The Pedant 8: How to make your editor happy: Grammar rants
Magazine
Here's a couplet from the pen of Ben Jonson to ponder:
The maws and dens of beasts could not receive
the bodies that those souls were frighted from.
Jonson wrote Catiline His Conspiracy in 1611. It was meant to cement his reputation as a classical dramatist for posterity; however, that's not quite how things worked out. The play was booed off the stage on its London premiere - but worse was to come. In 1672, John Dryden singled out the couplet above for an early spot of grammatical ranting. And that, sadly, is the only reason the play is remembered at all.
Dryden took exception to this couplet because of the positioning of ‘from', which he called a ‘stranded preposition'; he gave no reason for his objection but, in time, the idea that prepositions should not appear in post-positions became a ‘rule' of English grammar. The rule is roundly ignored by good writers; but that hasn't stopped generations of language pedants from using it as a stick to wave at constructions they deem offensive.
This particular target of grammar rants has an equally famous rejoinder, of course: ‘That is a rule up with which I shall not put'. This witty prepositional pile-up has been misattributed to everyone from Twain to Churchill but probably originated as a put-down to a hectoring letter in a newspaper from Peeved of Penge. And it didn't stop the permanently peeved from persisting in their righteous (but not always right) indignation.
What is it about a misplaced apostrophe, or a dangling modifier, that provokes such ire in the hearts of otherwise well-meaning folk? Is language such a fragile construct that it needs protecting from the barbarians? I must confess to a shiver of indignation when I see a simple plural marred by a stray apostrophe (and some bemusement as to why greengrocers are the most common culprits: cabbage's, anyone?) but it's not a sea of troubles I'm prepared to take up arms against. (Having said that, if you have the time for the full two-hour lecture with slides, I'll explain my irrational animus at the regular misuse of ‘as' in its connective function.)
The fundamental driver, I'd suggest, of pugnacious pedantry is a conservative attitude to language. It is passing rare to see a tirade in support of a neologism, or the loosening of some obscure grammatical stranglehold. From this point of view, language is an endangered species; it is constantly under threat from its own users. If we allow loose usage to infiltrate everyday speech and writing (and especially greengrocers' signage) we will lose something vital. And there's the ironic rub of it all; it is precisely language's vitality that defies the efforts of the conversational conservationists.
A living language is in a constant state of flux. New speakers bring new ideas and constructions, and chip away at venerable usages and meanings. There is no escaping this process of creative destruction nor, in truth, is there any reason to fear it. If anything, it makes language the ultimate renewable resource. And it follows that, if language is permanently mutable, there are no fixed rules; principles, yes, core logic, and a binding musical imperative (every language sings its own song) but no laws of the sort that a grammar warden could give you a ticket for.
And yet they persist, the grim gangs of disgruntled grammarians, fulminating at minor syntactical sins and picking at nits the size and importance of pica points. One has to assume there is something in it for them. At its most benign it has the characteristics of an eccentric minority participatory sport; at its worst, it is a particularly pernicious form of trolling. Could it be that there is something more than language preservation at stake?
There has been some research into why occasional verbal infelicity can turn a loose network of irked readers into a baying mob. Someone had the bright idea of scanning the brains of pedants while examples of misuse were paraded in front of them; and the findings were pretty intriguing. The areas of the brain dedicated to language formation, such as Broca's area, were not stimulated; but those associated with OCD lit up like Christmas decorations on Regent Street.
And yet I'd hesitate to label grammar rants as purely a mental health issue. They are often right, for a start. Take a simple example: you move into a new house with a big garden. At the end of the garden is a wooden summer house, in a state of disrepair. At the house-warming, a guest says, ‘That summer house is a bit dilapidated,' and everyone agrees; except a pallid Banquo in the corner.
‘I think you'll find,' (at this point a gnarled, hooked index finger is raised), ‘That a wooden building cannot be dilapidated.' Banquo is quite correct, of course.
Lapidus is the Latin word for stone. Originally, ‘dilapidated' referred exclusively to a stone building in ruins; say, a pagan temple whose stones the local Christians are busy purloining to build a church. The summer house may be a mess but it's in no such peril.
Correct, Banquo may be, and even interesting, in a trainspotting kind of way; but it's completely irrelevant. The guest who offered a stoned version of the obvious was understood by (almost) everyone; the pedant was preaching to an audience of one. Good communication and mutual understanding trump the rules-based order every time.
So next time you pass a vegetable stall of dubious literacy, remember poor old Ben Jonson, keep your index finger in your pocket and move on. Language is not waiting for your verdict on it; it has better things to do.
When he isn't editing, Noel Rooney writes a regular column for Fortean Times magazine, and wilfully obscure poetry. He lives in South London with his family and rather too many animals.
The Pedant: how to make your editor happy 1: Accents
The Pedant: how to make your editor happy 2: Dialogue tags
The Pedant: how to make your editor happy 4: Spoilt for choice: formats and fonts
The Pedant: how to make your editor happy 5: The trouble with ‘as'
The Pedant: how to make your editor happy 6: What's all the fuss over hyphens?
The Pedant: How to make your editor happy 7: Close encounters of the word kind
