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by Ransom Riggs
1. It was good enough for Caesar
When he wasn’t lording over the Gauls, Julius Caesar wrote essays on grammar. As a result, high-ranking officials began to view good grammar as a status symbol and used it to keep out the riffraff. Those at the bottom of society studied it to get a leg up.
2. It Gave Rise to Glamour (really!)
In the Middle Ages, grammar was considered the most important of the seven liberal arts because it provided the key to understanding the Bible, alchemy, and astrology—subjects that conferred a kind of magical power, or glamour. Yes, “glamour” is derived from “grammar.”
3. Compared to Latin style guides, the AP version’s a joke
The most influential Latin grammar book in history was an 18-volume (18-volume!) anthology called Institutionis Grammaticae. Written by 6th-century scholar Priscian, the series enshrined Latin as the standard by which all other languages were to be measured. For hundreds of years, scholars snubbed Italian as Latin’s bastard son, until the poet Dante took a stand in the 14th century. He wrote The Inferno in Italian—not Latin—and consigned Priscian to the sixth ring of hell.
4. Our laws don’t all make sense
In the 18th century, the first upwardly mobile professionals happily shelled out for guidebooks on linguistic politeness, and many authors happily wrote them. Trouble was, Latin was still considered the grammar gold standard, so authors applied Latin rules to English, despite the fact that English is a Germanic language. This misunderstanding (and scholarly sloppiness) led to various grammatical rules that still haunt the language today. For instance, don’t end a sentence with a preposition, don’t split an infinitive, and don’t use double negatives. While the first two rules have been decriminalized, the last is still a major offense.
Ed. note: This section was excerpted from Vol 7, Issue 1 of mental_floss. Be sure to pick up copies here.
Comments (20)
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I heart grammar!
posted by Orange on 7-25-2008 at 4:19 pm
I now understand why you can’t put entire posts in Google Reader. But why is what is in my Reader entirely different that what is on this page?
posted by Morgan on 7-25-2008 at 4:29 pm
i vote this title BEST TITLE EVER
posted by weeble warble on 7-26-2008 at 1:04 am
I had a teacher, sophomore year, that made us repeat over and over again “I love grammar. Grammar is my friend.”
posted by Adriane on 7-26-2008 at 1:46 am
Major points to you for using the Asterix image!!! I’m a huge fan of Asterix comics, where they continuously made plays on grammar and word usage for the names and jokes in the stories. Awesome article!
posted by Stacy on 7-26-2008 at 2:33 am
Haha, I agree with weeble. I saw this headline on my Gmail news feed, and I think it made my day.
posted by Jodi on 7-26-2008 at 5:57 pm
Orange beat me to the punch. I also heart grammar.
posted by august on 7-26-2008 at 9:07 pm
When I start teaching English, I’m going to give these fun facts to my students before a grammar lesson!
posted by Kimberly on 8-1-2009 at 11:27 am
Kimberly, if you are looking for lesson plans check out the brilliant Nerdcore artist Schaffer The Darklord’s song “The Way You Talk”. The link in my name will take you to a site that you can hear the whole song. I almost died of a nerdgasm when I saw him live in concert doing this song. My favorite line in the song is when he is ranting about the three different forms of the word pronounced “there” that concludes “They’re in there with their bear. There! I said it!”
Thanks for posting this Ransom.
posted by Cynthia on 8-1-2009 at 12:52 pm
I love this title. I, too, heart grammar.
posted by Megan on 8-1-2009 at 3:47 pm
Too Legit To Split (Infinitives)
posted by PartiallyDeflected on 8-1-2009 at 4:55 pm
It might be too late. Grammar and spelling, are ded.
posted by Evan on 8-1-2009 at 9:55 pm
Alas, poor Grammar, we knew you well. When children are submitting important essays with lack of respect for even the most basic of English spelling and grammar, the world as we know it has ceased to exist.
posted by Nerdfury on 8-1-2009 at 10:09 pm
Big, guilty confession: Even though I’m an English teacher, I’m barely on speaking terms with grammar.
I blame this on the fact that I’m of the generation that decided grammar was an unnecessary evil and espoused “meaning” over it. Translation? I couldn’t tell you what a oblique pronoun does if my life depended on it. And it does. On a daily basis. I just tell my students to study the usage of words and forget memorizing rules.
It’s worked so far.
posted by Anna on 8-2-2009 at 9:49 am
I think the title should be a new mental floss shirt please! I would def buy one!
posted by Julia on 8-2-2009 at 10:51 pm
Ever since I read The Mother Tongue by Bill Bryson, I’ve taken great pleasure in splitting infinitives and using prepositions to end sentences with. These two rules apparently were arbitrary applications of Latin grammatical rules. For example, infinitives were not to be split because you couldn’t split them in Latin. Well duh, in Latin they’re one word (e.g. portare = to carry). As for double negatives, I do make a point of teaching that to my sixth graders. Most of them are second language learners, and it helps to sound more fluent. Yeah, yeah, we all know that other languages use them.
posted by davevanfunk on 8-3-2009 at 2:04 am
[...] a particular type of geek, but Mental Floss is pretty much your catch all for liberal arts nerds. Their blog is thoroughly entertaining and educational which is both wonderful and rare on the [...]
posted by Grammar is for lovers | WordInk on 8-3-2009 at 9:45 am
@ cynthia: “nerdgasm” – I love it
@ julia, I second! that would make a fantastic shirt!
recaptcha: Sandra shakes
My recaptcha is a grammatically correct complete sentence!
posted by Hastings on 8-3-2009 at 10:09 am
I third the motion to make “Stop! Grammer Time” into a t-shirt! Good grammar is so pleasing to the ears…
recaptcha: Dr. Earphone. So fitting.
posted by Ophelia on 8-3-2009 at 12:20 pm
@Stacy–Thank you for catching the Asterix reference. I knew it looked familiar but couldn’t remember why. My dad had a few of those books when I was a kid, and I found three more at a library sale. I couldn’t bring myself to give them to him until I’d had time to read them.
posted by Ailsa on 8-3-2009 at 2:58 pm