A colleague was wondering about a sentence similar to the following (I’ve changed it slightly because it’s from something she’s working on):
If we treat dogs and cats equally, we might expect them to turn out to be friendlier than they would if we treat them differently.
She feels like the second treat should be treated but she’s not sure why.
Here’s why – or why not, depending. Continue reading
Posted in editing, language and linguistics
Tagged conditional, counterfactual, English grammar, subjunctive
…I am not a prescriptivist grammar Nazi and I don’t think the language is going to hell in a handbasket.
I had thought that this was fairly obvious, but I guess that some of the things I say may lead one to that conclusion if one does not have the context of my other opinions. I shall have to be careful to be clearer.
I mention this just because I had a debate with a fellow editor recently, my side of which I revised a little and posted here as “Streamkeepers of the language.” I’ve just found out that said fellow editor characterized that debate as “a lengthy debate with a fellow editor who feels very strongly that the English language is going to hell in a handbasket.”
Oh dear. The fact that I disagree with people who are trying to exert certain influences over certain usages, and that I wish to encourage others to resist those influences, does not mean that I think English is going to hell in a handbasket. Apparently this is less obvious than I thought it was.
Just to make sure anyone who is interested can know what my positions on language and language change are, here are some particularly germane posts:
For an in-depth exploration and appreciation of language change, check out “An Appreciation of English: A language in motion.”
For a detailed explanation of register, which is the question of different levels of English usage for different situations, go to “What flavour of English do you want?”
For good ammunition against people who complain that the language is going to hell and who want to impose prescriptivist rule, read “When an ‘error’ isn’t.”
There’s plenty more where that comes from, of course, including salvos against grammar Nazis at “A new way to be a complete loser,” “For a thousand years it’s good English, then it’s a comma splice?“, and “Fulford fulminates – pfui!” among others.
I hope that sets the record straight.
Posted in editing, language and linguistics
Tagged English grammar, English history, prescriptivism, proper English
This one leaves many people uncertain and even provokes debate, as there have come to be competing standards: should it be, for instance, two weeks’ notice or two weeks notice? Continue reading
Posted in editing
Tagged apostrophes, English grammar, English syntax, genitive, possessive, time measure
Presented at the 31st annual Editors’ Association of Canada conference, Montréal, May 29, 2010
So OK. You look at the manuscript you’re editing, and you see… this:
Adding the ingredients in this order ensures failed chiffon cakes made at home is not an option.
OK, what’s the first thing you do? After sending a “seen in the wild” email to the EAC email list, I mean.
Well, yeah, you correct it, or humbly suggest a correction to the exalted author, depending on the project. But, ah, right then, what is going on here? And what if you make a correction and the author says, “No, it was fine the way I had it. It makes perfect sense to me, and it’s grammatical”?
Well… Continue reading
Posted in editing, language and linguistics
Tagged English grammar, English syntax, grammar, syntax
Montgomery Starling-Byrd, lately elected Grand Panjandrum of the Order of Logogustation, was in town and made a stop by our local Domus Logogustationis for the monthly Words, Wines, and Whatever tasting event. We took this as a chance to generate a little extra interest and invited various parties to come be addressed. And so Montgomery stood in the middle of our Rather Good Hall (not quite up to the level of a Great Hall) surrounded by students, journalists, and student journalists, and gave a rousing and mercifully brief discourse on why English should be viewed as a game, and not one with tightly fixed rules, either. He then entertained questions.
One young fellow in a red shirt piped up: “Why does the name of your society mix Latin and Greek? Doesn’t that seem a little sloppy?”
Montgomery arched an eyebrow slightly. “It’s hardly the first macaronic word in the language. In fact, we mixed logo and gustation partly as an expression of the sort of play I was just speaking of. It’s true that a more cleanly Latin formation would be verbogustation. However, that would have far too strong a taste of bogus.”
The assembled scribes scribbled. One said to her friend next to her, “Comma with the however?”
Red shirt looked back over his shoulder. “Never!”
A green-shirted young woman said, “What do you mean, never? Always!”
“No,” said a slip of a thing in a black dress, “a period.”
“A period?!” said the first. “Oh… no, I meant after.”
“Not a period!” said red shirt. “Always a semicolon. One should not start a sentence with a conjunctive adverb.”
Montgomery’s eyebrow raised a titch more. Before he could interject, the first woman’s friend, a girl in a pink button-up, said, “People don’t speak with semicolons. Didn’t you learn that? Any journalism professor will tell you that.”
