Charles Moore talks in the Tellytubby giraffe about Henry Hitchens’ latest book. In so doing he enters into the fray that eternally surrounds the pronouncements the Grammar Police. In essence he disagrees with Hitchens who maintains that because language is fluid, evolving and constantly shifting like the sands on the tide, the Grammar Police are wrong.
He divides people who interest themselves in language into descriptivists and prescriptivists. The former observe how language actually is, and record its migrations, mating habits, habitat and so on, like birdwatchers. He approves of them. The latter say how language should be, and endeavour to make rules – even, sometimes, laws – about what is proper. Mr Hitchings hates the prescriptivists.
How he turns his sarcasm upon those who have tried to establish what is “correct”. How he excoriates the “grumblers, fault-finders, quibblers and mudslingers”. How gleefully he points out that those who try to regulate, elevate, preserve or purify the language are “really” acting out of political motives or expressing, in their various distastes, “a reaction that is pointedly social”, rather than linguistic. Grammatical martinets, he says, often know little about grammar, “But they like the idea of grammar because they see in its structures a model of how they would like society to be”.
I’m more inclined to Moore’s position and I’m a little of both; descriptive and prescriptive. There is room for a language to evolve and for erstwhile rules to be abandoned in the name of more fluid communication as well as the need for structure. Sure, the pernicious petty pickers who complain about every grating grocer’s apostrophe can be annoying (and, yes, I have been known to indulge, but only when someone has behaved in a manner that warrants it). However, as Moore points out, language needs structure despite Hitchens’ opprobrium. Hitchens’ knows enough about the rules, he says, to be able to break them. And those who love language will do just that for effect. Unfortunately, there are plenty who know nothing about the rules and as a consequence, don’t just break them, they present literature that is so far removed from structure or rules that it is rendered unintelligible, negating any meaningful communication. Only today, the Grim Reaper observes the phenomenon.
I’ve said it here before, on occasion, that basic attention to written language is important. The unintentional – and amusing – grocer’s apostrophe, misplaced comma (do that myself from time to time) or mangling the meanings of “their”, “there”, and “they’re”, are not things I take umbrage about, but they can make the reader pause while he disseminates the information. Our minds expect these rules as they are the road signs through the prose, leading us to the writer’s meaning. Little mistakes may delay the reader’s journey like a pothole in that road or a missed turning resulting in a quick three-point-turn or diversion to get back on track, but a collapse of structure, presentation of barely recognisable text-speak and a failure to make any attempt to create proper sentences, leave the reader wandering in the mist that shrouds the Dartmoor bog – drowning and none the wiser. It has to be said at this juncture that on the rare occasions I have tried to read the inane idiotic utterances of those who resort to text-speak, I wonder if there was a meaningful message or thought to begin with… Ahem.
So, on balance, Like Moore, I’m happy with starting sentences with a conjunction and I won’t jump down your throat if you make mistakes (unless, like my troll, you have already behaved like a complete dick, in which case, anything goes), but if you resort to the unintelligible text-speak, and unstructured misspelled garbage seen in the linked articles, then don’t expect any engagement.
Sits back and waits for deluge of text-speak…
I think you’ve stumbled into a false dichotomy here. The difference between descriptive and prescriptive is the difference between what language is, and what it should be, not between formal and formless. The descriptive approach does not preclude rules and conventions – without which, as you rightly point out, meaningful communication would be difficult or impossible – but it allows that those rules and conventions will change over time, and that such change is both inevitable and desirable. The prescriptivist will take the rules and conventions (usually called ‘grammar’, although it is far more than that) that were current at one point in time and demand that these rules are immutable, and that any deviation from them is ‘wrong’ or ‘bad’ usage. In the worst examples, people complain that splitting an infinitive is ‘wrong’ because Latin doesn’t allow it, and the Latin they learned at school was the ‘perfect’ language*.
