English is not Latin
In an email a few weeks ago, my former assistant (and alarmingly successful writer/director) Rawson Thurber apologized for ending a sentence with a preposition. I insisted that he was well within his rights to dangle a preposition, split an infinitive, or break pretty much any rule he’d been taught about English — especially the seemingly-arbitrary ones.
Grammarians come in two flavors. A descriptivist studies the way people use a language, while a prescriptivist tries to lay down the rules of a language.
Prescriptivists are assholes. Ignore them.
Or better yet, try to make them explain why you’re not supposed to dangle a preposition. After all, there’s not a Bible of the English language, in which a certified deity listed his or her commandments. Backed into a corner, the prescriptivist will probably say, “because English comes from Latin, and that’s not allowed in Latin.”
Well, I studied Latin. It’s cool in a geeky way, sort of like computer programming. Many English words come from Latin, so it can be fascinating to play linguistic C.S.I. to figure out how “abscission” came from “away” and “to cut.” But here’s the most interesting and challenging thing about Latin:
It’s nothing like English.
Most notably, it has cases and declensions, which have pretty much disappeared in our happy language, replaced by word order and, you guessed it, prepositions.
But don’t just take my word for it. Here’s another article that does a good job explaining why the grammar Nazis are wrong.
See also:
Articles
May 10th, 2005 at 9:48 am
This is the kind of grammatical heresy up with which we cannot put.
May 10th, 2005 at 10:52 am
I miss Old English. In fact, whenever possible, e’er do I bring hither, the dwindling dialect. Just to fuck with people.
I mean, the one rule we all learned in creative writing class back in high school is that poetry has no rules. Why can this not apply to the English language? Hell, even some of the most of the greatest writers since the Rennaisance have done it. Screw prescriptivists grammarians. Or better yet.
“This is the sort of English up with which I cannot put.”
May 10th, 2005 at 10:55 am
John: You ever watched Finding Forrester (fantastic film, I might add)
Just reminded me of an exchanged in that film about the ‘rules’ of writing…
Glad to head that there are other people who pull the origins of words apart.
May 10th, 2005 at 1:15 pm
Yep. Being an Italian boy who studies both Latin and English, I can perfectly see the difficulties that an English speaking person can encounter!! Italian isn’t easy, and believe me, neither is Latin. The funny thing, like you said, is to find out the origins of the words!!! Like Clementine comes from “mercyful” (Eternal sunshine of a spotless mind)!!! Is very interesting to find the connection between our languages.
May 10th, 2005 at 1:38 pm
From the look of the wiki page on cases, it seems that we do have cases in our happy language? No?
May 10th, 2005 at 2:46 pm
Brandon:
English has a few cases left, mostly the pronouns (he, him, his), but nowhere near the complexity of Latin, German or Russian. Some of the most common troubles we face in English (“who” vs. “whom”, “please let Tom and I know”) stem from how rarely we have to use the cases. Without practice, they feel unnatural.
The wiki pages are a great place to read up on it.
May 10th, 2005 at 5:25 pm
Thanks John.
May 10th, 2005 at 8:20 pm
The very reason I prefer writing dialogue.
For those who enjoy pulling words apart and the like, here’s a great site guaranteed to help kill precious writing time:
http://www.worldwidewords.org/
May 11th, 2005 at 7:24 am
I’m sorry, friends, but I must defend my fellow sticklers and grammar nazis on this one. I fancy myself a bit of a descriptive prescriptivist.
There is a book I highly recommend to anyone considering grammatical heresy, Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation by Lynne Truss. It is a hilarious, easy and informative read, and I highly recommend it to grammar snobs and radicals alike.
Fellow gramarians: stand with me and fight the good fight against the oppressive shackles of linguistic anarchy!
May 11th, 2005 at 9:47 am
The funny thing about that book, I’ve heard, is that she breaks many of the very rules she prescribes, in the writing of the book.
May 11th, 2005 at 10:14 am
Brock: I have to disagree with you.
I use grammar as a strong guideline. But my job as a writer is to communicate clearly, effectively and accessibly. If the rules get in the way, I’ll gently move them aside.
