Writing well (for the rest of us): No Grammar. No Rules. Just Common Sense. (7 page)

I wrote this book because something has been nagging at me
for years: the often bad use of English online, in social media (Facebook,
etc.) and emails. So, I decided to write a simple book to help others.

People who make grammatical mistakes often have no idea why
they make mistakes, and may bristle at correction.

I’m not interested in “correcting” people. I’m interested in
helping people write better, so that they can become a more integral part of
the community.

This book was written to help the majority, and there is
much more that I could add (and might in subsequent editions). However, I’ve
purposely kept the text of this little book very simple. I’ve even put the
credits in the back, as opposed to footnoting throughout the text (very
distracting).

However, for the more adventurous, I’ve opened up a bit here
and discuss some of what I’ve written about in this text. I’m also breaking my
earlier rule of only talking at the level of a 15-year old.  

Grammar
I was fortunate, many years ago, to read a book called
The New Grammar
,
by L. Ron Hubbard. This book is a little-known but fascinating discussion of
the subject of grammar, and includes a new and sensible grammar for the English language.
The book (and its companion,
Small Common Words Defined
) also has all
sorts of additional tidbits that I drew upon in this book, such as the
re-inclusion of the article as a part of speech (lost in many grammars); the
Indo-European roots of the language; the fact that grammar describes what has
happened in language, as opposed to creating rules for what should be (the
“descriptive” vs. “prescriptive” approach); and the imitative development of
language (called “onomatopoeia”). 

Much of my inspiration and general ideas about grammar I
credit from Hubbard’s work. While better known for founding a religion, his
studies on teaching, grammar and education have spawned a movement; and an
organization,
Applied Scholastics
, has been created to
promote his educational philosophy through a non-religious approach. I highly
recommend picking up a copy of The New Grammar for any unanswered questions.
It’s the best (and simplest) grammar book I’ve found.

Grammar Police
My mention of Latin grammarians shoehorning English into Latin rules is not
just idle talk. The Oxford Words blog refers to this group as “Latin-obsessed
17th century introverts”
[3]
.

And, from the dreaded Wikipedia:

“The first English grammar,
Pamphlet for Grammar
by William Bullokar, written with the seeming
goal of demonstrating that English was quite as rule-bound as Latin, was published in 1586. Bullokar's grammar was faithfully modeled on William Lily's
Latin grammar,
Rudimenta Grammatices
(1534). Lily's grammar was being
used in schools in England at that time, having been "prescribed" for
them in 1542 by Henry VIII. Although Bullokar wrote his grammar in English and
used a "reformed spelling system" of his own invention, many English
grammars, for much of the century after Bullokar's effort, were to be written
in Latin; this was especially so for books whose authors were aiming to be
scholarly. Christopher Cooper's
Grammatica Linguæ Anglicanæ
(1685) was
the last English grammar written in Latin.

The yoke of Latin grammar writing bore down oppressively on much of the early history of English grammars. Any attempt by one author to assert an independent grammatical rule for
English was quickly followed by equal avowals by others of truth of the
corresponding Latin-based equivalent. Even as late as the early 19th century,
Lindley Murray, the author of one of the most widely used grammars of the day,
was having to cite "grammatical authorities" to bolster the claim
that grammatical cases in English are different from those in Ancient Greek or
Latin.”
[4]

Rational linguists view language through
use
(descriptive). A rules-based method (prescriptive) method of viewing the
language is bound to fail. English is an open language with a potpourri of
influences, and it will continue to evolve.

The reality is that grammar is descriptive, not prescriptive, no matter how much grammarians want to fight against an evolving
language.

To wit, the French have the Académie française, a national
body given the task of keeping the French language pure. In its effort to force
continued purity on the language, some asinine decisions have been made – as my
friend David Newberger points out – few more infamous than banning the use of
the word “computer.” instead forcing the French to use “ordinateur.” which is a
big desktop calculator.

I don’t mean to imply that rules aren’t needed; there would
be no way of learning the correct, current use of the language (and this is
especially important in teaching English to foreign language students). There
have to be rules, but there must also be a recognition of the natural evolution
of the language. As Adrian Williams points out:

“If we look at history, the English language has transformed from a language that demonstrated ‘grammatical gender’
to a language that demonstrates ‘natural gender’. In Old English, gender was
normally marked on all parts of language including noun, adjective,
demonstrative and pronoun. But the gender attached to a noun was quite randomly
assigned which resulted to a language system of grammatical gender that really
had no methodical relationship between biological gender and the gender that
marked a linguistic object. In the Old English, the word ‘hand’ was assigned a
male gender while ‘pride’ was given a female gender and the word ‘body’ was
given a neutral gender. As the English language evolved in due course, genders
were no longer used to mark nouns, with some prominent exceptions like the use
of ‘man’ and ‘-ess’ in words that refer to specific professions (milkman,
fireman for both men and women, actress for a female actor and waitress for a
female waiter).”
[5]

To quote linguist Jean Aitchieson:

“In brief, the puristic attitude
towards language – the idea that there is an absolute standard of correctness
that should be maintained – has its origin in a natural nostalgic tendency,
supplemented and intensified by social pressures. It is illogical, and
impossible to pin down to any firm base. Purists behave as if there was a
vintage year when language achieved a measure of excellence which we should all
strive to maintain. In fact, there never was such a year. The language of
Chaucer’s or Shakespeare’s time was not better or no worse than that of our own
– just different.”
[6]

The Middle English of Chaucer was just that – the English of
Chaucer. It was not better or worse than the English we speak today, although
it was vastly different than modern English.

