Are you a "Language Change Denier?" Grammar Rules (sentence, examples)

[R_Cowgirl]

Interesting and fun read about how we got where we are with Grammar Rules.
Dear Pedants: Your Fave Grammar Rule is Probably Fake | JSTOR Daily

From the Article:

Here are the plain facts: many of these pop grammar rules, that are still seriously taught in schools and universities and even promoted (and inevitably violated) in style guides, were magically pulled out of thin air by a handful of 18th and 19th century prescriptive grammarians. They’re totally made up grammar myths, that somehow gained a superficial, high prestige status among the public and are repeated as fact ad nauseam. Often these rules were modeled on an aspect of Latin, perceived to be a more ‘pure’ language than English, and went against actual historical and literary usage. In many cases the rules made communication more stilted and less clear (and promoted humorous syntactic constructions up with which I will not put).

[Gypsy-Moth]

I used to wonder why it was such a grievous sin to split infinitives. (I stopped caring long ago and continued to split them when it seemed appropriate.)

[ChrisC]

Yes, there have been some "contrived" grammar "rules" over the years. But at the same time, we shouldn't throw the baby out with the bathwater. In my opinion, we've lost a lot of the flavor of our language over the last 100 years or so. It has become a lot like our society... sloppy and highly informal.

I look at some of the literature from 100 to 250 years ago and... well, I long for the days when a typically educated person had that sort of command over the language. So eloquent and beautifully flowing. My all time favorite work from that era (in this case, around 1797, I believe) just melts me every time I read it--not so much for the story, but for the amazingly beautiful usage of the English language. That's my kind of English. And it wasn't just because the author was writing "high literature." She went out of her way to use the common form and tone of the time--it was a series of letters written back and forth between various characters in the novel. Such wonderful language!

So, yes, from a linguistic point of view, language always changes over time. But, in my opinion on this account, change is not always a good thing. In many cases, the sentence constructs we typically use now are very inefficient and "flabby" compared to the structures that were common in the past.

[R_Cowgirl]

It is all very fascinating to watch. It's disheartening as well because of the underlying message of these fast-paced changes.

That being said, one of my favorite quotes is from a newspaper right after the much-beloved Gettysburg Address:

"The cheek of every American must tingle with shame as he reads the silly, flat and dishwatery utterances of the man who has to be pointed out to intelligent foreigners as the President of the United States."

Chicago Sun Times
11/20/1863
commenting on the
Gettysburg Address

Here's a website on Shakespeare and his critics
Shakespeare and His Critics - Index

Unfortunately Language and the rules change. Language has to evolve. It's a responsive communication tool that grows and moves with the cultures. Just as creole and pidgin English developed in places newly populated with immigrants from all over the world so they could converse; technology and globalization influence language with words, jargon and shorthand. Perhaps the tragedy is not the death of the old languages and grammar structures, the tragedy is that it is the symptom of a larger deterioration: that of our cultures.

This technological culture has been both a wonder and a frustration. Too much information flowing at us at too high a pace. Too many options that make us all a little ADD. My grandkids can't spell but can they ever text at the speed of cyberspace with their own cryptic codes: 10X, OMG, ROTFLMAO, BRB, CTPTOS, @TEOTD, AFAIK*... Urban Dictionary, now in it's 16th year, has millions of definitions of words invented in the past two decades. They use words we think of in different ways which can sometimes be the opposite of standard usage - eg "Sick" means really cool. Urban Dictionary | Know Your Meme

This 12 year old article on CBS news talks about the effect the 90's had on language. I'm sure there are newer ones, but it shows how rapidly things are changing.

I'm not arguing with you. I agree. I cherish my collections of Shakespeare, Chaucer, Mark Twain and many others. I'm sad that my grandkids won't ever read them because, "Ew, OMG grans they are effin' doorstops!" Sigh. Yes. Education has failed entire generations. Literature is losing its place in their world. I often pray for a power outage so they will have to converse, will have to look up, or at least will pick up a book and look at it. I actually went into a store and asked to buy a cell phone jammer with the intent of having real conversations with my grandkids at the table. I was informed, alas, that those are illegal and I could be arrested for asking. Well, a grandmother can try. I'm not alone. That there interwebby thing is full of photos of grandmas sitting at a table with 5 or 6 kids who have their heads down, fingers rapidly working their phones.

They don't know what they are missing. I don't know where I'd be without my books and my literature. Reading enlarges the creative parts of the brain in a way that reading texts and "memes" cannot.


* Translation: Thanks, Oh my God, Rolling on the floor laughing my ass off, Be right back, Can't talk - Parental Type over shoulder, At the end of the day, As far as I know

[Dirt Grinder]

Aye nowed em rools wuz maidup cuz aye can tawk to fokes an thay no wat ime sayen..kaynt no one tale me riten gots to be the same for everwon cuz we awl got ower difernses.

[Paul James]

At seventy two I tried to go back and upgrade my writing with the English language. Grammar ran me crazy. With the help and patience of my writing forum I can write again. I use sentence structured words that's without Grammar interference. I will never use paraphrasing, but do use synonyms and spelling forum plus Visual Thesaurus. I love to write the e-mail way, the way it is here. One can come back especially at my age. Paul

[JustJulia]

In sixth grade, I contradicted my teacher about using 's after a word that ends in s. She insisted Chris's is incorrect. It isn't.

