12 Mistakes Nearly Everyone Who Writes About Grammar Mistakes Makes
There are a lot of bad grammar posts in the world. These days, anyone with a blog and a bunch of pet peeves can crank out a click-bait listicle of supposed grammar errors. There’s just one problem—these articles are often full of mistakes of one sort or another themselves. Once you’ve read a few, you start noticing some patterns. Inspired by a recent post titled “Grammar Police: Twelve Mistakes Nearly Everyone Makes”, I decided to make a list of my own.
1. Confusing grammar with spelling, punctuation, and usage. Many people who write about grammar seem to think that grammar means “any sort of rule of language, especially writing”. But strictly speaking, grammar refers to the structural rules of language, namely morphology (basically the way words are formed from roots and affixes), phonology (the system of sounds in a language), and syntax (the way phrases and clauses are formed from words). Most complaints about grammar are really about punctuation, spelling (such as problems with you’re/your and other homophone confusion) or usage (which is often about semantics). This post, for instance, spends two of its twelve points on commas and a third on quotation marks.
2. Treating style choices as rules. This article says that you should always use an Oxford (or serial) comma (the comma before and or or in a list) and that quotation marks should always follow commas and periods, but the latter is true only in most American styles (linguists often put the commas and periods outside quotes, and so do many non-American styles), and the former is only true of some American styles. I may prefer serial commas, but I’m not going to insist that everyone who doesn’t use them is making a mistake. It’s simply a matter of style, and style varies from one publisher to the next.
3. Ignoring register. There’s a time and a place for following the rules, but the writers of these lists typically treat English as though it had only one register: formal writing. They ignore the fact that following the rules in the wrong setting often sounds stuffy and stilted. Formal written English is not the only legitimate form of the language, and the rules of formal written English don’t apply in all situations. Sure, it’s useful to know when to use who and whom, but it’s probably more useful to know that saying To whom did you give the book? in casual conversation will make you sound like a pompous twit.
4. Saying that a disliked word isn’t a word. You may hate irregardless (I do), but that doesn’t mean it’s not a word. If it has its own meaning and you can use it in a sentence, guess what—it’s a word. Flirgle, on the other hand, is not a word—it’s just a bunch of sounds that I strung together in word-like fashion. Irregardless and its ilk may not be appropriate for use in formal registers, and you certainly don’t have to like them, but as Stan Carey says, “‘Not a word’ is not an argument.”
5. Turning proposals into ironclad laws. This one happens more often than you think. A great many rules of grammar and usage started life as proposals that became codified as inviolable laws over the years. The popular that/which rule, which I’ve discussed at length before, began as a proposal—not “everyone gets this wrong” but “wouldn’t it be nice if we made a distinction here?” But nowadays people have forgotten that a century or so ago, this rule simply didn’t exist, and they say things like “This is one of the most common mistakes out there, and understandably so.” (Actually, no, you don’t understand why everyone gets this “wrong”, because you don’t realize that this rule is a relatively recent invention by usage commentators that some copy editors and others have decided to enforce.) It’s easy to criticize people for not following rules that you’ve made up.
6. Failing to discuss exceptions to rules. Invented usage rules often ignore the complexities of actual usage. Lists of rules such as these go a step further and often ignore the complexities of those rules. For example, even if you follow the that/which rule, you need to know that you can’t use that after a preposition or after the demonstrative pronoun that—you have to use a restrictive which. Likewise, the less/fewer rule is usually reduced to statements like “use fewer for things you can count”, which leads to ugly and unidiomatic constructions like “one fewer thing to worry about”. Affect and effect aren’t as simple as some people make them out to be, either; affect is usually a verb and effect a noun, but affect can also be a noun (with stress on the first syllable) referring to the outward manifestation of emotions, while effect can be a verb meaning to cause or to make happen. Sometimes dumbing down rules just makes them dumb.
