One of the opportunities writers have, to my mind, is to play with the rules of language: to twist them, abuse them, make language do things it doesn't ordinarily. Joyce is a particularly intense case, and to my mind he fails where the games are overplayed, as in Ulysses and/or Finnegan's Wake. None of this works if there are no rules, and if those rules are not well understood and adhered to in ordinary usage. This is true of all literary writing, though poetry is a particularly intense case. I think this is one of the most intense and painful losses that we are going through at the moment, as native users of the English language. Literature is becoming impossible, because neither is well understood: neither the rules, nor the licence writers must have in order to be able to write creatively. Everything is a soup, a rather turbulent and turgid soup, in which users are lost and unable to find any kind of bearings at all. Apparent pedantry is therefore best understood, to my mind, as an anxious reaction to this loss, trying to create some clarity in order to allow for the possibility of creativity. I am perfectly well aware that this is problematic, in that streams only flow one way and golden ages are nearly all mirages, but this is the mess we are in as a linguistic community, and a way out of it is needed if creative use of language is to remain possible.
Rubbish. To say that literature is impossible is bizarre. In any case, Joyce was part of the modernist movement in literature, including Pound and Eliot. This occurred in the early 20th century, although its influence has been long-lived.. Probably comparable to Picasso and Matisse in art.
No-one is saying that there are no rules, but that those rules are descriptions of how the language is used rather than prescriptions about how it should be used.
The observations on West Indian English above do point in the direction of the object/subject distinction in English pronouns being better analysed as a marked/unmarked distinction; the pattern is one of spreading of the unmarked form into positions where the standard language would expect the marked form, the exceptions to this - "between you and I" - being down to over-correction. My experience is that people use those forms mainly when consciously trying too hard to be 'correct'.
No-one is saying that there are no rules, but that those rules are descriptions of how the language is used rather than prescriptions about how it should be used.
Several of the ways in which language is used are prescriptions or expectations about how it should be used. People claiming in various ways that other people are using it wrong in various respects are some of the phenomena that descriptive rules should describe.
Rubbish. To say that literature is impossible is bizarre. In any case, Joyce was part of the modernist movement in literature, including Pound and Eliot. This occurred in the early 20th century, although its influence has been long-lived.. Probably comparable to Picasso and Matisse in art.
Sorry if I wasn't clear. I'm not saying that it's impossible; just that it becomes impossible, and is becoming impossible, for the reasons I set out. How is literature possible if all usage is judged on the same scale? How is any marked usage, i.e. usage outside the norms, possible if norms are either abolished or totally indifferently imposed? That, for me, is the impasse created by the overapplication of descriptivism, which tends to want to include all usage in its corpus without distinction, and by the associated tendency to totalise all rules, however vaguely described, and absorb infractions rather than giving them their own space in which to exist.
Are you saying that you don't agree that literature involves any play with linguistic rules? If so, what for you is the mark of literature as a form of language use?
Mousethief, I didn’t turn the how dare you hose on you. You and Gee D made hyperbolic claims about a seminal work of literature deeply loved by many people. If you don’t like it that’s cool, but then just say that and be done.
Rubbish. To say that literature is impossible is bizarre. In any case, Joyce was part of the modernist movement in literature, including Pound and Eliot. This occurred in the early 20th century, although its influence has been long-lived.. Probably comparable to Picasso and Matisse in art.
Sorry if I wasn't clear. I'm not saying that it's impossible; just that it becomes impossible, and is becoming impossible, for the reasons I set out. How is literature possible if all usage is judged on the same scale? How is any marked usage, i.e. usage outside the norms, possible if norms are either abolished or totally indifferently imposed? That, for me, is the impasse created by the overapplication of descriptivism, which tends to want to include all usage in its corpus without distinction, and by the associated tendency to totalise all rules, however vaguely described, and absorb infractions rather than giving them their own space in which to exist.
Are you saying that you don't agree that literature involves any play with linguistic rules? If so, what for you is the mark of literature as a form of language use?
I hear what you’re saying, but it sounds like the kind of grandiose claim made by Barthes: the death of the author.
Literature does need rules, but it also does pretty well without it. Most free verse poetry, when written by competent poets, can profitably be read by those who don’t know the rules and those who do. Similarly with novels. There are exceptions, of course, writers who require a great deal of erudition to tackle at all, even in the modern world.
It seems to me most likely that literature will continue to be aware of some rules, but those rules will only be known by a handful of readers. Writing literature will never be impossible, though.
Furthermore, for many people the ‘word painting’ quality of writing matters substantially more than the structural components typified by rules. That’s especially true for contemporary poetry, much to contemporary poetry’s loss, but still present.
No-one is saying that there are no rules, but that those rules are descriptions of how the language is used rather than prescriptions about how it should be used.
Several of the ways in which language is used are prescriptions or expectations about how it should be used. People claiming in various ways that other people are using it wrong in various respects are some of the phenomena that descriptive rules should describe.
Yes, and I think I've alluded to that up-thread. It is for example part of how register distinctions are created, and how a standard dialect is maintained. And of course the root of over-correction.
Of course, modernism which involved Joyce, Pound, Eliot, in literature, and many figures in art, gave way to postmodern ideas. In art, this has led to many different genres, such as performance art, conceptual art, and so on. In literature it led to figures such as Marquez, Nabokov, Borges, etc. Wiki has a decent article on postmodern literature.
