Let’s say for grammatical purposes we don’t consider one-word utterances sentences. Fine. Most authorities will call such constructions “fragmented sentences,” and I can live with that. They’re still a valid type of sentence. They are to be avoided in most formal writing, but our day-to-day speech is full of such context-dependant responses. What’s wrong with that?
Hell, if it makes you happy, you can call these utterances “fragments,” and not “sentences,” if you want. Doesn’t mean they’re not allowed by the rules of the English language, because they certainly are.
Who here said we have to speak in completely sentences at the SDMB in the first place? You? Cecil? Anyone?
And how would you punctuate that last sentence in your little grammatical fantasy world? With a slew of hyphens? Semi-colons?
And don’t answer anything about recasting the sentence, because it’s a perfectly good sentence that does not gain any clarity from such a treatment.
So the purpose of your OP was to let everyone know how much smarter you are than most people. Which you blew by claiming that all sentences have objects. But, really, “I am smarter than most other people” is a pretty dumb thing to start a thread about, anyway.
It has nothing to do with linguistic permissivism, my trout, it has to do with the fact you only got partway through the grammar book.
Mine (Little, Brown) says, “A few word groups lacking the usual subject-predicate combination are not sentence fragments… They include exclamations (Oh, no!)…”
I don’t object to standards on the grounds of “free speech,” I object to standards on the grounds that they are for the small-minded and easily confused.
Of course they can’t. You, on the other hand, can’t reasonably claim that Standard English is something that follows the rules taught by fourth grade teachers. There’s an actual science to studying language, known as linguistics. Applying what you learned in grade school to serious discussions of English is the equivalent of singing “Head, shoulders, knees and toes” to study anatomy.
The mistaken notion that a sentence must have a subject and predicate is, again, dogma taught by elementary school teachers. I’m not sure why they characterize what they teach as a set of rules underlying English, when in actuality most of the principles they espouse are tools for teaching composition. At any rate, there simply is no validity to your claim about sentences, and anyone who’s studied some linguistics will be able to tell you that.
Polycarp clearly has an immense amount of knowledge in that area, and while you may not like it, he’s demonstrated it time and again with information on obscure languages, explanations of complex grammatical devices, and so on and so forth. Check some of his posts in GQ; he’s extremely well-informed on the subject. And he’s right, as well.
So what’s your point then? Hemingway ain’t the only one who’s done that. Is the idea that you, on the basis of what you learned in grade school, are a better writer than Hemingway or Shakespeare? Or is it to draw some meaningless distinction: “‘No’ is not a complete sentence. But it’s perfectly fine not to use complete sentences.” What would be the point in saying that? It’s inaccurate - your claims about what a sentence is are not based upon reality - and it doesn’t contain any useful advice anyway.
By the way, if you really think “nucular” is wrong, Hyperelastic, I’d like you to take a look at this thread, where I offered some much needed education to folks making the same claim. Some agreed; the stupider ones just slunk away. If you have another argument, I’d love to hear it. Several folks discuss the issue, and I didn’t start participating heavily until the second page or so.
You didn’t just say “it is not a sentence”. You chewed people out for using these one word sentences or fragments or whatever the hell people want to call them.
Your suggestions of improved writing in the OP do not have the same dramatic impact intended by “No.” by itself. You’re suggesting that people write unclearly, just to prescribe to your dogmatic world view. If there ever was terrible usage of English, this would be it.
While I appreciate standardization is pretty useful in clear communication, it’s important to realize the rules and definitions were figured out, and are being figured out, after the fact and applied to language that has pretty much been around for a while. You’re doing yourself a grave disservice in terms of communicating if you assume otherwise.
I forgot to say that I would be more sympathetic to your world view if you had encountered this in a university maths text book (for example), where a more dogmatic approach to grammer would be necessary to express rigidly defined ideas.
The above isn’t strictly appropriate given your precise complaint, since “No.” isn’t ambigious at all. But to complain about postings on a newsgroup?! Jesus, you really are just looking for attention.
Hyper, on what are you basing your assertions? You’re obviously not relying on the way people actually write. You seem to be saying that there is a prescriptive set of grammatical rules that must be followed … where is it?
Great Og. Hyperelastic, you are hyper-wrong. And obnoxious.
As pointed out previously, the grammar rule you are thinking of doesn’t discount “No.” as a sentence, but rather as a complete sentence. In grammar circles it is known as a “sentence fragment”. Which is perfectly acceptable in informal writing of the sort found, for example, on message boards.
Shit, with all the 1337-speak found all the hell over the place, this does indeed make the OP the
When I’m at a barbecue, I eat the fried chicken with my hands. When I’m dining with the Queen of England, I don’t. (It’s a little known fact that the Queen loves fried chicken.) Surely you realize that rules can be, and even should be, relaxed depending on the circumstances.
To me, these threads are running dialogues. I add punctuation as I see fit in order to aid the reader in “hearing” what I have to say. I freely use fragments. I sometimes even call my readers names that are not in the dictionary, such as “goat-felching asswipes.” These are things I would never do when writing a thesis paper.
Whether it follows the technical rules or not, “You. are. an. ass.” reads differently than “You are an ass.” And I appreciate the distinction.
However. There is a difference between deliberately bending rules in order to facilitate understanding and erroneously bending the rules because you never learned them. I’ll admit that my anal retentive self does cringe when I read posts that are so poorly constructed that their lack of grammar actually inhibits understanding.
My recommendation to you is that if it helps you to overcome your anal retentive preoccupation with grammar, just pretend is a quote: (Insert poster’s name) says, “(insert post).”
Actually, according to my Little, Brown, “No.” is neither a complete sentence nor a sentence fragment, but an interjection. There’s no reason it wouldn’t be acceptable in formal writing as well.
Pardon me, but this fellow does not have an anal-retentive preoccupation with grammar. If he had, he would have learned that a group of words can be neither a complete sentence nor a sentence fragment. His preoccupation is with the sound of his own metaphorical voice.
I have an anal-retentive preoccupation with grammar, one that is very profitable to me, and I’ll thank you not to attribute him to my category.
The point is that he (like many non-philologists) mistakes a bunch of prescriptive rules for a discipline worth studying, and which has many Dopers with degrees in it. He is correct that Formal English has specific rules relating to its proper use. But describing those rules and their application is an element of descriptive grammar and linguistics.
Granted that the sentence fragment ordinarily has no place in formal writing, nor for that matter the contraction, it is equally improper to presume that the forms proper to formal writing are in some way “better” or “more proper” than colloquial forms. Each has its proper usage. “It is I” said by an eleven-year-old boy at the entrance to a tree fort is as out of place, as bad English, as “Cromwell and his Roundheads wasn’t putting up with Royalist bullshit” in a history-test essay.