50 Years of Stupid Grammar Advice

ouyang · Post by **ouyang** » Sat Apr 11, 2009 3:34 pm

There's a wonderful article about the 50th anniversary of The Elements of Style at http://chronicle.com/free/v55/i32/32b01501.htm. The author Geoffrey Pullum points out that this celebrated standard of grammatical instruction contains a significant number of flaws and errors.

This reveals a lot about the subject of grammar. In some respects it's similar to a religion in which some principles are accepted on faith and tradition rather than on reasoned evidence. Pullum doesn't address the mindset that perpetuates academia's celebration of grammatical ignorance.

I think it is due to the fact that the bulk of grammar is simple enough to be understood by most serious students, which gives it validity. However, a small portion of grammar is extremely complicated and defies traditional analysis. It's natural to rely on some authority figure to correct our syntax. Language is an art after all. This is why I advocate a visualization system for organizing grammatical principles http://www.ColorCodedEnglish.com

fluffyhamster · Post by **fluffyhamster** » Sat Apr 11, 2009 9:50 pm

I don't think the more serious academics or their disciplines exactly celebrate grammatical ignorance (which is what StrunkenWhite is), hence Pullum's comments, as opposed to writers and English Lit professors and mindless white sheep etc gushing loads of praise, plonk and c0cktail sausages all over it (me, I assume that the main thing that helps when writing at least a first draft is to simply have something to write about, and worthless prescriptions would rather get in the way of a nice unbroken uncensored flow, I would think). But if you mean that there are areas that don't always ring true or fully satisfy in academia proper either, Ouyang, then, well, in a word, "Yes".

Anyway, I suppose I should now read what Pullum has actually written this time, eh!

Metamorfose · Post by **Metamorfose** » Sun Apr 12, 2009 3:48 pm

What's your beef against Pullum fluffy?

José

woodcutter · Post by **woodcutter** » Mon Apr 13, 2009 4:00 am

It seems to me that the main reason why Pullum writes the language log and wrestles with the common herd is that nobody much listens to him and his fellow experts. The reason for that is that the experts refuse to play the role society demands of them. Ask them for advice about English and they will say inconsistent things about "descriptivism" and google hits. Since dead "grammarians" are happy to provide prescriptivist style advice it is they who are consulted.

The situation will never change until they drop the woolly ideas and make some kind of sensible body to provide better advice. All academia resembles a religion, and Pullum can don the holy robes of Harvard and Oxford etc and prescribe, in a liberal manner, or he can forget it.

jotham · Post by **jotham** » Mon Apr 13, 2009 4:52 am

That criticism is unwarranted. The more I read this, I got the suspicion this is coming from a descriptivist, so he isn't merely condemning one grammar book in the past that was slightly awry, but rather fulminating against all prescriptive grammar.

Strunk and White was a small handbook and outline of common grammatical errors in American English, which decidely differs from British -- some of the criticisms are precisely of this nature. It can't delve into the complexity of all the inconsistencies they speak of, which would require auxilliary sources.

It's better to teach young students -- which students don't want to be experts in English grammar or writing -- these elementary points than nothing at all. I don't know about the author's inability to write passive sentences, but for the standards of time, the book was a marvelous success. Yeah, perhaps many students ungrounded in grammar might take rules too seriously, but that's where a good professor of writing, employing such text, can further explain these points as students experiment and err in their writing -- either having ignored advice altogether, or going overboard. If students have misconceptions about grammar and writing, I would rather blame teachers and professors than books.

At any rate, it's to be expected that not everyone will be expert in grammar after being exposed to Strunk and White, or having took just one composition class in college. Grammar is a very complex subject. I certainly wouldn't militate for a descriptive approach, which is don't teach it at all -- just let everyone write creatively: you're okay; I'm okay. Let's all err together.

Macavity · Post by **Macavity** » Mon Apr 13, 2009 6:41 am

This may be an obvious observation but descriptive grammar is a record of what is already known and understood well enough to be used by native speakers. It's nice to be able to refer to this source as a teacher when mulling over a finer point or two, but what use is this sort of grammar to students that are grappling with a foreign language? In the classroom you have to play doctors and nurses and prescribe and bandage up grammar rules ad hoc. Students need rules.

woodcutter · Post by **woodcutter** » Mon Apr 13, 2009 7:09 am

Pullum and his friends provide rules, and maintain they do so in a "scientific" way. This is rather absurd, but the rules are at least closer to modern usage than the rules of strunk and white, and thus less arbitrary. However, they will not set themselves up in an authority in a formal way, hamstrung as they are by silly descriptivist ideas, scared to be telling people what to do. They merely act as an informal authority amongst those who take a real interest in grammar, informally telling people what to do, while those who brandish grammar as a way to seem clever quote outdated and misguided things in ignorance of more modern studies.

