The Lost Art Of Writing

[DAYoung]

Just a quick observation. Good reading and writing are more than knowledge of formal grammatical rules. They also involve a spirit of generosity, which isn't too hasty, snarky or pedantic. This works on forums too.

Edited July 21, 2011 by DAYoung

[HDoug]

  On 7/21/2011 at 6:16 AM, DAYoung said:

Just a quick observation. Good reading and writing are more than knowledge of formal grammatical rules. They also involve a spirit of generosity, which isn't too hasty, snarky or pedantic. This works on forums too.

 

Hear hear.

 

Doug

[Mickey]

  On 7/21/2011 at 6:16 AM, DAYoung said:

Just a quick observation. Good reading and writing are more than knowledge of formal grammatical rules. They also involve a spirit of generosity, which isn't too hasty, snarky or pedantic. This works on forums too.

 

Yes. Good reading and writing require a sincere and vigorous effort on both sides to understand and be understood. Just an observation of long duration, people usually get snarky and pedantic when they feel only one side is making that effort, and postively hostile when it appears the other side is making a sincere effort to not understand. (N.b., the nominally split infinitive, used for clarity and emphasis per S&W.)

[KateGladstone]

If you mean me: I sincerely don't understand the things I asked for clarification on.

[Mickey]

  On 7/21/2011 at 5:37 PM, KateGladstone said:

If you mean me: I sincerely don't understand the things I asked for clarification on.

 

Notice, I wrote "appears." (I probably should have emboldened it.) I have had enough truck with you to understand that your questions are sincere and you very well may not understand something or other I've written. Beak, who expressed some exasperation and who may have been principle target of some ad hoc moderation, doesn't, I believe, have much history with you.

 

In any event, my immediately previous remarks really concerned unneeded moderation of a fairly civil discussion, not your questions.

 

Clear?

[beak]

  On 7/21/2011 at 12:23 AM, beak said:

  On 7/20/2011 at 11:25 PM, KateGladstone said:

Split infinitive "anathema" in nonfiction? Of those Oxford English Dictionary quotes that include a split infinitive, more than half are nonfiction. Further, the OED editorial staff approves split infinitives without restriction of genre: http://news.bbc.co.u...news/150458.stm

......................

As with many other uses of language, the split infinitive is a matter of style and of education. It isn't news to many who do not split the infinitive that the practice is not logically supported; I would hazard that those who don't split tend to be those who have had some Latin, or had enough of it to know the form of the infinitive in Latin.

 

..............

 

Perhaps this is the part that is causing the problem; let me put it another way.

 

I am commenting on the link. It states that the reason why split infinitives are acceptable is that the 'rule' holding them to be incorrect is based on nothing more than the particular form of the infinitive in Latin. I am saying that most people who follow the rule both know that and know that it is insubstantial. I am saying that adhering to this rule has another basis; education and style, and please note that this comment is not pejorative of anyone's education or sense of style. My statement does not support the rule, merely comments on its users and their probable understanding that the rule is not logical.

 

Personally, I am not convinced that the rule against the split infinitive derives soley from this source. I should say that other reasons for the preferred form for those who do not split may be a sense that things scan better, and that the meaning is somehow tighter this way. That would be a matter of opinion.

 

I hope Kate can now see that her response was inappropriate.

 

ETA

I hadn't assumed the 'moderation' to be aimed at me, but as in all things, I could be wrong.

Edited July 22, 2011 by beak

[Chevalier]

The split infinitive is nothing new, it has been widely used in middle English (old English is based on single word infinitives, like other Germanic languages). I don't think beeing descriptive is a problem of dictionaries regarding this matter. The question is always, are you using a certain phrasing because you don't know better, or are you using it in order to achieve a wanted effect? There's a known German language problem. It's the use of "Einzigste", this would mean onliest one, or soliest, this is apparently wrong (Einzige would be right), but it's ok to use it rhetorically. Sure, the modified uses usually creep slowly into the everyday speech, but it's a feature of living languages that they are changing constantly. I know, hearing, or even using, what seemed wrong before feels strange, but that's how it works.

 

Oh, btw. the use of the term hyperbaton is very inconsistent and there is a Latin hyperbaton as well. Most of the time hyperbaton refers to the splitting of any word, not just infinitives. I guess you already noticed the problem of the Latin language.

