believe grammar is unnecessary, I usually say, “If you plan on flipping burgers your entire life, I suppose you’re correct.”
November 17th, 2006 at 11:37 am
‘Proper’ grammar and usage and idiom are markers of group membership which may be critically important to those group members for cohesiveness, safety, and the sense of one’s specialness or ‘election’. Every group in human history seems to have some special accents, word usage, word order, word-association, or other linguistic cues to say, “Yes, you’re a member” and “No, buddy, you’re a stranger.”
Just as we have polite forms and intimate forms of language use. These are metalinguistic tools which carry the freight for much important communication that goes on ‘off the page’ and yet is centrally important in many human interactions.
Who talks first. How one speaks to someone older or younger. (The number of fingers waved or pointed have significance in this area in some cultures — one never waves only one finger when addressing an elder, for example, in some African cultures). Honorifics sometimes as prefixes or suffixes. All have powerful content which affects the meaning of the message and definitely may determine the final outcomes of the interactions.
You’ll never get rid of all these, even when castigated as ’snobbery’, simply by academic fiat. They change gradually as culture and cultural imperatives shift over time.
June 16th, 2007 at 8:31 pm
If anybody is still reading this far down, wow! =)
One distinction that has not been made explicit at this point is the difference between ‘prescriptive’ and ‘descriptive’ linguistics.
The rules that some enforce and others hate belong to the ‘prescriptive’ type of linguistics - what people should say.
The rules that observe what native speakers regularly say and perceive as sounding good are ‘descriptive’.
Prescriptive grammar tends to be consistent and exact. In English prescriptive grammar is called Standard American English. This has a useful function (as many have already pointed out) in helping us communicate to others in a clear manner (especially between dialectical or pronunciation differences; e.g. Australian, American, English, Ebonics pronunciations). It is also useful for more important reasons. Take the immigration laws under consideration in the United States for instance. Many (including me) think it wise to have immigrants required to know how to speak, read, and write the English language up to a certain standard to help the country to maintain its coherence.
One person pointed out that it is ashame that foreigners in our country know our language rules and how they work better than us native speakers. This is true, but not for the reasons many think. They know English language well because they have learned a foreign language (English, that is). Most English speakers who learn another foreign language well also learn English better.
Descriptive grammar on the other hand also has its uses. It shows how the everyday English speaker uses the English language and how it has change since the last standardization. Prescriptive grammar always lags behind descriptive grammar because those who create the standards are limited by the speed of research and because it doesn’t make sense to change the standards too often.
Johnman made the point that when meaning is conveyed that is all that matters in language or in English. Even by the standards of Descriptive grammar he is wrong. Most of his sentences, while intelligible to English speakers, would be thought to be wrong by any native English speaker, even if they were illiterate. English is only English if it seems normal and right to a group of native-born English speakers.
However, what I found frustrating about talking with an English-major in college is his inability to see that Prescriptive grammar is a useful but artificial tool (sanctioned by the historically socio-economically priveledged status of the speakers of the acrolect). He thought, rather, that the rules were natural. This has been nicely debunked, especially, by Holly.
Linguist Jeanette, however, is talking apples and oranges. The question isn’t whether the terminology we use, like “indirect object” is a linguistically correct description for English construction under question; it is whether the construction exists in the use of native English speakers (or in the grammar of Standard American English) or not. The “indirect object” is a useful label for a construction that actually exists in the English language. The word “pre”position is a misleading label and the rules that surround it are even more misleading. The same is true with the rule about the split infinitive, the conjunction rule, and various other rules. Some of them are so difficult to follow precisely because they run so counter to the spoken idiom of everyday native English speakers.
One other gripe with another of Jeanette’s comments. Dismayed that the discussion is taking place at all? Why participate then? I agree that until “enlightened” linguistics is taught at the grade level, much myth will be perpetuated. But why not have fun and have a go at debunking it here on this forum? Probably no one will change their mind or their stance. But what the hey. It’s fun. =)
PS Sorry about my SAE mistakes. =)
August 12th, 2007 at 7:13 pm
As a published, award winning, fiction author I’ve enjoyed and learned some things reading this running discussion.
In every thriller I write I’m confronted with both prescriptive and descriptive construction of sentences in order to communicate clearly to my audience.
For example, when writing dialogue it is powerful to write more descriptively so the sentence sounds like people really speak.
In narrative or description sections prescriptive writing is powerful to ensure clarity of meaning. Additionally, not following prescriptive rules can jar the reader out of the fantasy world the author has created because the reader mentally stops and says “Eeeeck! Bad grammar.” Another example is avoiding prepositions at the end of a sentence. They are often unnecessary because they add no additional meaning to the sentence. And it is often better for an author to use the fewest number of words to convey the character, plot, and scene intended.
Does anyone want to reveal lies about comma usage? I hate comma lies. They suck.
August 26th, 2007 at 7:13 pm
The whole purpose of language, in my estimation, is to accurately convey a point or an idea to another. While I realize that some people are great sticklers for rules of grammar, I think they’re misguided. Just write down what you mean to say in the exact way that you feel. Isn’t that challenge enough? Be real, be yourself. Git er dun.
September 28th, 2007 at 1:10 pm
Life does change, and so do
the “rules.” I reach college English, and there ARE specific rules for academic writing - which is not nearly the same thing as creative writing. The MLA (Modern Languages Association) tends to be the maker-of-the-rules for academia, and these rules do change - as in the preposition endings, for example. It was not okay just a few years ago to end on a preposition in an academic paper, but it is now, especially if the sentence will sound strange if worded “correctly.” Sometimes academia actually has to mirror the real world. Starting with “So” or whatever is permissible IF the student knows what he/she is doing, yet many early college students don’t as yet due to many factors (poor teachers, schools, etc.). I teach with those in the department who have a tendency to structure their freshman English classes as thirteenth grade to instead of teaching students how to write in the real world. I strongly disagree with such an approach and feel there is no rule in writing one can’t break, if, and only if, you know what you are doing. It is when someone is not skilled at writing due to a lack of training that we should hold them to hard and fast “rules” until they acquire foundational abilities. When they are competent with their understanding of how it “should be” then they should be set free to explore the vaguarities of this oddball language we call English.
January 5th, 2008 at 1:01 pm
“Every variety of every language on the planet is equally complex and equally valid” says “English Linguistics major” Jeanette (July 18, 2006).
No wonder linguistics gets such a bad name when people still trot out these tired and meaningless cliches. A language’s value to me depends upon whom I try to converse with or what I want to read.
Why is it that the most sneery critics of rules and prescription (like Jeanette here) are invariably themselves telling you what to do or think?
June 2nd, 2008 at 9:28 pm
[…] even if you packed five vocabulary words into one demonstration sentence…How would you like to brehttp://www.bigbadbookblog.com/2006/07/13/lies-your-english-teacher-told-you/Lesson Exchange: Diagramming Sentences 101 Middle, LanguageYou must understand that diagramming […]