Disputed English grammar
Encyclopedia
Disputed English grammar denotes disagreement about whether given construction
s constitute correct English
. Such disagreements are often quite impassioned. Even when there is no disagreement over a given construction English speakers sometimes will express anger on encountering it.
The following are articles about various non-Standard English usages:
No central authority: Unlike some languages, such as French
, there is no governing academy for the English language. For this reason, different people often take different works of reference as authoritative. Others argue that, lacking a recognized authority, correctness is defined by common use. That is, once its use is sufficiently prevalent, a certain construction or use becomes "correct."
Tradition: Older or better-established constructions—or those perceived as such— are considered superior by some (even those constructions which are little used anywhere but in the most formal writing and therefore considered obsolescent by many).
Education: In contrast to tradition, many newer constructions and innovations originate from, or are associated with poorly educated or inexperienced users or users of non-standard varieties. Such uses often are rejected by some speakers as mistakes or corruptions, while embraced by others.
Authority: Use by widely respected author
s may lend credibility and favor to a particular construction: for instance, Ernest Hemingway
is known for beginning sentences with And; however, this is not a uniform rule: for instance, the intentional use of a non-standard style, such as an eye dialect
, would not influence the canonical style.
Etymology: In cases involving the syntax
of a specific word, the etymology
of the word might be seen as supporting one construction over another. For example, some have objected to the phrase under the circumstances, pointing out the Latin root of the word circumstance suggests a ring or circle enclosing where one stands. See also etymological fallacy
.
Logic and consistency: Often speakers will argue that a certain use is inherently more logical than another, or that it is more consistent with other undisputed usages.
Clarity: Since the purpose of language is communication
, as set out in the Gricean maxims, a speaker who finds a given construction to be clearer than another may well consider it to be more correct.
Clarity and consistency: Likewise, a speaker who finds that some construction can produce ambiguities (even if only in some circumstances) may avoid it altogether.
Differences in style and register: Certain styles and registers of speech may be stigmatized by some users. For example, uncommon but "technically correct" uses may be perceived as hypercorrection
s or may be perceived as pretentious by some, but others may consider the avoidance of the same use a mark of ignorance.
Speakers and writers frequently do not consider it necessary to justify their positions on a particular use, taking it for granted that a given use is correct or incorrect. The position often is complicated by the user's reliance on false ideas about linguistic matters, such as the impression that a particular expression is newer than it really is.
grammar generally taught in schools around the world will vary only slightly. However the English usage in one country is not always the same as the English usage of another. For example, in addition to the differences in accent
, spelling
, and vocabulary
, there are many points of spoken grammar that differ between and among the various British
, American
, Australian
, and other dialects of the English language in everyday use. Ordinarily, speakers will accept many national dialects as correct, but may deem only one to be correct in a given setting, in the same way that an educated English-speaker might regard correct French as correct without considering it as correct English. Nonetheless, disputes can sometimes arise: for example, in India
it is a matter of some debate whether British, American, or Indian English
is the best form for use.
's use of y'all
, Geordie
s' use of "yous" as the second person plural personal pronoun, and non-standard forms of "to be" such as "The old dock bes under water most of the year" (Newfoundland English
), or "That dock be under water every other week" (African-American Vernacular English).
Such disdain may not be restricted to points of grammar; speakers often criticize regional accents and vocabulary as well.
Arguments related to regional dialects must center on questions of what constitutes Standard English
. For example, since fairly divergent dialects from many different countries are accepted widely as Standard English, it is not always clear why certain regional dialects, which may be very similar to their standard counterparts, are not.
of English. For example, a given construction often will be seen as too formal or too informal for a given situation.
Speakers do not always distinguish between standard English and the English of formal registers. For example, they might say that a given construction is incorrect for formal writing, but acceptable in ordinary writing or in everyday speech. Whereas linguists often will describe a construction as being correct in a certain register, but not in another, English speakers as a whole tend to view "correct English" as a singular entity — either viewing informal registers as allowing deviations from correctness, or viewing formal registers as imposing additional syntactic constraints beyond mere correctness, or both.
