No such thing as 'correct grammar'

Thoughts on grammar:

Michael Rosen, Guardian.co.uk, Friday 2 March 2012 11.00 GMT

Sorry, there's no such thing as 'correct grammar'

"Whereas linguists are agreed that language has grammar, what they can't agree on is how to describe it. So, while there is a minimum agreement that language is a system with parts that function in relation to each other, there is no universal agreement on how the parts and the functions should be analysed and described, nor indeed if they should be described as some kind of self-sealed system or whether they should always be described in terms of the users, ie those who "utter" the language, and those who "receive" it (speakers and listeners, writers and readers etc)."

"Many people yearn for correctness and this is expressed in the phrase "standard English". The honourable side to this is that it offers a common means of exchange. However, this leads many people to imagine that because it is called standard, it is run by rules and that these rules are fixed."


"Instead, language is owned and controlled by everybody and what we do with it seems to be governed by various kinds of consent, operating through the social groups of our lives. Social groups in society don't swim about in some kind of harmonious melting pot. We rub against each other from very different and opposing positions, so why we should agree about language use and the means of describing it is beyond me."

"So Gwynne, [author of new grammar book], I suspect will have immense amounts of fun and satisfaction telling people what is "right". People attending his classes will feel immensely pleased that they have been told what's right and will probably spend a good deal of time telling other people they meet or read where and how they are wrong."

I do agree that language is owned by everybody, but not that it is controlled by everybody. Grammar is a way to describe language, but language is simply a means of communication, and always in change. There is a body of learned people who keep studying how people talk, and who decide when new 'correct' language should be added to the list. For instance, the word 'Bush lipping' was added as correct American.

So in effect there are two forces in play, how people talk, and what is by and by added to 'correct' language. But 'correctnes' is a fiction when used for something in constant change, and nobody 'owns' it but the users.

I believe there is a "correct" usage and an incorrect one. A simple example: Writed mine these bad-like. If you don't understand it instantly, you'll easily work out that it means I wrote this badly. Who's going to tell me that, even though, every word has been used "un-grammatically" it is not wrong, because it is intelligible. Words have particular forms to show what role the thing they refer to plays in the expression they are used in: I, me, mine; write, wrote written; this, these, etc.

English is a SVO language (subject, verb, object - the word order that is used to ensure understanding), and, because it has lost most of its inflections, it is important to say Janet loves John, where it is the girl who has affection for the boy, just as it is necessary to say John hates Janet where he (John) has an intense dislike for her. To say Janet hates John in those circumstances would convey precisely the wrong meaning. To labour my point, joining the two phrases together without paying attention to word order could result in the following preposterous statement: Janet loves John but Janet hates John. If we substitute pronouns, the nonsense is explained: she loves him but her hates he.

The necessity for a correct usage is most important where precision of meaning is required: scientific papers, enactments of laws, interpretation of contracts and so on. If it were not possible to describe a scientific experiment in precise terms, then it would be difficult to repeat it; if a law were expressed in vague terms, it could not be enforced; if a contract were unclear about what had been agreed to, how would you know if it had been properly performed or not?

This is not to say language must be codified and set in stone. Only a dead language does not change - cf. Latin. In any living language, attempts to prevent change, or to prevent certain types of change, will prove futile and are doomed to fail, even with government support, as with L'Académie française, which is a self-aggrandising body, overly conservative in outlook, and ineffective in what it does.

I have to agree with MMI on this one, because without a uniform grammar, books would be in a hell of a mess. If grammar and speech belonged to the individual I believe we would need translators for the translators.

I will give you an example; I was talking to my daughter and a friend of hers the other day. He walked off after a few minutes and was talking his gibberish to one of his own, the so called “Chaves.” I then asked my daughter what the hell he had been talking about, and she translated. The “Chav,” had been talking in a cut off English and I mean a shortening of words. After she explained I realised that if this “2012 Chav” or dick head, that was straight out of school had written his conversation down on paper, it would have read like a text message.

The English language and grammar is one of the hardest in the world to learn. Yet the multitude of countries in the world, are now starting to have it as a second language. The English language and its grammar that is there for a reason, is now being eroded away by these “Chav’s, Rappers, and anyone else that has a problem with society.

If you need a real experience of the erosion, go onto Yahoo home page and read some of the posts in reference to the news stories. The erosion of grammar in writing or speech will always have an element of uneducated stupidity or laziness that arrives with it. The ones that do look half sensible are normally wrong, because in their attempt to look intelligent on paper they have used Microsoft word, cut and paste.

Anyone that does the amount of writing I do, knows that Microsoft word/grammar is not 100%. It is for that reason I have an editor for all my books, and on occasions he has had some choice words that he has shared with me.

Be well IAN 2411

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Originally Posted by MMI

I believe there is a "correct" usage and an incorrect one. A simple example: Writed mine these bad-like. If you don't understand it instantly, you'll easily work out that it means I wrote this badly. Who's going to tell me that, even though, every word has been used "un-grammatically" it is not wrong, because it is intelligible. Words have particular forms to show what role the thing they refer to plays in the expression they are used in: I, me, mine; write, wrote written; this, these, etc.

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Language is a means of communication, and as such the whole idea of it is of course to get the message across, to make youself understood. No one is suggesting that we start talking gibberish to each other, the question is rather who decides how we talk, what grammer is, and how it changes.

