50 Years of Stupid Grammar Advice

> The best was to master English grammar is to master a highly inflected language such as Latin and to work backward from that to the "analytic" rules that govern English.

I agree with everything you said until you got to here. There are reasons to learn Latin, and it will certainly help for writing English, but putting the time in to master Latin is hardly the “best” way to master English grammar, which differs from Latin grammar in as many ways as it agrees. My guess is that learning to read 3 or 4 other languages moderately fluently, or just putting that time into careful analytic reading and writing in English would be just as useful. (Of course, without evidence, both of our comments here are speculative. I’d like to see some comparative studies – though to do them properly would be difficult, so I’m not sure any have been done that would really settle the matter.)

Personally, I think grammar is one of those subjects whose formal study should be delayed as long as possible, assuming that students are spending time reading and writing and carefully analyzing rhetoric and logic of what they read and hear. The emphasis on tools over content, in language just as much as in mathematics, has the potential to devalue creativity and engagement, and lends itself to the kind of rote instruction that leaves humans bored out of their skulls.

> This is akin to learning to do algorithms after having mastered deep principles of mathematics.

Weak analogy. The particularities of Latin grammar are not of the same kind as the “deep principles of mathematics.” Maybe studying syntax in a linguistics course or two could be compared, but I still think it’s a stretch.

> no substitute for plain hard work and perseverance.

With the rest of this paragraph out of the way, you’re right again with this final statement, though it’s a bit of a platitude.

> such as Latin

Funny you've selected Latin as a way to learn a Germanic language like English. This is a mistake that's been made many times before.

A classic essay on the subject: http://www.newdream.net/~scully/toelw/Lowth.htm

I haven't read S&W, but I have three main reasons for avoiding that word:

1) If it's really prestigious, I shouldn't have to mention that fact.

2) If I want you to think it's prestigious, I should show, not tell. It was given 3 michelin stars and won best film at cannes, or whatever the case may be.

3) It's possible that many from the target markets in Asia/Europe/etc won't know what it means anyway. As such, I try not to use complex language unless it's crucial to the message.

edit: not to mention, prestige is subjective. Some people think a glowing writeup in a particular publication is prestigious. Others think it's noise. It's hard to claim either group is wrong.

There are a lot of words in the dictionary you shouldn't use. They're obscure, don't have a meaning that isn't expressed equally well by another word (or limited number of other words) and/or don't actually mean that much. They exist on the fringe of a language and as such should be documented in a dictionary, but if your aim is to communicate clearly through writing, you shouldn't use them.

I think the last paragraph of the article demonstrates that he believes such a thing does not exist.

He's written articles pretty similar to this before, and I think in the last one, he did mention the the Cambridge Grammar. Half the comments were people jumping down his throat for having a conflict of interest.

I can offer a great alternative:

Style: Lessons In Clarity and Grace by Joseph Williams http://www.amazon.com/Style-Lessons-Clarity-Grace-10th/dp/02...

This book is a simple, step by step guide to making you a better writer. By chapter 2 you're already writing much clearer prose. It's one of those books you want to read every couple of years.

I'd also recommend the essay "Politics and the English Language" by George Orwell:

http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/orwell46.htm

I think the latter is `correct' because it is:

I am bigger than he [is].

I see him better than she [does].

I see him better than [I see] her.

He does it better than I [do].

The word "than" is not a preposition. It is a conjunction after which a verb and sometimes a subject are commonly omitted, but understood, because they are the same verb or subject as in the preceding sentence.

Therefore all you really need to do is understand that the portion of the sentence following "than" is itself a sentence. Just supply the missing words, and the correct case will shine forth.

"I run faster than he."

is really:

"I run faster than he runs."

and not:

"I run faster than him runs."

Therefore "he" is correct.

In language, the "correct" case is the more common case for a given variant of the language. The class "English" is composed of the aggregate sum of many variants of the class (dialects, accents, etc.).

Languages change, what was "correct" a century ago may no longer be correct today.

This means the writer has to understand the variant of the language the reader is using, and target that. If your target audience prefers one over the other, that's the "correct" one.

There is no such animal as "correct English" since the definition of "correct English" is set merely by the most culturally powerful subgroup of users of some variant of the language.

It depends on what you mean. Take this example:

I like video games more than my girlfriend.

A) I like video games more than she does. == I like video games more than she likes them.

B) I like video games more than her. == I like video games more than I like her.

Pay no mind to the people who commented before me.

The phrase that follows the comparative preposition "than" is not necessarily a reduced clause. It's actually almost always a simple noun phrase, taking the default accusative case.

"I am taller than him" is Standard American. If you were to say "I am taller than he" you'll sound like a twat.

Doesn't make sense? So what. Language isn't about making sense, it's about getting points across. There's plenty more in English that's even more confusing (exceptional case marking? oh yeah, baby, figure that one out).

Hell, even if it WERE a reduced relative clause there are plausible reasons why it could still be "him", namely, "nominative" and "accusative" are structural case, not semantic case, so they get assigned depending on the assignee's position in the sentence structure, and you could easily reduce a clause and, in doing so, put its subject into precisely the structure necessary for accusative case.

This is because if you make the slightest deviation from 'correct grammar' in a piece about grammar, you'll be attacked mercilessly. Every word, every m-dash, requires an unshakable argument for its correctness in that context.

Pity really, but as long as it's cheap and easy to attack anything with a whiff of hypocrisy...

It would be: they changed their minds.

Why? "they" refers to the group members, because "they" is a plural pronoun.

"It changed its mind" would be how you could write the first phrase. In this phrase, "it", a singular pronoun, would refer to the group.

If you're serious, which is likely since the internet is worldwide, I have some advice that can help you get started. Also, I'm going to believe that your lack of capitals is a conscious choice. A method of saving time... over time.

Besides apostrophes, commas, and question marks, I have always considered special punctuation as a kind of cheat. If you're using special punctuation, there is almost always a more eloquent way of articulating your sentence/thought.

One exercise I have employed, when organizing my writing, has been to write without punctuation and in lines, every thought on a new line. Like a poem. Punctuation is essentially there to separate these thoughts, so you can start by adding the periods, then arranging your thoughts into a paragraph.

Use of special punctuation, in my opinion, is mostly a means of controlling rhythm. And the ability to ease into the rhythm of writing is largely dependent on a reader's, or writer's, familiarity with the language.

So, I would focus on periods and commas first, until you have a good familiarity with the language. That is my advice to you.

Many standard rules for punctuation are actually merely the outcome of a need for movable type printing presses to save money and are incoherent in 2009. For instance, standard punctuation would have me write: Please append the extension ".txt." For clarity, I'd re-write: Please append the extension ".txt" to the file. Much of this comes from the notion that punctuation resides insides the quote marks. But the rule comes from a practice fueled by function: the period and comma were the two most breakable tiles for printers, and having them inside another tile meant they were far less likely to break. I increasingly find myself quoting text exactly, and I place punctuation not in the original outside the quotation.

But I also use "they" as a first person singular gender-neutral pronoun: I don't know the author of that article, but they certainly did a good job. I guess I'm a grammatical progressive.

I've found that it doesn't correlate with their analytical ability or ability to architect a clean system. But it does affect the readability of their code.