It evolved.

Indo-European
 language
This chart shows the theorized spread of the Indo-European language:

(Credit to Dbachmann)
[7]

The theory that all major European and Indo-Iranian
languages came from a common ancestor is well established in Linguistics,
although the exact nature of the original diaspora continues to researched and
debated.

Needless to say, the prevailing thought is that there was an
original group of dialects in the region of the Caucuses (modern southeastern
Russia, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Armenia) or Anatolia (Turkey), and that several
waves of migrations both east and west created the basis of the languages we
know today.

To quote William Harris:

“Most of the ancient and modern
languages of Europe belong to a family of languages which is called by modern
scholars "Indo-European" and their study falls within the range of
research known as Historical Linguistics. It was first noticed by Sir William
Jones, a linguistically minded employee of the British East India Company in
the late l8th century as he began private lessons in Sanskrit, that most of the
languages of Europe bore a strong resemblances to each other in basic, primary
vocabulary. These languages furthermore seemed connected structurally with the
ancient Sanskrit which he was learning.”
[8]

I won’t exhaust the issue, when frankly, there are better
qualified authors easily found through some rapid internet searches.

The imitative creation of language (onomatopoeia
)
The theory of the use onomatopoeia as a developing agent for language is
widely discussed in a number of works. The theory’s ultimate veracity, however,
will probably never be determined, and it continues to be debated among
scholars.

It’s interesting, for example, to note that
chicken
,
hen
and
rooster
all have the same onomatopoeic root:

“An originally onomatopoetic term
for 'chicken', 'hen', or 'rooster', derived from *k
^h
erk
^h
-,
is attested in a number of Indo-European dialects. Its dialect distribution
gives reason to consider it Proto-Indo-European: Skt.
krka-vriku-
'rooster',
Avest.
kahrka-
'hen', Pehl.
kark
'hen',
Pers.
kark
'chicken', 'hen', Gk.
kerkos
'rooster', MIr.
cercc
'brood hen';
Toch. B
krariko
'rooster'. In its onomatopoetic character this word can
be compared with innovated forms meaning 'rooster' in separate recent branches,
based on words meaning `sing', 'cry': Lat.
gallus
'rooster' (cf. OCS
glastu
'voice', Russ.
golos
); Goth.
hana
'rooster', OHG
hano
'rooster' (Ger. Hahn), OE
henn
'hen' (Engl. hen),…”
[9]

Darwin also had some thoughts on the subject:

“The child who was just beginning
to speak called a duck ‘quack’ and by special association it also called water
‘quack’. By an appreciation of the resemblance of qualities it next extended
the term ‘quack’ to denote all birds and insects on the one hand and all fluid
substances on the other. Lastly, by a still more delicate appreciation of
resemblance the child eventually called all coins ‘quack’ because on the back
of a French sou [money] it had once seen the representation of an eagle. Hence
to the child the sign ‘quack’ from having originally had a very specialized
meaning became more and more extended in its significance until it now seems to
designate such apparently different objects as ‘fly’, ‘wine’, and ‘coin’.”
[10]

I leave it up to your own spirit of curiosity to delve into
it further. The theory is valid, at least in my view.

On the “earthiness
” of English
English is more visceral, earthy language, a fact pointed out by Henry
Hitchings in his delightful book,
The Secret Life of Words.
I quote:

“Often we have three terms for the
same thing – one Anglo-Saxon, one French, and one clearly absorbed from Latin or Greek. The Anglo-Saxon word is typically a neutral one; the French word
connotes sophistication; and the Latin or Greek word, learnt from a written
text rather than from human contact, is comparatively abstract and conveys a
more scientific notion. Consider, for example, the verbs rise,
mount and ascend, or go, depart and exit. In each case, the first word has an
Anglo-Saxon source and is informal, the second is French and comparatively
formal, while the third is Latin and suggests something more specialized or
technical. A more extreme example is fire, flame and conflagration; another,
holy, sacred, consecrated.”
[11]

On the perceived incorrect usage of “myself
.”
etc.
It’s interesting that “incorrect usages” of the “selfies” have been in use
by reputable authors for a long time in English. As a reference, I quote this
article from Slate Magazine’s blog:

“You seem like a better version of
myself.

I just want to be myself.

I haven't seen any myself.

I myself haven't
seen any.

Myself, I haven't seen any.

You would even say that to me
myself?

There are two others here besides
myself.

He asked William and myself to do it.

He was a man as big as myself.

Myself, as director here, will cut
the ribbon.

William and myself will
be there.

Myself and William will be there.

I asked myself what
I could do.

I directed all inquiries to myself.”

The author continues: “…all of the above examples have been
in common use in English for as long as there has been an English language
(written records go back 1,500 years)… But not all of them are considered
acceptable in formal usage by everyone today.”
[12]