Many people think of language as a set of rules; break them, and you're Wrong. But that's not how language works. There are different degrees of wrongness, and there's not a bright line between the degrees--and many things that people think are wrong aren't. I'm the office language-nerd at work, and also have tried to explain why so much scorn about how other people speak or write is misinformed or misguided in a book. I didn't get a chance to do this in the book, but herewith, I offer a taxonomy of language mistakes and non-mistakes, as a way of helping people think about what's right and wrong:
Rules everyone knows: These are the language rules that even a three-year-old knows: "Steve is here," not "Steve am here." These are the bedrock of the language, and there are so many thousands of them that most people don't think of them as rules in their own language because they're not what most people think of as "rules": the difficult ones that are drilled into you in school.
Standard but tricky: Many people are tripped up, for example, by "whom." "Whom" is still part of standard English, though it is so misused, even by people who are trying, that it may not survive forever. Rules in this category are also routinely ignored in speech.
Obsolescent rules: Sticklers insist on many usages that are now too late to save. I like the old philosophical-logical phrase "to beg the question," which means to try to sneak the conclusion of your argument into one of your assumptions. But the usage "to raise the question" is so much more common that I've nearly given this one up.
Disputed rules: Many sticklers insist, for example, on "None of us is leaving," but common speech often has this as "None of us are leaving." But the great English rulebook writer H.W. Fowler, among others, weighed in in favor of "none are" in his 1926 "Dictionary of Modern English Usage." Some questions are simply not settled, and you should check your pockets after talking with anyone who insists that they are.
Non-rules: A long list of peeves on the part of single individuals that somehow made it into grammar books and teaching materials. Most famously, great writers have split infinitives and ended sentences with prepositions for centuries, yet somehow bans on both usages became "rules" that have been taught to millions of speakers in English, in contravention of their own good sense for their native language. The linguist Arnold Zwicky has called the most persistent of these "zombie rules": like the two above, they've been shown as bogus in many good usage books, yet still survive thanks to many a provincial schoolmarm.
Formality differences: Speech and writing can have two different sets of rules, though many people are uncomfortable with this idea. If you knock on a door and your wife asks "Who is it?," if you're in the small category of people who say "It is I" you could use a refresher on the concept of "register": formality has its place, but so does informality, and usages like "It's me" has been part of living English forever.
Regional differences: Brits not only have different words from Americans (lift, motorway) but some subtle bits of grammar: "You should see that movie." "I will do," says the British-English speaker, using one more word than Americans do. To label regional differences "wrong" is one of the worst kinds of provincialism.
Dialect differences: This is tricker, but linguists have known forever that Black, Southern, Scots, Irish and many other kinds of English differ from the standard not randomly (because their speakers are lazy) but systematically. They are rule-bound varieties of language just like the standard is, with the main difference that they're not written down as often and have historically lacked prestige. That doesn't make them wrong; it does make them inappropriate for settings that call for standard English. But book-standard English is wrong for many other circumstances, a fact too often forgotten.
House style: "August ninth" or "August 9th?" "E-mail" or "email?" I have read the rant of a copy-editor who is convinced that there is a simple black-and-white answer to the question of "douche bag" versus "douchebag." But this is ridiculous: all these questions and many others are matters of house style, not correctness per se. It's good to keep one house style for a single publication, but for God's sake don't lose sleep over these as a matter of correctness.
Personal taste: I've heard that the New York Times bans "should" from editorials, since saying it relieves the writer of explaining why something should happen; the verb does it all. Bloomberg's business-wire service bans "but" from all copy (except direct quotations). This isn't grammar but style.
It's not easy keeping track of so many kinds of right or wrong. It'd be so much easier simply to memorize one set of rules and let that be that. But it's much more rewarding to develop a feel for the different things we mean when we say "correct," and much more interesting too.
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Here's a quote to love. Critic, H.L. Mencken on Warren G. Harding:
"He writes the worst English that I have ever encountered. It reminds me of a string of wet sponges; of tattered washing on the line; of stale bean soup, of dogs barking idiotically through endless nights.%u201D
When Harding died, poet E. E. Cummings said "The only man, woman or child who wrote a simple declarative sentence with seven grammatical errors, is dead.%u201D
I love new words/phrases that make that universal crossover. But I revere traditional English even though I break rules all the time--on purpose, of course. Like starting a sentence with "like" or "so."
So, I have this book on English usage published in 1959 before I realized the language was taking a dive (colloquialisms excepted) and I checked out "none." Here's an excerpt:
" 'None' is a single word, but 'no one' is often used instead of 'none' for emphasis. None may be either singular or plural but is now more common than with (sic) the plural." Author, Porter G. Perrin said it. I didn't.