Writing records the spoken language. Language is a thing that breathes and grows. If it wasn’t permitted to do so, we would all be working in dead tongues.
May 11th, 2005 at 11:19 am
Doug: I agree, but…
Don’t get me wrong, I hate rules just as much as anyone, sometimes even more. I don’t do laundry but once a month. I get a thrill out of strolling through public places with a can of beer in my hand. I have been known to walk through New York City barefoot. When it comes to grammar, however, I am a passionate conservative. Not that I believe grammar rules should never be broken, but I do believe that one must know the rules before he or she can abandon them. There is a mistaken belief that grammar is for weaklings and school children. I think a rule broken is better than a rule ignored. So, if you want to leave me with a preposition at the end of a sentence, leave me with a preposition at the end of a sentence, but do it to spite me, not because you’re lazy or because you don’t know what a preposition is. We’re supposed to be word-smiths, right? Who would trust a carpenter who couldn’t recognize an awl?
I think that grammar snobs play a vital role in this “living language” of ours and are spat on for it. Change is good, but you can’t let go of the reigns. So, in a certain sense, Doug, you and I agree. But there are parts of what you’ve said I disagree with.
May 11th, 2005 at 1:48 pm
Brock:
I enjoyed Lynn Truss’s book, but I think you’re mis-remembering it: the full title is “Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation. “
The book is about punctuation (only), and the degree to which it can help (or hinder) reading clarity. The author’s a stickler about commas and apostrophes, which are often sprinkled onto text like ground pepper at a mid-scale restaurant. (That is, indeterminately.)
She is all about clarity and the natural flow of words — quite the opposite of the word-order gymnastics required to avoid splitting infinitives or dangling an occasional particle. I don’t have my copy handy, but I dare say I would find examples of both in her book.
In fact, the primary reason punctuation is so important in English is because we don’t have cases and declensions like Latin. Since we rely on word-order and prepositions, commas and their brethren play a huge role in helping English make sense.
May 11th, 2005 at 1:56 pm
Brock, also:
I think you’re also missing the greater point about “the rules.” They’re really arbitrary, and in many cases, we have no idea where they came from. Some fuddy-duddy publisher or editor likely decided one day that dangling participles sounded bad to his ear, and made that “official grammar,” at least to his employees. But these “mistakes” were probably the common usage at the time; it’s not we’re suddenly getting lax in using things “properly.”
Where I will allow a little more room for right and wrong is in spelling. Although it often does a poor job capturing the sounds of modern spoken English, it’s vital that spelling remain stable and consistant enough that a document written in 1970 be readable today, by any speaker of English. So I’m not a godless heathen libertarian when it comes to that.
May 11th, 2005 at 2:27 pm
Yeah, I find a lot of prescriptivism ludicrous: the split infinitive rule is reading complexity into the language which just isn’t there, academicism for its own sake. But we live with the legacy of such things: did you know that the silent b in “debt” is there because the blasted inkhorn scholars in the sixteenth century deemed the English word “dett” to have been a loan word from the Latin “debeo, debere” etc and therefore insisted it be spelled with a b?
On the other hand… I really get annoyed when people misuse apostrophes. Anyone who thinks that “its” is the same as “it’s” just isn’t paying attention.
May 11th, 2005 at 9:41 pm
I’ve lived on three continents, in three different English speaking countries, one of which (England) must have twenty different versions of its own native tongue. In my travels, I have learnt that language evolves and in my opinion language should continue to evolve. In all three countries, British spellings are the norm, and American spellings are hated, when in fact the Amercian spellings, for words such as color (or colour) are superior and they should continue to gain a foothold because they actually make communicating easier.
Language has only one purpose IMO, and it is for communicating and as long as you can communicate your idea, then language is working, regardless of whether you may have broken any gramatical rules.
May 11th, 2005 at 10:43 pm
I work off and on under contract to a telco. I mainly work in the cell space. I worry about the influence of txt messaging (otherwise known as SMS) on the English language because it produces this sort of stuff: I lov ur site. Ur Ql. yell ot 2 my buds. (By the way, the text message is slightly more literate than usual as I used punctuation.)
