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This week we’re joined by a special guest blogger. Patricia T. O’Conner, a former editor at The New York Times Book Review, is the author of the national best-seller Woe Is I: The Grammarphobe’s Guide to Better English in Plain English, as well as other books about language. She is a regular monthly guest on public radio station WNYC in New York. Learn more at her website, grammarphobia.com. Make her feel welcome!
When I think about the rules of grammar I sometimes recall the story—and it’s a true one—about a lecture given in the 1950s by an eminent British philosopher of language. He remarked that in some languages two negatives make a positive, but in no language do two positives make a negative. A voice from the back of the room piped up, “Yeah, yeah.”
Don’t we all sometimes feel like that voice from the back of the room? When some grammatical purist insists, for example, that the subject has to go before the verb, aren’t we tempted to reply, “Sez you!”?
English is not so much a human invention as it is a force of nature, one that endures and flourishes despite our best attempts to ruin it. And believe it or not, the real principles of English grammar—the ones that promote clarity and sense—weren’t invented by despots but have emerged from the nature of the language itself. And they actually make sense!
So when you think about the rules of grammar, try to think like that guy in the back of the room, and never be afraid to challenge what seems silly or useless. Because what seems silly or useless probably isn’t a real rule at all. It’s probably a misconception that grammarians have tried for years to correct. There are dozens of ersatz “rules” of English grammar. Let’s start with Public Enemy Number 1.
Myth #1: Don’t Split an Infinitive.
“Split” all you want, because this old superstition has never been legit. Writers of English have been doing it since the 1300s.
Where did the notion come from? We can blame Henry Alford, a 19th-century Latinist and Dean of Canterbury, for trying to criminalize the split infinitive. (Latin, by the way, is a recurring theme in the mythology of English grammar.) In 1864, Alford published a very popular grammar book, A Plea for the Queen’s English, in which he declared that to was part of the infinitive and that the parts were inseparable. (False on both counts.) He was probably influenced by the fact that the infinitive, the simplest form of a verb, is one word in Latin and thus can’t be split. So, for example, you shouldn’t put an adverb, like boldly, in the middle of the infinitive phrase to go—as in to boldly go. (Tell that to Gene Roddenberry!)
Grammarians began challenging Alford almost immediately. By the early 20th century, the most respected authorities on English (the linguist Otto Jespersen, the lexicographer Henry Fowler, the grammarian George O. Curme, and others) were vigorously debunking the split-infinitive myth, and explaining that “splitting” is not only acceptable but often preferable. Besides, you can’t really split an infinitive, since to is just a prepositional marker and not part of the infinitive itself. In fact, sometimes it’s not needed at all. In sentences like “She helped him to write,” or “Jack helped me to move,” the to could easily be dropped.
But against all reason, this notorious myth of English grammar lives on—in the public imagination if nowhere else.
This wasn’t the first time that the forces of Latinism had tried to graft Latin models of sentence structure onto English, a Germanic language. Read on.
Myth #2: Don’t End a Sentence With a Preposition.
An 18th-century Anglican bishop named Robert Lowth wrote the first popular grammar book to claim that a preposition didn’t belong at the end of a sentence (as in, What was this guy up to?). Others before him had made the same claim, notably the poet John Dryden.
This affectation, like the one about not “splitting” infinitives, proved popular with Latin-educated schoolmasters, probably because Latin sentences don’t end in prepositions. But the pedants were forgetting one small detail: English isn’t a Latinate language, it’s Germanic. And in Germanic languages, sentences routinely end in prepositions. Great English literature from Chaucer to Milton to Shakespeare to the King James version of the Bible is stuffed with these “terminal prepositions.”
Probably the word “preposition,” from the Latin for “position before,” suggested to pedagogues that a preposition must never come last. Be that as it may, Curme and Jespersen recognized the final preposition as natural and instinctive, and Fowler went further: “The legitimacy of the prepositional ending in literary English must be uncompromisingly maintained,” he wrote. Amen!
Myth #3: And Don’t Start a Sentence with a Conjunction.
We’ve all heard this one too, right? Does it make sense? No. And here’s why.
Conjunctions like and and but and or have been used to start English sentences since as far back as the 10th century. This feels natural because it is natural.
