Back in the Founder’s day, there wasn’t a really systemic grammar system as there is now.  Nor consistent spelling.  The world, even for a relatively small place like England (or its colonies) wasn’t hooked up enough to hold a standard handbook’s worth of grammar knowledge in the collective working public.

Roberts sounds like someone with a shadow psychiatric disorder.  That stuff sounds pretty pathological.

Roberts’ pedantry and arrogance is part and parcel of why he fucked things up so badly with that oath: he tried to memorize it and messed it up!

Let’s just call it a learning moment, shall we?

The opening lines of Star Trek must leave him foaming at the mouth: “to boldly go where no man has gone before…”

Worst part: William Safire still has his half-baked “On Language” column.  Pinker could easily replace him, for the betterment of the world.

Shah, you’re right about spelling, but not so much about grammar.  The myth about splitting infinitives goes back centuries (read Pinker’s column for reference), but the Founders ignored it for the same reason pretty much everyone who prefers clarity and rhythm over pedantry ignores it—-it sounds stupid to move the adverb around.  And if your sentence has any complexity at all, sometimes it makes it hard to write the adverb at all, because it interferes with clarity.  Anyway, the myth was out there, because it goes back to an era when you had to have a grounding in Latin to be considered educated.

Hey, Amanda, Safire gets credit for one thing: years and years ago, he came out in favor of split infinitives. I always had a slight spot for him after that.

I was living in Germany when the German language underwent top-down “reform” of its spelling. It created total chaos and even now, roughly a decade later, lots of people still use the old standards. The result was ironically *less* uniformity, not more. So count me on the side of letting language organically develop, and using rules sensibly rather than pedantically.

Now that you’re found the perfect job for Pinker, can we launch a re-employment program for Bill Kristol, too?

I don’t really see people dropping the serial comma, unless they’re really unpracticed writers.  I think reading “how to write” manuals like Strunk & White’s is probably good for you, but the best way to be a good writer is…..to read and write a lot.  A lot.  Then you begin to see what kind of choices clarify and what choices confuse.

Or, you end up like me and write over-burdened sentences, hit “publish” and then think, shit, I should edit that.

Except none of it is true. Pinker invented a “split auxiliary” rule analogous to the split infinitive rule in his attempt to bash conservatives as uptight squares. The text of the oath is not “to faithfully execute” as you said in your post. It’s “that I will faithfully execute.” There’s no infinitive to split.

If Roberts had a problem with “faithfully” splitting “will execute,” why didn’t he have a similar problem with the opening of the oath, which says “I do solemnly swear”? By Pinker’s estimation, Roberts would have preferred “I do swear solemnly.”

As for the Dylan lyrics, Dylan’s own website of the lyrics doesn’t have “ain’t” in the line.
http://www.bobdylan.com/#/songs/rolling-stone

Pinker’s argument was dismantled by Lawrence Auster here: http://www.amnation.com/vfr/archives/012371.html

Pinker does language better than evo-psych debunking? Really? Remind me to never pay attention to either.

Speaking is another thing which tends to clarify. I get used to typing, and forget the connection with speaking. Some things look good on the screen, but sound confusing when spoken. The best writers usually sound good when read out loud.

Awesome, random.  Way to prove the post.

I’m a loud, proud, self-confessed grammar nazi, and even I am in favor of the split infinitive. In many languages (at least the ones I’m familiar with), you cannot split an infinitive because the infinitive is one word, not two. In other languages, the infinitive as we know it doesn’t exist because verbs are conjugated around roots that cannot be used meaningfully in an unconjugated form. But in English, you can split the infinitive, and in many cases, IT JUST SOUNDS BETTER. There’s always a balance between the rules of the written language and the conventions of the spoken language, and no amount of fascism will prevent a language from changing and evolving. And language is richer for it.

Or as Winston Churchill (supposedly, perhaps apocryphally) said: Ending a sentence with a preposition is something up with which I will not put.

Linguist speaking here: while Pinker’s point about prescriptivist grammar is totally correct (rules such as no splitting infinitives and no prepositions at the end of sentences are bogus and not real), this isn’t the correct explanation for Roberts’ screw-up.  The reason he messed up in that when you introduce deliberate pauses into a sentence it’s very easy to confuse constituency of elements in that sentence, whether your a prescriptivist grammarian or not.  Unfortunately, almost nothing Pinker says is of any value.

New job for Kristol, using his talents: Hmmm, I don’t know.  Do you think he could pour soft drinks without screwing it up?

And I can confirm that if the Founders had enabled comments, they would have got an earful. I’m a newspaper reporter, so I write a lot and what I write is read by a broad audience, including, apparently, every retired English teacher in the metro area.