I don't think excessive pedantry is a reaction to experimentalism. As I said above, it shows a lack of education.
But I have to say that I'm beyond tired of a senior colleague prattling on about how good she is a getting students to write "thesises." I've checked, and no English dictionary recognizes that as a valid form of "theses." And most recently, at the end of a very condescending email from my boss, she ordered me to get a report to "x, y, and I" before a certain date. That's neither colloquial nor correct.
Ouch! I have just started reading this topic and even Synthetic Dave seemed to have a bit of a problem reading thesises - makes you suck in your teeth, doesn't it/!
No-one is saying that there are no rules, but that those rules are descriptions of how the language is used rather than prescriptions about how it should be used.
Several of the ways in which language is used are prescriptions or expectations about how it should be used. People claiming in various ways that other people are using it wrong in various respects are some of the phenomena that descriptive rules should describe.
Yes, and I think I've alluded to that up-thread. It is for example part of how register distinctions are created, and how a standard dialect is maintained. And of course the root of over-correction.
I remember research into various Yorkshire dialects, and one finding was that women start diluting dialect before men. But this is tied up with sociological and psychological factors, such as respectability, solidarity, etc. Also, this was before the collapse of mining, which may have led to further dilution. In my local area of London, there are some fierce Essex-type/Cockney accents, but mainly men. Mind you, it's men who are scaffolders and roofers shouting their facking 'eds awf.
The words didn't pop and crackle; they were like wading through sludge. I prefer language that is sparkly and imaginative, and can withstand a fairly dull story if the writing is good.
*Well, fine. I disagree. Throughout the book there is a shift of diction according to who is in the scene. Rather than ‘sludge’ I find it kaleidoscopic in its unstable changes of tone and perspective from one prose to another. (In fact, I hesitate to use the word ‘prose’ in its usual sense.) To use an example from the first section, the best way to approach Stephen on the beach initially is to let it wash over you, and if necessary go back and give it a closer reading. The worst way to read anything is impatiently arguing against it until it becomes a grudge match. And I’m not saying this to be a poncy grad seminar guy, but there were passages that actually took my breath away. That manipulation of language relates directly to its disavowal of a conventional narrative arc. It is how we experience most days: discontinuities and divergences. (In fact, I’d argue that we give ourselves meaning by succeeding in knitting together our discontinuities into a whole – meat for a different discussion.)
MT:
In one of these groundbreaking modernist uncoventional alinear etc etc etc novels, is it possible to critique them? It is entirely gestalt? It hits you or it doesn't? Or is there anything you can grab onto and say this aspect was lacking in some way? If the answer is no, then it seems it's not so much art as anti-art, a slap in the reader's face.
*Ruskin and Whistler?
Blahblah wrote:
First we are told "correct" English is that we find in good literature and enforced by an army of educated editors and proofreaders.
And:
And yet here we have writers who break the rules and they are said to be working from a "different paradigm".
*Well, I’d say that there is no paradox whatsoever. You’re trying to force Rossweise, Ohher, MaryLouise, me, and others, into a straightjacket of your making. The author’s intent is of primary importance. If it’s clarity in something expository or analytical, then the editor’s approach is necessarily very different from the approach used for various genres of fiction. If you were writing a piece of fiction about working class Manchester, or sociology and were quoting, it would be preposterous (and in the case of non-fiction, dishonest) to ‘clean up’ the speech to be grammatically correct according to academic standards. No one here has advocated such editorial autocracy.
KarlLB wrote:
Pangolin, Rossweisse, I don't think anyone here is unaware of that rule.
*I confess, I have completely lost your reference to which rule.
Dafyd wrote:
Ulysses doesn't work for everyone. The early chapters don't work for me. The later ones do. That's ok.
Which picks up on what I wrote about Joyce writing the opening section as a dare to the reader.
Quetzalcoatl wrote:
Put it down to lack of education about dialect. Also snobbery.
*That’s pretty condescending. I know about dialect well enough, thank you, having grown up in more than one, and I’d venture that our socio-economic backgrounds are closer than you think, so don’t sneer at me about lack of education and snobbery. Your usage of dialect seems to include everything except what I’ll call formal diction. And it’s not snobbery to insist on clarity. God knows how many times I’ve been confronted with an exasperated stage sigh and “Well, you know what I mean” when, in fact I don’t know what the speaker/writer means. You seem to be portraying us as a bunch Henry Higgins martinets with our very sharp blue pencils at quick draw. Convenient for your and Blahblah's argument.
Mousethief, I didn’t turn the how dare you hose on you. You and Gee D made hyperbolic claims about a seminal work of literature deeply loved by many people. If you don’t like it that’s cool, but then just say that and be done.
Translation: "You don't like a book I really did, and then when I poked you, you still didn't like it."
Sorry, no. Pedants have asserted that there is a "correct" form of English. I'm not forcing anyone into anything, I'm just pointing out that there are acclaimed authors who broke the "rules".
I have already said that I'm unskilled in literary criticism, but in this instance that's irrelevant. I'm not saying if they are bad or good, just that they didn't use "correct" English.
I have now said multiple times that the whole idea of "correct English" is nonsense, and yet others keep doubling down and asserting that their understanding is correct for everyone.
Which flies in the face of actual usage, actual linguistics, actual accepted grammar accepted by publishers.
