At what point did clear communication become effete and intimidating?
Why is careful management of participles and infinitives more likely to elicit a roll of the eyes than simply to be accepted as transparent communication?
Why do I feel embarrassed when I distinguish “like” from “as” and “from” from “than”?
In your responses please take into account the recent faux grammar of “to feel badly” as opposed to the correct “to feel bad” (and please recognize the faux pedantry of “in your responses . . .”).
Is this about the public school system? Is this about Sesame Street? Is this an extreme refutation of the US’s English roots? Is this revolt against class-ism? Discuss.
What you are calling “Clear communication” has always been effete and intimidating. But in the last half century, the tools of written language, and of mass communication, have reached the hands of the common man. The common man has never called a spade a spade, he calls it a fuckin’ shovel, and if you don’t like it you can piss up a rope, see?
The fact is that language can communicate in many ways. It has a marvelous adaptability that transcends any rigid set of rules. While it is highly useful to be able to stay within the limits of the Little Brown Handbook when you so desire, the inability to handily split an infinitive when the occasion is right is as much an impediment to true communication as any other hole in your language skills. Grammarians should concern themselves with the private instruction of consenting adults, and always wash their hands afterwards.
So, end your title with a preposition if you wish. Just don’t expect me to correct you, ‘cause that’s not where I’m at.
I don’t think the title of the thread was incorrect. As I understand it, “frown upon” is something of a two-word verb. To “correct” it, you would have to form the sentence to read something like, “Why is good English something upon which frowning is done?”
Folks do like to use proper grammar. What many do NOT like is self-appointed grammar mayvens that: make up rules from whole cloth, try to keep the language from evolving, or nit-pick about minor, pointless things. That is to say, as sven so delicately put it, are “jerks”.
lissener: you answered your own question. How many of those “violations” you mention are actually barriers to communication? Few. “BUT those are the RULES”, I hear the mayvens cry out. Whose rules? Passed by which “International Board of Grammar”?
Oftimes some ‘mayven’ will start complaining about some violation of “the rules”, and when I ask him “which rules?”, he will quote some book, sometimes obscure. Whereupon I will quote “Oxford”. They then say THEIR “source” is right, and mine is wrong… which exactly proves my point.
American English is a wonderful and evolving language. Mostly the evolving is for the better. For all those who really want “good communication”, instead of pedantic “gotchas”, please let it evolve.
Language was cited by F. A. Hayek as an example of Spontaneous Order. There are parallels to government, both ethical and metaphysical. What you are saying about language is no different than what we’ve been saying about civics. By substitution:
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Folks do like to use proper ethics. What many do NOT like is self-appointed ethics mayvens that: make up laws from whole cloth, try to keep the government from evolving, or nit-pick about minor, pointless infractions. That is to say, as Libertarians so delicately put it, they are “tyrants”.
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Regarding language, clarity is not always the intent. Sometimes obfuscation is. That’s what makes English so ubiquitous, i.e., its utility and its adaptability. Grammar is important whenever your intent is. Whether you mean to be clear or whether you mean to confuse, proper grammar can help in either regard.
lissener, I work in an operations area in a financial services company. Among my duties is to edit reports my associates write. I am also of the belief that precision in language is not something that should cause embarrassment. On the contrary, it is entirely possible that at least one of the recipients of our reports will notice a lack of diligence in following the rules of English and assume this shoddiness exists elsewhere in our research.
Because there is room for personal style in writing doesn’t mean that everything’s up for grabs, particularly in a professional setting. At work, I seem to be the only person in this camp, however, and I’m considered something of a fussbudget for this attitude. By the way, I don’t berate anyone for an error (nor do I consider myself so expert that errors can’t be detected in my writing). I simply believe that in most instances there is a widely accepted convention. Shouldn’t we follow these conventions if it’s no trouble to do so? Doesn’t this practice indicate a carefulness and an eye for detail that is–if not admirable–at least not bad? Often, the reactions I get imply that a “real” manager would be above all this silly discussion of grammar rules–i.e., what’s the big deal? (Sigh!)
I have compromised by pointing out the “pickier” of the problems only if there is something more material that requires revision in a report (e.g., a misstated fact). By picky, I mean things like commas outside of quotation marks or the use of a semi-colon where a comma was proper. Verbs that don’t agree in number with subjects, on the other hand, are right out–and I don’t care if anyone reading the sentence “knew what we meant.” If only the picky stuff remains, unless it absolutely peppers the document, I let it go. Call me a sissy. Anyway, I feel your pain.
BTW, any errors anyone detects in this post were, of course, intentional and intended as irony.
Something like this happened to me recently in an office technology class I am taking. On a sample letter we were supposed to be proofing, I added a comma after an introductory clause to a sentence and got it counted as an error. When I questioned this, the instructor pointed me toward some business writing manual that their company uses for guidelines, which she had not previously showed the class. As it turned out, I was right about that comma but wrong about series commas (black, red, white and blue is supposed to be black, red, white, and blue. . .I was taught that the and makes the comma redundant; which is incorrect according to this manual).