Last week, I made a stupid error. I wrote “bares no ill will,” instead of “bears no ill will.” Hey, even grammar nazis have their off days. I fucked up. I should have known better. I do know better. But it happened. Mistakes were made. No one caught it and fixed it. Not my desk editor. Not the copy desk. When I came in the next day, I had not one, but two, irrate phone calls from women who were practically hyper-ventilating over it. One actually told me I needed to find a new line of work if my understanding of the language was so poor. And those were just the ones who were upset enough to pick up the phone.

I talked it over with a copy editor friend of mine, and we decided that if you squint and look at it sideways, you can make “bares no ill will” make sense. As in, the person in question actually has ill will but is not revealing or exposing it. Yeah, that’s what I meant.

Pinker calls it bone-headed analogy to Latin, and he’s totally right. It’s true that you can’t split the Latin infinitive, but you can split certain other forms such as the perfect passive (dictus est); and let me tell you, Roman writers never saw a split auxiliary they didn’t like.

...problem with “faithfully” splitting “will execute,” why didn’t he have a similar problem with the opening of the oath, which says “I do solemnly swear”? By Pinker’s estimation…

ZZZZZZzzzzzzZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…......

I think you’re a little unfair to randomizer there, Amanda.  You write: “John Roberts is a grammar nazi/language pedant of the highest order,” citing Pinker’s column as your evidence.  But, as you yourself point out, Pinker is a clown.  I’ve met John Roberts and despise pretty much everything about him, but one thing he isn’t is a prescriptivist.

I don’t really see people dropping the serial comma, unless they’re really unpracticed writers.

Newspaper style is to not use the last comma - the one before the conjunction. I don’t know why, but that’s what we do. So I sometimes drop it out of habit, not ignorance.

Language will always change- it always has. Look at the differences among the writings of Chaucer, Shakespeare, Austen, and Hurston. However, what all those writers have in common is clarity and coherence. They actually know how to write a sentence. Having taught both high school and college, I have come to the inescapable conclusion that the sad truth is that the vast majority of Americans do not know how to write a sentence; never mind a paragraph/essay. Of the couple of thousand of students I have taught over the years, I will estimate that maybe 10 have answered me correctly when I ask what are the two things absolutely necessary to make a sentence: subject and verb. Every class I have taught I start the class with an introduction to the sentence and the paragraph and the essay.

The writings I have received over the years would simply astonish you- and not in a good way.

Don’t even get me started on their inability to understand the difference between there/their or to/too/two or your/you’re or its/it’s…

Spelling? hahahahahahaha….

chingona said:

I wrote “bares no ill will,” instead of “bears no ill will.”

You fell prey to what may have been an eggcorn, motivated by homophony. Well do I remember my puzzlement at the word “dopephine” until I realized it was meant to be “dope fiend” transmogrified to look like “morphine”. It… makes sense! Much like the meaning of “tow the line” (pull in the same direction as everyone else on your side) has become easier to visualize than the original “toe the line” (stay within the bounds established for your side), with little practical change in the usability conditions of the expression. By such processes and a multitude of others does language change proceed.

On Pinker: he’s good at explaining a certain type of linguistics (“The language instinct” remains his best pop book; “Language learnability and language development” his best linguistics achievement). This stuff about prescription is pretty marginal.

I have always disputed the belief that ain’t is not a valid word.  Written properly, it would be amn’t, a contraction for am not.  I imagine it started this way then through use became ain’t.  I like it and use it, albeit judiciously.

Roberts, being a judge, is by definition a word and grammar wonk.

I’ve listened in court during our hearings to overturn Ontario’s ‘pit bull’ ban (speaking of words without meaning).  Arguments, many of them long and convoluted over ‘receivable’ versus ‘acceptable’, ‘may’ versus ‘shall’, ‘includes’ versus ‘means’ are what it’s all about.  Word wonks in full flight.

However, quotes should not be altered.  If Roberts is that uptight, he should just put [sic] after any offending words or constructions since these snippets are not important to the law, which is nothing but a framework of words and their meanings.

OK! Fuck it!  It is possible to prefer NOT splitting your infinitives and still believe that all humans are entitled to equal rights.  Roberts is an ass for editing Bob Dylan not b/c “ain’t” isn’t formal English, but b/c he did so to be an asshole.  If I were reading to my kids, I’d explain idiom and tell them “ain’t” is only to be used when we’re “talkin’ Southern”.  If I were quoting Dylan or paraphrasing Dylan?  I’d leave his words the fuck alone.  Editing Dylan is arrogance—editing anyone’s verse is.  Roberts was being disrespectful and trying to hide behind the robes of Proper English.

My sainted grandfather, born in OK before it was a state, was a feminist.  He taught me not to split my infinitives.  That does not make me a nazi.  Although it does make me a pedant at times.

You know why I really hate splitting infinitives?  B/c it makes people lazy.

About 1983 things really went to hell.  All the talking heads started pronouncing the “t” in “often” (no, it’s silent, really, you can look up the pronunciations before 1983 and not find one with a “t” in it) and thereabouts and for a while afterward it was cool to say you wanted “to NOT do” something.  It culminated around 1989 with the “NOT” phase.  “Sure I’ll help you jump your car.  NOT!”

