Actually, this column is NOT about s’mores, and I’m not going to apologize about that because who would read a column titled “Grammar”? Well, likely Danielle Buckley would, but still.
Anyway, grammar is as delicious to me as s’mores, and as messy and as community-nourishing (pun intended).
For some reason everyone has now forgotten, grammar has become a punitive class. I mean that ever since Robert Lowth published a very stern and omniscient grammar book in 1762, grammar teachers (and their obedient students) have been following its dictates blindly.
Already, this column will be making grammar-minders nervous and furious (future progressive tense used to indicate irony). Their minds are sharpening arguments: “But rules are important!” “I learned when I was in Mrs. Periwinkle’s grammar class in 19-aught-8 that you can NEVER split an infinitive!” “Only an uncivilized person ends sentences with prepositions!”
Well. Rules are important, but communication is more important. Who says we can’t split infinitives? Who decreed that we can’t end sentences with prepositions? If doing so helps us communicate better, why can’t we split those infinitives and find prepositions to end sentences with?
Is “being correct” the same as communicating?
Isn’t communicating that glorious process that hungers for, yes, both talking and listening? And also, shouldn’t a grammar class invite students to question why there are so many curious, seemingly illogical “rules” in English? And isn’t it easier to teach a rule as don’t-question-it-it’s-a-grammar-law than to explore a linguistic conundrum with students? (For example, why is the plural of “ox” not “oxes”? One “fox” turns into two “foxes,” while “one “ox” turns into two “oxen”?)
Jesus is always saying that love does not ride the back of legalism; love soars on the wings of mercy. Yes, there are certain guidelines to help us learn how to be merciful, and we can read about them in the Bible and ponder them in our souls. We don’t pray and struggle to become merciful so that we can show someone else how “right” we are. Similarly, we don’t study grammar in order to “correct” (with a certain imperious tone) others’ grammar.
Why do we study grammar then?
That reminds me. I love learning new things about my husband, Sean. We’ve been married twenty years now, and yet there is always something new about him that I don’t know, never knew. And I don’t watch Sean and study him because I want to learn how to win arguments against him, the way some study grammar in order to be “right.” (What’s that about?) I study my husband so that we can be more intimate, can communicate better, yes, can commune with each other, till death do us part.
Such a long view of grammar makes that rule—”DON’T SPLIT INFINITIVES”—look just plain silly. If splitting an infinitive makes the sentence sound better and makes the sense of that sentence clearer, why split that “to go”? Or, as Captain Kirk says at the beginning of Star Trek episodes:
Space . . . the Final Frontier. These are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise. Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before.
To boldly go. “To boldly go,” not “to go boldly”—one of these phrases obviously sounds bolder, and it ain’t the one without the split infinitive.
One of the early grammar-book-writers’ hangups was that they wanted English grammar to reach the state of “perfection” that they saw in Latin grammar. In Latin an infinitive is one word; you can’t ever split it. So that “law” was applied (in a really willy-nilly fashion) to English grammar.
Also, shouldn’t sense and sound determine where those tiny, innocuous, important, and gluey parts of speech called prepositions reside in a sentence? And don’t you love choosing deliberately to use the coordinating conjunction “and” to start a sentence? Writers of the English language have found this initial “and” useful since, well, Alfred burned his cakes (and before). That would be way before 1000 A.D.
Winston Churchill is said to have rejected the grammar rule that requires us not to end sentences with prepositions, reportedly saying, “This is the sort of nonsense up with which I will not put.”
University of Georgia professor John Algeo puts it best in his Origins and Development of the English Language:
All these supposed “errors” [split infinitives, prepositions skulking at the ends of sentences, the singular "their," etc.] have been committed time and again by eminent writers and speakers, so that one wonders how those who condemn them know that they are bad. . . . [T]here are standards of usage, but . . . standards must be based on the usage of speakers and writers of generally acknowledged excellence—quite a different thing from a subservience to the mandates of badly informed “authorities” who are guided by their own prejudices. . . . To talk about “correctness” implies that there is some abstract, absolute standard by which words and grammar can be judged; something is either “correct” or “incorrect”—and that’s all there is to that. But the facts of language are not so clean-cut. (Wadsworth/Cengage Learning, 2009, 6th edition, p. 12)
Look at Jane Austen’s writing. She is a master. Yet she uses “they” (also “their,” “them,” and “themselves”) to refer to a singular antecedent. Mrs. Bennet says in Pride and Prejudice, “But everybody is to judge for themselves, and the Lucases are a very good sort of girls, I assure you. It is a pity they are not handsome!”
