dfranklin
Established
I will second this. I guess I could be called a writer by profession, but it wasn't until I was 40 that I actually read Strunk and White. The book is widely misunderstood. People think it's a collection of arbitrary rules. It's really a meditation on how to achieve clarity of expression--I described it to someone else on this forum recently as a set of koans for writers. The great problem with the errors the OP laments is that they contribute to a lack of clarity in writing.
I think the underlying problem is a decline in reading as a habit. People learn how to write mostly by reading good writing--having good teachers in grade school certainly helps, but the most important factor, I've come to believe, is how much one reads. I think it's uncontroversial to say that people are reading less and less these days.
Last edited:
benlees
Well-known
You'll notice (as just one example) that the poem of Beowulf can be a bit of a slog to get through for a modern English reader. Why is that? Because language changes. You think words and/or grammar are set in stone? At one time English didn't even exist! Call the brigade! The world is burning!
Larry Cloetta
Veteran
Yes, Chris, and I am sure you were a good one, but it’s no exaggeration to say that I have met a few who fit the earlier description. Unfortunately.
DownUnder
Nikon Nomad
The 'trouble' with English today as it is spoken and written today is a direct result of those two scourges of the late 20th century, the mobile phone and the internet. Also declining standards of education from about 1970 to the present day.
All part of the pre-apocalypse world we are headed for. Watch this space and wait for it...
All part of the pre-apocalypse world we are headed for. Watch this space and wait for it...
Larry Cloetta
Veteran
Well, Larry, this may be the other shoe.
I have a BA in languages and linguistics, including studies in the history of English, German, and Romance languages. I have a good sense of English and I have proofread term papers for a number of colleagues working on masters degrees.
Linguists will tell you that language is a dynamic process. Structures change; new words arise (nothing wrong with "impactful;" it conveys its meaning in a way that no other word has before it); other words fall out of use; even pronunciation undergoes changes. (Neither modern Americans nor modern British sound like Shakespeare.) Our culture - and indeed that of the world - is in great upheaval, and it makes sense that this chaos would show up in the language.
I have my own pet peeves. It irritates me when people use "I" when they should use "me;" when people use the simple past for the past participle (we used to have two past participles - one for the singular and one for the plural); along with apostrophes, homonyms, and the rest.
It should be noted that much of formal English grammar is based on Latin, and not on English. In spite of school teachers trying to hammer this unnatural grammar into our heads for centuries, true English has persisted.
If I have to write a formal treatise or deliver a formal address to an erudite audience, I can use formal Latin-based English. Otherwise, I speak English that is based on English.
As a linguist, I believe that standard language/grammar is a starting point, and not an end point. By coloring outside of the lines of standard grammar, by exercising "poetic license," the expressive potential of any language can be expanded significantly.
- Murray
Murray,
Glad to hear a reasonable approach from the “other side”. I am aware of the argument in all its forms, but some people are willing to stretch it too far. Language can degenerate as easily as it can evolve. Change isn’t good, it’s just change, it might be good, it might be bad, as is always the case when talking about any kind of change. And, for language, changes which lower the overall level of clarity or specificity in culture wide social discourse may fairly be called a retrograde change. Some of us, reading newspapers or magazines may think that is obviously happening, others don’t see it, or actually seem to enjoy it. Is it a race to the bottom, or the democratization of speech? No matter which side of the grammar debate one finds oneself on, proscriptive or descriptive, it’s calming to realize that in either case the belief is a subjective one based on feelings, not an objective one based on facts.
A couple of sentences ago, I began a sentence with “and”. I’m aware.
By and large, though, it’s impossible for me to listen to everyday speech patterns across the board in this country and be swayed by arguments that no damage has been done by the lack of any kind of structured guidance given to students when it would have mattered, everything being given a pass by teachers who are so firmly convinced by the descriptivist position that, essentially, “nothing matters, and what if it did?”, and students are never corrected for anything except wrongthink, never grammar. The result, using one very small example of a much larger problem, is the overwhelming use of “like” to constitute up to 30% of the words in any spoken, and thus garbled, sentence, used in ways which are without any meaning whatsoever. It’s painful for an educated person to listen to, and it’s hardly rare, and it’s undeniably an evolutionary result, though perhaps with any luck will be an evolutionary dead end like the platypus.
I’m like, so over it, like, you know?
Perhaps I am just “one of those”. Fair enough. But, (there I go again with low rent grammar) I make no apologies for being one of those as it is a considered position. As is yours. (Wait, that’s a sentence fragment.) Whatev.
Beemermark
Veteran
I'm a retired engineer. One of my many duties was writing large reports. Another engineer had to independently verify the report. When it went to the customer's engineering department they would go through it. Generally the issues weren't engineering related but had to do with grammar, spaces, commas, verb use, etc. Now engineers are notoriously bad spellers and don't begin to understand grammar (we're barred from taking those sort of classes). But when I read major USA papers I literally cringe. Then I recently read a WSJ story that "English Grammer" is white racist supremacy and the English departments of Yale and other colleges are teaching spelling and grammar aren't important. As an example see https://www.educationviews.org/correct-english-grammar-is-racist/ I DO NOT want to start a political discussion but I really don't think grammar is going to improve.