It was a language fad at first, but it’s just like NewSpeak.  Why have two words when one can do?  Why “good” and “bad” and not “good” and “ungood?  Let’s just toss “not” in the middle and ditch a bunch of other words.”

People who use negatives in the middle of an infinitive are generally not doing so for emphasis.  They are doing so b/c they don’t have or no longer have the vocabulary to use the appropriate negative verb.

Language is cool.  Rules have reasons, but except for the most formal of writing, they can be picked and sorted.  If I were writing a paper or a business letter, I’d never split an infinitive nor end in a preposition.  In a post?  Sure.  We’re talking conversationally for the most part.  We start sentences with “And” and “but” etc.  b/c we’re having a conversation.

When you split an infinitive in formal writing, such as a business letter, it can stop the reader, and then your point will be lost.  If your reader stops and thinks about grammar instead of your point, you really lose.

Even in a post there’s a limit to what people can take.  We have a troll that I’m convinced misspells on purpose, or at least one of its sockpuppeteers does.  A misspelling here or there is okay.  Even the best speller can have a typo.  But a post chock full of them?  Unacceptable.  The reader is too busy trying to decipher what is being said to think about the point of what is being said.

I love how people claim that the internet is the death of spelling and grammar.  Really?  Maybe in YouTube comments, but even in apolitical sites like TWOP, grammar and capitalization are required.

Newspaper style is to not use the last comma - the one before the conjunction. I don’t know why, but that’s what we do.

Newspaper style sucks, grammar-wise.  It drops the last comma and misspells words like “kidnapping” in order to save space.  Words are rarely hyphenated correctly, if at all anymore.  They just stop at the end of a line, wherever that may be, and no matter if the next line is only a few words long and proper hyphenation wouldn’t have made any difference in the number of lines required.

Splitting that infinitive up there?  Really would sound better with a negative verb. 

“Newspaper style is to drop/abandon/disregard/discard/dump/withhold/deny/forsake/cede the last comma.”  See?  So many more layers of meaning available if you just use the proper word instead of tossing a “not” in there.

Newspaper style is to not use the last comma - the one before the conjunction. I don’t know why, but that’s what we do.

According to one story I’ve heard, it was to save on commas in the days of moveable type. Who knows if that’s really true. It might be one of those antique-tech myths, like the QWERTY keyboard being designed to slow down typing (if you click the link, be sure to read the second half).

We don’t suck. We just have our own rules.

There is nothing the language police hate more than a vibrant, living language.  They will not be satisfied until English is as dead as Latin.

When I came in the next day, I had not one, but two, irrate phone calls from women who were practically hyper-ventilating over it.

I honestly have to wonder if there’s like a small trip in the brain that makes the people who get so upset about it that way.  Because the most I could imagine devoting to that error would be to point it out to a friend and assume exactly what you said—everyone missed it, probably because certain spelling errors are easy to miss because they sound right in your head.  Which is understandable, and certainly nothing to go apeshit about.  But then you have people that do.  What’s wrong with them?  I really don’t get it, and have to wonder if it’s like this minor chemical imbalance that otherwise doesn’t cause them any problems.  Sort of like how some people have minor, mostly undiagnosed OCD problems where they hyperventilate if you move a pencil on their desks.  Maybe they deserve our compassion instead of just getting annoyed.

Caveat:

The difference between may and shall in a law is crucial to a lawyer (actually, it should be crucial to anyone who loves language) because the sentence: “I may hit Sal.” is in stark contrast to the sentence: “I shall hit Sal.”. In one sentence, there is possibility (may) and the other denotes certainty (shall). In law, a statute that reads   “...  therefore, the Court may impose a sentence of x years…” is totally different from one that reads “... the Court shall impose a sentence of x years…”. It is the distinction between judicial discretion and judicial mandate. I have won cases on such distinctions.

Having taught both high school and college, I have come to the inescapable conclusion that the sad truth is that the vast majority of Americans do not know how to write a sentence; never mind a paragraph/essay. Of the couple of thousand of students I have taught over the years, I will estimate that maybe 10 have answered me correctly when I ask what are the two things absolutely necessary to make a sentence: subject and verb.

And yet I bet they compose most of their spoken sentences with subjects and verbs, because grammar is second nature.  If people can’t write, it’s because they don’t read and write enough.  I think that language pedants make this problem worse—-by hammering it home to kids that writing is this impenetrable art with all these arcane rules that you’ll never learn, you only make them believe they shouldn’t even try.

I have always disputed the belief that ain’t is not a valid word.  Written properly, it would be amn’t, a contraction for am not.  I imagine it started this way then through use became ain’t.

It’s a perfectly cromulant word.