Over the years, some English teachers have enforced the notion that conjunctions should be used only to join elements within a sentence, not to join one sentence with another. But there’s never been any evidence for this belief. Modern grammarians have insisted for years that conjunctions are properly used to join words, phrases, clauses or sentences.
And don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.
Myth #4: None Is Always Singular.
This is nonesense. Though none can be singular, it’s much more likely to be plural, as Fowler and many others have pointed out. Why? Because we commonly use it to make a negative statement about all of the members of a class.
See which one sounds more reasonable to you: “None of the dogs bites” (singular), or “None of the dogs bite” (plural). See what I mean? Anyone who prefers the first sentence was probably taught (mistakenly) that none is derived etymologically from “not one” and always means “not one.” But authorities including the Oxford English Dictionary trace the origins of none to the Old English word nan (or nane), a pronoun that meant “not any of a number of things” and was commonly plural. It also appears in some Old English texts to mean “no people,” with the singular form expressed as “no one.”
Consequently, in most cases none is plural and takes a plural verb, as in “None of the windows are broken.”
None is singular only when it means “none of it”—that is, “no amount.” (“None of the glass is cracked.”) If you really do mean “not one,” it’s better to say “not one.”
Myth #5: Whose Can Only Refer to People.
One last hobgoblin. A great many educated people insist that we shouldn’t use the word whose to refer to an inanimate object. True believers would never say, “Don’t buy a car whose engine is shot.” They’d insist on “Don’t buy a car the engine of which is shot.” Please. This is not only a silly rule—it’s a damned awkward one.
This prohibition is a bigger lemon than the car. If you don’t believe it, check Fowler. The inanimate “whose,” he said, has history, common sense and convenience on its side. And the Oxford English Dictionary says that whose has been used for centuries as the genitive (or possessive) form of what as well as who.
The lesson here? The sillier rules of English grammar aren’t genuine rules at all, just misconceptions. When in doubt, go ahead and doubt! A little research may show that while English is a peculiar language, it’s not as peculiar as all that. If you’d like to know more about grammar myths, take a look at this page from my website.
Coming tomorrow: Debunking Etymological Myths. And on Friday, Pat will be answering your grammar questions. You can ask said questions in the comments.
I always thought the “rule” about not starting a sentence with a conjunction was originally aimed at young children, who have a difficult time with transitions. “We went to the mall. And we bought pants. And then I got ice cream. And it was vanilla. And it gave me a headache.”
But that doesn’t mean the rule is right.
posted by Mike on 5-5-2008 at 9:55 am
I have a general question. When is the semicolon appropriate??
posted by Leslie on 5-5-2008 at 10:07 am
Starting a sentence with ‘because’ is another myth that won’t die. It’s fine to do as long as it’s done properly.
posted by EV on 5-5-2008 at 10:18 am
Leslie’s question about the semicolon made me shudder. Someone asked me that question in an intervie for an English teaching post. I fluffed it and didn’t get the job! (There was another candidate who is perfect for the job, so it wasn’t JUST that question!!)
posted by Kim on 5-5-2008 at 10:36 am
Ending a sentence with a preposition is something up with which I will not put!
posted by Old Geezer on 5-5-2008 at 10:42 am
@ Leslie: A semicolon is used to join two independent clauses. In other words, if you’re joining two clauses that could each stand alone as a sentence, you use a semicolon. To borrow from Mike’s examples above, you could say, “I got vanilla ice cream at the mall; it gave me a headache.” This can be separated into two sentences that can stand on their own. You’d use a comma for something like “When I got vanilla ice cream at the mall, it gave me a headache.” Notice that “When I got vanilla ice cream at the mall” is incomplete and cannot stand on its own as a sentence, so you use a comma. Hope that helps!
posted by Ohne Hosen on 5-5-2008 at 10:43 am
I am pursuing an English degree at this moment. I hope my teachers agree with these rules, specifically ending a sentence with a preposition. I really have a hard time with it! If anyone has any pointers on how to avoid ending a sentence with a preposition, just in case, please feel free to share!
Leslie, something to add to Ohne’s comment. You do use it to join two independent clauses, but there is no conjunction!
posted by SongLee on 5-5-2008 at 11:14 am
All right…so there’s no good reason to not end a sentence in a preposition…but that doesn’t mean that I have to like hearing, “Where you at?”