Okay, no one wants the Grammar Nazis to be let loose upon the world but believe me, txting is a really bad influence on some people’s ability to write a clear sentence. I have talked to a number of teenagers who swear that English doesn’t need any rules at all. Apparently, nothing matters as long as it gets the message across. English is an evolving language but dear God, I dnt wnt it 2 Evolv N2 drivel.
Let’s keep as many grammar, spelling and punctuation rules as we can…
May 12th, 2005 at 6:20 am
I think there is some merit to the grammar-nazi approach; it keeps people from being lazy about grammar. In my opinion, being casual about grammar is fine. Being lazy about it is not. Rules definitely should be broken but that should not imply that it is acceptable to disregard them completely. This is especially dangerous with young writers who are just starting out; we don’t want to give them the impression that it’s not important.
May 12th, 2005 at 10:25 am
These are interesting thoughts to begin the day with. I’ll think them over. I may look some of this prescriptive/descriptive stuff up. You’ve all put some very insightful ideas across.
May 12th, 2005 at 2:18 pm
i dun No thiss is sili y r every 1 kare win ruls rilly mater
May 13th, 2005 at 9:08 am
“Language has only one purpose IMO, and it is for communicating and as long as you can communicate your idea, then language is working, regardless of whether you may have broken any gramatical rules.”
The problem with that argument is that most of the times I’ve heard it used, it was being used by someone whose message was actually unclear due to their rule breaking.
May 13th, 2005 at 3:41 pm
Let’s not forget the pronunciation nazis. Sure, it’s spelled NU-CLEAR, but if someone says “NU-CULAR”, don’t just dismiss them as right wing rednecks! I’m used to saying words the way they’re spelled, but I think it’s wrong to judge people by the way they say something. Besides, it’s a fact (verifiable with any good dictionary) that pronunciation doesn’t always follow spelling. Spelling is there as a guideline of sorts.
May 21st, 2005 at 7:48 pm
Amen to you, Devan. Not all rule-breaking is the same. There’s a difference between knowing the rules and breaking them (as Churchill did) and breaking them because you don’t know them.
That’s what I tell my undergraduate writing students, anyway, and it seems to quiet them. Conscious rule-breaking becomes a goal to aspire to.
And there’s a reason why I tell my student not to let participles dangle. Danlging participles muddy their writing by leaving agents of actions unclear.
May 22nd, 2005 at 9:43 am
Gypsy Boots is right. Having worked as a copyeditor, I can assure you that you will never find an editor who doesn’t know grammar inside and out. Its one thing to abuse grammar for artistic purposes–Faulkner was famous for this. However, it is quite another to abuse the language out of ignorance. It’s easy to spot and makes a writer look unprofessional.
The bugaboos such as split infinitives etc. were introduced in the 18th century to latinize English, as John suggested. While there are still a few sticklers who spout Fowler, for the most part these rules have been discredited. Rules dealing with dangling clauses and comma usage have not, and the people reading what you write know this. While content trumps correctness, why add a black mark to your work by making yourself look like an amateur?
Along the same lines, “Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuationâ€? is a horrible book to use as a grammar reference. The book is English and from what I’ve read, no changes have been made to the American Edition to reflect the differences between English and American punctuation. The British are grammar conservatives; Americans are not. That’s why you are given a theatre programme in Britain and a theater program here. That’s also why people on the island go out of their way to refer to a given datum or criterion, while data and criteria are more or less accepted as singular here. A Briton would never refer to Bush’s cohorts, but his cohort.
Of course, the biggest difference between British and American punctuation occurs with quotation marks. For example, in British English punctuation can go in or outside of a quotation mark depending on whether the punctuation is part of the quote. But while, “I hate grammar”, may be fine in England, it’s just plain wrong here.
Anyhow this post is entirely too long, but grammar is important and that book is a horrible thing to foist on writers who want to learn it. Better resources are listed below.
