Mistakes about grammar mistakes
languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu
languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu
Also, I specifically disagree with his number 3. I have never heard or seen "I can do that easy" in formal speech or prose. He seems to be arguing against grammar Nazism, which I can agree with, but that doesn't mean that a perfectly acceptable and understandable sentence may still be ungrammatical. "I can do that easy" is ungrammatical.
In other words, if there is a broad tradition of people saying and writing, "I can do that easy", it is de facto grammatically correct to do so.
But is there? It sounds awful to my ears. Does this not just boil down to the distinction between prescriptive vs descriptive camps?
I believe there is in fact a broad tradition of people saying "I be (going to the store)", but I would say that usage of "be" is incorrect. As well with "I'm gonna ..." or even "Ongonna ...". This type of language can certainly be used "correctly" in prose, to add color and flavor, but I would never expect to see it in a proper non-fiction context.
However, this is an interesting point. Good grammar used to be set by those who who were either educated or at the top of society. There were not many recordings of people using bad grammar, by definition.
Now we have a million recordings of "i can haz cheezburger". I fear that the mechanism you describe - actual recorded use - has been opened by the web to all, and good grammar in times to come may be dictated by YouTube comments.
The first "mistake: in the list under discussion is definitely a stylistic problem and not grammar problem - "it goes without saying" is more traditionally known as a "colorless phrase".
Grammar is some combination of rules and usage. "Incorrect grammar" is just generally not applied to phrases that merely detract from one's message. Of course I'm basing my judgment of the meaning of the term 'Grammar' on usage as well.
Some quibbles with Pullum's blog: than vs. then is not a spelling mistake. They are different words and the improper usage is a grammatical error as nearly everyone understands the meaning of grammar. "Less brains" vs. "fewer brains" is a stupid example. "Brains" means intelligence in that context. "Fewer intelligence" is silly.
Now, some of the original rules are purely matters of taste. I use lots of commas, But if you use "i.e", when you should use "e.g." then you come come off as sloppy.
The real problem with strict grammarians is that some of the rules were never normal usage (dont end a sentence with a preposition) and others fail to track the evolution of usage ("different from" vs. "different than").
I would go even a bit further. The specific example you cite is a case where the rule not only doesn't follow normal usage for English, but derives from an entirely different language. The rule, like many others, comes from Latin usage. In English, as a Germanic language, it is not only common, but often correct and natural, to end a sentence with a preposition.
There is a common tendency for adverb-verb groups in English to split and for the verb to move forward in the sentence as the preposition slides down to the end. As an example, think about how natural this sounds: I'll be right along after I finish writing this reply down.
The rule was always complete crap. But it appealed to the sensibility of people who knew Latin and felt that applying its norms to English elevated them. It's a class thing, at some level, I suppose.
It's one of my favourite examples of the tortured tangle into which we twist the language occasionally, in order to comply with seemingly arbitrary grammar rules.
However, I instinctively cringe when I see sentences that end with a preposition. I don't know whether this is learnt behaviour, but I really do find the constructions for which the preposition is accounted earlier in the phrase to be more elegant.
The alternative to your example would be: I'll come (or arrive) after I have finished writing this reply. I'd argue that this sentence is less folksy, but forces you to be more precise about your intent and action. I often find that when writers resort to poor grammar because they lack the attention to detail to state exactly what they mean.
This is especially true as we move to faster and faster paced methods of communication in which precision is often sacrificed for a speedy, less clear reply.
It sounds not at all natural to me. Was it supposed to?
Consider: "I have less chocolate" vs "I have fewer chocolates"
In the first case, even if you don't hear the correct ending to the word chocolate, it is clear that you are talking about an amorphous mass of chocolate. In the second case, it is clear that you have distinct chocolates.
Natural language works on multiple redundancy, expecting some wastage as the information is conveyed. Any common mistake that detracts from the precision with which you can express yourself is a bad thing.
Having said that, Strunk and White's book is an abomination of self-contradiction. I can tell by your writing, albeit only a small snippet, that you don't follow their teachings religiously (as some do; IE the Grammar Nazi's - a little knowledge is a dangerous thing). You use your own style for parenthesise (dashes rather than commas), likely one you picked up and liked, and one the Elements of Style suggests is wrong (at least from as much as I've managed to read of the text).
(I only say that because I did.)
The new list of "grammar mistakes" being critiqued in the parent are both innovations in language control and don't have much syntax-like quality to them. The English teachers have most of these covered in other categories already. Still, one might see the list as effort by grammarians at a land grab in language-space similar to Apple's UI patenting land grab in information-space. Either way, it is wrong.
The most atrocious pseudo-grammar rule I know is the absurd 'that' versus 'which' pseudo-distinction. This made-up piece of rule-fluff is common enough that I wasn't able to remove from my MS Word grammar checker. Losing that was perhaps the one good to come to me from switching to Open Office.
> A guy who writes I could of been a contender can't spell, sure, he knows how to say grammatically that he could've been a contender (and who knows, perhaps in some realm other than writing he could've been).
Is it just me, or is this sentence ungrammatical?
>A guy who writes I could of been a contender can't spell. Sure, he knows how to say grammatically that he could've been a contender (and who knows, perhaps in some realm other than writing he could've been).
Conversational and grammatical.
can't spell, sure. He knows
can't spell, sure; he knows
can't spell, sure, but he knows
It requires that extra pause that the parenthesis removed. How he wrote it should read more akin to this:
can't spell (sure) he knows
A parenthesis can, usually, be removed without an effect on the readability of the sentence, as the 'usually' in this sentence can. However, his can't because the two ends around the parenthesis aren't contiguous. I'd let this pass to a simple case of writing fast and being unable to catch the error on a proof read (if he did one). I've worked as a writer, and I can say honestly that it's surprisingly easy to miss errors when you know exactly what you mean and hence why all good authors have good editors between their manuscript and the book you buy.