“I speak with semicolons,” Montgomery interjected. “And I believe some journalism professors do as well. However, in this instance, I intended however to be the start of a new sentence.”
“Boy,” said red shirt, “you really are a lot of descriptivists, aren’t you? Throwing Strunk and White out the window?”
Maury, in the background, had anticipated this, and had plucked a copy of the very book off the shelf. He handed it to Montgomery open to page 43. Montgomery read aloud: “Avoid starting a sentence with however when the meaning is ‘nevertheless.’ The word usually serves better when not in first position.” He handed the book back to Maury. “Two observations: first, even were Strunk and White holy writ, which it certainly is not, that is a recommendation, not an absolute rule; second, as just mentioned, it is not holy writ. It is opinion. And whoever told you never to start a sentence with however is terribly misguided.”
“We need rules,” protested red shirt.
“We have rules,” Montgomery said. “Otherwise me to able you understand wouldn’t be.”
A chorus of “What?” broke out.
“Exactly,” said Montgomery. “Now, let’s see what you all have for the disputed phrase. However you may have it, it is likely to be understood; however, you may have it in a way that transgresses the expected norms of standard English.”
Those assembled surveyed their transcriptions. Aside from assorted other errors and inaccuracies, the following renditions were found:
…verbugustation, however that would have…
…verbogustation, however, that would have…
…verbogustation however, that would have…
…verbogustation. However that would have…
…verbogustation; however that would have…
…verbogustation; however, that would have…
…verbogustation. However, that would have…
“Formally,” Montgomery said, “only these last two are correct, and it is the last which I intended. Conjunctive adverbs are offset from their clauses with commas. If they come first in a clause, the preceding clause boundary is marked with a period or semicolon, as always. A however without commas setting it off is the other however.” Montgomery paused for the briefest of moments. “Which, however,” he added, “is the same however. It is simply differently used.”
Several of the scribblers were darting their eyes around at their friends to see if they had successfully parsed Montgomery’s latest utterance.
Montgomery continued, warming to the subject. “The ever – which, incidentally, is as etymologically puzzling as dog – is attached to wh-words to give them a sort of generalized, indefinite force: whoever said whatever whenever wherever however. (There may seem to be no whyever, but whyever shouldn’t there be?) As a conjunctive adverb, however is shortened from however this may be, which is why we treat it as a dependent clause. We see a similar shortening, for instance, in the use of as far as: whereas formerly all would say as far as ‘however’ goes, now many will say simply as far as ‘however’. Goes to show, doesn’t it?”
Montgomery smiled slightly and gave his little round button of office a tweak. “Clearly there is some confusion over this word; faced with it, we hover between certainty and despair, and know not how to veer. But let its form serve as a mnemonic to you: just as it has a w and then a v, you may think of it as having a single mark – a comma – after, and a double mark – a semicolon – before, or a double-strength pause – a period. Then your usage will not change as the weather.”
Another pause. Most of those who had been writing were no longer certain whether to write or not.
“However,” Montgomery added, “those are the formal rules, required of editors; linguists have the luxury of simply observing the variations. And in the Order of Logogustation we usually hew slightly more to the linguist’s side, with a healthy dose of fun tossed in.” He smiled. “Are we having fun yet?”
Red shirt, stuffing his materials in his bag, looked up. “Whatever.”
Posted in editing, word tasting notes
Tagged conjunctive adverbs, English grammar, however, word tasting notes
I have just read an article in the New York Times, “The Self-Appointed Twitter Scolds,” about a set of people who have taken it on themselves to correct sloppy grammar on Twitter whenever and wherever they find it. Some even have automated programs that will send criticisms to complete strangers.
This is, perhaps, not surprising, but it is nonetheless disappointing. To think that there are people whose lives are so pathetically devoid of any sense of control or significance that they feel the need to dispense wholesale rudeness personally to anyone who fails to match their idea of grammatical perfection! These people need to go out and buy some manners. Even the cheap kind of manners they can get at discount stores will prevent this. This sort of behaviour is like walking down the sidewalk looking for people who are, for instance, wearing stripes with plaid, or even blue with green, and saying rude things to them about it.