Current theory is that the word “An’t”, which appeared at the end of the 17th century used for both “am not” and “are not”, was a variant of the London dialect’s “han’t”/“hain’t” for “have not” or “has not”. In the early 19th century the Cockney dialect started using “ain’t” as a more generic contraction (“is not”, “has not”, etc.) which was picked up on by Dickens who used it to help identify lower class and/or ignorant speakers which is how it came to be banished from proper English.

Sort of like how some people have minor, mostly undiagnosed OCD problems ...

The penguin always faces south!!

Actually, what’s really funny is I should have been more embarrassed over the bares/bears thing, but I just laughed and played the messages on speaker phone for my colleagues and went on with my day. But a few years back, when I got a friendly, informational e-mail telling me I used further when I should have used farther, I felt really bad. I do know the difference, and employing the correct one is the kind of thing that makes a grammar nazi swell with pride.

I didn’t like Pinker’s column. I ain’t no prescriptivist, and I am going to gleefully split all the infinitives I feel like splitting. I think it’s more likely that Roberts either had a Freudian slip, or just fell victim to a bit of stage fright.

I think that language pedants make this problem worse—-by hammering it home to kids that writing is this impenetrable art with all these arcane rules that you’ll never learn, you only make them believe they shouldn’t even try.

Bullshit.  Kids are taught to start writing before they can spell these days.  It’s really cool to see a 4 y/o write a sentence—>she’s got the grammar there; she’s “repeating” what she would say aloud.  The spelling?  Found and invented. 

There’s a time and place for learning to spell, and it’s a separate skill from writing.

Now the 3rd grader.  Brilliant, but a pain in the ass b/c he won’t capitalize the first word of a sentence and won’t put spaces between his words!  Ugh.  I feel so much for his teacher.  He’s learning cursive, which we’re hoping will fix some of the legibility problems.  But there’s really no other option than “to hammer” the rules into his head, b/c right now he just doesn’t care enough to do it on his own.

Learning punctuation doesn’t mean having your creative spirit stifled.  The original “Electric Company” did it with songs and Victor Borge (and despite the idiots who have ‘reimagined’ it as something completely different, my kids find the original cool and fun—though they are scandalized that Bill Cosby is actually smoking a cigar.)

Without punctuation, spaces between words, and capitalization, written language is difficult to decipher.  Do you want people to pay attention to your ideas?  Or do you want them working hard to figure out what you’re writing?

We need the rules.

No, Amanda, most of them do not speak correctly or intelligently. They cannot give an oral presentation that is coherent or concrete. They cannot detail the reasoning behind their thinking- they merely speak; as if speaking is all they need to do to get their point across.

Of course, we do have to differentiate between fiction writing and non-fiction writing. When I teach creative writing, I make it clear that anything goes; that you don’t need to have a sentence when you write creatively. eecummings is a perfect example or Dylan or Rich or Wallace Stevens. Poetry is the perfect vehicle to show students how free writing can be. Unfortunately, too many times students are not exposed to poetry or to creative writing because of the stupid no child left behind rules.

I am firmly convinced that what students need today is a true liberal arts education with exposure to all things and the learning of not ‘what’ to think but ‘how’ to think; how to attack problems and examine issues and how to talk/write about those issues in a clear, coherent, and concrete manner. And they need to see the joy in being creative; along with the freedom to do so.

But teaching a student how to write a persuasive essay requires the teaching of simple rules. And really, the only ones I teach are sentence structure, paragraph structure, and essay structure. On the creative side they are free to break the rules and encouraged to do so. But to break rules, you may need to know them.

Yes, Caliban, I know the words have very different meanings.  I get it.

I was just using examples to show how important words can be, especially to lawyers and judges.  The other examples I used also highlight words with very different meanings.

I agree that being as exact as possible is important but how many people would notice things like that, or even care if they did notice them?  That was really my point.

I guess I have a chemical imbalance or something because when I read published material (as opposed to casual correspondence or comments such as these) it grates on my nerves, big-time, that someone used it’s for its, or travesty for tragedy, or loose for lose, or ‘there’s lots of cars for sale on our lot’, or….

Caveat: I feel the same way about published stuff. I hate when the comma is dropped before and. I still remember to this day my grammar school teacher telling me how important it was and using the example of the company that ordered one hundred cases each of corn, beans, peas and carrots and had to return the hundred cases of peas and carrots because they really wanted one hundred cases of corn,, beans, peas, and carrots. It always brings a smile to my face.

Must be that imbalance:)

I wasn’t really talking about split infinitives.  I was simply remarking that there was a diversity of ways English was structured, depending where and who you were, and there wasn’t an analogue to the Texas School Board back then.  This diversity didn’t happen *just* to spelling.  There were both dictionaries and grammar books back then, but they didn’t have the standardizing influence (during the Revolutionary Era) that they did later on—especially in the sense that all classes of people spoke by the same rules.

And yup, I used lots of NOTs.  Sue me, grammar nazis—and I’ll sic an Oxford lawyer on your asses!