Frankly, I no longer give a shit what you think. If you want to assert to your students that they should submit everything in red crayon, you carry on. If you want to assert that Joyce or Tolkien or your Aunty Maud got a special pass from your nitpicking standard, you carry in. Knock yourself out.
Either "correct" English exists as a thing outside of usage in literature or literature itself, in all its messy variation is an exemplar of English or literature (deliberately, knowingly or not) reflects the English that readers actually use.
I think this is a false dilemma. The point of some linguistic uses is precisely that they will be received by the reader or listener as breaking the rules in some fashion. At least some literary effects are achieved that way. For example, when Hopkins commits, 'our thought's chivalry's throng's lord,' I think some of the impact depends on us recognising that idiomatic English just doesn't pile up genitives like that. Likewise, Milton depends on us recognising that he's not writing idiomatic English but writing it as if it's Latin.
They consistently say "I am going into town" but also "Me and John are going into town".
Put it down to lack of education about dialect. Also snobbery.
It's got nothing to do with dialect I don't think. That is, a lot of received English users will use the 'Me and John' form in informal contexts. Some received English users will try to use it in the considered-correct way in formal contexts but use the informal form by mistake. Meanwhile, some dialects may have the same phenomenon where the formal form depends on a subject-object logic and the informal depends on a positional logic.
That is:
using the informal form in received English in an informal context;
using the informal form in received English in a formal context by mistake;
using the formal form in a dialect where the usage is formal;
are all different phenomena and it does not help comprehension to describe 1) or 2) as instances of 3).
Take a load of clay, put it in the hands of a sculptor, and she'll turn it into art. Hand the clay over to a potter instead, and he'll craft it into pitchers or mugs. Give the clay to a bunch of chefs experimenting with some weird combination of cutting-edge cuisine and Neolithic cooking methods and they'll layer it over the top of a pit in which they're roasting grasshoppers wrapped in banana leaves with emulsions of artichoke foam or something.
The differences have little to do with the clay; they have everything to do with those using it, their goals and intentions and methods.
I don't think that means anything.
You've decided to die on a "correct English" hill and you'll keep fighting even when it is demonstrably gibberish.
Well done.
You’re not looking for sense; you’re looking for a fight.
I’m saying there is no such thing as one correct English. There are many correct Englishes. Language is just a tool for communicating. What is “correct” in a given communication situation depends on multiple factors:
Medium: spoken language or written language? Speakers and writers of a language do not have the exact same set(s) of tools available to them. We make adjustments.
Context: the situation in which the language (spoken or written) is being employed. Private, intimate conversation? Public announcement? Anonymous poison pen letter? Bulletin board notice?
Audience: Who is on the receiving end of the language being employed? How large and/or diverse is this group? How familiar are they with the subject matter? What level of understanding is needed / expected? Is a general, “big picture” grasp sufficient or are there details to master? Is there a potential predictable reaction to the content—that is, is the audience more likely to welcome or reject this content, and how does that possibility affect the framing / presentation of the content?
Relationship: What kind of connection—if any—exists between speaker/listener or writer/reader?
Intention/purpose: What’s the point of the communication? Does the communication issue orders, request information, try to entertain, attempt to instruct, galvanize action?
This what makes "me and Tom went to the pub" acceptable in one situation but inappropriate in a different situation.
Well, I hate to disappoint you all, but I've just checked the ms I'm working on at the moment. Multiple uses of "me and ..." and "... and me", and not one of "I and ..." or "... and I".
I'll let you know if the copy editor wants to change any of them, but my bet is they won't.
Well, I hate to disappoint you all, but I've just checked the ms I'm working on at the moment. Multiple uses of "me and ..." and "... and me", and not one of "I and ..." or "... and I".
I'll let you know if the copy editor wants to change any of them, but my bet is they won't.
If these are in instances of dialogue, the copy editor is unlikely to request changes.
Mousethief, I didn’t turn the how dare you hose on you. You and Gee D made hyperbolic claims about a seminal work of literature deeply loved by many people. If you don’t like it that’s cool, but then just say that and be done.
Translation: "You don't like a book I really did, and then when I poked you, you still didn't like it."
Mistranslation, actually. I said big sigh to you, then responded to Gee D’s post by summarizing what I take his argument to consist of. You, however, are incapable of not swinging around, making histrionic claims and being an asshat.
So you win dude. All of us who like Joyce and Ulysses are just fools who don’t get the consensus. :notworthy:
So you win dude. All of us who like Joyce and Ulysses are just fools who don’t get the consensus. :notworthy:
You clearly don't read for content, or at least not very well. I had a fairly pleasant conversation about this while your back was turned with other people who are less brittle. Check it out.
I think Ulysses made a better film than it did a book. Rarely, for me, I didn't persevere with the book. Loved the black and white fifties film with T P McKenna and Milo O'Shea. Arguably it wasn't that much clearer what was going on, but it was more fun than trying to imagine it from the text! Having said that, I think the book was an important one in terms of literature of the time and even the discourse and controversy it provoked. It doesn't need to be either liked or even understood (whatever that means) to hold an interesting, even progressive place in the book-writing world. And the Molly Bloom soliloquy is quite extra-ordinary.
When I was 11, and starting secondary school, in our first English lesson we were given this example. "Remember the Scottish boy who thought the sign on the toilet door said, 'Laddies'."
It seems to me that the purpose of language is to let us communicate clearly. Rules help with this, for many of us, but they have their limits.
