My least favorite solecism is the misuse of "whom" in the subject position, almost always when the author is misled by an intervening phrase or clause or by a preceding preposition:
“by historians whom I must believe have never looked at it”
“delivered to whomever could be reached in an increasingly literate public”
Examples from a piece by Marilynne Robinson, whom I nevertheless revere.
"Hopefully" is fine, though, in its common usage, unless we also want to claim that "Frankly" or "Luckily" & dozens of other such adverbs should be proscribed. It is not even clear that there is a historical case to be made here.
I am usually “reticent” to wade into the descriptivist waters, but it must be allowed that usage does indeed change over time. I just said to someone, of a movie, "It's awful." I didn't mean it inspired awe.
The "whom" issue is one that I too find intolerable; but even Fowler had difficulty explaining the rule for a pronoun coordinating an active verb in a phrase that, taken in its totality, is the object of another transitive verb. The easiest way to put it, I suppose, is that the subject of any phrase, even when the phrase itself is the object of a verb, but remain subjective in case.
The second case can be confusing, I confess, but the first, where a parenthetical phrase intervenes, is annoying as hell, since it can easily be rephrased or re-punctuated to reveal the error.
I’ve effectively given up on my colloquial speech being grammatically respectable--I’m too much a product of my generation, educationally and culturally, and my mostly uneducated southern father and moderately educated midwestern mother--but I do strive to cleanse my writing of such oversights. Many of the things you list here are so atmospheric that I have never considered them though you’re obviously right. For example, “He invited my wife and I” is something that if I had never heard it I would immediately recognize as the incorrect use of a nominative for a direct object when what one wanted was an accusative, but the malpractice is so ubiquitous I’ve never paid it enough attention to realize that.
Using nominative instead of accusative in the case of I/me is very annoying, but at least I understand that it is not so obvious for people who haven’t studied classical languages or other languages with cases. On the other hand, expressions such as “should of” or “could care less” offend deeply even non-native speakers like me.
I think many of these mistakes come from lacking public schools. I remember being frequently corrected when saying "my mom and me are going to lunch" or some such phrase, but I don't think I was ever told why it was wrong, and so "X and me" just starts to sound taboo. In fact, I don't really recall receiving much formal grammatical training at all throughout most of my years in small town public schools. So it's no surprise that people overcorrect based off of "feel" when that's all they've ever been given.
". . . with a febrile gleam in my eye that would have you nervously backing away from me and feeling for the doorknob behind you if you could see it."
Reading this, and trying to imagine your eye with such a gleam, made me laugh aloud.
"Human personality, community, society, and culture are all informed, sustained, and determined by language; everything we are and can be, everything we think and know and believe, is woven from words; even our most immediate sensuous experiences are ultimately mediated to us through concepts shaped by signs."
Is this satirical, as well? It sounds right to me.
Can anybody recommend (apart from David's writing guide) any resources or guidance to somebody who wants to learn English grammar? David's comments on style guides such as Strunk and White's and Pinker's have made me weary of autodidactiaclly finding myself in a dark dungeon of spider webs that I am unable to escape from. Any guidance would be much appreciated!
It is a truth universally acknowledged that it is only a short road that leads from grammatical laxity to cannibalism, immediately turned my mind to "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife." A woman who's writing has been described by my favorite Concordian heretic and Transcendentalist as "vulgar in tone, sterile in artistic invention and imprisoned by the wretchedness of English society. Suicide being more respectable than the monomania of marriageableness. I would selfishly enjoy an article where you expand upon your favorite 19th century American writers.
That's one of Emerson's more idiotic judgments, I have to say. As Auden observed of Austen, she had one of the most penetrating and merciless approaches to the petty vanities she described of any writer who ever cast an eye on polite society. She way also brilliantly witty.
I think what's truly amazing about Austen in the way she can show people at their most absurd and still perservere in charity, grace, and humility. Sure, she never hesitates to skewer the petty vanities of the proud or pompous, but she also has a profound empathy that keeps her characters believable. She knows that our vices usually spring from a spiritual and emotional impoverishment, and so she can't bring herself to truly damn even a Mr. Collins or a Mr. Elton. Part of what elevates Emma beyond being a witty comedy of manners is the moral vision it represents: laugh at a Mrs. Elton, but never at a Miss Bates.
Gasbag or not, his pen was mightier than Austen's. I am not a Jane Austen hater either. Persuasion was the strongest sleeping pill I've ever swallowed on a restless night.
