I used to be a prescriptivist. It used to really bother the bejaysus out of me when people would mess up the usage of minor grammar points in which the meaning was clear but the actual rule was “incorrect.” OK, I’ll admit it-- in a lot of cases, it still does bother me. But I’ve let those ways go to a large extent.
Part of it was the realization that there was nothing I could do about it. But that’s kind of a “letting the idiots win” situation. No, the real reason I changed was because I realized to how great an extent languages are living and evolving. Sure it chapped my hide when someone used “less” when it should have been “fewer” (again, still bugs me, but I try to ignore it). But I realized that there was someone else out there to whom my split infinitives were anathema. And I started thinking about what language rules are supposed to do.
At the most essential level, language is meant to communicate ideas. And in communication of ideas, precision is of course important. It matters if someone can’t use the past perfect and instead uses only the past (for example), because then you lose clarity about the order of events that is being described. But what clarity is lost when using “less” instead of “fewer?” Sure, if you didn’t hear the subject then you would have a bit less information about it (eg There are fewer now than in the past). But in the majority of cases you have the subject right in the sentence, so there is no clarity lost, just a lack of adherence to a grammar rule.
And don’t get me wrong, without those rules, language would be a mess. I’m not advocating wholesale change of rules-- language needs time to evolve. But in the war against bad grammar, we all have to pick our battles. This is just a reasoning of the battles I chose to fight. I don’t consider myself an expert in linguistics by any means, but I want to decide for myself some cases in which I want to break with convention.
So, if you consider yourself a strict adherent to language rules, how do you see the evolution of language? Do you split infinitives? Do you only use “peruse” to mean “examine very carefully?” When there is some debate over a rule or definition, which authority do you follow?
Grammar violations just rub me the wrong way, but it’s nothing to get really worked up about. People around me frequently say things improperly like, “He is stronger than me.” I cringe a little inside and move on.
Also, I thought there was no real rule against split infinitives.
Listening to hit records led to your sad state.
You ought to take talk seriously. Put it to pate
and it’ll seep in. That’s my supposition.
And I suppose, in subjunction, if it did, I’d listen
to what you said next for once.
It’s imperative! Take off the hat! The dunce
needs it back and Front’s on track to your brain.
Seek now to retrain. The nerdcore refrain (goes):
“Tut, Tut!”
(Tongue-clucking grammarian, yo.)
“Tut, Tut!”
(Check your punctuation.)
No surprise really, but this is a constant ongoing discussion in my house. Just yesterday I pointed my index finger at Ms. Attack and cried ‘Descriptivist!’
I worked as a writing tutor in college, and the program head was a brilliant descriptivist who convinced me that while my job required prescriptivism, prescriptivism was appropriate only in certan highly artificial communication environments such as writing college papers. He also turned me on to Steven Pinker, who is like the god of descriptivists and is well worth reading: I cannot imagine how someone could remain generally prescriptivist after reading, for example, The Language Instinct.
I also used to be a prescriptivist. I took a linguistics class with Walt Wolfram that completely changed my perspective on language. Essentially, I realized how much our language choices are influenced by who we want to accept us.
Now, I am a strong adherent to the belief that the right usage is the one your boss or customer wants to see. In some settings around here, that extends to an appropriately friendly use of “y’all.”
Those are pretty bad examples. Split infinitives have NEVER been wrong, and the “less/fewer” distinction, while useful, has never really been consistently enforced, so far as I am aware.
Your general point, however, is well taken, even if you did misuse the word “grammar.” (The precise meaning of the word “peruse” is a matter of semantics, not grammar.) Language rules are about making communication efficient and effective, not about adherence to arbitrary standards.
I’d argue with this, sorta. Certain things are pretty clearly grammatically incorrect. Be sentence here this no: being, example? But it’s pretty difficult for a native speaker of English to say or write something that grammatically incorrect (it took me much longer and much more thought to type that short sentence than to type the one before it).
Other things are incorrect only because prescriptivists say they are. And I don’t particularly give a crap why they say they are, because I think most reasons for claiming a commonly-used expression is grammatically incorrect are crap. They’re only correct within certain highly artificial areas, areas in which the rules are artificially determined by internal authority figures. These authority figures may declare that it’s incorrect to ever say, “Mr. Dorkness, we be goin to art today?” (as some of my students say); they may declare that it’s incorrect to ever say, “it’s incorrect to ever say.” Either way, they’re right specifically, and only, because they’re the authority figures within that area. Their rationale might be flawed, and you might argue with them, but they’re the authorities there.
The upshot is that when I was a writing tutor, I’d explain to my students that split infinitives were perfectly natural in English, and I’d tell them that the people who objected to them did so because of a flawed understanding of the relationship between Latin and English. And then, depending on their professor, I’d advise them to remove the split infinitives, because their professor was the final authority on the subject as far as their grade was concerned.
So I suppose we just ignore any poor grammar, diction, etc. Let’s just not even teach it in school, then all those poor kids won’t feel singled out and victimized. We can just let the “living” language die of ignorance.