It seems to me that the purpose of language is to let us communicate clearly. Rules help with this, for many of us, but they have their limits.
Seems like a whole lot of people think that the rules (the conventions of spelling, punctuation, grammar) aren't rules at all but merely descriptions of how people actually use language.
But none of them has owned up to not teaching those rules to their children...
It seems to me that the purpose of language is to let us communicate clearly. Rules help with this, for many of us, but they have their limits.
Seems like a whole lot of people think that the rules (the conventions of spelling, punctuation, grammar) aren't rules at all but merely descriptions of how people actually use language.
But none of them has owned up to not teaching those rules to their children...
I was never taught the rules of grammar. Or punctuation. Spelling, yes, because that was still a thing. I learned through reading. Reading and reading and reading.
That's how I learned. It meant that the endless grammar lessons of middle school were a boring wasteland of "DUH!" I quickly learned to read under the desk.
It seems to me that the purpose of language is to let us communicate clearly. Rules help with this, for many of us, but they have their limits.
Seems like a whole lot of people think that the rules (the conventions of spelling, punctuation, grammar) aren't rules at all but merely descriptions of how people actually use language.
But none of them has owned up to not teaching those rules to their children...
I remember discussing with my children on several occasions why the language of the street was not appropriate inside, why things we say to our friends are not things we say to the grandparents, why the language we use to talk is different to that in books.
I would think that it is a sign of education and maturity to realise that we use different language in different contexts. There is no need to teach them that any is "correct", just that there is a time-and-place if one does not want to get into trouble.
It seems to me that the purpose of language is to let us communicate clearly. Rules help with this, for many of us, but they have their limits.
Seems like a whole lot of people think that the rules (the conventions of spelling, punctuation, grammar) aren't rules at all but merely descriptions of how people actually use language.
That's what they are, yes.
But none of them has owned up to not teaching those rules to their children...
Why wouldn't they want their children to know how people actually use language?
(The new title of this thread reminds me of one of my favourite moments on Clue. In one game panellists have to write a letter by exchanging one word at a time. When the Sherrif of Nottingham is writing to Robin Hood they began with, "Deer Abound - in Sherwood Forest," and everyone collapsed.)
I wish I hadn't mentioned Joyce, I realise that I lack the skills to critically assess it as a piece of literature.
I was simply trying to suggest that acclaimed writing exists in English that doesn't follow the usual grammatical rules.
Is anyone arguing that it is bad because it is not following the grammatical rules?
Not in my case. "Enemy Women," by Paulette Jiles, tells a gripping story and some inconvenient truths about the American Civil War. But she tells it without regard to the rules of grammar, and dear God, it is hard to read! It's still in one of my bookcases because it's so good in other ways, but I don't know that I'll have the patience to pick it up again. And that is a shame.
Pangolin, Rossweisse, I don't think anyone here is unaware of that rule.
However, and this was my point about laws of physics and planets, clearly this isn't the rule many speakers are using. They consistently say "I am going into town" but also "Me and John are going into town".
That's why we talked about other rules that people might be following; we raised the possibility that it was a matter of complex and simple subjects, but in the end the rule which best described the widest range of usages was marked and unmarked forms. That's what linguists do; they observe actual utterances and analyse them to find the underlying rules speech communities actually use.
Once again, I am not writing here about spoken English. My subject is written English. I would no more speak that way than I would pick my nose in a public setting, but I do recognize that cultures vary.
Written English has to conform to certain rules, however, in order to be widely intelligible. Again, an uneducated character in fiction might talk that way, but it's a really bad idea if you want to be taken seriously as a writer otherwise.
Pangolin, Rossweisse, I don't think anyone here is unaware of that rule.
However, and this was my point about laws of physics and planets, clearly this isn't the rule many speakers are using. They consistently say "I am going into town" but also "Me and John are going into town".
That's why we talked about other rules that people might be following; we raised the possibility that it was a matter of complex and simple subjects, but in the end the rule which best described the widest range of usages was marked and unmarked forms. That's what linguists do; they observe actual utterances and analyse them to find the underlying rules speech communities actually use.
Put it down to lack of education about dialect. Also snobbery.
Oh, bullshit. I know about dialects; I have been carefully separating written from spoken English in this discussion. But having standards that include using correct English when writing is not "snobbery;" it's taking the trouble to do things right and make oneself understood.
You're pushing reverse snobbery on us, and pretending that make-it-up-as-you-go-along is acceptable in normal non-fiction writing. It isn't. If you want to die on that hill of purest excrement, I suppose that's your privilege, but don't pull your Humpty Dumpty crap on people who really care about language.
ETA: I actually am a professional critic - of books, music, dance, theater, and film - and if there's one single thing I can tell you about all of these fields, it's that you have to know the rules before you can break them effectively. (Read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest.)
To reiterate: I am a published author. I was never taught the 'rules of grammar'. I probably guessed what many of them were due to reading literally everything I could get my hands on from a very early age. I will absolutely maintain that I had way more fun doing that than learning grammar, and to pretty much the same effect, except my love of reading (and writing) wasn't crushed under prescriptive grammar rules determined by some pedagogical tyrant and passed down through a restrictive curriculum with all the force of a jackboot.
Ross - I was with you until you brought in "educated", saying that using the "me and John" construction in a dialogue would illustrate an uneducated character.