7. Overestimating the frequency of errors. The writer of this list says that misuse of nauseous is “Undoubtedly the most common mistake I encounter.” This claim seems worth doubting to me; I can’t remember the last time I heard someone say “nauseous”. Even if you consider it a misuse, it’s got to rate pretty far down the list in terms of frequency. This is why linguists like to rely on data for testable claims—because people tend to fall prey to all kinds of cognitive biases such as the frequency illusion.
8. Believing that etymology is destiny. Words change meaning all the time—it’s just a natural and inevitable part of language. But some people get fixated on the original meanings of some words and believe that those are the only correct meanings. For example, they’ll say that you can only use decimate to mean “to destroy one in ten”. This may seem like a reasonable argument, but it quickly becomes untenable when you realize that almost every single word in the language has changed meaning at some point, and that’s just in the few thousand years in which language has been written or can be reconstructed. And sometimes a new meaning is more useful anyway (which is precisely why it displaced an old meaning). As Jan Freeman said, “We don’t especially need a term that means ‘kill one in 10.’”
9. Simply bungling the rules. If you’re going to chastise people for not following the rules, you should know those rules yourself and be able to explain them clearly. You may dislike singular they, for instance, but you should know that it’s not a case of subject-predicate disagreement, as the author of this list claims—it’s an issue of pronoun-antecedent agreement, which is not the same thing. This list says that “‘less’ is reserved for hypothetical quantities”, but this isn’t true either; it’s reserved for noncount nouns, singular count nouns, and plural count nouns that aren’t generally thought of as discrete entities. Use of less has nothing to do with being hypothetical. And this one says that punctuation always goes inside quotation marks. In most American styles, it’s only commas and periods that always go inside. Colons, semicolons, and dashes always go outside, and question marks and exclamation marks only go inside sometimes.
10. Saying that good grammar leads to good communication. Contrary to popular belief, bad grammar (even using the broad definition that includes usage, spelling, and punctuation) is not usually an impediment to communication. A sentence like Ain’t nobody got time for that is quite intelligible, even though it violates several rules of Standard English (and, as a commenter notes, it’s perfectly grammatical in African American Vernacular English). The grammar and usage of nonstandard varieties of English are often radically different from Standard English, but different does not mean worse or less able to communicate. The biggest differences between Standard English and all its nonstandard varieties are that the former has been codified and that it is used in all registers, from casual conversation to formal writing. Many of the rules that these lists propagate are really more about signaling to the grammatical elite that you’re one of them—not that this is a bad thing, of course, but let’s not mistake it for something it’s not. In fact, claims about improving communication are often just a cover for the real purpose of these lists, which is . . .
11. Using grammar to put people down. This post sympathizes with someone who worries about being crucified by the grammar police and then says a few paragraphs later, “All hail the grammar police!” In other words, we like being able to crucify those who make mistakes. Then there are the put-downs about people’s education (“You’d think everyone learned this rule in fourth grade”) and more outright insults (“5 Grammar Mistakes that Make You Sound Like a Chimp”). After all, what’s the point in signaling that you’re one of the grammatical elite if you can’t take a few potshots at the ignorant masses?
12. Forgetting that correct usage ultimately comes from users. The disdain for the usage of common people is symptomatic of a larger problem: forgetting that correct usage ultimately comes from the people, not from editors, English teachers, or usage commentators. You’re certainly entitled to have your opinion about usage, but at some point you have to recognize that trying to fight the masses on a particular point of usage (especially if it’s a made-up rule) is like trying to fight the rising tide. Those who have invested in learning the rules naturally feel defensive of them and of the language in general, but you have no more right to the language than anyone else. You can be restrictive if you want and say that Standard English is based on the formal usage of educated writers, but any standard that is based on a set of rules that are simply invented and passed down is ultimately untenable.