[beak]

  On 7/22/2011 at 6:26 AM, Chevalier said:

..............Sure, the modified uses usually creep slowly into the everyday speech, but it's a feature of living languages that they are changing constantly................

 

I believe that this idea of slow change is a little out of date; global communication has made Puck's boast to ' ...put a girdle round the earth in forty minutes.' sound tardy. Any media speaker can beat that easily, and propagate any sort of trash globally and far more quickly. Change now happens at a pace that allows for little filtering or evaluation of a new form.

 

Some resistance to change allows that test of merit. Time can show whether a new use has any benefit or is just another meaningless belittlement of intricate speech; one more mistake, one more difference in meaning between two words lost, another subtlety of meaning unavailable. I would prefer respected dictionaries to offer that resistance, rather than promote every new fashion in usage to the main body of definitions.

[DAYoung]

  On 7/22/2011 at 6:15 AM, beak said:

I am saying that most people who follow the rule both know that and know that it is insubstantial

 

This strikes me as a very important point, Beak. I'd only add that this knowledge of style isn't calculating, deliberate - it's second-nature, but not unconscious.

[KateGladstone]

  On 7/21/2011 at 6:32 PM, Mickey said:

<br />

  On 7/21/2011 at 5:37 PM, KateGladstone said:

<br />If you mean me: I sincerely don't understand the things I asked for clarification on.<br />

<br /><br />Notice, I wrote "appears." (I probably should have emboldened it.) I have had enough truck with you to understand that your questions are sincere and you very well may not understand something or other I've written. Beak, who expressed some exasperation and who may have been principle target of some ad hoc moderation, doesn't, I believe, have much history with you.<br /><br />In any event, my immediately previous remarks really concerned unneeded moderation of a fairly civil discussion, not your questions.<br /><br />Clear?<br />

<br /><br /><br />

 

That's clear — thanks!

[KateGladstone]

Please explain why a decision to speak differently is "trash" if it happens faster than you would have made that decision.Is it "trashy" to call a car a car instead of (as formerly) an auto? That change was quite swift: it took fewer than three generations.Is the current pronunciation of Standard English "trashy" because it is the result of some relatively rapid changes to the pronunciation of medieval English? The largest of these pronunciation changes, after all, took only a generation or two to become nigh-universal: does that rapidity mean that Shakespeare and his coevals spoke "trash" because they no longer pronounced the word "name" (for instance) as "NAH-meh"?Or if not pronunciation, but grammar, is the issue (or if Shakespeare is too long ago to matter) ... Are we trashy for saying and writing "You had better go; he has arrived; where is she going?" where Samuel Johnston and Alexander Pope and Jane Austen all would have said and written "You would better go; he is arrived; whither is she going?" Is "the house is being built" trashy because, till the early 20th century, grammar-books required "the house is building" and condemned the newer phrase as obvious redundancy and nonsense? (for its repetition of one verb in two forms)

[Mickey]

  On 7/22/2011 at 6:21 PM, KateGladstone said:

Please explain why a decision to speak differently is "trash" if it happens faster than you would have made that decision.Is it "trashy" to call a car a car instead of (as formerly) an auto? That change was quite swift: it took fewer than three generations.Is the current pronunciation of Standard English "trashy" because it is the result of some relatively rapid changes to the pronunciation of medieval English? The largest of these pronunciation changes, after all, took only a generation or two to become nigh-universal: does that rapidity mean that Shakespeare and his coevals spoke "trash" because they no longer pronounced the word "name" (for instance) as "NAH-meh"?Or if not pronunciation, but grammar, is the issue (or if Shakespeare is too long ago to matter) ... Are we trashy for saying and writing "You had better go; he has arrived; where is she going?" where Samuel Johnston and Alexander Pope and Jane Austen all would have said and written "You would better go; he is arrived; whither is she going?" Is "the house is being built" trashy because, till the early 20th century, grammar-books required "the house is building" and condemned the newer phrase as obvious redundancy and nonsense? (for its repetition of one verb in two forms)

 

There are some interesting questions here. Regarding the description of something being trashy: if expressing a thought without unnecessary syllables is elegant, padding a sentence to make it sound more significant is inelegant or, as some might say, trashy.

