Phony Grammar Rules
The Dryden Code:
A Language Conspiracy Unmasked
I was an English teacher
for 29 years. I saw it as my job--my profession--to uphold the standards and
distinctions of English that mark the educated person. It was the least that I
could do for my students.
It was only after
retirement, when I finally had time to do some independent research and satisfy
my curiosity, that I discovered that part of what I had done was to perpetuate
language myths. They didn’t harm anyone, but they were part of a chain of
beliefs that extended back to the 18th century. Unwittingly, most
English teachers repeat language commandments that they acquired in graduate
school without ever having the opportunity to question them. I suspect that
it’s true in other disciplines, too. At any rate, I’d like to focus on that
aspect of language today.
Even though English had
been in existence as a distinct language since the late 8th or early
9th century, no one bothered to standardize spelling and grammar
until the 18th century, and even then, there was no pressing need.
The language had survived for 1,000 years without strict rules. In fact, that
was what gave it strength. It was a sponge. It absorbed other languages and
their features in an organic way. Taking the line of least resistance was what
made English thrive. If strict rules had showed up early on in its history,
today English would be a neat but dead
language, like Latin, and it wouldn’t serve as the closest thing that the world
has to a universal language.
Let me quickly
review some time-honored grammar rules:
- Never use double negatives
- Never use double comparatives
- There should be a sanctioned spelling, a
sanctioned pronunciation, and a sanctioned definition for each word in
English.
- Be careful to distinguish who, which, and that
- Use shall
with the pronoun I for simple future and use will to signal determination; reverse that for the 2nd
and 3rd person
- Never end a sentence with a preposition
- Between signifies two items and among signifies three or more
- Never split an infinitive
I’m not
normally a conspiracy buff, but I have stumbled across a 300 year old
conspiracy that involves the origin of these rules.
Let me set the
scene by quoting some of the more prominent early conspirators.
(1) Poet John Dryden set the plot in motion. In
1672, referring to Shakespeare: “I dare almost challenge any man to show me a
page together, which is correct in both sense and language.” “And what correctness after this, can be
expected from Shakespeare or from Fletcher, who wanted that Learning and Care
which Ben Jonson had? I will therefore spare my own trouble of inquiring into
their faults: who had they liv’d now, had doubtless written more correctly.”
(2) In 1697,
novelist Daniel Defoe proposed an Academy to “advance the so much neglected
Faculty of Correct Language, to establish Purity and Propriety of Stile, and to
purge it from all the Irregular Additions that Ignorance and Affectation have
introduced . . .”
(3) In 1712, Jonathon Swift
complained “. . .that our language is extremely imperfect; that its daily
Improvements are by no means perfect in proportion to its daily corruptions;
that the Pretenders to polish and refine it have chiefly multiplied Abuses and
Absurdities; and that in many instances, it offends against every Part of
Grammar.” Swift also believed that “there is no absolute necessity why any language should be perpetually changing”
(4) Conspirator #4, the Earl of Chesterfield,
1712: “It must be owned that our language is at present in a state of anarchy.”
“Toleration, adoption, and naturalization have run their lengths. Good order
and authority are now necessary.”
(5) Conspirator #5, Samuel Johnson, 1755: “. . .I
found our speech copious without order, and energetick without rules; wherever
I turned my view, there was perplexity to be disentangled, and confusion to be
regulated . . .” “I have laboured to refine our language to grammatical purity,
and to clear it from colloquial barbarisms, licentious idioms, and irregular
combinations.”
Other writers,
such as Joseph Addison, did not hesitate to use terms such as corrupt,
unrefined, and barbarous when referring to English.
You can feel
the indignation and sense the quivering lower lips. These men and others like
them were humiliated by what they considered a degenerate language, and they
planned to do something about it.
Words like
chaos, anarchy, and unregulated abomination were not being tossed about
lightly. In 18th century England, there was a deep social phobia
about disorder; this wasn’t mere hyperbole. After 150 years of social and
political upheaval, the British were legitimately uneasy.
In that brief
period, they had endured the Reformation, the dissolution of monasteries and
the rise of life-threatening religious intolerance, the Gunpowder Plot, two
civil wars, the execution of a king (Charles I) Irish and Scottish rebellions,
three wars with the Dutch, the Restoration, the Great Plague and Fire of
London, and the glorious revolution of 1688. And those pesky colonials in
America were beginning to act up.
The desire to
stabilize every facet of society, to restore order and predictability to
everyday life, was the primary goal, the dream of a generation. And language
was an easy target because of the large number of social climbers and newly
rich yearning to be accepted into the upper or nearly upper class. [The current practice of awarding baronetcies was
originally introduced in England and Ireland by James I of England in 1611 in
order to raise funds.]
So here’s the
core of the conspiracy: the gentlemen mentioned previously and two more about
to be named made up the rules with which we started; they made them up! They chose them arbitrarily, ignoring historical
precedent, and deliberately made it seem that there was no choice. Follow their
rules and you were right; ignore their rules and you were wrong. It was that
simple.
It all fell into place. The
half century between 1750 and 1800 saw more English grammars published than in
the previous two centuries. And all of
them attempted to repair what was seen as a severely damaged language. Two
grammar books in particular set norms that lasted 300 years. Robert Lowth wrote
A Short Introduction to English Grammar
in 1762. By 1800 it had gone through 45 editions. His preface states that “The
English language as it is spoken by the politest part of the nation, and as it
stands in the writings of our most approved authors, oftentime offends against
every part of grammar.”
His work inspired Lindley
Murray to write English Grammar, Adapted
to Different Classes of Learners
in 1784. Murray was a New York lawyer who retired to Holgate, England. He wrote
the grammar book for students at a local girls’ school. The book caught on like
wildfire. It went through 200 editions by 1850 and sold over 20 million copies.
[Gone with the Wind, one of the
bestselling American novels in the last century, has sold approximately 28
million copies.] Most important, it influenced every grammar book written until
the last half of the 20th century.
Both Lowth and Murray
clucked at the sloppy grammar of Shakespeare, Milton, Dryden, Pope, Addison,
Swift and everyone else except themselves. Murray even criticized the King
James version of the Bible, in one instance saying that “Surely goodness and
mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; and I will dwell in the house of
the Lord forever” ought to be “will
follow me and I shall dwell.
Most of their choices were based on personal
preference alone (“this is harsh; that sounds elegant.”) Occasionally they used
the big stick: “this is how it is done in Latin.” The problem is, the structure
of English has no connection to Latin structure. English is an analytic
language; meaning depends primarily upon word arrangement. Latin is a synthetic
language; meaning depends strongly upon word endings.
Notice what I am NOT
saying: I am not saying that there are no rules. I am saying that a number of
the so-called rules that have burdened us for 300 years have no basis in the
language itself. Clarity and precision may be achieved without wooden-headed,
inflexible rules, and clarity and precision are the hallmarks of good writing.
The so-called rules of language
are simply brief, summary statements of currently accepted usage. Language is the result of human action, but not of
human design. To try to fix it in place and prevent change is to turn it into a
corpse on a morgue table.
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