Also, to go with Mike’s comment, can I still correct 6th graders who start every other sentence with “and”? It just gets awkward after a while and if it’s just prohibited in the first place, they won’t be quite so repetitive.
Oh yeah, and I’m thrilled to pieces to see a grammar column here on the _floss. Thank you!
posted by Fruppi on 5-5-2008 at 11:28 am
@ SongLee: I hold an English degree, and I can tell you that your teachers really should have no problem with you ending sentences with prepositions. If they do, I’d consider trying to avoid those teachers in the future.
As far as pointers, if you must: It’s usually easy to gracefully end sentences without prepositions. If you have to resort to the awkward construction of Old Geezer’s tongue-in-cheek example to avoid it, it’s better to go ahead and use a preposition to end the sentence and, if your teacher marks it for some reason, deal with it then. Presenting the alternative sentence as evidence would strengthen your case considerably.
Oh, and thank you. I had forgotten to mention that there is no conjunction used with a semicolon.
posted by Ohne Hosen on 5-5-2008 at 11:32 am
To add onto the other comments, I tend to only use a semi-colon when the two independent clauses are related. Otherwise, why not just use a period? =) For instance, “I got ice cream at the mall; I got a headache.” This makes sense because getting a headache is directly related to having gotten an ice cream. I don’t know if this is a rule, but I wouldn’t use a semi-colon for two seemingly unrelated independent clauses such as, “I got an ice cream at the mall; my dog is so cute!”
posted by CK on 5-5-2008 at 11:35 am
I wrote my college application on the art of writing the college application essay. The following line made me a minor legend amongst state university admissions staff:
It is during the “polishing” stage that most students will look up the proper use of semicolons; this is a good idea so long as the usage does not look forced or contrived.
Yes, that was the only semicolon used in the essay.
posted by JustSmileAndNod on 5-5-2008 at 12:08 pm
Loved the grammar blog today and look forward to more!
I deal with job postings all day and employers who write such sentences for requirements as:
“High School diploma or equivalent and previous experience as a welder is a plus.”
I could scream! I think I count three or four grammatical errors in that one sentence alone.
My question is, do they teach English at all any more in High School?
posted by WizardBoy on 5-5-2008 at 12:13 pm
Patricia: I really appreciated the idea of English (easily extended to human language on the whole) is more like a force of nature than an invention. To extend: it doesn’t have rules like football, but rather tendencies, patterns and predictable behaviors like, say, a thunderstorm.
I’ve been fighting all of these prohibitions since grade school, because I could pretty much tell they were silly. It took until linguistics courses in college to have real ammunition when countering them. But still, good luck with a real hard line “grammar” teacher (or worse, former grammar teacher, like my boss!) If we stopped focusing on these silly misconceptions so much in schools, we could spend more time actually teaching useful information about language and how awesome it is. Why did they stop teaching how to diagram sentences? What an awesome exploration of language structure that is!
PS - Can we look forward to a discussion of the singular they this week?
posted by s michael c on 5-5-2008 at 12:22 pm
Although I hated these rules when I was younger, they actually helped out as I was working on my BA in English by forcing me to become more creative with my sentence structure.
One prof in particular pushed my writing skills by having a rather long set of rules we had to follow when writing papers. Annoying as they were, they helped to become a better writer. I even managed to write a 3 page essay without using the word “and” once (the prof claims the only reason to use “and” is when listing).
While I do break these rules in my writing, I do so fairly sparingly and only when it fits the flow of writing. I feel it better to try my hand at new and unusual sentence structures.
posted by nutmeag on 5-5-2008 at 12:34 pm
The problem with “Where’s it at?” isn’t ending with a preposition, but the fact that the preposition is completely unnecessary. “Where is it?” is a complete sentence. It doesn’t need the at.