There’s no reasonable definition for “poor” in “poor grammar.” There’s nonstandard grammar, of course–and this radical descriptivist (as I’ve been called on this board) is diligent about teaching his students the difference between “school talk” and “home talk.” But teaching them that it’s poor grammar would be teaching them a lie. Perhaps for other people who haven’t studied linguistics it wouldn’t be a lie so much as a falsehood told from ignorance. But I know better, so it’d be a lie.
I’m a grammar Nazi about certain things, like “who” and “whom,” and “less” vs. “fewer.”
But then, there are other grammar rules I’ve never learned or internalized (“bring” vs. “take,” “will” vs. “shall,” etc.) and I blow them off. So I try to tell myself that “the rules” I feel like enforcing are might selective, and I should just take a chill pill…TRM
Are you sure you understood any of the posts previous to yours?
Nobody’s said anything that even suggested we just ignore poor grammar or “diction.” The issue at hand is WHAT constitutes poor grammar. (Or, if we want to include semantics and such, poor English.)
What the OP is saying they’re moving towards is the notion that poor English is that which fails to communicate. Reasonably good fundamental English is important just because if your English is bad enough, people won’t know what the hell you’re trying to say.
However, suppose I were to write, “I’m going to bring flowers to Mom on Mother’s Day.” Some would argue that’s bad English because “bring” should be used only when conveying the idea of something being transported towards the speaker. We’ve had a long debate on that particular word on this board, in fact. However, is there really any doubt what the writer is trying to write? Not really. That’s the issue at hand. Is that sentence correct because it’s clearly understandable and common usage? Or is it wrong because (some) prescriptivists say so?
I try to ignore simple errors (although they still bug me), but I am very annoyed when a common error takes away from the ability to convey an idea easily and accurately.
For example, I accept that the common usage of the word “decimated” is now to indicate that a large proportion of something has been wiped out. The original meaning doesn’t matter because it’s unlikely I would ever need to use a word which indicates that 10% of something has been wiped out.
On the other hand, misuse of “literally” and “unique” really bothers me because there are times when I need to convey the original meanings of the words. If “literally” comes to mean “figuratively” and “unique” comes to mean “rare” how will I be able to get across the idea that I actually did visit a town which was so small it only had one horse, or that what we are looking at is the only one of its type in existence?
The other type of error which annoys me is where the original meaning has been reversed. Frankly, although I have seen attempts to justify it, “I could care less” is just stupid.
I think yours is an eminently reasonable position. What you have seemed to identify is that there is such a thing as register, and that adhering to conservative forms is appropriate for certain contexts where a formal register is required. However, to insist on a doctrinaire notion of grammatically correct is a bit foolish, especially since it is so often buttressed by typically silly rationales ("I don’t understand this double negative! Are they negating the proposition or asserting it?! :rolleyes: ). As you point out, language’s first function is to communicate ideas, and part of communicating ideas is register, and a formal register is not always appropriate.
Indeed, there is at least one dogmatically prescriptive response upthread; it does not seem to have impressed many other responders here.
This is just about my approach. I’ll gently correct my young sons when they misspeak, since I think that’s one of my jobs as a loving papa, but other than editing someone else’s written work at their request, I’m very reluctant to correct the grammar of others. My wife will look at me with a sly smile when someone within earshot says “that’s very unique” or “I could care less,” though, as she knows I’m grinding my teeth.
Inside my head, grammar nazi meets absolute thinker, and I’m having a hell of a time resolving this. Because I have to accept that prescriptivism would doom me to a life of my head coming off from frustration, I then swing to the absolute thinker side that says if it’s not nothing goes, then everything must be OK. But pure descriptivism is no good either.
I think I’ve come to the point I have with sin: Worry only about my own, except when a gentle guiding to someone who is open to it might send them in the right direction.
I had a discussion the other night with teacher friends who don’t feel a fellow teacher should be saying “So doesn’t Bob” (to mean “So does Bob”) in front of their class, since it’s misleading the students. But it’s an idiom like “could care less” or a regionalism they will encounter in this area. Should they hear it from an “official” source? We couldn’t agree.
I’ve changed my ways, for more than one reason. I still try to use the language correctly, but I usually don’t correct anyone else for being incorrect.
I learned from Dale Carnegie that winning minor disputes is cobweb compared to getting along with people.
I got old enough to have people show me current references saying the incorrect usage is now correct. The language changes. I may not like it, but I must accept it.
I learned to wrestle my brain to the ground and say, “The point was clear. What’s the problem?”
The difference between a descriptivist and a prescriptivist is this: a prescriptivist on hearing this would say, “What the hell? Why would you say ‘so doesn’t Bob’ to mean ‘so does Bob’? What’s wrong with you people?”
A descriptivist says, “Oooh, cool, an idiom I’ve never heard before! I wonder how it came about.”
I find the descriptivist approach much more interesting. Idioms in general are cool things.
(Incidentally, I’m baffled by the hate so many people have for “I could care less.” Its idiomatic origins in sarcasm seem thoroughly unremarkable to me; it’s not even that interesting an evolution.)
(The precise meaning of the word “peruse” is a matter of semantics, not grammar.) Language rules are about making communication efficient and effective, not about adherence to arbitrary standards.