Sarah Gibbard Cook
  • Home
  • About
  • Writing
  • Contact

Rules of Grammar

7/18/2016

3 Comments

 
“Her English is too good,” he said. “That clearly indicates that she is foreign.” Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady was identifiable as an impostor because her speech followed the rules too closely. Is that because even well-educated native speakers aren’t educated enough? Or are some “rules” the real impostors?

Latin and logic, not usage, underlie the rules in Robert Lowth’s A Short Introduction to English Grammar (1762) and Lindley Murray’s English Grammar (1795). Lowth’s and Murray’s books were reprinted for decades, carving their biases into stone. Double negatives, prepositions at the end of sentences, and split infinitives became wrong because grammarians said they were wrong.

​Grammar does matter—when it rests on usage and clarity. Good language communicates clearly and unobtrusively to a literate native speaker. Double negatives have appropriately disappeared from standard English not because they violate mathematical logic—language isn’t math—but because they create confusion. (Does “I don’t want to do nothing today” mean I want to be idle or busy?) On the other hand, “Who should I give it to?” is as clear as, and less jarring than, “To whom should I give it?” Insisting on “To whom” has no value except snob appeal.
3 Comments
Lisa
7/18/2016 08:35:27 am

I have learned so much from working with professional editors for over 20 years. Do you think other languages have stricter or looser grammar rules?

Reply
Sarah link
7/18/2016 10:44:34 am

Great question, Lisa. If you mean "grammar rules" in a descriptive sense, telling how the language works (the rules you'd want to learn to speak or write like a native), all languages have them and many, like Navajo, are far more complicated than English. As for rules in the prescriptive sense, what the rule-givers say SHOULD be instead of what IS, I'm not aware of other languages that have these besides English and French. (The Académie française tries to standardize everything about the French language.) Most (all?) languages evolve over time; "strict" or "loose" is a matter of how hard a supposed linguistic authority resists the changes.

Reply
Lisa
7/18/2016 12:14:59 pm

Well, I for one can think of certain instances where one would want to use the statement (or one much like it), "To whom SHALL I give it then?" (insert eye roll here...)




Leave a Reply.

    Author

    I'm a historian who writes novels and literary nonfiction. My home base is Madison, Wisconsin. 

    Archives

    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016

    RSS Feed


      ​get updates

    Sign up
Proudly powered by Weebly
  • Home
  • About
  • Writing
  • Contact