CMur12
Veteran
Larry, I believe in the knowledgeable application of language and I agree with you and others here that students graduating from high school should have a decent grasp of standard English syntax, spelling, and punctuation.
In my own case, I learned most of my grammar in foreign language classes and I learned punctuation largely though my own efforts and observations.
I don't think children who speak different dialects of English should be told in school that their language is wrong. Rather, I think they should be taught that they also need to know standard English.
We have a lot of prejudices about dialects. People who say "he don't" aren't using lazy English. They're using a remnant of Early Modern English. The contraction for "he doth not" was "he don't." You can be sure that grammarians were once up in arms over the impertinent upstart of a grammatical feature that was "he doesn't."
Also, "he's a' coming" (which should be "he's icoming") is a remnant of Middle English, in which the present participle had an "i-" prefix. Grammarians later, out of ignorance, assumed that this was some sort of aberration involving a preposition, which they represented with an "a'".
I'll spare you further examples of this sort, as I can get carried away. Language and languages are my passion, even more so than photography.
- Murray
In my own case, I learned most of my grammar in foreign language classes and I learned punctuation largely though my own efforts and observations.
I don't think children who speak different dialects of English should be told in school that their language is wrong. Rather, I think they should be taught that they also need to know standard English.
We have a lot of prejudices about dialects. People who say "he don't" aren't using lazy English. They're using a remnant of Early Modern English. The contraction for "he doth not" was "he don't." You can be sure that grammarians were once up in arms over the impertinent upstart of a grammatical feature that was "he doesn't."
Also, "he's a' coming" (which should be "he's icoming") is a remnant of Middle English, in which the present participle had an "i-" prefix. Grammarians later, out of ignorance, assumed that this was some sort of aberration involving a preposition, which they represented with an "a'".
I'll spare you further examples of this sort, as I can get carried away. Language and languages are my passion, even more so than photography.
- Murray
Larry Cloetta
Veteran
You'll notice (as just one example) that the poem of Beowulf can be a bit of a slog to get through for a modern English reader. Why is that? Because language changes. You think words and/or grammar are set in stone? At one time English didn't even exist! Call the brigade! The world is burning!
I knew someone would summon Beowulf into the fray. Always happens. Poor Grendel.
Worth noting that the English vocabulary, the words available to express esoteric or sublime ideas, is exponentially greater than it was when Beowulf was composed. That is an evolutionary change in the language. Hard to argue that was not an improvement.
There is also some evidence that both the range of vocabulary and the sentence complexity used in magazine, newspaper, and commonly accessed internet sources, is much less complex, more simple minded, if you will, than it was 70-80 years ago. This is also an evolutionary change in the language, or at least how it is used. And words which fall into disuse eventually disappear.
Are these two evolutionary changes, Beowulf to, say, 1920, and 1920 to now, the same? Perhaps they are not. Perhaps we peaked a while back. There is no objective reason to believe that we just keep getting better no matter what we do. Though I do often hear the phrase “It’s all good” used as a universal descriptor of reality, regardless of the reality.
Beemermark
Veteran
Adding to CMur12 post. Having traveled on business the world, Japan, Spain, France, Finland, etc the majority of people speak English better than we do. Now given I'm dealing with upper management and engineering (i.e. better educated) I'm used to be amazed at how well Taxi cab drivers, clerks, waiters, etc understood enough English. Better than many people in this country.
Phil_F_NM
Camera hacker
Oh goodness, the word "like" was brought to bear. I agree that in its most recent usage, as a filler of space when the speaker can't think of anything to say, but if they stop, the motor of their mouth would lose the prime and be unable to start. I went through undergraduate "late" in my mid-30s, and just completed my master's degree in mental health counseling at the age of 43. I was in school with kids (yes I will say kids because they are young enough to be my kids) whom I now call colleagues in the field, but delivered their theses during a colloquium with far too much usage of the word, "like." In classes I would cringe at the numerous uses of "like" in one string of sentences. I counted seventeen "likes" in one sentence once. It's painful to hear, and it's painful to see it accepted in the academic community.
Phil Forrest
Phil Forrest
Larry Cloetta
Veteran
Murray,
I don’t really disagree with any of this, and was probably more aware of it than one might guess, but I’m still going with Fowler nonetheless, as a day to day way for people to live and best communicate with each other.
Notwithstanding retorts of “You knew what I meant didn’t you?” which will always seem to me to be both correct, and completely beside the point. (And I know that is not what you are saying.)
Anyway, it’s an interesting topic as it has seemed for a very long time to be unresolvable, being more in the realm of manners than science.
CMur12
Veteran
Well, that was an interesting read. I thought the latter part of the article was only loosely related to the first part.
I think the persons in question had their hearts in the right place, but I don't agree with their methods. Most every country has a majority culture and a standard language derived from that culture. This culture and language become the common ground for all subcultures and dialects. It is very important not to devalue the subcultures and dialects, but the elimination of standards doesn't make sense to me.