I have a degree. I believe Quetz does. Doc Tor is a published author. All of us use the "me and John" construction as a subject. Are all of us "uneducated"? Or does your definition of "educated" mean "uses the same prestige dialect as me (I?) at all times"?
I wish I hadn't mentioned Joyce, I realise that I lack the skills to critically assess it as a piece of literature.
I was simply trying to suggest that acclaimed writing exists in English that doesn't follow the usual grammatical rules.
Is anyone arguing that it is bad because it is not following the grammatical rules?
Not in my case. "Enemy Women," by Paulette Jiles, tells a gripping story and some inconvenient truths about the American Civil War. But she tells it without regard to the rules of grammar, and dear God, it is hard to read! It's still in one of my bookcases because it's so good in other ways, but I don't know that I'll have the patience to pick it up again. And that is a shame.
I haven’t read Enemy Women, but Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton also comes to mind.
I was never taught the 'rules of grammar'. I probably guessed what many of them were due to reading literally everything I could get my hands on from a very early age.
This is really interesting to me, and I take it to be a Pond difference. Here, at least in my experience, rules of grammar are taught. Diagramming sentences isn’t taught anymore, so far as I know (and I fortunately avoided it, because I had a teacher who, while a stickler for grammar, thought diagramming sentences wasn’t helpful), but my kids were taught grammar, parts of speech, etc.
So I’d read @Rossweisse’s comment about “uneducated” in that context. Given that grammar is taught here—at least in the experience of many of us—writing that breaks some basic rules very well may be seen as uneducated. It’s not a matter of snobbery, any more than it would be a matter of snobbery to expect someone who’d been through school to know basic rules and functions of math.
That said, I don’t think it follows that it’s only the dialogue of uneducated characters where laxity with the rules of “Standard English” in written English might appropriately be found. Dialect, register, whether English is the speaker’s first language and other considerations may all come into play.
For many of us who went through the English state education system in the 70s and early 80s, there were few/no formal grammar lessons. It absolutely made foreign languages harder - I still know more about formal German grammar than I do for English, and when I taught (as a teaching assistant) primary school literacy (some 20 years later), I was completely at sea when it came to the parts of the curriculum which involved identifying parts of grammar. Obviously, I knew what they did, though years of use, but not what they were called, or that there were rules I was supposed to follow. And teach.
I've been a 'successful' (in that I've been continually published) author for over a decade now. I realise that potentially being able to identify the parts of grammar would have been useful, but in and of themselves, they are not a subject I think children need to be examined on. Grammar is a set of tools, and their utility is in the sentences the writer crafts with them, not in being able to name the tools.
So I’d read @Rossweisse’s comment about “uneducated” in that context. Given that grammar is taught here—at least in the experience of many of us—writing that breaks some basic rules very well may be seen as uneducated. It’s not a matter of snobbery, any more than it would be a matter of snobbery to expect someone who’d been through school to know basic rules and functions of math.
Grammar is not mathematics. If you are taught that these are rules that you use to show you are not uneducated, then that's a fatal flaw in your education system, not an indication that you are right in claiming that a specific style of writing represents "correct" grammar.
Like it or not, the education system you describe above is creating grammar snobs.
I don't give a shit. What you are is a tedious long-drawn-out fart.
Ah, there's nothing like a well-reasoned argument to put an opponent in her place, @Blahblah. (I think you may have the most apt screen name on the entire Ship.)
I was never taught the 'rules of grammar'. I probably guessed what many of them were due to reading literally everything I could get my hands on from a very early age.
This is really interesting to me, and I take it to be a Pond difference. Here, at least in my experience, rules of grammar are taught. Diagramming sentences isn’t taught anymore, so far as I know (and I fortunately avoided it, because I had a teacher who, while a stickler for grammar, thought diagramming sentences wasn’t helpful), but my kids were taught grammar, parts of speech, etc.
So I’d read @Rossweisse’s comment about “uneducated” in that context. Given that grammar is taught here—at least in the experience of many of us—writing that breaks some basic rules very well may be seen as uneducated. It’s not a matter of snobbery, any more than it would be a matter of snobbery to expect someone who’d been through school to know basic rules and functions of math. ...
Thank you, Nick. I am certainly not calling anyone here "uneducated;" I'm talking about the impression poor grammar gives. I learned grammar from my years of compulsive reading, and from my parents. And writers can play with words; it's what we do.
ETA: I can diagram sentences with the best of them, but I never saw the point in it.
It absolutely made foreign languages harder . . . .
That thought crossed my mind.
Doc Tor, I’m not in the least questioning your success or the value or quality of your writing. Nor am I really arguing about whether school kids should or shouldn’t be taught rules of grammar.
I’m simply suggesting there may be a context difference going on here that’s complicating things. What to you and others in the UK may come across as snobbery (perhaps fed in part by historic British class distinctions and how they intersect with speech?), may really just be surprise of the “didn’t you learn that in school?” variety on the part of those of us in the US. And as for us, our reaction to what many of you have said is likely rooted in an assumption that grammar is taught in school. Learning that it is not came as quite a surprise to me.
In other words, we’re all starting with assumptions, but they’re not shared assumptions, and that may be effecting how we’re interpreting what’s being said.
Grammar is a set of tools, and their utility is in the sentences the writer crafts with them, not in being able to name the tools.
To me the main problem here is in the way that historically people have been belittled because of their grammar and use of English.