And a bonus mistake:
13. Making mistakes themselves. It happens to the best of us. The act of making grammar or spelling mistakes in the course of pointing out someone else’s mistakes even has a name, Muphry’s law. This post probably has its fair share of typos. (If you spot one, feel free to point it out—politely!—in the comments.)
This post also appears on Huffington Post.
12 Mistakes Nearly Everyone Who Writes About Gr…
[…] "There are a lot of bad grammar posts in the world. These days, anyone with a blog and a bunch of pet peeves can crank out a click-bait listicle of supposed grammar errors. … Inspired by a recent post titled “Grammar Police: Twelve Mistakes Nearly Everyone Makes”, I decided to make a list of my own." […]
Marilyn Hudson Tucker
Did you intend to misspell “Murphy”?
jelena
re: Ryan
Thanks for the feedback, Ryan. I am not sure what kind of feedback was required from students in the research papers you mentioned. If it was the correct usage of nominative and accusative (or dative, if it is “to whom” like in the example here), I believe that students did not have to know the difference between “who” and “whom” in order to use those cases properly. However, if you asked students if knowing this difference made it easier for them to understand the very concept of cases, I am sure many would answer affirmatively. I conducted a brief, though unpublished, research on this topic with native English speakers studying Russian. The ones who knew relevant concepts in English grammar found it much easier to comprehend cases in Russian. It was the same with my students learning Italian (not cases, other concepts). I agree that communicative methods of language learning do not necessarily require understanding of all the concepts taught as traditional methods did, however my teaching (more than 10 years) and learning (more than 30 years)experience shows that it does help a lot when students understand a concept, especially if you are teaching adults, like we do at the university. Of course, they can learn to use certain concepts properly without understanding them, but it makes it easier if they do understand them.
Also, I forgot to mention that knowing the difference between “who” and “whom” helps native speakers understand English pronouns better. I realized that many native speakers use “I” instead of “me.” For example, the other day a friend of mine told me: “You should have talked to John and I about that.” If he had known the difference between “who” and “whom”, and that in this sentence “me” is the answer to “whom”, while “I” is the answer to “who”, he would have said “John and me.” I hear this mistake more often from native speakers than from people who speak English as a second language.
I just don’t understand what you meant by suggesting to me that I should internalize what’s written. Why would I internalize it? Or is it some other meaning of the verb “internalize”? I was confused because I knew this verb, but did not understand its meaning in your sentence. I double-checked it in several dictionaries, but they list the meanings I already know, not the one you used. Would you please explain it to me what you meant by that suggestion.
Here are the meanings that most dictionaries include:
1. to incorporate within oneself (the cultural values, mores, etc., of others) through learning, socialization, or identification.
2. to make subjective or give a subjective character to.
3. to acquire (a linguistic rule, structure, etc.) as part of one’s language competence.
Richard
To Jelena:
I don’t understand why you would question the usage: “To whom did you give the book?”
“Whom”, which is the objective case, follows the preposition “to”. Where is the inappropriateness?
Furthermore your suggestion, “Whom did you give the book to” would be violating the, never-end-a-sentence-with-a-prepostion rule. I understand that that rule has been debunked, but since you brought up appropriateness, your suggestion would seem ironic.
jelena
re: Richard
I didn’t want to use the word “correct” because they are both correct. I just thought that “Whom…. to?” was used more often. And I was taught that it was a preferable option. I heard about the preposition rule you mentioned, but my English professors always maintained that it was a rule from Latin which is not always applicable in English, especially not in questions. I really didn’t know that it was a rule. Thanks for letting me know. In any case, I agree with you that I shouldn’t have used the word “appropriate”.
Holly Stevens
Doesn’t #8 contradict #1?
Marilyn Hudson Tucker
Here is my funny article on silly rules we follow:
http://marilynhudsontucker.com/2012/07/22/following-senseless-language-rules-to-avoid-criticism/
Marilyn Hudson Tucker
Is it okay to say “grammar and mechanics,” or should there be more words?
pagliere
At some level of abstraction, and over time, we all employ tautologies. (I could elucidate, but I risk being accused of being tautological by someone here.)