And what’s with the nazification, anyways?  Nazis were evil, not hardcore.  Shouldn’t it be grammar marines?  Or grammar SEALS?  Or how about grammar nuns?

No, I think grammar-nuns has a ring to it.  Nunchucking ruler-throwing black-clad disciples of a hardcore order!

Oughta make a movie…

/me pops some ritalin…

I honestly have to wonder if there’s like a small trip in the brain that makes the people who get so upset about it that way

When I see a mistake like that in a publication I just chuckle, especially if it’s an authoritative source like The New York Times.  But I’m also a copyeditor so I realize that these things just happen, despite everyone’s best efforts.  My worst slip-up was letting “public” without the “l” get published.  Oops.

David Foster Wallace had a great article (a review of the latest Webster’s dictionary, actually) on descriptivist vs. prescriptivist positions on English usage. Worth a look.

Wallace’s perspective might be especially valuable here because his politics are liberal but his sympathies about usage tend to prescriptivism. This is not the usual order of things—liberals/“progressives” tend to support extreme descriptivists like Pinker (Amanda’s position is entirely typical and predictable here), conservatives tend to be prescriptivists.

For purely practical reasons, I think it’s within everyone’s interest to know and be able to use SWE - Standard Written English (even a liberal form that dispenses with the more arbitrary/silly rules like the one about split infinitives—which is the go-to example for anti-prescriptivists. Btw only the snottiest and most obtuse prescriptivists cling to this rule anymore.) Even though, yes, it is originally the language of privilege and power (i.e., of white Christian men), and continues to be so.

“But I’m also a copyeditor so I realize that these things just happen, despite everyone’s best efforts.”

They do. Last month “led” went out as “lead” three times in my flagship publication. With budgets contracting, copyeditors are often the first to go. As the layers of edit are reduced and the time available to devote to copyediting declines, the quality of formal writing in publications will diminish.

I’m usually very gentle corrector. When I write a writer about muddled homophones or fractured idioms I almost always say, “I know your copyeditor should have caught this, but…”

However, I can get testy. Sorry about the other day Amanda, but “pit in my stomach” is a particularly pet peeve because of the person I know who uses it regularly.

Shouldn’t it be grammar marines?  Or grammar SEALS?  Or how about grammar nuns?

You’re closer to the mark on that one than you might even realize, Shah. A lot of these bogus grammar “rules” are established because Mrs. Prunelips terrorized children with them in the fourth grade, and those kids grew up to be slightly neurotic on the subject.

There even was a book, titled something like “Mrs. Prunelips’ Bugaboos,” devoted to that proposition, although I’m getting the title all wrong. It was the same concept, but it didn’t use “Prunelips” nor, I think, “Bugaboos.” Anyone out there with a better memory than mine?

by hammering it home to kids that writing is this impenetrable art with all these arcane rules that you’ll never learn, you only make them believe they shouldn’t even try.

That’s not what it hammers home at all. What it hammers home is that “if you work hard and remember these things, you can come across as the most seasoned of professionals.” Getting spelling and grammar correct is about the easiest thing you will ever have to deal with in your life—all you have to do is spend time on it, and it’s something that sticks with you for the rest of your life. Otherwise, you end up like Matthew Yglesias—smart and talented but ultimately baffoonish because of his inability to spell and proofread. It’s the rest of writing that’s hard and doesn’t have any easy rules that you can just memorize.

Don’t even get me started on their inability to understand the difference between there/their or to/too/two or your/you’re or its/it’s…

As far as I’m concerned, you can go ahead and split your infinitives and dangle your participles (though in the latter case, make sure the object of the participle is in the accusative in formal writing), but if you can’t get your/you’re, its/it’s, there/their, or to/too/two correct, then you are screwing up in a big way and don’t understand the words you’re using.

Shouldn’t it be grammar marines?  Or grammar SEALS?  Or how about grammar nuns?

As long has it’s not “Grammar Nazi’s,” we’re cool.

Yes, I do, in fact, now realize there are some spelling errors in my above post.

@ keshmeshi ... Yes, the words “pubic relations” have appeared underneath my byline.

I feel about grammar nazis the way I feel about people who hyperventilate when they hear a foreign language being spoken in their presence.

The title just came to me. It’s Mrs. Thistlebottom’s Hobgoblins by Theodore M. Bernstein.

I’m someone who has a very difficult time handling my various types of agreements, like pronouns so I know I can’t really write without the help of either lots of time (it’s a nasty attention thing) or copyediting help.  I sometimes use certain words repetitively.  Sometimes I don’t spell correctly, and this is before the whole get ideas across clearly aspect of writing.  So I don’t blog. 

However, it does fucking bug me that Matt Yglesias doesn’t bother to check his work well.  To me it’s apparent that he does this out of sloppiness, and I see lots of sloppiness in his ideas as well.