[nightbird47]

Originally Posted by Dirt Grinder

Aye nowed em rools wuz maidup cuz aye can tawk to fokes an thay no wat ime sayen..kaynt no one tale me riten gots to be the same for everwon cuz we awl got ower difernses.

There's no way I'm going to even bother to decipher this mess.... The idea of a common form of language means you can communicate to the people who sound like that and the ones who sound more like Dickens and all inbetween.

[mawipafl]

Sometimes I follow rules and sometimes I don't. It all has to do with readability. People's brains tend to compute the written words in the ways they would speak them, and today's speech doesn't normally include certain pronouns nor all verbs to complete a sentence nor does today's speech finish prepositional phrases. When speaking, we tend to use "who" instead of "whom" when a person is an object of a verb; we say "no one writes like me" when it should be "no one writes like I do"; we shorten our speech to "coming with?" as if "are you coming with me?" are just too many words for our fast-paced lives.

I love the English language and all its words and phrases -- this adoration causes me to be a very verbose writer, and, thus, a lousy one.

By the way, I do sometimes start sentences with conjunctions and write incomplete sentences on occasion. Just because. And if I'm writing about a possession that belongs to Chris, it's not "Chris'", it's "Chris's".

[Happy in Wyoming]

There is no language academy in any English speaking country; there never has been. In France, the academy makes decisions about words, morphology, and syntax. The same is true in Italy, Spain, Portugal, Brazil and a host of other countries. The general rule in English has been for centuries what we usually consider educated usage. That doesn't necessarily mean pedants. It includes authors who have been admired for their use of language over the centuries. It's worked. Standard English is comprehensible to everyone who has a decent grasp of the English language.

The aforesaid notwiithstanding, certain dictionaries and works on usage have gained as much respect, sometimes more, than the various academies regulating usage. The Century Dictionary, the Merriam-Webster International, Second Edition, the American Heritage, and OED II all fall into this category. Usage guides, particularly Fowler's Dictionary of Modern English Usage and the Chicago Manual of Style are two outstanding examples. I must mention that neither of these works proscribes the use of the ''split infinitive'' or ending a clause with a preposition. As an aside I must mention that English is a language that would be expected to use postpositions, not prepositions, because it shares many typological features of languages that do.

Having rules of usage, official or otherwise, creates a worldwide community for a language that allows understanding in India and Australia as well as the U.S. and Canada. It also allows the reader to easily reads material published in the seventeenth centure with relative ease.

Originally Posted by Gypsy-Moth

I used to wonder why it was such a grievous sin to split infinitives. (I stopped caring long ago and continued to split them when it seemed appropriate.)

I assume an ill-educated government teacher taught you that.

Originally Posted by ChrisC

Yes, there have been some "contrived" grammar "rules" over the years. But at the same time, we shouldn't throw the baby out with the bathwater. In my opinion, we've lost a lot of the flavor of our language over the last 100 years or so. It has become a lot like our society... sloppy and highly informal.

I look at some of the literature from 100 to 250 years ago and... well, I long for the days when a typically educated person had that sort of command over the language. So eloquent and beautifully flowing. My all time favorite work from that era (in this case, around 1797, I believe) just melts me every time I read it--not so much for the story, but for the amazingly beautiful usage of the English language. That's my kind of English. And it wasn't just because the author was writing "high literature." She went out of her way to use the common form and tone of the time--it was a series of letters written back and forth between various characters in the novel. Such wonderful language!

So, yes, from a linguistic point of view, language always changes over time. But, in my opinion on this account, change is not always a good thing. In many cases, the sentence constructs we typically use now are very inefficient and "flabby" compared to the structures that were common in the past.

You'll find the same phenomenon if you read a dime novel of a hundred and fifty years ago. Those were the glory days of English prose.

Originally Posted by R_Cowgirl

It is all very fascinating to watch. It's disheartening as well because of the underlying message of these fast-paced changes.

That being said, one of my favorite quotes is from a newspaper right after the much-beloved Gettysburg Address:

"The cheek of every American must tingle with shame as he reads the silly, flat and dishwatery utterances of the man who has to be pointed out to intelligent foreigners as the President of the United States."

Chicago Sun Times
11/20/1863
commenting on the
Gettysburg Address''

The Chicago Sun-Times didn't exist in 1863. It formed in 1948 after a merger of the Chicago Sun and Chicaago Daily Times. There was a Chicago Daily Journal in 1863 that became part of of the later corporate entity. However, it was a different newspaper.

Originally Posted by JustJulia

In sixth grade, I contradicted my teacher about using 's after a word that ends in s. She insisted Chris's is incorrect. It isn't.

That's interesting. I was taught the opposite in the mid fifties.

Originally Posted by Paul James

At seventy two I tried to go back and upgrade my writing with the English language. Grammar ran me crazy. With the help and patience of my writing forum I can write again. I use sentence structured words that's without Grammar interference. I will never use paraphrasing, but do use synonyms and spelling forum plus Visual Thesaurus. I love to write the e-mail way, the way it is here. One can come back especially at my age. Paul

You have a long road ahead of you. I'll reach the age of seventy-two on Sunday. Some of that age can write without solecism.