Many people feel it is impossible for their grammar to be outdated. They are daft. Some people think that the time that something becomes outdated can be determined scientifically. They are nearly as daft.

Stephen Jones · Post by **Stephen Jones** » Mon Apr 13, 2009 9:39 am

Frankenstrunk is a load of grammatical nonsense, as Pullum rightly points out Jotham. Have you bothered to read the article? I doubt it.

The examples White gives of 'passives' are not passives in either American or British English, and the difference between the two forms is much smaller than you think anyway.

jotham · Post by **jotham** » Mon Apr 13, 2009 12:29 pm

Macavity wrote:This may be an obvious observation but descriptive grammar is a record of what is already known and understood well enough to be used by native speakers. It's nice to be able to refer to this source as a teacher when mulling over a finer point or two, but what use is this sort of grammar to students that are grappling with a foreign language? In the classroom you have to play doctors and nurses and prescribe and bandage up grammar rules ad hoc. Students need rules.

Well, I don't think Strunk and White was meant to be applied (either by myself or the article) to foreigners learning English, until they are at a point they can write serious prose at a high-school or college level. I agree with that point.

jotham · Post by **jotham** » Mon Apr 13, 2009 12:33 pm

woodcutter wrote:Pullum and his friends provide rules, and maintain they do so in a "scientific" way. This is rather absurd, but the rules are at least closer to modern usage than the rules of strunk and white, and thus less arbitrary. However, they will not set themselves up in an authority in a formal way, hamstrung as they are by silly descriptivist ideas, scared to be telling people what to do. They merely act as an informal authority amongst those who take a real interest in grammar, informally telling people what to do, while those who brandish grammar as a way to seem clever quote outdated and misguided things in ignorance of more modern studies.

Many people feel it is impossible for their grammar to be outdated. They are daft. Some people think that the time that something becomes outdated can be determined scientifically. They are nearly as daft.

I'm not really criticizing descriptivism. It's just that if this article was written by a fellow prescriptivist and laying it heavy on this publication, that would be one thing. But a descriptivist criticizing this historical prescriptivist book also criticizes modern prescriptivism with equal vigor and employing the same old arguments.

Thus, I don't see it as a critique of one publication (as though others were better). I see it as a descriptive blanket denouncement of anything reeking of prescriptivism employing the convenient pretext of a somewhat outdated prescriptive publication.

jotham · Post by **jotham** » Mon Apr 13, 2009 12:35 pm

Stephen Jones wrote:Frankenstrunk is a load of grammatical nonsense, as Pullum rightly points out Jotham. Have you bothered to read the article? I doubt it.

The examples White gives of 'passives' are not passives in either American or British English, and the difference between the two forms is much smaller than you think anyway.

I agree that their examples of passives as presented in the article are awry, but that is the only thing. The other rules he complains about seem quite proper, generally speaking. Now he is correct that they can't be applied like black-and-white rules, but that is where judgment comes in (even though students probably have little of it). An attempt to explain all the exceptions and give a sense of judgment would go too far for a simple, little handbook on grammar. That's where auxilliary sources help.

Metamorfose · Post by **Metamorfose** » Mon Apr 13, 2009 12:58 pm

At any rate, it's to be expected that not everyone will be expert in grammar after being exposed to Strunk and White, or having took just one composition class in college. Grammar is a very complex subject. I certainly wouldn't militate for a descriptive approach, which is don't teach it at all -- just let everyone write creatively: you're okay; I'm okay. Let's all err together.

If we really needed somebody or something to tell us what to do with language all the time (in the same sense in we instructions to use a computers or do an equation) one would think that language had no intrinsic constrains, for example, in street English one would come across extremely free word other (*boys the here come) or even (*boys here come the) things that asI far as I know never occur in English, it doesn't matter the educational background.