Everyone accepts that there are styles to follow which are appropriate only to specific spheres. Some of which, in my opinion, make very little sense anyway.
But this isn't now a moan about students who are unable to follow simple grammatical instructions necessary in an academic writing sphere.
This is now way beyond that and has got to the stage where I'm being accused of being uneducated and abnormal and non-standard because I don't accept the truth of those rules.
At a stroke relegating almost every English speaker and writer in the Indian subcontinent, in Africa and in the Caribbean to second or third class because they haven't had the good fortune to have been educated in North American English grammar.
That's all it is. An unusual and abnormal way of writing English that has delusions of grandeur.
As I said above, @Blahblah, I haven't called anyone here uneducated - but at this point, I'm willing to make an exception for you.
If the point of writing is to communicate, tools to facilitate that communication are important. If you make up your own rules, don't complain if you're not understood.
So I’d read @Rossweisse’s comment about “uneducated” in that context. Given that grammar is taught here—at least in the experience of many of us—writing that breaks some basic rules very well may be seen as uneducated. It’s not a matter of snobbery, any more than it would be a matter of snobbery to expect someone who’d been through school to know basic rules and functions of math.
Grammar is not mathematics. If you are taught that these are rules that you use to show you are not uneducated, then that's a fatal flaw in your education system, not an indication that you are right in claiming that a specific style of writing represents "correct" grammar.
None of that is what I said, nor have I actually made that claim.
Like it or not, the education system you describe above is creating grammar snobs.
Like it or not, it’s clear you don’t have a clue what you’re talking regarding with our educational systems. They have many problems. Creating grammar snobs generally isn’t one of them.
In other words, we’re all starting with assumptions, but they’re not shared assumptions, and that may be effecting how we’re interpreting what’s being said.
Affecting, of course, but I missed the edit window. It really is a nice touch to pull something like that in a pedantry thread. But I’ll be the first to admit I’m a terrible speller and that no one would ever dream of paying me to be a proof-reader.
As I said above, @Blahblah, I haven't called anyone here uneducated - but at this point, I'm willing to make an exception for you.
If the point of writing is to communicate, tools to facilitate that communication are important. If you make up your own rules, don't complain if you're not understood.
Yeah, tell that to Shakespeare, brainbox.
People fully understand each other without following your "rules" out here in the real world.
Comments
The observations on West Indian English above do point in the direction of the object/subject distinction in English pronouns being better analysed as a marked/unmarked distinction; the pattern is one of spreading of the unmarked form into positions where the standard language would expect the marked form, the exceptions to this - "between you and I" - being down to over-correction. My experience is that people use those forms mainly when consciously trying too hard to be 'correct'.
Sorry if I wasn't clear. I'm not saying that it's impossible; just that it becomes impossible, and is becoming impossible, for the reasons I set out. How is literature possible if all usage is judged on the same scale? How is any marked usage, i.e. usage outside the norms, possible if norms are either abolished or totally indifferently imposed? That, for me, is the impasse created by the overapplication of descriptivism, which tends to want to include all usage in its corpus without distinction, and by the associated tendency to totalise all rules, however vaguely described, and absorb infractions rather than giving them their own space in which to exist.
Are you saying that you don't agree that literature involves any play with linguistic rules? If so, what for you is the mark of literature as a form of language use?
I hear what you’re saying, but it sounds like the kind of grandiose claim made by Barthes: the death of the author.
Literature does need rules, but it also does pretty well without it. Most free verse poetry, when written by competent poets, can profitably be read by those who don’t know the rules and those who do. Similarly with novels. There are exceptions, of course, writers who require a great deal of erudition to tackle at all, even in the modern world.
It seems to me most likely that literature will continue to be aware of some rules, but those rules will only be known by a handful of readers. Writing literature will never be impossible, though.
Furthermore, for many people the ‘word painting’ quality of writing matters substantially more than the structural components typified by rules. That’s especially true for contemporary poetry, much to contemporary poetry’s loss, but still present.
Yes, and I think I've alluded to that up-thread. It is for example part of how register distinctions are created, and how a standard dialect is maintained. And of course the root of over-correction.
I don't think excessive pedantry is a reaction to experimentalism. As I said above, it shows a lack of education.
I remember research into various Yorkshire dialects, and one finding was that women start diluting dialect before men. But this is tied up with sociological and psychological factors, such as respectability, solidarity, etc. Also, this was before the collapse of mining, which may have led to further dilution. In my local area of London, there are some fierce Essex-type/Cockney accents, but mainly men. Mind you, it's men who are scaffolders and roofers shouting their facking 'eds awf.
Mousethief wrote:
The words didn't pop and crackle; they were like wading through sludge. I prefer language that is sparkly and imaginative, and can withstand a fairly dull story if the writing is good.
*Well, fine. I disagree. Throughout the book there is a shift of diction according to who is in the scene. Rather than ‘sludge’ I find it kaleidoscopic in its unstable changes of tone and perspective from one prose to another. (In fact, I hesitate to use the word ‘prose’ in its usual sense.) To use an example from the first section, the best way to approach Stephen on the beach initially is to let it wash over you, and if necessary go back and give it a closer reading. The worst way to read anything is impatiently arguing against it until it becomes a grudge match. And I’m not saying this to be a poncy grad seminar guy, but there were passages that actually took my breath away. That manipulation of language relates directly to its disavowal of a conventional narrative arc. It is how we experience most days: discontinuities and divergences. (In fact, I’d argue that we give ourselves meaning by succeeding in knitting together our discontinuities into a whole – meat for a different discussion.)
