It may very well be true that we don't have more "error" than we
used to, but I think the other point in Charrow's article, that people
don't know as much grammar as they used to, including teachers and
editors and professional writers, is very true, and it is very much an
outgrowth of the influence of T-G grammar and the position of NCTE,
itself influenced by TG and the advent of process approaches to teaching
writing, which see product orientations (error based concerns) as a
distraction from the real work of writing.
    (Why the long sentence?  I just spoke to a colleague who told me a
run-on sentence is a sentence with "more than eighty words."  This is an
"understanding" he finds useful in "helping" his students. Sigh.)
     T-G approaches tell us what is GRAMMATICAL, and defend much of what
has been deemed unacceptable (including the split infinitive) as rule
based.  The two approaches are largely incompatible, even at war with
each other.  Neither tells us much of anything at all about how grammar
enters into the making of meaning, in the production of coherent and
cohesive text. TG in fact points out that it is natural for a native
speaker to learn the grammar WITHOUT direct instruction, and this was
coupled with pseudo studies that seemed to imply that the conscious
teaching of grammar is harmful in influencing the NCTE position against
direct instruction. Writing teachers have taken to teaching "error" in
context, and doing so with as little terminology as possible.  If we can
write or speak without error, then it's not necessary to know anything
about what we are doing.  We can pass standardized tests, be English
teachers (even "correct" student writing, like run-on sentences that get
beyond eighty words), get jobs on newspapers, and so on.
     Traditional grammar as taught in the public schools was in deep
need of revision, but TG is and was a very impractical replacement.  (As
Herb points out, it didn't try for the most part to be a public
grammar.)  We cannot solve the problem by choosing between the two, and
thinking of these as our only alternatives will doom us to failure. That
the pendulum is swinging back does us little good if it merely swings
back to discredited, dysfunctional approaches.
    If we think of grammar as behavior, then the question of whether we
are behaving as well as we used to seems the only important one.  If we
think about conscious knowledge of grammar, what we know or don't know,
understand or misunderstand, then the questions we ask are very
different. That the average person gets by without much knowledge of
grammar, that their language use is often more grammatical than
standard, is maybe business as usual. It is silly to think that the
language itself is decaying.  That the overall knowledge of grammar has
diminished, even among those who have good reasons to know about
grammar, like English teachers and editors and writers, is a much more
useful concern. Knowledge of grammar can grow or diminish, and my sense
is that it is now at a dangerously low point.
    In most public discussions about grammar, error seems to take over
our attention and we forget about the rest.  We can't find an answer
because we aren't asking the right question. What is it helpful for
native speakers to know about the grammar of their own language?  Can we
build a base of understanding that's deeper and wider than these
"standardized" rules? Can we get by the silliness of error long enough
to build an area of disciplined inquiry that includes the nonspecialist,
especially the many, like teachers and writers, who would benefit from a
knowledge of language in their professional lives?

Craig




Christine Reintjes wrote:

> Dick,
>
> I totally agree with your  response to Charrow. I am amazed that as a
> linguist, she has such a simplistic view of this.
>
> In addition to your points, I am thinking of how much more writing and
> speaking we are exposed to in the media. Even if there were fewer
> "grammatical mistakes" (non-standard forms) in  past published writing
> and
> public speaking (which I question), think of how small the pool of
> contributors was then compared to now. Also, the contributors were often
> wealthier and with more formal education etc.
> --
>
> Christine Reintjes Martin
> [log in to unmask]
>
>
>
>
>> From: "Veit, Richard" <[log in to unmask]>
>> Reply-To: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
>> <[log in to unmask]>
>> To: [log in to unmask]
>> Subject: Re: From the Washington Times
>> Date: Thu, 16 Dec 2004 23:45:34 -0500
>>
>> I would like to know when that wonderful time was when people didn't
>> make
>> grammatical errors, when Americans were routinely literate, when
>> students
>> could write fluently, when no one had problems with the who/whom
>> distinction or used "criteria" as a singular noun. Folk wisdom says
>> it was
>> about a generation ago. Of course, that's what folk wisdom has always
>> said.
>>
>> A generation ago (as folk wisdom would have it) the English language was
>> just fine and people used it well. Today, however, the language is
>> deteriorating, and people no longer speak or write it properly. That's a
>> common complaint in 2004, and it's easy to find other similar complaints
>> today--just as it was easy to find them in 1975, and in 1950, and in
>> 1925,
>> and in 1800 and 1600 and 1400. People seem always to have believed the
>> language was on the decline and to have expressed that belief in almost
>> identical terms ever since there has been an English language. Harvey
>> Daniels did a nice job of presenting these complaints through the
>> ages in
>> his 1983 book Famous Last Words: The American Language Crisis
>> Reconsidered.
>> The evident conclusion is that such fulminations have their origin in
>> the
>> human psyche far more than in objective reality.
>>
>> If our language were on a thousand year downward slope, we'd all be
>> muttering gibberish by now. But just because past Jeremiahs were wrong,
>> that doesn't prove that now isn't the one time in our history when our
>> language really is falling apart. The odds are against this hypothesis,
>> however, and before accepting it, we need to see objective evidence
>> and not
>> the glib anecdotes that Charrow presents.
>>
>> Dick Veit
>> UNCW English Department
>>
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