Which is when the lack of adherence to standard english really hurts him.  Not only in expressing clear ideas, but his disdain for the labor that I, and many other people, have to put into reading what he sez smarts sometimes.  Of course, he is widely read, but that has more to the retail value of his ideaspace and newaggregation/gossip than what he writes.  So I wonder if he only percieves blogging as a step into the wider world of DC insiderism.

On a different note, WHY are kids today so stupid? Are they really stupider than we were? In my reading, it seems to me that kids 150 years ago were smarter than today, easily learning to write complex essays and having only 9 weeks of schooling a year.

Seriously, is it environmental pollution, like heavy metals? I think it must be something like that.

What it means to be smart changes, because what idiocy the world punishes you most for changes as well.  People are mostly unchanging in the terms of time alloted to us.

Or you could say Flynn Effect.  In Reverse, if you like.

KMTb: Kids are appallingly *ignorant*. But most of them are not *stupid*—or their stupidity is not from anything physical or congenital, but a habit ingrained by ignorance perpetuated (and encouraged and celebrated).

I don’t know the historical statistics on the number of Americans in 1909 who had any education beyond the ninth grade (someone can enlighten us I’m sure), but I suspect it was quite a bit lower than today. So if you’re impressed by documents that suggest that high school graduates had to meet some pretty impressive standards, weigh that against the small number of people who could conceivably actually have met those standards. (Assuming I’m right about the numbers.)

I’ve read that in the teens of the last century, no more than 20% of the US population went to college of any sort. Some can claim (with some justice) that this is still true—the rest only think they’re getting a college education (when they bother to think).

Bitter Scribe,

“Mrs. Prunelips’ Bugaboos” is a much better title then “Mrs. Thistlebottom’s Hobgoblins”
If the author ever write a sequel, you should suggest it

I’m with Tyro. Poor writing grates on my nerves, and I don’t buy the rationale that it’s somehow “elitist” or overly fussy to expect people to communicate well in writing. (Although, yes, a hyperventilating rant over an eggcorn in print is a little much. And, yes, I’m aware the previous “sentence” in this parenthetical is actually a sentence fragment.)

I don’t think children are more stupid than they used to be; I agree with Wapsie that they’re more ignorant. The anti-intellectualism of our culture in general is the root of it, although in the last 30 years and especially the last eight the problem has gotten much worse. I would like to see kids taught once again to diagram sentences; I think that would help them develop a better feel for how to write coherently. Reading a lot did that for me, but not every child is going to be a voracious reader.

By the way, does anybody else enjoy Language Log?

”So if you’re impressed by documents that suggest that high school graduates had to meet some pretty impressive standards, weigh that against the small number of people who could conceivably actually have met those standards”

Not only that, but the standards just aren’t that impressive when you look at them

One of the NYC dailies ran an editorial lamented a few years ago the NY students had to name every single Civil War general from the state and what commands they held
Sounds like an impressive level of historical education until you see that this was in 1885, those generals were their fathers commanders and were currently mayors, judges and governors, etc

Readers Digest once published some 19th cen grade school test questions crowing about how education standards were sow much better in the good ole days (before integration presumably). But when you looked at the questions, the math involved was incredibly simple and only looked hard because how many pecks in a bushel or how many rods in a furlong is no longer common knowledge

I’ve read that in the teens of the last century, no more than 20% of the US population went to college of any sort. Some can claim (with some justice) that this is still true—the rest only think they’re getting a college education (when they bother to think).

If you mean the 19th century….20% is a bit too high of a figure during a period when a college education was considered the exclusive preserve of the socio-economically privileged and/or the intellectually gifted (i.e. Top 5-10% of high school graduates…and those figures may be too generous). 

Unless my impressions of 19th century American life are mistaken, most schoolchildren didn’t even have the chance to attend; much less graduate high school due to lack of available high schools in many areas and the overwhelming pressure on kids from middle and working classes to start working ASAP. 

As for whether current high school/college students are “less intelligent” than their 19th century/early 20th century counterparts, I believe that’s an apples/oranges comparison because the student body profiles would be quite different as a result of the factors outlined above along with some confounding factors such as the much wider usage of legacy admissions and racist/classist quotas in college admissions, especially in the Ivy league/level schools*.  IMHO, whether the college/high school students of yesteryear were “smarter” than their current counterparts is quite debatable. 

* Though many would assume this meant college students in the past were far smarter than their current counterparts….those past practices meant many intellectually gifted students were unjustly denied access while far more undeserving mediocre/marginal intelligent scions from well-connected socio-economically privileged families were admitted than would be the case today.

I had primarily taught in high school college before I got sick with ms and now I am subbing in my new state of Tenn.. Now, Tennessee has one of the worst reputations of any state in the nation- only 7 out of 10 graduate hs and only 2 of 10 go on to college and their test scores are horrible. But for most of this year I have been subbing in the k-8 realm and I have found that the kids here are, indeed, as smart as any I have seen around. But something is happening to them in on the way to hs. When I get to teach hs, the kids have lost their desire and interest in learning. They are closed. I really don’t know why.