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The necessity for a correct usage is most important where precision of meaning is required: scientific papers, enactments of laws, interpretation of contracts and so on. If it were not possible to describe a scientific experiment in precise terms, then it would be difficult to repeat it; if a law were expressed in vague terms, it could not be enforced; if a contract were unclear about what had been agreed to, how would you know if it had been properly performed or not?

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You have a point here. However, I think it is well known that no texts are as hopelessly impossible to understand as sceintific texts and law! Scientists are often very bad at describing what they mean, and as for law texts, you need lawers to translate them and they argue endlessly over them.

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This is not to say language must be codified and set in stone. Only a dead language does not change - cf. Latin. In any living language, attempts to prevent change, or to prevent certain types of change, will prove futile and are doomed to fail, even with government support, as with L'Académie française, which is a self-aggrandising body, overly conservative in outlook, and ineffective in what it does.

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Agreed.

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Originally Posted by IAN 2411

I have to agree with MMI on this one, because without a uniform grammar, books would be in a hell of a mess. If grammar and speech belonged to the individual I believe we would need translators for the translators.

Be well IAN 2411

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Grammar and speech does in fact belong to the individual, because grammer is simply a description on how people talk. That was how it started, the scolars way back started to gather information on how people talked, and compiled this information into a 'grammar'. Nobody made it up, and made everybody speak like that.

A language is defined among other things as something a number of people agree on and can use among themselves to understand each other. If that were not the case, no one could talk with each other. Neither the article nor I suggest that each person suddenly decide to invent their own - it would not be a language.
What I say is that there is no real 'tick-list' for 'correct' language, only a snap-shot on how it is talked now, and that is changing. ('Snap-shot' taken with a grain of salt, as language takes time to change.)

Grammar was not a sort of divine intervention, given to mankind, and to be obeyed to the letter - sorry, could not resist that ;-).

It is made of how we all talk, and no board or scholar owns it.

As to your first point (in post no. 4), thir, I believe I indicated my agreement with you when I mentioned L'Académie française. That "august" body, whose Académicians describe themselves as "immortals"(!), tries to regulate the way the French language is used, but its greatest success can be said to be the destruction of all the regional languages used in France: Breton, Occidental, etc. However, as to regulating French itself, why, even the government that supports it will ignore its rulings from time to time.

As for the impenetrability of scientific and legal texts, I would suggest that any experiment or theory can be written down in an intelligible manner if it is first thought out clearly. Likewise a statute of law or a court ruling. It is vague description that makes many scientific papers hard to understand, and it is imprecise terminology that enables lawyers to argue over meaning.

The only way to settle the argument (in law) would be to look at the natural meaning of the words and expressions used, and that would entail considering how words and expressions have been used. If, after that, there is still doubt, then the lawyers will argue and a judge will have to decide. His decision may well be not what was originally intended by the lawmakers/contracting parties.

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Originally Posted by MMI

As for the impenetrability of scientific and legal texts, I would suggest that any experiment or theory can be written down in an intelligible manner if it is first thought out clearly. Likewise a statute of law or a court ruling. It is vague description that makes many scientific papers hard to understand, and it is imprecise terminology that enables lawyers to argue over meaning.

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This is precisely why so many scientists and, especially, lawyers use so much Latin terminology. As a 'dead' language, the meanings of words are fixed, not subject to interpretation. Terms in a vibrant, living language can change meanings with the fads of the times, thereby causing the meaning of a statement, no matter how clear, to change over time. A young man in the '60's who picked up a 'bird' wasn't bringing a chicken home for dinner, was he?

This might be of relevance: Today

It discusses how general usage of the word "literally" has distorted its meaning so much that it is becoming nonsensical.

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Originally Posted by MMI

It discusses how general usage of the word "literally" has distorted its meaning so much that it is becoming nonsensical.

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That is quite patently absurd. Literally.

There is a correct and incorrect form of grammar. While some regional differences are bound to occur, there needs to be some overlap for two forms of English to be considered the same language. For example, a good friend from the Far East who is studying English has mastered the more subtle aspects (ie who vs. whom), but when she walked in on me watching the Wire, she was completely lost, despite the official language being English. This is because it really is not English, but ebonics, and as the vernacular and proper forms grow further apart, there is eventually a schism. Dante's The Divine Comedy is proof is this, as Italian began as a vernacular branch of Latin, but eventually became a smiliar, though different language down the road.

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Originally Posted by Punish_her

There is a correct and incorrect form of grammar. While some regional differences are bound to occur, there needs to be some overlap for two forms of English to be considered the same language. For example, a good friend from the Far East who is studying English has mastered the more subtle aspects (ie who vs. whom), but when she walked in on me watching the Wire, she was completely lost, despite the official language being English. This is because it really is not English, but ebonics, and as the vernacular and proper forms grow further apart, there is eventually a schism. Dante's The Divine Comedy is proof is this, as Italian began as a vernacular branch of Latin, but eventually became a smiliar, though different language down the road.

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You are talking about definitions of what actually constitutes a language - how to distinguish them from dialects and off-spring languages. This is something which scholars argue about a lot.

But my original thought was on grammar in any language, and who decides what is 'correct', and if there really is such an animal, seeing how languages change all the time.

My arguments was that no one owns a language, and trying to correct other people's grammar on a website is incomprehensible to me, as some people do here. Of course a language is defined by something a group of people can understand, so if people stary too much form usual use they may not be understood.