I agree. In certain arenas, they gottcha though, like doctoral dissertations or technical writing type of stuff. But otherwise, if people write or speak well enough for others to understand them, the grammar (and punctuation), to me, becomes unimportant.
For what it’s worth, I’d like to throw in a little comment, from the perspective of someone who is not a native English speaker: I learn by imitation, and many times I use un-sanctioned constructs, without knowing they are “incorrect”. For instance, I had no idea you shouldn’t end your sentence with a preposition, since everybody around me is doing it. The same goes about splitting infinitives. Before moving on this continent, I have been learning English from Star Trek!
Some of these language deviations might be due to the constant pressure that foreign speakers exercise on the language. I am not a linguist, and I won’t be able to produce relevant examples, but to me it sounds pretty safe to assume that English is more prone to evolve than other languages, because of the sheer number of non-native speakers, who act as a permanent source of random language mutations. Some of those mutations survive, and maybe not all are bad, even if they look like aberrations at first.
One more thing: for as long as I can remember, I have been fascinated by the fluidity of English. It’s like water flowing between stones; you can’t constrain its path by imposing rigid rules. If you try, it will always find its way around, often creating curious swirls in the process. It’s what it makes it so much fun to learn.
Besides, shouldn’t the title of this thread be “Why do people frown upon good English?” (There’s no initial capital letter; it is passive voice; and there’s a preposition at the end.)
The only reasons to avoid ending a sentence with a preposition is to avoid a misleading construction or to avoid offending people who think they know English grammar when they do not. The “don’t end with a preposition” rule is not part of English. It was imposed on some English grammars by eighteenth century Latin-obsessed grammarians, (Latin does not allow final prepositions), but it has never been an organic rule of English. The split infinitive is another construction that should be avoided when it makes a sentence unclear but is not actually rule that arose within the English language.
My choice is to avoid final prepositions when I may be judged by some ill-informed, petty, ersatz grammarian who has the power to inflict harm, but I do not worry about it otherwise.
Whew. 'Swhat I get for launching a thread and going to bed.
I appreciate all the responses. It’s a fascinacting conversation that I hope continues, but it wasn’t really the question I meant to ask. How’s that for a lack of clarity?
I am of course fascinated by the subject of the evolution of the English language and it’s rules, but what I meant to ask was this: Why are people who use proper English as a matter of course or habit judged effete by society at large, and seen to be wasting their energy by focusing on unimportant matters? Why is it considered wrong nowadays to speak and write correctly?
I’m not talking about autocratic grammarians who go around correcting people, which seems the be the focus this thread has developed. I’m only talking about people who go about quietly, minding their own business, using English the way they were taught in school?
The context you mentioned, Bob Cos, is familiar to me: I had the same job, for two different management consulting firms. It was my task to make sure every document that left each firm appeared to be the professional product of a world-class company. I wrote style and training manuals for both firms. As a proofreader, I often experienced (as you have) the patronizing look of disdain when trying to explain to the document’s author the changes I’d made. He or she, as the provider of the document’s content, as the Holder of the MBA, would almost invariably give me a little eyeroll or smirk to indicate that the issues I was addressing were so petty compared to the monumental importance of the wisdom they had produced. “I bring you a mountain,” they seemed to be thinking, “and you tell me this little pebble at its base is slightly out of place. You sad, strange little man.”
I think by appending to my OP that pedantic little “exercise” regarding the proper usage of bad versus badly I may have inadvertently given the impression that I wanted to discuss improper English. Well okay I do, but only indirectly. Why is it “cooler” to use improper English than proper? Why is proper usage seen as nerdy and actively pedantic–the mere usage–rather than smart?
The “bad/badly” example was meant to imply the related question: Why does the appearance of good English sometimes seem more important than actual proper usage?
I guess I’d hoped to elicit with my OP a discussion of the changing culture; of the deterioration of the public school system; of the lack of “literary”–or even literate–role models: a discussion the emergent non-literate society and its possible causes and, ultimately, effects.
I dunno. I have not encountered what you have described. (I do not doubt that you have encountered it, but I have not.) My spoken speech is probably no “purer” than anyone else’s, but I attempt to keep my formal writing pretty clean. As a result, I generally find co-workers bringing their more important missives to me to be proofed. On those rare occasions when I have had to review and correct a subordinate’s memo before letting them release it, I have gotten thanks for the clarity without being scorned as a purist.
(Of course, you did mention that you were working for MBA’s. Far too many of them are over-trained (not over-educated) twits with no knowledge outside their specialty anyway.)
People correcting grammar- annoying, but useful sometimes. As stated above, grammar mavens wear their welcome very quickly.
I am more of an interpreter of pronunciation. Instead of chocKlate, I say choKolate. I say groCERies instead of groshries. Note the difference? I think it is a better indicator of education than grammar.
I do pronounce aluminum as “alyouminium” though. One of my little British pronunciation pleasures.
I am sort of missing the point here, but you could have written this naturally and it would still violate the non-existant relu of not allowing prepositions at the end of a sentence.
As to the main question addressed by the OP, I could you please provide a specific example in which one is frowned upon for being smart that has recently arrisen in modern culture? Sixth graders making fun of the smart kids due to their own feelings of inferiority have done so for quite a while.
