The bell ending class stopped us from moving on to errors in subject-verb agreement and who-whom. I cover them to further illustrate that knowing grammar can prevent or cure these common errors. I conclude by lodging a complaint against the “grammar police” for phony “rules.”
* * *
Everyone knows that you cannot connect an appliance cord with a three-prong plug into a two-prong wall outlet. It gets more complicated with computers, of course. As the technologies change, problems arise, as my ex-wife found out when she went to get a cable to connect her iPhone to her charger. The clerk did not ask her about plug-port compatibility. He sold a cable with two Thunderbolt plugs, but her charger had a USB-C port: no fit. She returned it, and I uncovered an extra cable with the right plugs.
Everyone learns not to connect a plural verb to a singular subject or a singular verb to a plural noun. So what is the problem of subject-verb agreement? The problem is not that writers do not know the rule; the problem usually arises when they write words between the subject and the verb, and laze into letting the number (singular or plural) of the word nearest the verb determine its number. Writers can avoid problem if they can quickly parse, or analyze, a sentence for the verb and its subject. If not, trouble ensues, with guessing, a stab-in-the-dark, or coin-flipping to the rescue.
I once asked my high-school-age son whether a sentence in some text which I had written was correct grammatically; it was of the type “one of the boys entered in two races was unable to travel because of illness.” He furrowed his brow, shifted his eyes back and forth, and silently moved his lips. I called a halt. I said that he was struggling with intuition and mindreading: was I tricking him with a correct sentence when he expected me to pick an incorrect wrong one or was it really incorrect? He confessed his sins. I forgave him but not his teachers, because they had not taught him parsing.
The answer: the sentence is grammatically correct. A binary choice gives a fifty-fifty chance of being right. Knowing grammar eliminates the gamble but requires parsing, that is, knowing the terminology and applying the implied connections. Always start with the verb; then look for the subject. If you think it is “boys” or “races,” you would be wrong; both words are objects of prepositions, “of” and “in,” respectively. An object of a preposition cannot double as the subject of a sentence or as anything else, for that matter; it is what it is. That leaves “one,” which is the subject of the sentence, the one boy who cannot travel.
* * *
Similarly, parsing enables you to solve the dreaded choice between “who(ever)” and “whom(ever),” which seems to occur on all English proficiency tests. Again, the ability to parse sentences avoids crossed-fingers guesses and leads to infallibly correct answers. Test item: “The principal gave awards to (whoever, whomever) received their teachers’ recommendations.” If you do as my son did, you either read “to” and “whomever” or read “whoever” and “received”; most base their choice on the preposition “to” because it needs an object and comes first. But verbs need subjects before prepositions need objects—remember that! “Gave” has “principal”; “received” has “whoever.” What about the object of the preposition “to”? Glad you asked. It is the noun clause, “whoever received their teachers’ recommendations” functioning as the object of the preposition. A noun clause—a group of words having a verb and a subject, beginning with a relative pronoun, and acting like a noun—identifies without actually naming them.
* * *
In their micro-aggressions, “grammar police” often make false allegations about broken rules. Usually, their “rules” are stylistic preferences found in organization manuals or writing guides. The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage, The Washington Post Deskbook on Style, The Chicago Manual of Style , and APA Style fall into the first category; H. W. Fowler’s Dictionary of Modern English Usage and William Strunk, Jr.’s, Elements of Style fall into the second.
Example: many such books have a “rule” which eschews “who” or “which” and prefers “that” as a relative pronoun. By this “rule,” “the man who raised the objection” is incorrect; “the man that raised the objection,” correct. I guess at the motive behind this advice: to help the lazy or ignorant writer skirt the headache choice between “who” and “whom.” If I am right, this “rule” is a preference concealing—but, to one like me, revealing—grammatical incompetence.
I have broken more than one of those “rules” either as I have developed my style or when I thought it appropriate to do so. For example, I split infinitives. The reason given for this rule is inane: Latin has no split infinitives. Right: Latin infinitives are inflected; English infinitives, often with markers (“to” or “to have”) enabling the split, are not. Were I to make only one “rule,” it would be to disregard a “rule” based on a foreign language. The “rule” against split-infinitives is a preference and nothing more.
Nevertheless, this rule has taken possession of some otherwise fine minds. Years ago, when I was a consultant as analyst and editor to the President’s Blue Ribbon Task Group on Nuclear Weapons Program Management, its chair, Judge William P. Clark, Jr., a former ranking Reagan official, sent an aide to tell me that he had one rule. Instantly, I said, “no split infinitive”; the aide was astonished; I said that, if anyone has a grammar gripe, it is that one. I told him to tell Judge Clark that I promised that no split infinitive would appear in any part of the classified report—executive summary, report, and appendices. I also told him to tell the Judge that I would make all other editorial decisions; the word came back: agreed.
About correctness in grammar, there can be little debate; the rules are the rules, and they are not made to be broken. But what is a rule, what is a preference, and what is the difference between them are good questions. The answer is that a rule affects syntax; a preference affects something like presentation (split infinitive), punctuation (Harvard or serial comma), or diction (less v. fewer). Never the twain to meet. My book, were I to write it, would set forth the rules as rules and the preferences with truth-in-labeling.
* * *
I close this third lesson—I have a fourth and final one in draft, on composition—with my main message: teachers can teach and students can learn everything about grammar to everyone’s benefit. Once mastered, grammar becomes an almost unconscious reflex in writing correctly and clearly. As my students in remedial grammar learned long ago, mastery is worth the effort because it embeds information and skill, bestows confidence, and encourages good writing.
No comments:
Post a Comment