I hear “Where’s it at?” commonly used as the argument for not ending with a preposition but, while it is a bad sentence, that’s not the reason it’s wrong.
posted by Eggbeater on 5-5-2008 at 12:39 pm
On split infinitives, you reminded me of the Lenny Bruce routine: ” ‘To’ is a preposition; ‘come’ is a verb.”
posted by David H. on 5-5-2008 at 4:14 pm
I’m a middle school Language Arts teacher and a writer in my spare time. I’ve always believed in teaching students the grammar rules (such as not beginning a sentence with a preposition), even if many style guides now consider them “optional”. When students find examples in books and magazines of writers not following the rules, I tell them that they have to learn it the RIGHT way before they can choose whether to write it the WRONG way.
posted by Chrome on 5-5-2008 at 4:25 pm
I remember as a little elementary schooler being told to never ever start a sentence with “because”, “but”, “if”, “and”, or any other conjunction. Then in middle school, my teacher taught us how to do it properly, and it blew my mind. I still can’t bring myself to start a new sentence with “and” because it just seems wrong. I would either combine the sentence with the previous one for a compound sentence using a comma with “and” or use a semi-colon. Some say I overuse semi-colons; I disagree (I freely admit to my superflous use of parenthetical asides, however.).
Also, I’d like to thank you for the example of an infinitive. Before I saw the example, I had no idea what an infinitive was. I’ve been told it’s okay to split them, but no one ever bothered to tell me what one was, and I was always a little afraid to ask.
posted by S on 5-5-2008 at 4:53 pm
I am working with a language arts teacher that focuses on writing. I have always been of the opinon that children should learn grammar rules and then work on their writing. Her point of view is to push writing and teach grammar in the polishing stages. At first I could not see it, but I have to admit I am coming around to her POV.
Most schools seem to focus on grammar first, writing second, but I’m beginning to think it should be the other way around.
posted by Karen on 5-5-2008 at 5:03 pm
I’m reminded of a Kurt vonnegut line, something to the effect of “Semicolons are worthless. All they do is show that you went to college.”
posted by Jimmy James on 5-5-2008 at 5:26 pm
I really enjoyed this post.
Thanks! I’m looking forward to more.
posted by Eileen on 5-5-2008 at 5:48 pm
It always warms my little heart, when reading a post such as this, to see how much enthusiasm there is for grammar. What a contrast from my youth!
SongLee, when I was pursuing my English degree (which, I’m happy to add, I completed with unequivocal success), grammar rules seemed far less important than they were in my earlier years. Maybe that’s because most people majoring in English have learned the rules well enough that professors are able to concentrate on loftier topics.
S michael c, I join you in bemoaning the neglect of sentence diagramming. Yes, it is a very good exercise that leads to a deeper understanding of how our language works. The most fun I had with diagramming (and that’s saying a lot!) was in a linguistics course in college.
posted by Therese on 5-5-2008 at 7:10 pm
I heard that the double negative reply was “Yeah, right.” Scans better.
How about an old joke? An American is standing at an London bus stop, an Englishman approaches: “What’s up?”, says the Yank. The Pom replies, “Sir, in my country we do not end a sentence with a preposition.” “Okay”, says the Yank, “What’s up… jerk?”
posted by arch on 5-5-2008 at 7:55 pm
My favorite sentence ending with multiple prepositions is when a parent brought the wrong book upstairs to read to his son and the little boy asked, “What did you bring the book I didn’t want you to read out of up for?”
posted by PartiallyDeflected on 5-5-2008 at 10:55 pm
Great article. I’ve always felt bad because I’m of the generation that was never taught grammar, and thus, have a horrid inferiority complex about it. Sometimes, just “feeling” it doesn’t work.
I have a question to ask: How is the word “namely” used?
For instance, would this sentence be correct? –> There are two types of people, namely happy and sad.
Or does it work like “includes”, where the examples cited must be less than the number that exist?
posted by Anna on 5-6-2008 at 12:50 am
Great article. I’ve always felt bad because I’m of the generation that was never taught grammar, and thus, have a horrid inferiority complex about it. Sometimes, just “feeling” it doesn’t work.
posted by Josly on 5-6-2008 at 1:12 am
If I may add another caveat to the use of semicolons, in addition to the excellent explanations that have gone before, it would be that the two independent clauses need to be fairly short. Otherwise, you are better off creating two sentences. Semicolons are best used when you have two short, closely related complete statements that you want to express in one sentence.
posted by Jen on 5-6-2008 at 8:28 am
When is it ok or better to use a dash?
posted by Brea on 5-6-2008 at 8:53 am