You're both of you justified by your sympathies and damned by your antipathies. To find Persuasion boring is, I fear, a sign of defect of sensibility. To find Emerson's admittedly inflated periods mere gasbaggery is to miss the pervasive genius of his ideas and of his aphoristic mania.
Nah. I read him to death in my 20s, including most of his journals. My antipathy damns me not. I love Thoreau. I even like Cavell on Emerson. But spare me the sage.
I'm not sure that quote does Emerson much credit. I've never understood how people could mistake Austen's novels for unironic celebrations of upper-middle class social values when she obviously holds her own characters' "monomania [about] marriageableness" in contempt and her plots are mainly driven by the structural injustices experienced by women even of the highest social standing. But since the protagonists get married at the end, I guess she must be just another "lady novelist" with nothing interesting to say.
Women were still seen as having "little more than gossip" to contribute at this time. There is an anecdote where a women writer and lecturer (her names eludes me) comes to Concord and asks Emerson if Thoreau would be attending her lecture. Having seen Thoreau on one of his jaunts earlier that morning told her "Most probably not". But alas, at the end of the lecture there in the back shadows of the lecture hall stood the rugged, sun-bronzed stoic, a wry smirk upon his face. Emerson greeted him with "Henry, you came!". To which he replied, "This one had something to say!". Austen's books can in fact be very tedious and the one's I've read, I had to virtually flog myself to finish, but she was an original, nonetheless.
My least favorite solecism is the misuse of "whom" in the subject position, almost always when the author is misled by an intervening phrase or clause or by a preceding preposition:
“by historians whom I must believe have never looked at it”
“delivered to whomever could be reached in an increasingly literate public”
Examples from a piece by Marilynne Robinson, whom I nevertheless revere.
"Hopefully" is fine, though, in its common usage, unless we also want to claim that "Frankly" or "Luckily" & dozens of other such adverbs should be proscribed. It is not even clear that there is a historical case to be made here.
I am usually “reticent” to wade into the descriptivist waters, but it must be allowed that usage does indeed change over time. I just said to someone, of a movie, "It's awful." I didn't mean it inspired awe.
The "whom" issue is one that I too find intolerable; but even Fowler had difficulty explaining the rule for a pronoun coordinating an active verb in a phrase that, taken in its totality, is the object of another transitive verb. The easiest way to put it, I suppose, is that the subject of any phrase, even when the phrase itself is the object of a verb, but remain subjective in case.
The second case can be confusing, I confess, but the first, where a parenthetical phrase intervenes, is annoying as hell, since it can easily be rephrased or re-punctuated to reveal the error.
Both, however, should have been obvious to the ear, as well as to a competent copy-editor. That's what they're hired for, after all.
And the piece appeared in a certain august journal whose title rhymes with Scarpers, whose employment of copy editors I can attest to. Inexplicable.
Sacré bleu!
Maybe they're scared of her.
I’ve effectively given up on my colloquial speech being grammatically respectable--I’m too much a product of my generation, educationally and culturally, and my mostly uneducated southern father and moderately educated midwestern mother--but I do strive to cleanse my writing of such oversights. Many of the things you list here are so atmospheric that I have never considered them though you’re obviously right. For example, “He invited my wife and I” is something that if I had never heard it I would immediately recognize as the incorrect use of a nominative for a direct object when what one wanted was an accusative, but the malpractice is so ubiquitous I’ve never paid it enough attention to realize that.
Well, there's the value of a classical education: learning an inflected language teaches one the structure of all language.
Using nominative instead of accusative in the case of I/me is very annoying, but at least I understand that it is not so obvious for people who haven’t studied classical languages or other languages with cases. On the other hand, expressions such as “should of” or “could care less” offend deeply even non-native speakers like me.
Bravo! You have embiggened my vocabulary with your cromulent satyricon.
:)...Very funny!
I think many of these mistakes come from lacking public schools. I remember being frequently corrected when saying "my mom and me are going to lunch" or some such phrase, but I don't think I was ever told why it was wrong, and so "X and me" just starts to sound taboo. In fact, I don't really recall receiving much formal grammatical training at all throughout most of my years in small town public schools. So it's no surprise that people overcorrect based off of "feel" when that's all they've ever been given.
All true.
But I do like those "vittles" -- sorry, just a pronunciation hack.