I’ve said it before, and I will keep saying it: The rules of language are made to serve communication, not the other way around. The rules of grammar that we have are a codification of common practices that arose through actual usage, and the point of them is to give people a clear and consistent means of communicating with each other – so one human mind can reach out and come into contact with another human mind. Grammar is the means. The moment it is taken as the end, we have what is now commonly known as a FAIL. To use a Buddhist analogy, what these people are doing is like focusing on the finger rather than on the moon that it is pointing at.
Or let me use an analogy familiar to concert-goers. How often have you been at a concert, or the opera or ballet, and heard someone across the theatre going “SSSHHHHH!” at someone? Tell me, now, how often have you heard the person they were shushing? The SSSHHHHH is louder and more disruptive than what it aims to correct. It is a form of rudeness pretending to be a form of enforcement of politeness.
Likewise, while it may be bad manners to tweet in all caps, it is much worse manners to send a tweet to someone out of the blue carping on their use of all caps. And while making a lot of typos may be a little distracting and may seem to show imperfect concern for the reader, that’s hardly at the level of rudeness shown by those who tweet back complaining about them.
The truth is that no one is a perfect user of English all the time. It’s not really possible, since there are points of dispute such that some people will think one thing correct and others will think a different thing correct. But, more than that, English is not one language with the same rules and structures all the time. It has a variety of levels of usage appropriate to different contexts. (See “An appreciation of English: A language in motion” for some background.) It is as wrong to use formal locutions in a casual context as vice versa, for instance. And certain grammatical “errors” can be a good way to signal a casual, friendly context – don’t say it ain’t so.
More to the point, one thing I have never failed to observe is that anyone who is inclined to be hostile about other people’s grammar inevitably makes mistakes and has false beliefs about grammar. Often the very thing they’re ranting about they’re mistaken about (see “When an ‘error’ isn’t”). But beyond that, you can feel sure that they will get other things wrong even by the prescriptive standards they adhere to, be they idioms, points of grammatical agreement, or what have you. And you can feel entirely certain that they are utterly uneducated in linguistics, having false beliefs about, for instance, what is and isn’t a word.
Am I advocating an “anything goes” approach to grammar, whereby we toss out all the rules? Of course not. I’m a professional editor, after all. If you want to deliver a polished message, you want to make sure that it doesn’t have deviations that will distract or annoy people. There is a reason for having standards – we want to make sure we all have a point of reference so we can communicate with each other. But, again, the point of those standards is to serve communication, not the other way around. They are tools. They are not indicators of a person’s quality. An infraction of them causes no one injury.
And breaking grammatical rules is simply nowhere near as bad as being unspeakably rude to people about their use of grammar. Let it go, people. The English language is not being destroyed by people who make typos. The most damage that has been done to English has been done by people who appointed themselves its correctors.
Posted in editing, language and linguistics
Tagged English grammar, English spelling, proper English, standard English, Twitter
One of my fellow editors mentioned that she was taught, in the electronic publishing program she was in, that links to pages other than a website’s home page may infringe the website author’s moral rights because, depending on the design of the website, the viewer may not see the name of the author and perhaps may not see the ads that help pay for the site.
To me, this isn’t a moral rights issue. It’s a know-how-to-design-your-website-issue. If linking to internal pages infringes moral rights, after all, then Google is the most massive infringer of moral rights that has ever existed in all of human history. And guess what… Google is probably the number one way people will find your site. And unless every single keyword they’re ever likely to search for is represented on your home page (which would probably make an incredibly busy home page), you’ll actually be counting on internal pages to draw them. So you’d better design with that in mind. Continue reading
A colleague asked about a sentence similar to this one:
The aim is for each waffle and every pancake to taste as though they were made out of dreams.
The colleague at first wanted to change “they were” to “it was” but then had doubts: there’s an and, so it’s a compound subject and therefore plural, right?
Actually, no. Continue reading
Consider the case of a sentence such as the following:
I must agree with whomever wrote this.
Is that correct?
Nope. Continue reading
A colleague asked about a sentence similar to the following:
Implementing personnel policies is the only real delegation left to make, which requires involvement at all executive levels.
Let us accept, for the sake of argument, that the “which” clause is a nonrestrictive clause – i.e., that the comma belongs there (otherwise, take out the comma, replace which with that, and you have a coherent sentence – but one that implies that there may also be tasks left to undertake that don’t require involvement at all executive levels). The problem, then, is that it’s not clear what the which refers to. Continue reading
Posted in editing
Tagged danglers, editing, English grammar, grammar, referents, relative pronouns, syntax, which
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