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Nothing but a pile of linguistic ignorance and the authors’ weird peeves. See http://www.lel.ed.ac.uk/~gpullum/LandOfTheFree.pdf http://www.lel.ed.ac.uk/~gpullu

Nothing but a pile of linguistic ignorance and the authors’ weird peeves. See http://www.lel.ed.ac.uk/~gpullum/LandOfTheFree.pdf http://www.lel.ed.ac.uk/~gpullum/LandOfTheFree.pdf

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
Sparrowhawk21 3y ago
Exactly, beware prescriptivist hogwash.
- ryanklee 3y ago
  I hope that someday this message makes it into the primary schools. It'd be nice to have a future generation with a significantly lower count of idiotic language pedants.
- hgsgm 3y ago
  The paradox of descriptivism is that it can't proscribe prescriptivism.
  - msla 3y ago
    That is not what descriptivism means.
stinos 3y ago
Thanks for this. Even if some don't agree with this, it does in my opinion show that it can be rather silly to treat any style guide as authorative. Especially an old one, in a world where there are considered to be multiple types of English. A bit of a rant maybe, but this stems from having wasted hours on a discussion on whether or not a comma is mandatory after a certain construct, and 'Elements of Style' was being treated as being definitive on the subject (for reasons I still do not understand), even though I presented other guides which would say the opposite or would say that there is no decision. On that subject: as a non-native speaker I always wondered if there actually is a grammar (not syle) guide which is considered authorative, as there is for other languages?
- msla 3y ago
  > On that subject: as a non-native speaker I always wondered if there actually is a grammar (not syle) guide which is considered authorative, as there is for other languages? No living language has a fully authoritative grammar book, as the grammar of living languages is discovered, not prescribed. That's a part of what linguists do, after all, and they have plenty of debates over precisely how to do it. The overly-simplified grammars taught to language learners as "Correct" are only the tip of a huge, wonderously complex iceberg. Here's an example of a more academic English grammar: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cambridge_Grammar_of_the_English_Language https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cambridge_Grammar_of_the_E... Note that The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language is almost 2000 pages long.
  - psychoslave 3y ago
    As a French native, born and living in France, I can guarantee you that "a fully authoritative grammar book" backed by a public institution can be a think. Really, here even orthographic errors is supposed to be deemed as a "fault" for which you should feel very ashamed. All that with a large set of inconsistent rules, all having exceptions.
    - TRiG_Ireland 3y ago
      All that is is a style guide for government publications. It's not binding on anyone else, and certainly is not representative of how French people really speak or write.
      - psychoslave 3y ago
        Of course it's not representative of how French people speak, write, or think. It does influence all aspects of their life wherever they have verbal interactions with some institution, and all the side effect it can permeate to.
    - msla 3y ago
      The fact some finger-wagging body in France thinks it can sweep out the tide doesn't mean it's capable of any such thing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Canute_and_the_tide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Canute_and_the_tide
wantoncl 3y ago
And contains a grammatical error even before the introduction. ;)
grayclhn 3y ago
I was expecting something a bit more comprehensive and damning after the link… but if one of the most objectionable and controversial claims in the book is about adverbs modifying “unique” I think I’ll continue to recommend elements of style.
- jcranmer 3y ago
  For me, the most damning thing about the book is the invective against the passive. The book opens with use of the passive voice, its authors apparently unaware how idiomatic its use is in certain circumstances. It introduces the passive voice with a sentence that is in the passive voice but is so independently clunky that an astute reader would wonder "no, wait, why would anyone attempt the passive?" It then goes through a rewriting-several-examples section where only one of the four examples manages to start in the passive. Why should one use a book on English grammar that can't correctly identify English grammar in the first place?
  - madcaptenor 3y ago
    (For reference, the first sentence is "This book is intended for use in English courses in which the practice of composition is combined with the study of literature.") Out of curiosity I googled "we intend this book" and people do seem to use that wording sometimes in introducing their books. Why don't Strunk and White do that?
    - jcranmer 3y ago
      Not certain as to why, but one plausible explanation is an opinion that using first person pronouns would be inappropriate, as it is "too conversational" or something like that.
      - madcaptenor 3y ago
        That seems plausible, and pretty much demands the passive voice. Otherwise they would have had to do something like "The authors intend this book..." which is rather strange when the authors are also the ones who wrote the sentence.
edbaskerville 3y ago
I came here to link to Pullum. Most of the specific rules were nonsense: among vs. between, passive voice dogmatism, etc. Unfortunately, these things have become shibboleths that indicate membership in a particular class of people. If you used among vs. between "wrong" in high school or college, there's a good chance that your teacher corrected you, so now most of the educated elite believes the rule to be "right". Bizarrely, Strunk & White's prescriptive rules, which had very little to do with English grammar historically when they wrote their book, have now—via generations of dogmatic education—become generally accepted by the educated elite. Ironically, a descriptive grammar must therefore now acknowledge the among vs. between distinction, at least in formal English writing. We must right this wrong! If we shout loudly enough, maybe we can create entirely new shibboleths, and a new generation of elites can look down on the uneducated masses that follow Strunk & White.
- dllthomas 3y ago
  While we're at it, join me in pronouncing it like "sibboleth" (or "sibbolet")?
- edbaskerville 3y ago
  (Of course this sort of thing could never happen in computer programming, where Logic and Rationality prevail completely.)
kcartlidge 3y ago
Thank you.

