Steven Pinker: 10 'grammar rules' it's OK to break (sometimes)
Among the many challenges of writing is dealing with rules of correct usage: whether to worry about split infinitives, fused participles, and the meanings of words such as "fortuitous", "decimate" and "comprise". Supposedly a writer has to choose between two radically different approaches to these rules. Prescriptivists prescribe how language ought to be used. They uphold standards of excellence and a respect for the best of our civilisation, and are a bulwark against relativism, vulgar populism and the dumbing down of literate culture. Descriptivists describe how language actually is used. It's a catchy dichotomy, but a false one. But this does not mean that every pet peeve, bit of grammatical folklore, or dimly remembered lesson from Miss Thistlebottom's classroom is worth keeping. How can you distinguish the legitimate concerns of a careful writer from the folklore and superstitions? A rule should be rejected, in contrast, if the answer to any of the following questions is "Yes."
UCL | The Internet Grammar of English
Welcome to the Internet Grammar of English! The Internet Grammar of English is an online course in English grammar written primarily for university undergraduates. However, we hope that it will be useful to everyone who is interested in the English language. The Internet Grammar of English is accessible free of charge. Please note that the Internet Grammar of English has been thoroughly revised and updated, and is now available as an App for Android and Apple mobile devices. Alternatively, to avoid potentially long download times, why not buy The Internet Grammar of English on CD-ROM? If you are a UK school teacher we strongly recommend you look at our Englicious website. To use the site for reference purposes, use the navigation tools on the left.
Spelling it out: is it time English speakers loosened up?
I can’t remember exactly how often spelling tests happened at school – maybe every week or two – but I do remember I looked forward to them. We’d be tested, I’d do well, then I’d feel good about myself. Children who weren’t good at spelling would feel bad about themselves. That’s just how it worked. In some ways prescriptivism about spelling is falling out of fashion. Today, even the biggest pedants (I’m looking at you, Stephen Fry) will concede that it is in rather poor taste to emphasise the form of something as fluid as language over its function. Last year, Oxford professor Simon Horobin published a book that called this attitude into question. English is an uncommonly tricky language to spell. English spelling is so difficult that we take some kind of perverse pleasure in encouraging people to compete in public to show how well they can do it. Spelling has taken on a kind of special status in English: good spelling equates to high intelligence. Read more stories:
The Telegraph Bookshop | Gwynne's Grammar by N M Gwynne (9780091951450)
See inside The following is an extract from this title: Chapter Two A Note of Encouragement Here is a step-by-step proof (yes, a proof that really is valid!) Step one. Step two. Step three. Step four. Step five. In summary of the proof: grammar is the science of using words rightly, leading to thinking rightly, leading to deciding rightly, without which – as both common sense and experience show – happiness is impossible. Nor does the importance of grammar stop there. Step one. Step two. Step three. Step four. Step five. Step six. Step seven. Step eight. Step nine.
They Say You Should Break This Grammar Rule
Yesterday, I got into a bit of a discussion in the comments section over the use of the singular “they.” People go into a frenzy whenever you use it, and when you challenge the rule, they cling to it as if their very position in the American Society of Grammar Pedants depended upon it. Let me make my position clear: In situations with a generic singular antecedent, "they" is not OK. It is preferable. Consider the reasons that we are supposed to oppose singular “they”: Historically, this is how we have always done it, and people are now trying to change it because of some absurd PC supposition that this will fix sexism. However, if you continue to insist that, OK, it was a dumb rule when it was introduced, but this is how we do things now, let me point out some problems with this rule: It forces the writers of English into clumsy constructions. I’m not against grammar rules. To contact the writer of this article: Megan McArdle at mmcardle3@bloomberg.net.
The Telegraph | The glamour of grammar: an object lesson
Gwynne’s little blue bomb is being expanded and republished (with a purple cover) to meet the growing appetite for grammatical knowledge. His grammar slot on Radio 5’s Up All Night has become one of the BBC’s most popular phone-ins. Two teachers from St George’s Church of England Foundation School, Battersea, who joined his Sunday seminar were so fired up by it that they persuaded their head teacher to let him address their Year Six pupils. “Those two teachers absolutely drank it in,” he told me afterwards. “I’ve never had this experience before because, on the whole, you can’t teach teachers. It is astonishing that an elderly former businessman who has never been to teacher training college, worn an academic gown or taught in a school should be creating such a commotion. “Michael Gove has a copy of my Grammar,” Gwynne says. The convergence of the pedagogues could be interesting. “They teach nothing useful and peddle a lot of perverse child psychology,” he says. “I am 71,” he says.
Strictly English: Part one
One should take care in using the verb contradict. For there to be a contradiction there has to be a statement, for a contradiction is a categorical statement in opposition to another. If one person says “the dog is black” when it is obvious that the beast is white, then to affirm its whiteness is a contradiction; and one may say: “I contradicted his assertion that the dog was black.” I am unclear whether this is now accepted American usage to describe something that is enormous. Educated writers will use the phrase “a fraction of the cost went towards overheads” without thinking of its logic. What such writers inevitably mean is a small fraction, which although still vague is a perfectly acceptable statement. Part of the problem with the interference of the state in our lives, and the apparent ubiquity of its bureaucrats, is that many of us find ourselves using – or misusing – the jargon of officials in our everyday language. We use the word inquiry when we mean question or query.
Gwynne Teaching
Modern tribes: the grammar pedant | Catherine Bennett
Fewer. Not less, F-E-W-E-R. Because it matters – God, this is why they should bring back grammar lessons. I don’t care what Shakespeare wrote, his grammar was appalling. If not being irresponsible and misleading is pedantic, I’m proud to be one.
How to use a semicolon