Grammatical construction
In linguistics, a grammatical construction is any syntactic string of words ranging from sentences over phrasal structures to certain complex lexemes, such as phrasal verbs....
s constitute correct English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
. Such disagreements are often quite impassioned. Even when there is no disagreement over a given construction English speakers sometimes will express anger on encountering it.
Examples
The following are articles about various disputed usages in Standard English:- Generic youGeneric youIn English grammar and in particular in casual English, generic you or indefinite you is the pronoun you in its use in referring to an unspecified person, as opposed to its use as the second person pronoun.-In English:...
– e.g., "Brushing your teeth is healthy." - Preposition strandingPreposition strandingPreposition stranding, sometimes called P-stranding, is the syntactic construction in which a preposition with an object occurs somewhere other than immediately adjacent to its object...
– e.g., "I do not know what he is talking about." - Split infinitiveSplit infinitiveA split infinitive is an English-language grammatical construction in which a word or phrase, usually an adverb or adverbial phrase, comes between the marker to and the bare infinitive form of a verb....
s – e.g., "To boldly go where no one has gone before." - Subject complementSubject complementIn grammar, a subject complement is a phrase or clause that follows a linking verb and that complements the subject of the sentence by either renaming it or describing it. In the former case, a renaming noun phrase such as a noun or pronoun is called a predicate nominative...
s – e.g., "It is I." vs. "It is me." - Gender-neutral language in EnglishGender-neutral language in EnglishGender neutrality in English is a form of linguistic prescriptivism that aims at using a form of English that minimizes assumptions about the gender or biological sex of people referred to in speech.-Rationale:...
- The singular theySingular theySingular they is the use of they to refer to an entity that is not plural, or not necessarily plural. Though singular they is widespread in everyday English and has a long history of usage, debate continues about its acceptability...
– e.g., "Someone forgot their shoes." - What pronoun to use in referring to generic antecedents – e.g., "No one would want this to happen to him / her / him or her / them"
- Whether to use the subjunctive mood – e.g., "I wish I were/was a better man."
- Whether to use which instead of that in a restrictive relative clause – e.g., "This is the tree which I saw."
- Whether to use who as the object of a verb or of a preposition in a relative clause – e.g., "This is the person who I see all the time."
The following are articles about various non-Standard English usages:
- Double negativeDouble negativeA double negative occurs when two forms of negation are used in the same sentence. Multiple negation is the more general term referring to the occurrence of more than one negative in a clause....
s – e.g., "We don't need no education." - Certain double modals – e.g., "You might could use it."
- The use (spoken and written) of the word ain't and other similar constructionsContractions of negated auxiliary verbs in EnglishThe contraction of negated auxiliary verbs in English is most often achieved by suffixing "-n't", an abbreviated form of "not", to the root of a verb with or without changes to the root...
.
Factors in disputes
The following circumstances commonly feature in disputes:No central authority: Unlike some languages, such as French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
, there is no governing academy for the English language. For this reason, different people often take different works of reference as authoritative. Others argue that, lacking a recognized authority, correctness is defined by common use. That is, once its use is sufficiently prevalent, a certain construction or use becomes "correct."
Tradition: Older or better-established constructions—or those perceived as such— are considered superior by some (even those constructions which are little used anywhere but in the most formal writing and therefore considered obsolescent by many).
Education: In contrast to tradition, many newer constructions and innovations originate from, or are associated with poorly educated or inexperienced users or users of non-standard varieties. Such uses often are rejected by some speakers as mistakes or corruptions, while embraced by others.
Authority: Use by widely respected author
Author
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...
s may lend credibility and favor to a particular construction: for instance, Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Miller Hemingway was an American author and journalist. His economic and understated style had a strong influence on 20th-century fiction, while his life of adventure and his public image influenced later generations. Hemingway produced most of his work between the mid-1920s and the...
is known for beginning sentences with And; however, this is not a uniform rule: for instance, the intentional use of a non-standard style, such as an eye dialect
Eye dialect
Eye dialect is the use of non-standard spelling for speech to draw attention to pronunciation. The term was originally coined by George P. Krapp to refer to the literary technique of using non-standard spelling that implies a pronunciation of the given word that is actually standard, such as...
, would not influence the canonical style.