RE: sic reference, I would have said "more common when used in the plural tense" but that would be too many words for most readers who like to skim, or who are speed readers.
Also, when I learned basic nouns and verbs in elementary school, the rule for "none is" and other related is/are noun agreements was "Use either one but whatever you start with, stay with."
The Smith family are going on vacation. The Smith family are such a fun group.
OR, The Smith family has two dogs and a cat. The Smith family lives two blocks away.
Where are the boldface and italics buttons on HP?
UKspeak: "He has got the flu," USspeak: "He has the flu."
UKspeak: "He has got worse," USspeak: "He has gotten worse."
UKspeak: "Before or behind the wall," USspeak: "In front of or in back of the wall."
UKspeak: "Fill in a questionnaire," USspeak: "Fill out a questionnaire."
So many differences. That's why American authors trying to write in the British style (and vice versa,) always run aground on this sort of error. It fairly jumps out off the page. Nothing like it for ruining a tale.
I wince when I see someone use to when they should use too.
My biggest pet peeve, however, is a trend I've noticed in novels. Authors will add a comma instead of a period and sentences run on for paragraphs. I'm not sure what's happened to editors these days.
Cormac McCarthy (No Country for Old Men) is a wonderful writer but he has opted out of quotation marks and is a master of the run on sentence. I don't mind his lack of quotes but I do get distracted by the run on and ons. Overuse of adjectives also annoys me. I know Heart of Darkness is a classic revered by millions, but by the 25th time Conrad described the forest I had tuned out. (I know I'll lose fans for that comment, just as I lost marks on my Conrad paper in high school.)
That's a really bad misplaced modifier... come on dude, in the 3rd sentence??
I am on a dosage of xanax because I dread my prostate biopsy tomorrow, I must drink cleaning fluid to 'flush' and therefore, I may have offended the fan. I have 190 now, not 191, and I can only focus on that 191st person. That's how insecure I am.
I am witty, bright, highest IQ in 5th grade, my head was larger than my waist, and I shall re-befriend you, increasing your power, your prestige...your self worth, as you shall mine. And You have 3 weeks off every month with the trainer 3 organization, beginning with an immediate 2 weeks of initial paid holidays which begin now.
was I finished? I think I was.
(I bet the fan missing just fell to the floor, or got lodged in your trouser cuff, as fans do, and will turn up again PDQ)
But feckit, you have 190....stand tall (if you can in fact stand, all comfortably numb as you should be!) ;>
http://www.elearnenglishlanguage.com/difficulties/memyself.html
Me vs Myself
Me, myself, and I may refer to the same person, but they are not interchangeable. Myself should be the one you hear the least, but it's often used incorrectly in place of me.
Me
Me is an object pronoun, which means that it refers to the person that the action of a verb is being done to, or to which a preposition refers.
They want me to study more.
Tell me a story.
Between you and me, he's right.
Carol wants to meet with John and me tomorrow.
The book was written entirely by me.
Please call Hillary or me with any questions.
Myself
Myself is a reflexive or stressed pronoun, which means that, generally speaking, it should be used in conjunction with the subject pronoun I, not instead of the object pronoun me.
I bought myself a car.
I myself started the company.
I did the laundry by myself.
I feel like myself again.
Myself can be used for stress, but most grammarians won't allow it to be used alone - they reject constructions like "Carol wants to meet with John and myself" (correct: with John and me") and "The book was written entirely by myself" (correct: by me personally).
Just remember that myself can be reflexive (I'm doing something to/for myself) or emphatic (I myself). Otherwise, you probably want to use me.
Me vs I
I saw it as the "me" generation and emphasis on one's own ego.. making "myself," the primary subject of conversation. Your explanation is also reasonable.
It is definitely bound by rules just like Standard English, but the rules are substantially different. Some people have claimed that it reflects influences from West African languages; others tend to think that it developed out of English and just changed on its own due to the degree of separation between blacks and whites in the U.S.
dear. Last night, my Hungarian GF said something referring to how expensive something was, and she said in Hungarian, it's (I repeat it phonetically) "Drago". Now, I have heard her talking with her daughter on the phone, and invariably, the conversation ends with her saying "See-ah...(again, phonetically, it is not 'see ya') she says, "See-ahh...Seeah, Drago"
So last night I said, "hang on...are you telling me that drago, which means 'something of value to us, a person', as in, 'my dear', is also used as an expression of 'expense', as it is used in The Beatle's song, "When I'm 64?"
and she said, "Yes, a lot of the european schtuff is connected"
I found that fascinating. We don't use that over here, do we, "I would buy the sink at Lowes, but it is a bit too 'dear'.
And 'question marks' are so out of my vogue.
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