The Right to Write Right.

…must be protected. Right?

Extra! Extra! A linguist slams the canonical college compendium of grammar and style advice. Read all about it.

Everyone knows that there are corners of their native language that cannot be explained. (Ok, ok… English speakers know this). We don’t try to make excuses, we simply accept these aberrations for what they are.

“It just sounds better that way.”
“Ummm… I’m not sure why it is, but it just is.”
“No. Just don’t say that.”

We average people have a wealth of literary experience upon which to build our rules of thumb, and they suit us just fine. But for a linguist, hand-waving and burble don’t cut it. Let’s have a moment of silence while we all pity the linguists, shall we?

…

So what happens when a linguist pits himself against the de facto wisdom of the crowds? This is an interesting case to look at. I love cases where someone goes against popular wisdom, especially overwhelming popular wisdom. Is our riled linguist friend, Geoffery K. Pullum, right? Ooh! Oooh! I know! Let’s answer the question by posing a false dichotomy!

A false dichotomy for the sake of simplicity and concision ;-P

There are two possible answers to this question:

1) Yes. He’s a linguist and he knows what he’s talking about.
2) No. If everybody else says Strunk & White is the salvation of the language then it must be.

The answer to #1 is a resounding, “Yes!” He is a linguist. He does know what he is talking about.  If he says that the book advocates lousy grammar, then it does. I’m far too lazy to learn more about grammar than he does, just in order to show him up over the internet. Instead, I’m going to say that he’s the head of linguistics at the University of Edinburgh (which he is) and leave it at that.

In short: #1, “Yes!”

The answer to #2 is a resounding, “Yes!” I’m sorry. If you find yourself saying “Everyone else is wrong.” you are wrong. I’m willing to make special exceptions (jumping off cliffs comes to mind), but certainly not in this case. Why? Because language is one of the few cases where everybody saying it actually does make it right. It’s true! It’s marvy. Fab. Far out. It rocks! It’s awesome! Even linguists grudgingly accept that D’oh! is acceptable and that thou art righte retarded shouldst thou thusly scribe.

Generally speaking, people make very few arbitrary decisions. There’s a reason for the way we act. Convoluted and twisted, perhaps, but it’s there. So if we’re all flocking to Strunk & White in droves (oh, and not just us… smart people too ;-P ), there has to (has to!) be a reason behind it. Maybe it’s that the bookstore is giving away a free ipod with every copy sold. Maybe a crazy old English professor has obtained nuclear weapons and is making demands from a hidden island stronghold. I don’t know.

If you want to ignore real, practical evidence, you’d better pony up a pretty good alternate explanation. Pullum can go shut up because, well… we said so.

In short: #2, “Yes!”

The Truth or What I Think

Umm…  I’m not sure about The Truth so I’ll just share What I Think.

I own a copy of Strunk & White. I’ve even looked at it. In the fleeting moments that I’ve flicked through it, it was helpful. I’m sure that it is chock full of lousy grammar. Ok. I won’t use it to teach myself grammar. I’m not particularly interested in grammar. As a programmer, I’m really quite con-grammar. ‘Grammar‘ to me means a set of rules that govern a language. It can be pretty ugly sometimes.

Much of what is found in Strunk & White is fuzzy, anyway. It’s not a grammar manual. It’s a writing manual. It’s hedged and it’s qualified and it works best as a rule of thumb (the kind the linguists hate, remember?). It falls along the lines of, “Never do this. Unless you should. Then you can.”

That’s perfectly okay. In fact, it’s better than okay. It’s fantastic!

If you hedge your advice well enough, it doesn’t matter whether or not it is right or wrong. It matters that it raises a question.

If Strunk says “Don’t split your infinitive, except when you should” and I, pouring over my draft, stop and ask for a second, “Should I split my infinitive here?” or even “What’s an infinitive? Is this one? Is it already split?” then Strunk has done his job. I’m going to let you in on a little secret…

I don’t need a hard rule. As a native English speaker, I know what sounds best. As an author, I know what is nearest my intent. I don’t need to be spoon-fed the right way…

I need a question to ask, so that I’ll try the other way and not just blindly plough ahead with the first words to fall from my pen.

If I ask the question, “Which is better?” I’ll probably be able to answer it. But I need to know the question, and I need to take the time to stop and ask.

Of course, grammar is valuable, because if you leave it behinde, soone language becometh a bariere to communication, and once your meaning beomes unclear, all your noble efforts will come to naught.

“Tarzan right wrong in jungle!”

“Yes, Tarzan! We’ll return to England immediately and arrange a tutor!”