From: baron@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (Dennis Baron)
Subject: english teachers
Organization: University of Illinois
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 1992 15:51:18 GMT

Someone on this newsgroup suggested a month or so ago that English
teachers should slap people silly if they started their sentences with
conjunctions.  So that got me thinking, and the result is the following
radio commentary which I'm taping today for broadcast over Illinois
Public Radio next week.  Hope you enjoy it.

_____




Slapping 'em silly


This summer I began hanging out with an unsavory crowd whose

avocation is to argue bluntly about the finer points of

English usage.  They do this facelessly, over computer

networks, sending their beliefs into the ether with

religious fervor.  Predictably, they disagree with one

another, and they emerge from the democratic exchange of

autocratic ideas convinced that they alone are right and

everyone else is wrong.  In the process, they shed some

light on how attitudes toward language are formed.

     Here's an example of what they say: "People who begin

sentences with `And,' `But,' or `Or' should be slapped silly

by an English teacher."

     As an English teacher, I take some umbrage at the

assumption that it is the job of English teachers to control

the language of their students.  For one thing, English

teachers are no better at behavior modification than

psychologists are.  And I don't expect them to be.

     For another, English teachers have very little training

in language.  Their course of study consists largely of

literature with an overlay of pedagogy.  For their teaching

license, English teachers may be required in some states to

take one course in grammar or linguistics.  This hardly

makes them experts in the field.

     So why, then, do English teachers go around telling

their students they can't use can but must always use may?

Because society expects English teachers to be language

experts.  Teachers are expected to join the language police

without so much as a certificate from one of those schools

that advertises on matchbook covers.  You've seen the ad,

I'm sure: "If you can parse this sentence you can qualify

for professional pedant school and drive those big rigs."

     Fortunately for us, only a few teachers do elect to

wear the mantle of linguistic correctness and throw their

weight around.  This vast minority is the source of the

stereotype, the English teacher who slaps students silly,

figuratively speaking, for starting sentences with

conjunctions.  I had one of these teachers in the ninth

grade.  Maybe you did, too.  The kind who made the parts of

speech into medieval torture.

     The average ninth grader wants to snicker and giggle or

blush when the teacher mentions conjugating verbs.  Mrs.

B_____'s approach to verbs was so clinical we decided if sex

was like grammar, well then, forget about it.

     In Mrs. B_____'s class, the law was the law.  You did

not split infinitives.  You did not splice commas.  You did

not start sentences with and, or or, or but.  (Oh, and you

did not use contractions.)  We didn't, that is, until the

day she insisted that aerial, another name for the

antenna-things that studded the roofs of houses before cable

TV, was pronounced a-e-rial.  Which we knew it wasn't, even

if dictionaries did list it as an alternate pronunciation.

Nobody in New York said a-e-rial.  Nobody on TV did, either.

Which meant that nobody in California did.  So that pretty

well covered the whole country, didn't it, not to mention

the known civilized world and English 9A at Russell Sage

Junior High?

     I must have had more than 30 English teachers during my

many years in school, and not a single one shared Mrs.

B____'s high-handed approach to language, or her unnatural

pronunciation.  As an English teacher I've met hundreds of

other English teachers, yet I can count no more than two or

three who fit the stereotype of English teacher as grammar

goon.  Most of them are blissfully unaware of the usage

controversies swirling over the computer airwaves.  They

could care less, or they couldn't care less, if you start

your sentences with conjunctions or end them with

prepositions, so long as your wording is clear and your

handwriting legible, and you don't pass notes in class.

     But the idea that English teachers can change the

course of the English language by slapping students around

is ridiculous.  If we had any real effect on people's usage,

then we'd quickly put ourselves out of business, wouldn't

we?  And all those folks on the computer networks would have

nothing left to turn their noses up at.

debaron@uiuc.edu               (\                   217-333-2392
                               \'\             fax: 217-333-4321
Dennis Baron                    \'\           __________
Department of English           / '|         ()_________)
Univ. of Illinois               \ '/          \ ~~~~~~~~ \
608 S. Wright St.                 \             \ ~~~~~~   \
Urbana IL 61801                   ==).            \__________\
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Newsgroups: alt.usage.english