MT:
In one of these groundbreaking modernist uncoventional alinear etc etc etc novels, is it possible to critique them? It is entirely gestalt? It hits you or it doesn't? Or is there anything you can grab onto and say this aspect was lacking in some way? If the answer is no, then it seems it's not so much art as anti-art, a slap in the reader's face.
*Ruskin and Whistler?
Blahblah wrote:
First we are told "correct" English is that we find in good literature and enforced by an army of educated editors and proofreaders.
And:
And yet here we have writers who break the rules and they are said to be working from a "different paradigm".
*Well, I’d say that there is no paradox whatsoever. You’re trying to force Rossweise, Ohher, MaryLouise, me, and others, into a straightjacket of your making. The author’s intent is of primary importance. If it’s clarity in something expository or analytical, then the editor’s approach is necessarily very different from the approach used for various genres of fiction. If you were writing a piece of fiction about working class Manchester, or sociology and were quoting, it would be preposterous (and in the case of non-fiction, dishonest) to ‘clean up’ the speech to be grammatically correct according to academic standards. No one here has advocated such editorial autocracy.
KarlLB wrote:
Pangolin, Rossweisse, I don't think anyone here is unaware of that rule.
*I confess, I have completely lost your reference to which rule.
Dafyd wrote:
Ulysses doesn't work for everyone. The early chapters don't work for me. The later ones do. That's ok.
Which picks up on what I wrote about Joyce writing the opening section as a dare to the reader.
Quetzalcoatl wrote:
Put it down to lack of education about dialect. Also snobbery.
*That’s pretty condescending. I know about dialect well enough, thank you, having grown up in more than one, and I’d venture that our socio-economic backgrounds are closer than you think, so don’t sneer at me about lack of education and snobbery. Your usage of dialect seems to include everything except what I’ll call formal diction. And it’s not snobbery to insist on clarity. God knows how many times I’ve been confronted with an exasperated stage sigh and “Well, you know what I mean” when, in fact I don’t know what the speaker/writer means. You seem to be portraying us as a bunch Henry Higgins martinets with our very sharp blue pencils at quick draw. Convenient for your and Blahblah's argument.
Translation: "You don't like a book I really did, and then when I poked you, you still didn't like it."
I have already said that I'm unskilled in literary criticism, but in this instance that's irrelevant. I'm not saying if they are bad or good, just that they didn't use "correct" English.
I have now said multiple times that the whole idea of "correct English" is nonsense, and yet others keep doubling down and asserting that their understanding is correct for everyone.
Which flies in the face of actual usage, actual linguistics, actual accepted grammar accepted by publishers.
Frankly, I no longer give a shit what you think. If you want to assert to your students that they should submit everything in red crayon, you carry on. If you want to assert that Joyce or Tolkien or your Aunty Maud got a special pass from your nitpicking standard, you carry in. Knock yourself out.
How strange you would say "And it’s not snobbery to insist on clarity" just 800 words after defending Joyce's intentional obscurity.
That is:
using the informal form in received English in an informal context;
using the informal form in received English in a formal context by mistake;
using the formal form in a dialect where the usage is formal;
are all different phenomena and it does not help comprehension to describe 1) or 2) as instances of 3).
You’re not looking for sense; you’re looking for a fight.
I’m saying there is no such thing as one correct English. There are many correct Englishes. Language is just a tool for communicating. What is “correct” in a given communication situation depends on multiple factors:
Medium: spoken language or written language? Speakers and writers of a language do not have the exact same set(s) of tools available to them. We make adjustments.
Context: the situation in which the language (spoken or written) is being employed. Private, intimate conversation? Public announcement? Anonymous poison pen letter? Bulletin board notice?
Audience: Who is on the receiving end of the language being employed? How large and/or diverse is this group? How familiar are they with the subject matter? What level of understanding is needed / expected? Is a general, “big picture” grasp sufficient or are there details to master? Is there a potential predictable reaction to the content—that is, is the audience more likely to welcome or reject this content, and how does that possibility affect the framing / presentation of the content?
Relationship: What kind of connection—if any—exists between speaker/listener or writer/reader?
Intention/purpose: What’s the point of the communication? Does the communication issue orders, request information, try to entertain, attempt to instruct, galvanize action?
This what makes "me and Tom went to the pub" acceptable in one situation but inappropriate in a different situation.
I'll let you know if the copy editor wants to change any of them, but my bet is they won't.
If these are in instances of dialogue, the copy editor is unlikely to request changes.
Mistranslation, actually. I said big sigh to you, then responded to Gee D’s post by summarizing what I take his argument to consist of. You, however, are incapable of not swinging around, making histrionic claims and being an asshat.
So you win dude. All of us who like Joyce and Ulysses are just fools who don’t get the consensus. :notworthy:
Coming from you I take that as a compliment.
You clearly don't read for content, or at least not very well. I had a fairly pleasant conversation about this while your back was turned with other people who are less brittle. Check it out.
It seems to me that the purpose of language is to let us communicate clearly. Rules help with this, for many of us, but they have their limits.
Seems like a whole lot of people think that the rules (the conventions of spelling, punctuation, grammar) aren't rules at all but merely descriptions of how people actually use language.