Rules can be taught without anyone’s having to ask, “Why do we do that this way?” while teaching and studying grammar as an art is much, much more difficult and infinitely more rewarding. If we become intimate with grammar, we learn to love words and to communicate better, which makes us happier human beings.
There are countless determined and caring teachers in all educational settings who approach the joy of grammar from the point-of-view that learning about this subject will help their students grow as communicators.
I wish the Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary of English Usage: The complete guide to problems of confused or disputed usage were as popular as, say, Lady Gaga. Every time I crack that book open I go gaga over the treasures and mysteries it contains.
Look up “ain’t” in it sometime and see what a curious and convoluted history this small but controversial word has had through the ages. Sometimes it has been considered standard English and at other times it has been kept outside the circle of linguistic warmth and usage. It gets the cold shoulder today but is often used purposefully and emphatically by speakers and writers of English. (Or is “purposely” called for there instead of “purposefully”? We could look up this nuance of meaning in that glorious usage dictionary.)
I wish all speakers of English would embrace grammar, not as a do-or-don’t subject, but as the gateway to the limitless mess and unlimited joy of communicating with each other. I don’t wear a stern grammar collar because I hope students will want to take Advanced Grammar so that we can learn together about the wonders of the English language.
And then there is that eye-opening book by Martin Joos: The Five Clocks. Joos shows the importance of audience and how it influences speakers and writers. To a wedding, I wear formal clothes, while to a picnic, I wear shorts. Clothes run the gamut from formal to informal, while language has different registers, too.
If an author is submitting a piece to The New York Times, he or she will use the best, liveliest, most interesting, and most standard English possible.
But, standing in front of one hundred cross-legged and squirming first, second, and third graders at a local elementary school, talking about writing, I never think to say something as formal as this sure-to-turn-their-ears-off statement: “Today I’m going to talk about the language with which we all speak and write.”
Remember what Professor John Keating (played by Robin Williams) says in Dead Poets Society? Remember this exchange from the movie?
John Keating: Language was developed for one endeavor, and that is—Mr. Anderson? Come on, are you a man or an amoeba? *Pause.* Mr. Perry?
Neil: To communicate.
John Keating: No! To woo women!
When the “rules” of grammar become “guidelines” for better communication, we are getting somewhere.
No grammar is perfect, anyway, but we labor (teach and study) under the assumption that grammar can be perfect. John Algeo often said in Advanced Grammar class: “All grammars leak.” He also liked to say that studying the grammar of the English language was a little like making tiger soup: “First, you must catch the tiger.”
Language is spoken by human beings. Human beings are notoriously (and wonderfully) changeable. Therefore, language is always changing.
All students of the history of the English language are well aware that these grammar “rules” (”guidelines”) change with the passing of time (and with the passing of speakers). “It don’t” was once considered standard English, used by the most educated speakers in merry old EnglandAlso, and the earliest (Old) English used no punctuation marks to speak of.
I wish to make a plea that we teach (and learn) grammar while embracing its joy, its mysteries, its fun, its leaks, its mess, and its deliciousness, never forgetting that we study grammar in order to learn to talk with (not at) each other and to enjoy learning to love each other better.
If we can link loving, delving into grammar’s intricacies, and eating s’mores, who wouldn’t want to enroll in a grammar course?
We could call the class: Graham-mar.
This is the MOST delicious column I have read in a long time. And I like to think of the word between the split infinitive as the chocolate and marshmallow melted between the grahams! I mean, maybe it’s not a proper meal, but it sure does taste good. Love you!
This is a wonderful column, Carmen. I must confess I am a rule-abider, which means I have sometimes chosen the grammatically-correct sentence over the aesthetically pleasing one. Shame on me! This is the sort of nonsense up with which I will no longer put.
I love how words and their usage gets all mixed up with culture. Then we have to come in an “contextualize” something so we can communicate.
Ex. Our pastor planned a “watermelon bust” for summer. I asked him to just say we would eat watermelon but he did the publicity his way. We found out yesterday one of our staff members thought we were going to throw watermelons off the building and bust them. Pastor couldn’t believe it. I laughed to myself. I always think of my Grandma saying “rurnt” instead of “ruined.” I prefer her word.