- Murray
CMur12
Veteran
Mark, I've read some interesting articles about the need for native English speakers to learn International English, to better communicate with a world of English as a Second Language (ESL) speakers. I know that I make changes to my language when speaking with non-native speakers of English.
- Murray
Pál_K
Cameras. I has it.
I'll have to disagree with that. Consider:
"The new zoning regulations impacted the neighborhood. The regulations were impactful."
compared to:
"The new zoning regulations affected the neighborhood. The regulations were consequential."
Or perhaps: significant, pivotal, meaningful - whichever might express the concept better. "Impactful" does not really describe anything to me. Whenever I hear "impactful", I envision a meteor or other object striking the subject. Perhaps a Tesla on autopilot.
Since I and my father's side of the family are Hungarian and my mother's side is Syrian, I became interested in languages at an early age. My first job was translating Russian in scientific journals. Sometimes I still do translation work, though by profession I'm an engineer (it pays much better). However, as you, I became highly interested in linguistics - certainly as much as photography. Besides Russian, I've focused on Icelandic, Norwegian, and German. My library of books on languages and linguistics far exceeds any books I have on photography or photographic equipment.
The study of Latin and Greek certainly had and still has prestige in academia and influenced how linguists viewed languages. Certainly such things as "don't end a sentence with a preposition" or "don't split an infinitive" came from prescriptive "grammarians" using Latin as a model - where such constructs weren't done or could not be done. But ending sentences with a preposition or splitting an infinitive do exist in Germanic languages.
I will be simplifying greatly here, but the foundation of English - its grammar as well as words that are closest to our everyday existence, such as house, land, hand, finger, this, that,... come from the Germanic branch. One need only compare the most common fundamental words and grammatical constructs in English to their German, Danish, Swedish, or Norwegian equivalents to see the family lineage (or compare Old English with Old Norse).
Only after the 1066 Norman Conquest did English begin to adopt Latin derived words for more abstract concepts (like "abstract" and "concept"), as the conquerors controlled government and laws, their language came with them and mixed with English.
Again to see English as being in the Germanic family, consider the English "He writes a book, he wrote a book, he has written a book. He had written a book."
In particular, note the present perfect and past perfect tenses being formed by the use of "has" and "had".
In Norwegian we have the exact same thing:
"Han skriver en bok. Han skrev en bok. Han har skrevet en bok. Han hadde skrevet en bok."
German has the same paradigm for present and past perfect, using hat and hatte.
The Latin equivalent of those sentences won't use an auxiliary verb as part of indicating tense - instead, tense is indicated entirely by conjugation from the verb stem.
raydm6
Yay! Cameras! 🙈🙉🙊┌( ಠ_ಠ)┘ [◉"]
I enjoy using the Oxford comma.
retinax
Well-known
Do consider that thanks to phones and the internet, which are blamed for making people write badly, far more people communicate in writing in the first place. Equally, far more people than in the 60s go to school for more than, say, nine years, even though then and today, the proportion of people whose talents lie elsewhere is probably similar. Of course both facts bring the quality of average writing down. But it's not the whole picture. Problems of especially the US school system nonwithstanding. The reasonably educated reading less does the rest. But it's a new thing that the people who don't read at all write.
Richard G
Veteran
I’m always impressed with RFF and the care taken with posts. I’ve taken great heart from this. Not the end of civilisation.
raydm6
Yay! Cameras! 🙈🙉🙊┌( ಠ_ಠ)┘ [◉"]
Some things that have helped me become a better writer (I think) :
:- a Jesuit undergraduate and graduate education (attended as an adult while working full-time) and appreciation for creative writing, critical thinking, and syntopical reading
- exposure to and appreciation of great literature and thinkers of Western Civilization
- discovery of Britannica's 54-Volume Great Books of Western World
- Mortimer Adler's "How to Read a Book"
David Hughes
David Hughes
About fifty years ago my son's teacher said that she got into a lot of trouble for teaching them to spell and testing them but...
And a few years ago I was talking to someone who went to the Sotbonne and she was told that there was no point in teaching it if people weren't going to use it, that was the Le passé historique, btw; something you only see on corks from French wine bottles nowadays.
I blame spelling checkers too, they suggest alternatives and no one knows which one to pick.
Regards, David
And a few years ago I was talking to someone who went to the Sotbonne and she was told that there was no point in teaching it if people weren't going to use it, that was the Le passé historique, btw; something you only see on corks from French wine bottles nowadays.
I blame spelling checkers too, they suggest alternatives and no one knows which one to pick.
Regards, David
Ko.Fe.
Lenses 35/21 Gears 46/20
In Ontario public school teachers are well paid mafia, which hold politicians necks. Total jerks which are only demanding for themselves. Those are owning some stocks on booze and tobacco in pension fund, so even their pensions are huge. Yet, public schools education is crap and many parents move their kids to catholic and even private schools were education is still normal. No wonder Ontario is totally dependable on immigrants who comes properly educated.