The descriptive approach is for the teacher to have more options dealing with their (and I really have chosen their on purpose) students, even if a more traditional approach for stylistic matter is in needed, the teacher must have a vision how language really operates before distributing red marks or acting like this girl:

http://thegrammarvandal.wordpress.com/2 ... ut-the-us/

Regards

José

jotham · Post by **jotham** » Mon Apr 13, 2009 1:10 pm

Metamorfose wrote:
At any rate, it's to be expected that not everyone will be expert in grammar after being exposed to Strunk and White, or having took just one composition class in college. Grammar is a very complex subject. I certainly wouldn't militate for a descriptive approach, which is don't teach it at all -- just let everyone write creatively: you're okay; I'm okay. Let's all err together.
If we really needed somebody or something to tell us what to do with language all the time (in the same sense in we instructions to use a computers or do an equation) one would think that language had no intrinsic constrains, for example, in street English one would come across extremely free word other (*boys the here come) or even (*boys here come the) things that asI far as I know never occur in English, it doesn't matter the educational background.

The descriptive approach is for the teacher to have more options dealing with their (and I really have chosen their on purpose) students, even if a more traditional approach for stylistic matter is in needed, the teacher must have a vision how language really operates before distributing red marks or acting like this girl:

http://thegrammarvandal.wordpress.com/2 ... ut-the-us/

Regards

José

Yes, I don't disagree. Again, I'm not criticizing descriptivism, its contribution to foreign-language education, or militating for a more prescriptive approach with foreign students, who just want to communicate basic concepts. I think prescriptivism are for those who want to excel, and want to communicate better than average, and express their logical thinking skills in a professional environment. Therefore, I believe analyzing grammar and learning effective composition techniques is a good idea, at least for native English-speaking college students, and probably even starting around junior high, at least.

jotham · Post by **jotham** » Mon Apr 13, 2009 3:50 pm

I receive interesting quotations of the day from Bryan Garner. Recently, I thought there were interesting and germane to the discussion. Such as this one about the "science" of descriptivism:

“There is no aspect of human life that language is not part of; to take everything language-related for one’s domain is to take on too much, to cast one’s net too wide. Linguistics has declared no aspect of language alien to itself — and this, while admirably catholic and generous, is fatal to its hopes of being a science.” Mark Halpern, “The End of Linguistics,” Am. Scholar, Winter 2001, at 13, 24.

I see descriptivism as scientifically recording the mistakes people mumble every day, for the historical record. While prescriptivism endeavors to improve upon them.

"Men take the words they find in use among their neighbors, and that they may not seem ignorant what they stand for[,] use them confidently without much troubling their heads about a certain fixed meaning . . . it being all one to draw these men out of their mistakes, who have no settled notions, as to dispossess a Vagrant of his habitation, who has no settled abode. This I guess to be so; and every one may observe in himself or others whether it be so or not." John Locke (as quoted in I.A. Richards, Principles of Literary Criticism 223 (1925)).

You can get a Bryan Garner usage tip of the day here:

Garner's Usage Tip of the Day

Here's some other goodies:

“It is well known that a week in Touraine is worth more than a year with a French master at any English school.” E.V. Lucas, A Rover I Would Be 49 (2d ed. 1928).

“But what, it may be asked, do we mean by style? We shall not attempt any technical definition, but simply say that by it we understand, first of all, such a choice and arrangement of words as shall convey the author’s meaning most clearly and exactly, in the logical order of the ideas; secondly, such a balance of clause and structural grace of sentence as shall satisfy the sense of beauty; and, lastly, such a propriety, economy, and elegance of expression as shall combine business-like brevity with artistic beauty.” William Mathews, Literary Style and Other Essays 3 (1881).

“Virginia Woolf said to me . . . that a writer ought to write at least a page a day, just as a pianist exercises every day. When I consider — what is it? — how my days are spent, I feel awfully bad about the days gone down the drain. I regret I never kept a diary or a daily record.” Elizabeth Bowen (as quoted in Harvey Breit, The Writer Observed 108 (1956)).

Stephen Jones · Post by **Stephen Jones** » Mon Apr 13, 2009 7:15 pm

Halpern's a nutcase. Reckons that Turing devised the Turing Test because he was a lonely homosexual who had only the computer to talk to as a friend.

While prescriptivism endeavors to improve upon them.

By insisting on the 'preference du jour'. For the idiocies of prescriptivism have a look at the ridiculous discussion of fark.com where somebody holds Pullum to account for starting a sentence with a conjunction. Garner of course holds the opposite point of view and insists you should never start a sentence with 'However' but use 'But' instead because it's more vigorous. And Strunkenstein insists it's a rule you should never have 'However' at the beginning of the sentence, even though at no stage in the history of the English language has anybody ever followed the rule. Stuff and nonsense the lot of it.

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