I was teaching first grade and this girl (who is in special ed. in title one reading) came up with a brilliant question about math. We were working on the simple addition of one digit numbers. She suddenly remarked to me that 2 plus 8 is the same as 8 plus 2. That is a staggering concept that many people never fully understand- numbers are the same wherever you put them and the order is irrelevant. They are language dependent. This led me to introduce simple algebra of a plus b = c is the same as b plus a =c. We began to play around with the numbers and they got it. All because a little girl had a wonderful insight.

I was just digesting that thought while reading a book about numbers, art, and music called ‘Godell, Escher, and Bach’. In that book the author is explaining (among other things) how math is a creation of language; just as art and music make us create language for them in order to try to understand them. And this little girl who has trouble reading comes along and intuitively gets ‘it’. The look on her face when I told her she was brilliant and was so far ahead of even grown-ups is what I teach for.

To say I was blown away is an understatement. How I hope she becomes a brilliant mathematician.

Of those whose shorts were in a bunch about moving “faithfully” in the oath, I’ve seen none who had anything to say about Roberts deciding on his own to append “so help me God”—which isn’t in the Constitution either.

I don’t see using proper English as a snob thing at all.  We all make mistakes, we all have eccentricities, the language is fluid enough to allow for lots of creativity.

To me, nothing is more irritating than tripping over mistakes - homonyms, spelling errors, typos,  incomplete sentences, etc.  This isn’t because I’m a snob - I’m not.  It’s because it shows a lack of respect for the reader and it forces me to pause to replace each error with the correction.  This makes me resentful, in a small way, towards the writer.  They seem careless and inconsiderate and lose credibility with each blunder.

If that’s what people want to convey in news articles and blog posts, fine.

I want people to be able to read what I write and to get the feeling that I care enough about THEM to do my best, no matter how imperfect that will be in the end.

As for the Oxford comma, I can never decide whether I like it or not but I suppose it’s best to use it if there’s any chance that the meaning could be unclear without it.  I had never heard Caliban’s peas and carrots story but it’s a good one.

No, I think grammar-nuns has a ring to it.  Nunchucking ruler-throwing black-clad disciples of a hardcore order!
Oughta make a movie…

I’d PAY to see that movie!

And, shah8, I think your aggravation toward Yglesias has to do with the fact that he has his own blog.  It’s not like he’s just sitting here and quickly commenting on a post within a small text block—he’s actually writing an essay, and he ought to be doing that in Word or some other writing program. 

The fact that he just slops it up there is annoying.  I think there is a difference in formality—even in the casual setting of a blog—to the official post and the follow ups.  He should take the time to do it right.  That said, his blog; his rules.

To say I was blown away is an understatement. How I hope she becomes a brilliant mathematician.

Caliban

I’ve always enjoyed that kind of mathematical thinking as well. It’s low-level and simple, but it is philosophical as well. I think that when children start to think in that sort of way, they start to become more interested and more creative. Thank you for following up on that girl’s insight, I’m sure your students appreciate it!

Thanks atheist…
Part of me just wanted to take her in my arms and leave the small, rural kind-of backward area we live in and hop the next flight to Seattle; go to Microsoft and say, hey Bill, this is your future. Give her the best education you can buy; she can be our next Newton:)

caliban: I’ve been a college instructor in state institutions for about a dozen years, and my suspicion has always been that students pretty much stopped learning around puberty, making high school a complete waste of time from an academic standpoint. That is, your avg. state-university freshman writes, reads, and reasons at a level one should reasonably expect of an avg. 7th-grader.

Which makes sense, since our culture frames reading as something we encourage (officially) in young children almost exclusively. There is no cultural encouragement for adolescents to read or have intellectual curiosity of any kind. (There’s a niche for the science/computer geek, I suppose, but that is a compromised position at best.)

Put me down for two requests:

1.  Get rid of the prohibition against ending a sentence with a preposition.  Sometimes it’s just the best way to end one.  “Errant pedantry up with with which I will not put,” as Churchill said.

2.  For the love of all that is holy, it needs to become acceptable to use the preposition ‘they’ in a gender-neutral singular context.  His/her, he/she, she/he, s/he, are all just frigging ANNOYING, as well as being unwieldy.  You all know that I’m talking about one person when I say something like: “A person should be able to marry anyone they choose.”

In 4th grade I was taught that you should include a comma before the ‘and’ in a series.  Obviously, I’m in the minority because it seems most people omit the comma before the ‘and’.  I still think I’m right.  For example:  “I like tuna, egg salad, and peanut butter sandwiches.”  That sentence makes more sense than “I like tuna, egg salad and peanut butter sandwiches.”  In the first sentence, the comma before the ‘and’ makes it clear that I’m talking about separate things.  In the latter, it’s not so clear.

DonnaDiva: with respect to #2, you can defend the use of the “singular they” as a feature of English that has been around for centuries. It’s not my favorite construction in the world, but I put it in the same category as not using the correct case for objects of a dangling preposition: close enough for most purposes.