Etymology: In cases involving the syntax
Syntax
In linguistics, syntax is the study of the principles and rules for constructing phrases and sentences in natural languages....
of a specific word, the etymology
Etymology
Etymology is the study of the history of words, their origins, and how their form and meaning have changed over time.For languages with a long written history, etymologists make use of texts in these languages and texts about the languages to gather knowledge about how words were used during...
of the word might be seen as supporting one construction over another. For example, some have objected to the phrase under the circumstances, pointing out the Latin root of the word circumstance suggests a ring or circle enclosing where one stands. See also etymological fallacy
Etymological fallacy
The etymological fallacy is a genetic fallacy that holds, erroneously, that the historical meaning of a word or phrase is necessarily similar to its actual present-day meaning. This is a linguistic misconception, mistakenly identifying a word's current semantic field with its etymology...
.
Logic and consistency: Often speakers will argue that a certain use is inherently more logical than another, or that it is more consistent with other undisputed usages.
Clarity: Since the purpose of language is communication
Communication
Communication is the activity of conveying meaningful information. Communication requires a sender, a message, and an intended recipient, although the receiver need not be present or aware of the sender's intent to communicate at the time of communication; thus communication can occur across vast...
, as set out in the Gricean maxims, a speaker who finds a given construction to be clearer than another may well consider it to be more correct.
Clarity and consistency: Likewise, a speaker who finds that some construction can produce ambiguities (even if only in some circumstances) may avoid it altogether.
Differences in style and register: Certain styles and registers of speech may be stigmatized by some users. For example, uncommon but "technically correct" uses may be perceived as hypercorrection
Hypercorrection
In linguistics or usage, hypercorrection is a non-standard usage that results from the over-application of a perceived rule of grammar or a usage prescription...
s or may be perceived as pretentious by some, but others may consider the avoidance of the same use a mark of ignorance.
Speakers and writers frequently do not consider it necessary to justify their positions on a particular use, taking it for granted that a given use is correct or incorrect. The position often is complicated by the user's reliance on false ideas about linguistic matters, such as the impression that a particular expression is newer than it really is.
Prescription and description
The prescriptivist and descriptivist approaches often clash: the former prescribes how English should be spoken—a teacher showing students how to write; the latter describes how English is spoken—a sociolinguist studying word use in a population. An extreme prescriptivist might maintain that even if every sentence in current English uses a certain construction, that construction may still be incorrect. Conversely, an extreme descriptivist might maintain that there is no such thing as incorrect use. In practice, however, speakers lie between these two extremes, holding that because English changes with time and is governed in large measure by convention, a construction may be considered correct once it is used by a majority of speakers, but also that a given sentence is incorrect if it violates the conventions of English that apply to its context.Different forms of English
One complicating factor is that there are many different forms of English, often with different conventions; what is plainly grammatical in one form may be plainly ungrammatical in another.English internationally
English is spoken worldwide, and the Standard Written EnglishStandard Written English
Standard written English refers to the preferred form of English as it is written according to prescriptive authorities associated with publishing houses and schools. As there is no regulatory body for the English language, there is some disagreement about correct usage, though there is enough...
grammar generally taught in schools around the world will vary only slightly. However the English usage in one country is not always the same as the English usage of another. For example, in addition to the differences in accent
Accent (linguistics)
In linguistics, an accent is a manner of pronunciation peculiar to a particular individual, location, or nation.An accent may identify the locality in which its speakers reside , the socio-economic status of its speakers, their ethnicity, their caste or social class, their first language In...
, spelling
Spelling
Spelling is the writing of one or more words with letters and diacritics. In addition, the term often, but not always, means an accepted standard spelling or the process of naming the letters...
, and vocabulary
Vocabulary
A person's vocabulary is the set of words within a language that are familiar to that person. A vocabulary usually develops with age, and serves as a useful and fundamental tool for communication and acquiring knowledge...
, there are many points of spoken grammar that differ between and among the various British
British English
British English, or English , is the broad term used to distinguish the forms of the English language used in the United Kingdom from forms used elsewhere...
, American
American English
American English is a set of dialects of the English language used mostly in the United States. Approximately two-thirds of the world's native speakers of English live in the United States....
, Australian
Australian English
Australian English is the name given to the group of dialects spoken in Australia that form a major variety of the English language....
