To compound the problem, what a reader/editor/teacher asserts about
language can be very different from what you'd gather from that person's
reactions to a given text (e.g. the stereotypical "Mrs. Fidditch"
character who wants to apply Warriner's English Handbook to the entire
world...unless the class happens to be reading Huckleberry Finn, and
doesn't seem to recognize there's a contradiction).
There are a number of interesting parallels between the ways people make
statements about "the grammar rules" and the ways people make statements
about religious topics (probably not accidentally, either, considering
some of the founding figures in English grammar were clergymen). With
grammar, though, people seem confident that the Holy Text exists
somewhere, but none of them think they've ever seen it. Any given usage
guide is viewed as a kind of summary, and the "original" is assumed.
For amusement value only, I'm pasting in below a couple of passages in
which Webster manages to contradict himself quite thoroughly on the
rightful basis for usage; they're from a 1798 edition of a book in which
he's trying to provide some justification for his call for an American
grammar (Dissertations on the English Language):
[p. 24-27]
"The Authors, who have attempted to give us a standard, make the
practice of the court and stage in London the sole criterion of
propriety in speaking. An attempt to establish a standard on this
foundation is both unjust and idle. It is unjust, because it is
abridging the nation of its rights; the general practice of a nation is
the rule of propriety, and this practice should at least be consulted in
so important a matter, as that of making laws for speaking. While all
men are upon a footing and no singularities are accounted vulgar or
ridiculous, every man enjoys perfect liberty, but when a particular set
of men, in exalted stations, undertake to say, "we are the standards of
propriety and elegance, and if all men do not conform to our practice,
they shall be accounted vulgar and ignorant," they take a very great
liberty with the rules of the language and the rights of civility.
But an attempt to fix a standard on the practice of any particular
class of people is highly absurd: as a friend of mine once observed, it
is like fixing a light house on a floating island. It is an attempt to
fix that which is itself variable; at least it must be variable so long
as it is supposed that a local practice has no standard but a local
practice; that is, no standard but itself....If a standard therefore
cannot be fixed on local and variable custom, on what shall it be fixed?
If the most eminent speakers are not to direct our practice, where shall
we look for a guide? The answer is extremely easy; the rules of the
language itself, and the general practice of the nation, constitute
propriety in speaking." [He goes on to discuss analogy as basis for
determination]
[p. 30] "But when a language has arrived at a certain stage of
improvement, it must be stationary or become retrograde; for
improvements in science either cease, or become slow and too
inconsiderable to affect materially the tone of a language. This stage
of improvement is the period when a nation abounds with writers of the
first class, both for abilities and taste. This period in England
commenced with the age of Queen Elizabeth and ended with the reign of
George II....Few improvements have been made since that time; but
innumerable corruptions in pronunciation have been introduced by
Garrick, and in stile, by Johnson, Gibbon, and their imitators."
He then proceeds to hate on Gibbons at greater length.
Bill Spruiell
Dept. of English
Central Michigan University
-----Original Message-----
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Craig Hancock
Sent: Thursday, April 30, 2009 1:18 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Making Peace In The Language Wars
Herb,
This sort of confusion is critical to those of us who want to orient
students to standard practice without necessarily being limited by it.
Usually, that means selecting or recommending a good handbook, but
presenting it as a conservative sort of advice. It can cause nothing but
confusion if a teacher gives idiosyncratic advice (as Brad does), but
presents it as a standard advice. This is the "right way", the "correct
way", implies that there's a consensus. Brad keeps saying over and over
again that the handbooks and grammar books have it all wrong. If this is
a unique view, then you can't assert the weight of authority behind it.
Craig
STAHLKE, HERBERT F wrote:
> There have been studies, including some published in CCC, I believe,
demonstrating that composition teachers do not agree on what the
prescriptive rules are and that papers may pass or fail depending on
whose prescriptive rules are governing the decision. We assume that
there is a well known, widely agreed upon body of rules that we call
prescriptive grammar. It turns out that this ostensibly public grammar
is a construct that doesn't in fact have the same content from one
teacher/editor/critic/ to another. This inconsistency leads to
considerable frustration on the part of students, who frequently have
different instructors demanding opposite treatments of points of
grammar, as we have all learned from our own students' frustrations.
>
> Herb
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of O'Sullivan, Brian P
> Sent: 2009-04-30 12:13
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Making Peace In The Language Wars
>
> I agree that descriptivists and prescriptivists each have valid jobs
to do and needn't be either merged or opposed to each other. The tricky
part, though, is whether and how prescription is informed by
description.
>
> Without describing "how people actually speak [or write]," or how the
most respected speakers and writers actually speak and write, how will
we know what to prescribe? If we assume, a priori and without checking,
that we know "the standard to which educated people adhere," don't we
risk replicating antiquated or folkloric standards and making ourselves
irrelevant? If, hypothetically, writers win pulitzers and critical
acclaim while violating presumed conventions, doesn't it seem unlikely
that these particular conventions really affect how "educated
people...judge the writing of others"?
>
> Brian
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar on behalf of Brad
Johnston
> Sent: Thu 4/30/2009 11:14 AM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Making Peace In The Language Wars
>
> Someone wrote:
>
>
>
> It is a pleasure to see in action an accomplished linguist such as
Jespersen, who understands that the language exists as the product of
those who speak it, who observes carefully, and who reports on actual
language practices as exemplified by celebrated practitioners. Compare
that with our resident fanatic, who considers himself a language
dictator and who reports on the practices of our most eminent writers
and linguists only so he can pronounce them to be in violation of his
peculiar dictates.
>
>
>
> ~~~~~~~~~
>
>
> Garner's Modern American Usage, by Bryan A. Garner, c.2003.
>
> Making Peace In The Language Wars -page xxxi-
>
> Prescribers seek to guide the users of a language -- including native
speakers -- on how to handle words as effectively as possible.
Describers seek to discover the facts of how native speakers actually
use their language.
>
>
> ~~~~~~~~~
>
> This speaks to the difference between what linguists do, study how
people actually speak, and what grammar teachers should do, instruct
students in what is considered "standard" for their era.
>
> Language changes over time but in any given era, e.g., 19th century
England or 21st century America, there is a standard to which educated
people adhere and by which they judge the writing of others and, to a
lesser degree, the speech of others. Such a standard makes the language
more precise and makes the transmission of ideas and information more
reliable than is typical of the language of the streets.
>
> .brad.30apr09.
>
>
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