Oh god, of course, by ‘preposition’ I meant ‘pronoun’ in my previous post. 

The shame.

Wapsie: Your point supports what I have been saying for years: college today is really high school in disguise.
DonnaDiva: so right; see my post above on peas and carrots….I thank gawd that the nuns at my school beat into me the proper use of a comma in a string of things; my knuckles still hurt…

Well shit, I had no idea that what Mrs. Ristan taught me in 4th grade had the hifalutin name of Oxford Comma.  And I’ve been using it all these years.

In 4th grade I was taught that you should include a comma before the ‘and’ in a series.  Obviously, I’m in the minority because it seems most people omit the comma before the ‘and’.  I still think I’m right.  For example:  “I like tuna, egg salad, and peanut butter sandwiches.” That sentence makes more sense than “I like tuna, egg salad and peanut butter sandwiches.” In the first sentence, the comma before the ‘and’ makes it clear that I’m talking about separate things.  In the latter, it’s not so clear.

I was taught to use a comma before the ‘and’ in a series as well.  Despite hearing more comments from some Profs and colleagues about how unnecessary it is, I prefer to use that “extra comma” to clarify each discrete item on the list. 

Wapsie: Your point supports what I have been saying for years: college today is really high school in disguise.

Though older friends and Profs who attended college during the ‘50s and 60’s often liked to assert their superiority in relation to us “young’uns”, they also admitted that their nearly exclusive “sit down, shut up, and listen to Prof/instructor lecture/drone on for 50-120+ minutes” did little to facilitate the educational process they were supposedly undergoing. 

Those descriptions of their ‘50’s/‘60’s era college educations sounded very similar….and in some cases, worse than my experiences from first grade till the end of high school. 

For the love of all that is holy, it needs to become acceptable to use the preposition ‘they’ in a gender-neutral singular context.

I will thank the Almighty Disco Ball and the Great Cat when the singular “they” becomes acceptable in legal writing.  Sadly, this will not happen until a Justice of the Supreme Court does it*, and it’ll still be suspect until a Chief Justice does it.

*Two scenarios come to mind: The first, the most plausible one, is that the clerks whose Justice gets to write the opinion convince their Justice to use the singular ‘they’.  The other is a case in which one of the primary parties does not identify as either gender and the Justices can’t decide which constructed gender-neutral singular pronoun to use for them, or if they want to formally endorse the party’s choices.  (I figure that if the SCOTUS chooses a set, that’s it, debate’s over, call the Oxford English Dictionary.)

I use the non gendered singular ‘they’. I used to use ‘one’, but it sounds so damn stilted in English—the French ‘on’ is different than ‘un/une’, so they don’t have the same issue. Once I found out the history of ‘they’ as singular (thanks, Pandagonians), I felt I could justify it to anyone who questioned it.

And as for not ending sentences with prepositions, how did that rule ever get started? It just doesn’t suit English at all. We have too many phrases which combine a verb with a preposition at the end. “Old Yeller got rabies and had to be put down.” Put down in that sense is a concept for an event, not something that has a reference point that needs to be referred to like “Put down the cup on the table.”

Grammar is all about clarity, and rules that actually force sentences into tortured, muddled states should be broken. But if people don’t know the rules and don’t understand their vocabulary—then we end up hearing someone like W. public speaking.

As it happens, I’m a Latin teacher, and I can tell you that even the Romans split infinitives.  In Latin, the perfect passive, future active, and future passive infinitives are all two-word phrases (formed by, respectively, the perfect passive participle + esse, the future active participle + esse, and the supine + iri), and one frequently finds the two words separated by one or more words. 

So even the “Well, you can’t do it in Latin so it must be wrong!” argument falls down.

I’m okay with a fairly rigid SWE, and I personally don’t split infinitives (unless something truly inelegant would otherwise result) - but I think accepting ‘they’ as a gender neutral singular pronoun is a good idea. Right now I just basically alternate between ‘he’ and ‘she’ as the default for a given piece of writing. I’ll probably still do that even if ‘they’ does become acceptable in SWE. But that would be only on account of being anal about usage.

(LIsa: But of course the ‘esse’ in those infinitive constructions is ‘to be’, and that’s not split, so I don’t see a real inconsistency. The better argument is simply that English is not Latin, and to expect English usage to resemble Latin at every point is just a relic from the days when Latin was still credited as the true or superior language of learned discourse.)

Not to get all pedantic but since when does language pedant = grammatically correct person who believes in the destruction of the jewish race (not to mention gypsies & homosexuals). T bandying around of the term ‘Nazi’ for such a thing as grammar (or really anything where someone is being pedantic) comes across as insensitive, thoughtless and incredibly disrespectful.

And seriously:

“Nazis were evil, not hardcore.”

There are ten million dead people who might disagree with you on this one. Oh wait, except they can’t because they were murdered. By Nazi’s.