Nothing but a pile of linguistic ignorance and the authors’ weird peeves. See http://www.lel.ed.ac.uk/~gpullum/LandOfTheFree.pdf http://www.lel.ed.ac.uk/~gpullum/LandOfTheFree.pdf

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

Sparrowhawk21 3y ago

Exactly, beware prescriptivist hogwash.

ryanklee 3y ago
I hope that someday this message makes it into the primary schools. It'd be nice to have a future generation with a significantly lower count of idiotic language pedants.
hgsgm 3y ago
The paradox of descriptivism is that it can't proscribe prescriptivism.
- msla 3y ago
  That is not what descriptivism means.

stinos 3y ago

Thanks for this. Even if some don't agree with this, it does in my opinion show that it can be rather silly to treat any style guide as authorative. Especially an old one, in a world where there are considered to be multiple types of English. A bit of a rant maybe, but this stems from having wasted hours on a discussion on whether or not a comma is mandatory after a certain construct, and 'Elements of Style' was being treated as being definitive on the subject (for reasons I still do not understand), even though I presented other guides which would say the opposite or would say that there is no decision. On that subject: as a non-native speaker I always wondered if there actually is a grammar (not syle) guide which is considered authorative, as there is for other languages?

msla 3y ago
> On that subject: as a non-native speaker I always wondered if there actually is a grammar (not syle) guide which is considered authorative, as there is for other languages? No living language has a fully authoritative grammar book, as the grammar of living languages is discovered, not prescribed. That's a part of what linguists do, after all, and they have plenty of debates over precisely how to do it. The overly-simplified grammars taught to language learners as "Correct" are only the tip of a huge, wonderously complex iceberg. Here's an example of a more academic English grammar: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cambridge_Grammar_of_the_English_Language https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cambridge_Grammar_of_the_E... Note that The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language is almost 2000 pages long.
- psychoslave 3y ago
  As a French native, born and living in France, I can guarantee you that "a fully authoritative grammar book" backed by a public institution can be a think. Really, here even orthographic errors is supposed to be deemed as a "fault" for which you should feel very ashamed. All that with a large set of inconsistent rules, all having exceptions.
  - TRiG_Ireland 3y ago
    All that is is a style guide for government publications. It's not binding on anyone else, and certainly is not representative of how French people really speak or write.
    - psychoslave 3y ago
      Of course it's not representative of how French people speak, write, or think. It does influence all aspects of their life wherever they have verbal interactions with some institution, and all the side effect it can permeate to.
  - msla 3y ago
    The fact some finger-wagging body in France thinks it can sweep out the tide doesn't mean it's capable of any such thing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Canute_and_the_tide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Canute_and_the_tide

wantoncl 3y ago

And contains a grammatical error even before the introduction. ;)

grayclhn 3y ago

I was expecting something a bit more comprehensive and damning after the link… but if one of the most objectionable and controversial claims in the book is about adverbs modifying “unique” I think I’ll continue to recommend elements of style.

jcranmer 3y ago
For me, the most damning thing about the book is the invective against the passive. The book opens with use of the passive voice, its authors apparently unaware how idiomatic its use is in certain circumstances. It introduces the passive voice with a sentence that is in the passive voice but is so independently clunky that an astute reader would wonder "no, wait, why would anyone attempt the passive?" It then goes through a rewriting-several-examples section where only one of the four examples manages to start in the passive. Why should one use a book on English grammar that can't correctly identify English grammar in the first place?
- madcaptenor 3y ago
  (For reference, the first sentence is "This book is intended for use in English courses in which the practice of composition is combined with the study of literature.") Out of curiosity I googled "we intend this book" and people do seem to use that wording sometimes in introducing their books. Why don't Strunk and White do that?
  - jcranmer 3y ago
    Not certain as to why, but one plausible explanation is an opinion that using first person pronouns would be inappropriate, as it is "too conversational" or something like that.
    - madcaptenor 3y ago
      That seems plausible, and pretty much demands the passive voice. Otherwise they would have had to do something like "The authors intend this book..." which is rather strange when the authors are also the ones who wrote the sentence.

edbaskerville 3y ago

I came here to link to Pullum. Most of the specific rules were nonsense: among vs. between, passive voice dogmatism, etc. Unfortunately, these things have become shibboleths that indicate membership in a particular class of people. If you used among vs. between "wrong" in high school or college, there's a good chance that your teacher corrected you, so now most of the educated elite believes the rule to be "right". Bizarrely, Strunk & White's prescriptive rules, which had very little to do with English grammar historically when they wrote their book, have now—via generations of dogmatic education—become generally accepted by the educated elite. Ironically, a descriptive grammar must therefore now acknowledge the among vs. between distinction, at least in formal English writing. We must right this wrong! If we shout loudly enough, maybe we can create entirely new shibboleths, and a new generation of elites can look down on the uneducated masses that follow Strunk & White.

dllthomas 3y ago
While we're at it, join me in pronouncing it like "sibboleth" (or "sibbolet")?
edbaskerville 3y ago
(Of course this sort of thing could never happen in computer programming, where Logic and Rationality prevail completely.)

kcartlidge 3y ago

Thank you.