, and other dialects of the English language in everyday use. Ordinarily, speakers will accept many national dialects as correct, but may deem only one to be correct in a given setting, in the same way that an educated English-speaker might regard correct French as correct without considering it as correct English. Nonetheless, disputes can sometimes arise: for example, in India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
it is a matter of some debate whether British, American, or Indian English
Indian English
Indian English is an umbrella term used to describe dialects of the English language spoken primarily in the Republic of India.As a result of British colonial rule until Indian independence in 1947 English is an official language of India and is widely used in both spoken and literary contexts...
is the best form for use.
Regional dialects and ethnolects
In contrast to their generally high level of tolerance for the dialects of other English-speaking countries, speakers often express disdain for features of certain regional or ethnic dialects, such as Southern American EnglishSouthern American English
Southern American English is a group of dialects of the English language spoken throughout the Southern region of the United States, from Southern and Eastern Maryland, West Virginia and Kentucky to the Gulf Coast, and from the Atlantic coast to most of Texas and Oklahoma.The Southern dialects make...
's use of y'all
Y'all
Y'all is a contraction of the words "you" and "all". It is used as a plural second-person pronoun. Commonly believed to have originated in the Southern United States, it is primarily associated with Southern American English, African-American Vernacular English, and some dialects of the Western...
, Geordie
Geordie
Geordie is a regional nickname for a person from the Tyneside region of the north east of England, or the name of the English-language dialect spoken by its inhabitants...
s' use of "yous" as the second person plural personal pronoun, and non-standard forms of "to be" such as "The old dock bes under water most of the year" (Newfoundland English
Newfoundland English
Newfoundland English is a name for several accents and dialects thereof the English found in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador. Most of these differ substantially from the English commonly spoken elsewhere in Canada...
), or "That dock be under water every other week" (African-American Vernacular English).
Such disdain may not be restricted to points of grammar; speakers often criticize regional accents and vocabulary as well.
Arguments related to regional dialects must center on questions of what constitutes Standard English
Standard English
Standard English refers to whatever form of the English language is accepted as a national norm in an Anglophone country...
. For example, since fairly divergent dialects from many different countries are accepted widely as Standard English, it is not always clear why certain regional dialects, which may be very similar to their standard counterparts, are not.
Register
Different constructions are acceptable in different registersRegister (linguistics)
In linguistics, a register is a variety of a language used for a particular purpose or in a particular social setting. For example, when speaking in a formal setting an English speaker may be more likely to adhere more closely to prescribed grammar, pronounce words ending in -ing with a velar nasal...
of English. For example, a given construction often will be seen as too formal or too informal for a given situation.
Speakers do not always distinguish between standard English and the English of formal registers. For example, they might say that a given construction is incorrect for formal writing, but acceptable in ordinary writing or in everyday speech. Whereas linguists often will describe a construction as being correct in a certain register, but not in another, English speakers as a whole tend to view "correct English" as a singular entity — either viewing informal registers as allowing deviations from correctness, or viewing formal registers as imposing additional syntactic constraints beyond mere correctness, or both.
See also
- Barbarism (grammar)Barbarism (grammar)Barbarism refers to a non-standard word, expression or pronunciation in a language, particularly one prescriptively regarded as an error in morphology, while a solecism is something prescriptively regarded as an error in syntax. The term is used mainly for the written language...
- English grammarEnglish grammarEnglish grammar is the body of rules that describe the structure of expressions in the English language. This includes the structure of words, phrases, clauses and sentences...
- HypercorrectionHypercorrectionIn linguistics or usage, hypercorrection is a non-standard usage that results from the over-application of a perceived rule of grammar or a usage prescription...
- List of common English usage misconceptions
- List of dialects of the English language
- List of English words with disputed usage
- Linguistic prescriptionLinguistic prescriptionIn linguistics, prescription denotes normative practices on such aspects of language use as spelling, grammar, pronunciation, and syntax. It includes judgments on what usages are socially proper and politically correct...
- SolecismSolecismIn traditional prescriptive grammar, a solecism is something perceived as a grammatical mistake or absurdity, or even a simply non-standard usage. The word was originally used by the Greeks for what they perceived as mistakes in their language...
- Standard EnglishStandard EnglishStandard English refers to whatever form of the English language is accepted as a national norm in an Anglophone country...