God bless you, mój dobry polski przyjaciel.
". . . with a febrile gleam in my eye that would have you nervously backing away from me and feeling for the doorknob behind you if you could see it."
Reading this, and trying to imagine your eye with such a gleam, made me laugh aloud.
"Human personality, community, society, and culture are all informed, sustained, and determined by language; everything we are and can be, everything we think and know and believe, is woven from words; even our most immediate sensuous experiences are ultimately mediated to us through concepts shaped by signs."
Is this satirical, as well? It sounds right to me.
Summary, according to my classical education (excuse any vulgarity):
Hedley Lamarr: My mind is a raging torrent, flooded with rivulets of thought cascading into a waterfall of creative alternatives.
Taggart: God darnit, Mr. Lamarr, you use your tongue prettier than a twenty dollar whore.
Can anybody recommend (apart from David's writing guide) any resources or guidance to somebody who wants to learn English grammar? David's comments on style guides such as Strunk and White's and Pinker's have made me weary of autodidactiaclly finding myself in a dark dungeon of spider webs that I am unable to escape from. Any guidance would be much appreciated!
And, as always, thanks for all you do David!
Bryan Garner’s Modern American Usage is reliable.
And it isn’t stupid.
I'll check that out. Thank you
It is a truth universally acknowledged that it is only a short road that leads from grammatical laxity to cannibalism, immediately turned my mind to "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife." A woman who's writing has been described by my favorite Concordian heretic and Transcendentalist as "vulgar in tone, sterile in artistic invention and imprisoned by the wretchedness of English society. Suicide being more respectable than the monomania of marriageableness. I would selfishly enjoy an article where you expand upon your favorite 19th century American writers.
That's one of Emerson's more idiotic judgments, I have to say. As Auden observed of Austen, she had one of the most penetrating and merciless approaches to the petty vanities she described of any writer who ever cast an eye on polite society. She way also brilliantly witty.
I think what's truly amazing about Austen in the way she can show people at their most absurd and still perservere in charity, grace, and humility. Sure, she never hesitates to skewer the petty vanities of the proud or pompous, but she also has a profound empathy that keeps her characters believable. She knows that our vices usually spring from a spiritual and emotional impoverishment, and so she can't bring herself to truly damn even a Mr. Collins or a Mr. Elton. Part of what elevates Emma beyond being a witty comedy of manners is the moral vision it represents: laugh at a Mrs. Elton, but never at a Miss Bates.
Austen is a better writer than Emerson, who was a gasbag more often than not
Gasbag or not, his pen was mightier than Austen's. I am not a Jane Austen hater either. Persuasion was the strongest sleeping pill I've ever swallowed on a restless night.
You're both of you justified by your sympathies and damned by your antipathies. To find Persuasion boring is, I fear, a sign of defect of sensibility. To find Emerson's admittedly inflated periods mere gasbaggery is to miss the pervasive genius of his ideas and of his aphoristic mania.
I'll work on that sense and sensibility, Hart. You just keep writing. What is it now, 2000 words a day? Or was that London.
Nah. I read him to death in my 20s, including most of his journals. My antipathy damns me not. I love Thoreau. I even like Cavell on Emerson. But spare me the sage.
Keep telling yourself that, bucko. Invincible ignorance is always a good defense before the judgment seat of God.
I'm not sure that quote does Emerson much credit. I've never understood how people could mistake Austen's novels for unironic celebrations of upper-middle class social values when she obviously holds her own characters' "monomania [about] marriageableness" in contempt and her plots are mainly driven by the structural injustices experienced by women even of the highest social standing. But since the protagonists get married at the end, I guess she must be just another "lady novelist" with nothing interesting to say.
Women were still seen as having "little more than gossip" to contribute at this time. There is an anecdote where a women writer and lecturer (her names eludes me) comes to Concord and asks Emerson if Thoreau would be attending her lecture. Having seen Thoreau on one of his jaunts earlier that morning told her "Most probably not". But alas, at the end of the lecture there in the back shadows of the lecture hall stood the rugged, sun-bronzed stoic, a wry smirk upon his face. Emerson greeted him with "Henry, you came!". To which he replied, "This one had something to say!". Austen's books can in fact be very tedious and the one's I've read, I had to virtually flog myself to finish, but she was an original, nonetheless.
Austen, not Austin. Neither of which is tedious to me.
That’s the joke.
Then I'm on the right track! Cheers.