But none of them has owned up to not teaching those rules to their children...
I was never taught the rules of grammar. Or punctuation. Spelling, yes, because that was still a thing. I learned through reading. Reading and reading and reading.
I remember discussing with my children on several occasions why the language of the street was not appropriate inside, why things we say to our friends are not things we say to the grandparents, why the language we use to talk is different to that in books.
I would think that it is a sign of education and maturity to realise that we use different language in different contexts. There is no need to teach them that any is "correct", just that there is a time-and-place if one does not want to get into trouble.
That's what they are, yes.
Why wouldn't they want their children to know how people actually use language?
Once again, I am not writing here about spoken English. My subject is written English. I would no more speak that way than I would pick my nose in a public setting, but I do recognize that cultures vary.
Written English has to conform to certain rules, however, in order to be widely intelligible. Again, an uneducated character in fiction might talk that way, but it's a really bad idea if you want to be taken seriously as a writer otherwise.
Oh, bullshit. I know about dialects; I have been carefully separating written from spoken English in this discussion. But having standards that include using correct English when writing is not "snobbery;" it's taking the trouble to do things right and make oneself understood.
You're pushing reverse snobbery on us, and pretending that make-it-up-as-you-go-along is acceptable in normal non-fiction writing. It isn't. If you want to die on that hill of purest excrement, I suppose that's your privilege, but don't pull your Humpty Dumpty crap on people who really care about language.
ETA: I actually am a professional critic - of books, music, dance, theater, and film - and if there's one single thing I can tell you about all of these fields, it's that you have to know the rules before you can break them effectively. (Read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest.)
I have a degree. I believe Quetz does. Doc Tor is a published author. All of us use the "me and John" construction as a subject. Are all of us "uneducated"? Or does your definition of "educated" mean "uses the same prestige dialect as me (I?) at all times"?
This is really interesting to me, and I take it to be a Pond difference. Here, at least in my experience, rules of grammar are taught. Diagramming sentences isn’t taught anymore, so far as I know (and I fortunately avoided it, because I had a teacher who, while a stickler for grammar, thought diagramming sentences wasn’t helpful), but my kids were taught grammar, parts of speech, etc.
So I’d read @Rossweisse’s comment about “uneducated” in that context. Given that grammar is taught here—at least in the experience of many of us—writing that breaks some basic rules very well may be seen as uneducated. It’s not a matter of snobbery, any more than it would be a matter of snobbery to expect someone who’d been through school to know basic rules and functions of math.
That said, I don’t think it follows that it’s only the dialogue of uneducated characters where laxity with the rules of “Standard English” in written English might appropriately be found. Dialect, register, whether English is the speaker’s first language and other considerations may all come into play.
I've been a 'successful' (in that I've been continually published) author for over a decade now. I realise that potentially being able to identify the parts of grammar would have been useful, but in and of themselves, they are not a subject I think children need to be examined on. Grammar is a set of tools, and their utility is in the sentences the writer crafts with them, not in being able to name the tools.
Grammar is not mathematics. If you are taught that these are rules that you use to show you are not uneducated, then that's a fatal flaw in your education system, not an indication that you are right in claiming that a specific style of writing represents "correct" grammar.
Like it or not, the education system you describe above is creating grammar snobs.
Thank you, Nick. I am certainly not calling anyone here "uneducated;" I'm talking about the impression poor grammar gives. I learned grammar from my years of compulsive reading, and from my parents. And writers can play with words; it's what we do.
ETA: I can diagram sentences with the best of them, but I never saw the point in it.
Doc Tor, I’m not in the least questioning your success or the value or quality of your writing. Nor am I really arguing about whether school kids should or shouldn’t be taught rules of grammar.
I’m simply suggesting there may be a context difference going on here that’s complicating things. What to you and others in the UK may come across as snobbery (perhaps fed in part by historic British class distinctions and how they intersect with speech?), may really just be surprise of the “didn’t you learn that in school?” variety on the part of those of us in the US. And as for us, our reaction to what many of you have said is likely rooted in an assumption that grammar is taught in school. Learning that it is not came as quite a surprise to me.
In other words, we’re all starting with assumptions, but they’re not shared assumptions, and that may be effecting how we’re interpreting what’s being said.
To me the main problem here is in the way that historically people have been belittled because of their grammar and use of English.
Everyone accepts that there are styles to follow which are appropriate only to specific spheres. Some of which, in my opinion, make very little sense anyway.
But this isn't now a moan about students who are unable to follow simple grammatical instructions necessary in an academic writing sphere.
This is now way beyond that and has got to the stage where I'm being accused of being uneducated and abnormal and non-standard because I don't accept the truth of those rules.
At a stroke relegating almost every English speaker and writer in the Indian subcontinent, in Africa and in the Caribbean to second or third class because they haven't had the good fortune to have been educated in North American English grammar.
That's all it is. An unusual and abnormal way of writing English that has delusions of grandeur.
If the point of writing is to communicate, tools to facilitate that communication are important. If you make up your own rules, don't complain if you're not understood.
Like it or not, it’s clear you don’t have a clue what you’re talking regarding with our educational systems. They have many problems. Creating grammar snobs generally isn’t one of them.
Affecting, of course, but I missed the edit window. It really is a nice touch to pull something like that in a pedantry thread.
Yeah, tell that to Shakespeare, brainbox.
People fully understand each other without following your "rules" out here in the real world.