Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
Subject: Re: "Grammar" & "Usage"
From: thayes@desire.wright.edu
Date: 22 Aug 92 20:05:34 EST
 <1992Aug20.153627.23885@Princeton.EDU> <1992Aug20.203121.5690@news.columbia.edu> <1992Aug20.232516.13379@Princeton.EDU>
Organization: Wright State University 




In article <1992Aug20.232516.13379@Princeton.EDU>, 
roger@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Roger Lustig) writes:
Roger> And yet: we're in a usage discussion group, where issues of formal
Roger> grammar are also raised.  Given the circumstance, the context, etc., I
Roger> think the appropriateness of lumping all the different issues together
Roger> under "grammar" is questionable.

I have read, with growing uneasiness, Roger's defense of the grammar/usage
distinction, how any usage is basically cool as long as someone understands
the message, an so on.  I have two points.  First, a question for Roger:
what in the world did you do as a copy editor (a job you mentioned you held)?
In anticipation of your response of, "I edited copy" (or something close
to that), I ask, For what purpose?  Wouldn't any old slop do?

A second point is in order.  I think you are presuming inappropriately that 
usage is so plastic that formal rules are "too prescriptive" and thus bad.  
You would think Gabe some sort of weenie for insisting on good -- at least
standard -- writing skills in his employees. 

I believe this is inappropriate because you presume everyone starts at an equal
level of ability, and thus "creative" usage/grammar is ripping fun since we
wink at the rules we have flaunted.  It *is* funny when we know that one *does*
understand the rules and then *consciously* bends them.  But allow me to
present for you, verbatim, a paragraph from a student paper I have just read:

"Additional research could be done on how the size of the group as well as the
proportion of men to female ratio is.  Does it help or hinder combining the to
genders in groups who must problem solve for survival.  How does the dominance
wiegh out in an artifacial setting compared to a in the field study."

Knowing the theme of the paper wouldn't help your interpretation of this,
believe me.

Funny, funny, har har.  If you wrote this it would be, in most circumstances. 
Do you *honestly* think you would hire this person for a job in your company,
Roger?  Do you *honestly* think this excerpt shows creativity?  Do you
*honestly* think that there is no need for this person to re-learn the basics
of grammar and usage?

If your answer to any of the preceding three questions is "No," then I say
shame on you.

Roger> That's all I want: tell us how you arrive at your standards, your norms,
> your rules.  Cite an authority, and tell us what the authority has set
> out to do.  Or provide your own arguments from evidence.
> But pontificating about what's right and what's wrong is profoundly
> uninteresting, imho.  Without backing such statements are vacuous,
Roger> especially as so many ofthem turn out to be wrong.

But Roger, don't *experts* "pontificate" about what is right and wrong?  And
whose experts should we listen to -- the ones that agree with your prejudices
about language, apparently (evans & evans, AHD, etc.).

Do you need an expert to see what the problem is in the student's writing
above?

Lobbing about the opines of experts is great sport on a.u.e., at Princeton, and
among groups of those who understand the subtleties.  But you have seemingly
advocated paralysis without the approval of experts -- your *favorite* experts
-- and thus we can have no debate.  In the meantime, you would presume that we
shouldn't instill and insist upon *standard* grammar and usage because there is
no rigorous "standard."  And Rome will continue to burn while experts fiddle.

-----ted hayes  

Newsgroups: alt.usage.english