MT VOID 09/15/00 (Vol. 19, Number 11)

MT VOID 09/15/00 (Vol. 19, Number 11)


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Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
Club Notice - 09/15/00 -- Vol. 19, No. 11

Table of Contents

Outside events: The Science Fiction Association of Bergen County meets on the second Saturday of every month in Upper Saddle River; call 201-447-3652 for details.

Chair/Librarian: Mark Leeper, 732-817-5619, mleeper@lucent.com
Factotum: Evelyn Leeper, 732-332-6218, eleeper@lucent.com
Distinguished Heinlein Apologist: Rob Mitchell, robmitchell@lucent.com
HO Chair Emeritus: John Jetzt, jetzt@lucent.com
HO Librarian Emeritus: Nick Sauer, njs@lucent.com
Back issues at http://www.geocities.com/evelynleeper.
All material copyright by author unless otherwise noted.

Language:

I took part in an interesting discussion recently. I thought it might make a good thought piece here. My father is a polymer chemist. But he has always had an interest in words and language. At the dinner table he would proudly bring and drop some obscure word that nobody else had ever heard of. "Does anyone know what 'panegyric' means?" He would do it with much the same pride as a cat dropping on the front porch a dead mouse she knew nobody else could catch. My father, though a chemist, was fascinated with words and gave them precisely the enthusiasm that people who work in words--scholars and authors--do not give to polymer chemistry.

Not that I always agree with him on the subject. He recently sent me a piece of mail.

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Subject: "Worst Grammatical Error."

"I'll try AND complete this by Tuesday" or "I'll try AND convince him ----," etc." instead of "I'll try TO ----."

This ranks with me as the most egregious error in the English language not only because of its incorrectness, but because it is so wide spread in its flagrant use, even by people of education, by people who use English professionally, editorially, etc. Can I get your comments?

Dad

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To this I responded:

Subject: Re: Worst Grammatical Error

I am not sure what brought this on, but it is part of a long- standing disagreement we have. I would say this is a proto- idiomatic usage. At least on a pretentious day I would say that. Language is determined by how people agree to speak and what is understood. Idioms are frequently added to the language. Would you call a moratorium on the invention of idioms?

Much worse to my mind are the usages that are factually wrong. I dislike the ones in which you say something that taken literally is the opposite of what you mean. If we could get those out of our language I could care less if people said "try and".

Mark

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Subject: Re: Worst Grammatical Error

When does a grammatical error become proto-idiomatic? Where do you draw the line of now-acceptability? Is there such a thing as a grammatical error? Who decides when a grammatical error crosses the proto-idiomatic line? Like "the criteria is" and "the data is". Why bother to teach correct use of the English language?

Dad

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Subject: Re: Worst Grammatical Error

You ask, "When does a grammatical error become proto-idiomatic? Where do you draw the line of now-acceptability?" There is nothing more democratic than language. When did pony-tails and earrings become acceptable for men? Some places they have not yet, some places they have been acceptable all along. By the standards of Shakespeare's day you make a lot of grammatical errors. In school you learn the rules of grammar because children need rules, but when you approach it on an adult level suddenly it not longer is rules. It goes from being the "grammar" of the English language to being a "style." Strunk and White's book on usage, probably the most popular, is called THE ELEMENTS OF STYLE not THE ELEMENTS OF GRAMMAR. The New York Times gives its writers a "style book" to explain how they make plurals, possessives, etc. In school you are taught not hard and fast rules about our language but a style that works. It is sort of a common ground neutral style that will work in the black community, in the English-speaking Yiddish community, in the English-speaking Serbian community, etc. But each of these communities has its own grammar apart from the utilitarian common grammar. No?

You ask, "Is there such a thing as a grammatical error?" Not in the same sense that there is a mathematical error. There is varying from the common style.

Who decides when a grammatical error crosses the proto-idiomatic line? The same group of people who decide whether you can wear a blue shirt with brown pants or white shoes after Labor Day. It is a committee we call "common consent."

Why bother to teach correct use of the English language? Purely because if people stray too far from common usage, then communication breaks down. The "rules" that don't really enhance communication eventually fall to derision. I don't think anybody ever misunderstood a sentence because the speaker chose to carelessly split an infinitive or use a preposition to end a sentence with.

Mark [-mrl]


Quote of the Week:

     Conscience: The inner voice which warns us that someone may
     be looking.
                                   -- H. L. Mencken