Marilyn Hudson Tucker
Roger, I’m glad you enjoyed my article. I love to make people laugh. In 2014 I will have three funny works published, a memoir, a funny female PI novel, and a children’s picture book on manners.
Marilyn Hudson Tucker
Richard, I’m sorry Robert called you a twit. I did not reply to that statement of his, but I should have gone further and said I did not think you are a twit. I think you just did not realize, because I did not tell you so, that my blog is all about humor, and not about grammar and mechanics. I try to make people laugh once a month, whether it is about Spock swearing on film or Bones McCoy cracking up the cast members by grabbing Nurse Chappell’s boobs and not letting go. If you look at my blog, it’s all just supposed to be funny, not instructive. Take care.
Ted Voth Jr
‘Flirgle’ semantically is not a word, but phonologically its perfectly formed. It might be a word, except is has no meaning attached to it! Nice article. (My BA is in Linguistics.)
Ted Voth Jr
Scratch any descriptive linguist, and youll find a prescriptivist, even me… 😀
Michael P
Doesn’t a proposal a hundred years ago becoming a rule today count as a change in usage? And shouldn’t grammar respect changes in usage? Or is there some special “because I say so” rule I’m not getting?
And irregardless may be a word, but it’s a STUPID word, used by stupid people.
Chris
My favorite response to #8 is “So, do you also think it’s wrong to talk about ‘manufacturing’ things that aren’t made by hand?”
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Donna Marks
This has been thoroughly and throughly edifying. Thank you!
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Eric
You make some good points, but you’re also guilty of anti-grammar pedantry, or reverse-snobbery. “To whom did you give the book” is something I would normally say in conversation. That’s not pomposity – that’s just the way I speak. Putting people down for using correct grammar is verbal thuggery!
Rick in Miami
I agree with almost all the items you’ve listed and even chuckled over a few as I read them because I could relate so well to them and what they have to say, but one thing that really troubles me (12. Forgetting that correct usage ultimately comes from users) is when I think of commonly heard phrases like “They’ve invited Jack and I” or “They’ve invited Jack and myself.” Just because so many native speakers now create phrases like these and they can start being considered as common usage, are we to consider them acceptable variations or just poor grammar? I wonder . . .
Jonathon Owen
Eric: The short answer is no. Saying that correct usage ultimately comes from users doesn’t mean that it’s a simple vote. Stigmatized usage can exist alongside standard usage for centuries (just look at ain’t and double negatives).
It’s possible that at some point, a construction like “They’ve invited Jack and I” will be considered standard, but my guess is that it would be a long, long time from now. It has to not only find its way into formal, educated use but also receive the stamp of approval from users at large, especially gatekeepers such as teachers and editors. Even though it’s creeping into formal, educated use, it’s met with such resistance and hostility that it’s not going to become acceptable anytime soon.
Bob Shepherd
Loved this piece. Thank you.
The Nameless One
Excellent piece and very well written. Hate many of these pseudo-intellects and so called grammar police myself. Using proper language is one thing, but what you already pointed out correctly of being an ass is another.
Marilyn Hudson Tucker
Here’s a chuckle for everyone.
http://marilynhudsontucker.com/2014/03/27/the-muggy-mug/
James
A particularly interesting application, according to Dr. Richard Bandler, was the work of Dr. Milton Erickson. A hypnotist, Dr. Erickson used incomplete sentences to pointed effect, putting people in a very specific state of mind. (“Notice how Mandi’s face….” This leaves people waiting for what Mandi’s face does, I gather.) My point is, everything we do with language has consequences, and the “proper usage” involves understanding how people will react to any given choice, and wielding those choices to best effect.
Personally, I think a better term for grammar is “speechcraft,” even though it might be archaic it truly highlights the purpose of the study- to speak and write more effectively!