 

In the inelegant sentence "You had better go" "had" is either unnecessary padding or an inapt substitute for the modal auxiliary "would." "He has arrived," likewise includes an unnecessary auxiliary, whereas "He is arrived" describes a state, just as in "he is tardy" or "he is absent," The case against "the house is being built" is probably because it is passive. ("Building" in the formerly preferred form is a gerund, a noun, in this case one denoting a transitory state or incomplete process.) I agree that sanctioning the more common form is overkill.

Edited July 22, 2011 by Mickey

[DAYoung]

One of the themes here is mastery of language, i.e. cultural mastery. Precisely because it's cultural, there is no metaphysical 'right' and 'wrong' with language. But there are varying degrees of familiarity with culture. And these often go hand-in-hand with education, status, class.

 

One of Beak's points is that many educated speakers know that the 'don't split the infinitive' rule is somewhat arbitrary, but they do it anyway - it's an adoption of a certain style. They know that they can speak otherwise - and they might well do, for different audiences. But their identity is bound up with the more educated cultural markers, which they uphold.

 

I suspect this is a more general phenomenon. In Accounting for Tastes, Bennett et al. report their studies into Australian culture. In particular, the relationships between class, status and culture (e.g. art, literature, sport, leisure). They found very similar patterns to France, where the studies first began (with Pierre Bourdieu's work). Less educated respondents were unlikely to visit art galleries, read high literature, listen to Chopin, and so on. More educated respondents were more likely to do these things.

 

So far, so French.

 

But Bennett et al. found something more: Australia's higher classes also enjoyed rock n' roll, hip-hop, comics, football, hotted-up cars, and so on. What marked them was not just 'higher' culture, but mastery of culture as a whole. They were familiar with a greater range of cultural products, whereas the lower classes were narrower. The former had confidence and ease, which allowed them to fully participate in much of their own national (and international) culture. The latter excluded themselves from this, i.e. their rejection of 'high' culture was a badge of pride.

 

I suspect language is just part of this overall pattern, in Australia at least. What marks the 'trash' speakers is not simply their grammar - it's that they're unaware of their grammar, and that they might speak otherwise.

Edited July 22, 2011 by DAYoung

[KateGladstone]

If syllable-count is the desideratum, either the current standard usage ("You had better go") or its obsolescent predecessor ("You would better go") must be "trashy" compared with the shooter -- though not yet standard -- "You better go."

[KateGladstone]

If a "trashy" speaker is a person who commands only one variety of his/her native language, then is a person who commands two varieties (the standard variety and a nonstandard variety) somehow still a "trashy" speaker when choosing the nonstandard variety?

[DAYoung]

  On 7/22/2011 at 11:14 PM, KateGladstone said:

If a "trashy" speaker is a person who commands only one variety of his/her native language, then is a person who commands two varieties (the standard variety and a nonstandard variety) somehow still a "trashy" speaker when choosing the nonstandard variety?

 

I don't think so. But I wouldn't say 'trashy' anyway.

[Mickey]

  On 7/22/2011 at 11:11 PM, KateGladstone said:

If syllable-count is the desideratum, either the current standard usage ("You had better go") or its obsolescent predecessor ("You would better go") must be "trashy" compared with the shooter -- though not yet standard -- "You better go."

 

Not really. The modal auxiliary, 'would,' does impart potentially useful nuance. It's usually * excess verbiage, but in some contexts, the distinction may be justified. Consider all the following: 1) You should go. 2) You better go. 3) You would better go. And number one on the S&W hit parade... 4) Go!

 

* This is where I omitted an utterly superfluous "just."

[beak]

  On 7/22/2011 at 6:21 PM, KateGladstone said:

Please explain why a decision to speak differently is "trash" if it happens faster than you would have made that decision...............

 

I'm sorry Kate, but you read so differently to the way I write, that I can only refer you back again. I did not call something trash BECAUSE it happens at speed... this is just not there in my post. As to the rest of yours, it all seems based on the same false premise, so I'll pass. Really, you are plucking things form the air to argue about, not from my writing.

[KateGladstone]

Since "unnecessary padding" didn't refer to excess syllables, what did it refer to?

[KateGladstone]

Since you specified "unnecessary padding," I wonder, too, what *necessary* padding would look like.