“Woe Is I” by Patricia O’Connor “Strunk and White” Available free on Bartelby.com “Style: 10 Lessons in Clarity and Grace” by Joseph Williams “The Copy Editor’s Handbook,” by Amy Einsohn
And of course the penultimate grammar guide, the Chicago Manual of Style (not for the faint of heart).
May 22nd, 2005 at 1:56 pm
Shawn, none of those books are grammar guides, they’re style guides, of greater or lesser utility (I’m fond of Chicago and Amy, sick of Strunk & White). The best usage guide on the market is the Merriam-Webster Dictionary of English Usage (also in a concise edition), which gives you reams of examples, a sensible historical analysis, and a range of attitudes from various camps and lets you decide for yourself whether you want to use the word or phrase in question. If you want a thorough description of English grammar, you need to go to Huddleston and Pullum’s monumental Cambridge Grammar of the English Language: “This book is a description of the grammar of modern Standard English, providing a detailed account of the principles governing the construction of English words, phrases, clauses, and sentences.”
May 24th, 2005 at 9:44 am
Face it, you need all of us. You can’t stop the evolution but you’d better curb it. Otherwise, we’d never be able to understand each other.
June 16th, 2005 at 2:58 pm
English does not come from Latin. Any grammarian who attempts to build their case around that fact is a very bad grammarian indeed and perhaps should take a class in linguistics.
English is a Germanic language, as anyone who has ever read Beowulf in the original Old English should know (þæt wæs god cyning!).
Middle English introduces some Latin influence, but only through Norman French (Me thynketh it acordaunt to resoun / To telle yow al the condicioun).
English has no direct grammtical route to Latin, and in no way should need to resemble it.
Sorry. The things you learn in college…
June 16th, 2005 at 8:45 pm
I’m probably crazy, but I am one of those “grammar Nazis.” Certain modern usages just grate on my last nerve. The worst:
“How are you?”/”Fine, and yourself?”
April 6th, 2006 at 5:24 pm
[...] Bear in mind: as grammarians go, I’m pretty lenient. English is not Latin, and many of the so-called mistakes are really just the opinions of stubborn jerks. [...]
April 10th, 2006 at 3:17 pm
I was taught in highschool that Latin would have been the modern day lingua franca, were it not for a bunch of 17th century grammar nazis; apparently the tauntings against the lesser Latinists were so brutal that whatever life there was left in the lingo was squeezed out well and good. The result today is “nuntii latinii” from the Finnish Broadcast Service and a Finnish Elvis impersonator who sings in Latin – goes to prove the tongue dead, dead, dead.
Another thing is the sheer weight of the reast of the world upon you English grammarians. I bet there could well be more of us non-native speakers (or users?) than there is of you natives – though that would depend on what exactly one is willing to consider English usage. ‘neways, it’s a losing battle, obivously. You shall all be ate up, and 500 years from now we’ll all speak Mandarin Chinese. (A Marvel of the Modern Medicine if there ever was one.)
May 28th, 2006 at 10:16 am
[...] Since I haven’t posted for more than a week, several readers have written in to make sure I hadn’t gotten trapped in an air vent, or shanked by a pencil-wielding grammar prescriptivist. [...]
June 2nd, 2006 at 4:16 am
Gotta agree with Jonathan here. Though English started importing everything it could lay its hands on from any language passing, it is NOT based on Latin. Listen to a native speaker of Dutch and you’ll hear a mind-boggling correspondence in phraseology and root words.
Apart from the fact that language does indeed continually evolve, there is sometimes a need to hang on to the bits that work really well and not just throw them in the bin due to a passing fad (like the mangling of written English by “text-speak” using mobile phone messaging). As another writer mentions, abusing grammar for artistic purposes is fine, buggering it up due to ignorance is vile.
Oh, I’m also in complete agreement with the US spelling of “aluminum”, and I apologise profusely for some of our more arcane spelling and pronunciation here in the UK… ;-)
September 17th, 2006 at 10:09 pm
<<
Agreed. Thanks for validating my headaches when I hear this. I think it stings more because it’s the prime example of the hypercorrective junk that educated (in something other than English) people – like my engineering crowd – fall into.
September 17th, 2006 at 10:11 pm
I was responding to comment 28.