Written communication that follows the conventions accurately will be easier to read, less susceptible to ambiguity, and therefore more effective. But we should not allow that observation to lead us to insist that all developments in language are retrograde steps.
You will notice that I am not disagreeing with your main point that effective communication demands some conventions, just like effective use of the roads requires a highway code. But to say that descriptivism is an ‘anything goes’ philosophy with a distaste for rules is a bit of a straw man argument. It isn’t. There are no laws, only usage. Language is the ultimate democracy.
* I try to avoid splitting infinitives because they often sound clumsy, but I challenge anyone to explain why ‘to boldly go’ is worse English, or less comprehensible, than the feeble ‘to go boldly’, or the awkward ‘boldly to go’.
Mmm, although I haven’t read the relevant book – I was taking Moore’s description of Hitchens’ comments rather than my own. I wouldn’t have necessarily put my own thoughts into pigeon-holes in the way Hitchens’ is described as doing. Maybe Hitchens is constructing the strawman or Moore is in inaccurately conveying his thoughts.
I’ll happily split infinitives if it reads more easily – which is why “to boldly go” works. Anything else is clumsy. And, to be fair, my natural writing style is informal with relaxed usage – I have even been criticised for dangling my participles…
I recall once being taken to task because I started a sentence in a letter with “And”. And, I frequently do. I tried to explain that modern usage is relaxed about it (we’re even allowed to dangle those participles) and that usage and grammar are not necessarily the same thing. An informal style may be appropriate. I was wasting my time.
What matters though, is that we have enough common understanding of those road maps to be able to understand each other.
Fk U
L0LLlzzzSS !!!X!
I’m sorry. It’s childish, I know, but I couldn’t resist.
Apostrophe and comma misuse isn’t too bad, and despite your/you’re and there/their/they’re all meaning different things context usually (ok, not always) lets you know which is actually meant. These are minor irritations compared to wading through 400 words without any paragraphs, capitalisation or full stops to let you know where sentences begin and end. If you look at the end and find it finishes with a row of exclamation marks and 1s with ‘LULZ’ or something in the middle then it probably isn’t worth even trying to wade through the rest.
I’m off to help my uncle jack off a horse now.
Maybe you should try harder? 😐
OMGZ YOU ARE TEH FASCIST I CAN TYPE ANY WAYZ THAT I WANTZ, WE MUST ALL GO TO COMPLAIN TO TEH OFCOM ABOUT THIS BLOG LOLZ!!!!!1!
I’ve seen this development a fair bit myself. I rememeber at the time in early January, I was writing some pieces saying the media were intruding into the private grief of Michaela MacAravey. I got a couple of emails there from people who disagreed with my view. Fair enough.
Those who typed their emails up sensibly and made valid points got a reply. Those who typed their emails without any punctuation or with endless incorrect spellings didn’t. It’s really not difficult to use spellcheck if in doubt, is it?
Absolutely the best one, though, was an email I received from someone who claimed an innocent commetn had gone into moderation. It had, as happens very occasionally. However, the email consisted of one sentence that was about as long as two of the paragraphs in this post.
Needless to say, he didn’t get a reply.
the diverse labguages of europe are an example of what happens when people start making up their own ruleS language is about communicatioN abiding by the same rules means we are able to communicatE if differing rules are allowed to develop. we over time end up with different langaugeS then we have difficulty understanding one anothER
my rule is no capitals at the start of sentence and to replace fullstops with a capital at the end of the sentencE when you need a comma. the full stop is now free to perform that functiON
the end of a paragraph is indicated by two caps at the end of the final word. so this way one needs only capitals and fullstoPS
‘To boldly go’ only sounds right because we’re used to hearing it. If you try a different adverb in there, it’s not so natural-sounding.
Language is an art as much as a science. The problem with sloppy and incorrect English is not that it fails the science test, but that it is ugly.
I’d say that’s a fair point. When we play with language and twist it into new shapes, we are artists rather than scientists.