The title of the talk is Grammar, Writing Style, and Linguistics, and here’s the abstract:
Some critics seem to think that English grammar is just a brief checklist of linguistic table manners that every educated person should already know. Others see grammar as a complex, esoteric, and largely useless discipline replete with technical terms that no ordinary person needs. Which is right? Neither. The handy menu of grammar tips is a myth. Faculty often point to Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style as providing such a list, but its assertions about grammar are often flagrantly false and its rambling remarks on style are largely useless. The truth is that the books on English grammar intended for students or the general public nearly all dispense false claims and bad analyses. Yet grammar can be described in a way that makes sense. I [Pullum] offer some eye-opening facts about Strunk and White, and an antidote, plus brief illustrations of how grammar and style can be tackled in a sensible way drawing on insights from modern linguistics.
The talk is at 707 Hamilton Hall, Fri 22 Feb, 4pm.
The funny thing is, I get what Pullum is saying here, but I still kinda like Strunk and White for what it is.
Agree. Okay, a book on grammar should follow its own rules, but I believe The Elements of Style is more often used to develop style than to teach grammar, and the style complaints miss the point. “Omit needless words” may technically be empty advice when you break it apart but it still conveys meaning, and it’s a useful reminder to college freshmen whose worst instincts have been allowed to develop unchecked in high school. And, sure, writing tutors may be too doctrinaire in their application of S&W, but so are adherents of other belief systems (the cult of Tufte, for example).
Jeff beat me to it. Ironic that he cites the cult of Tufte. I would point out that Tufte, in his first book, makes the point that none of his “advice” or “rules” are to be applied peevishly, that none is an excuse to put inelegant marks on paper (I’m paraphrasing poorly here, since my Tufte books are not with me at the moment, despite the fact that I am, apparently, part of the cult).
As am I, but I hadn’t remembered Tufte writing that; thanks for recalling it.
Along these lines I’m also reminded of arguments between people who want to use either AP or Chicago as holy scripture, when both of those books will tell you that clarity is more important than strict compliance with the guidelines.
Yep. “Omit needless words” is another way of saying “actively evaluate if each word is necessary”. Kind of pedantic to interpret it so literally.
It is easy to forget how bad many new colleges students are at writing. For many the dictum to “omit needless words” is a revelation, and any style guide that can teach them this idea (and a few others) has accomplished great things.
Good point. Brings to mind the student (a math major, I think a junior, not a even a new college student) who came into my office one day to discuss the comments I had made on his exam paper. I had circled a sentence where he used “therefore” in an inappropriate way. I pointed out that “therefore” is a word used to indicate that what immediately follows is a logical consequence of what precedes. That was a revelation for him — he just thought it was a word you tossed in every now and then to make something sound math.
If you object to “therefore” being used incorrectly, why don’t you object to the word “passive” being used incorrectly just as strongly*?
Seriously, the main complaint that the linguists have with the amateur peevers is that they are _technically_ wrong about language. The number of articles recommending that the passive be avoided that incorrectly identify the passive (and that includes Strunk & White) is enormous. And it’s stupid advice to boot: the passive is a perfectly good tool that has been used effectively by all the great writers of English.
http://www.lel.ed.ac.uk/~gpullum/passive_loathing.html
*: The answer to this question, and the reason there’s so much negative reaction to Pullam’s point, is that while trashing the bad advice and bad linguistics in S&W is great fun, as a practical matter, there aren’t any well-known alternatives, so accepting that S&W is as bad as it is leaves one with a lack of something to recommend. This is a bad reason to object to to criticism of S&W.
I have also found Strunk & White useful for my own writing. It is interesting that this author goes into such length about the passive voice section of S&W. Edward Tufte made some truly insightful comments about the passive voice in relation to causal statements (I think this link will bring you to that section: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:hMmFJK67sTcJ:https://myelms.umd.edu/courses/1132632/files/37617475/download%3Fverifier%3DdkcWHGy3HZMqUdKAeMuoAOS17mDWuWMyGdF2AZ0J%26wrap%3D1+&cd=5&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us). Tufte does not mention S&W and perhaps they don’t convey the subtlety of when a passive or active voice is appropriate. But Tufte provides a convincing case that the passive voice conflicts with causal reasoning. My reaction to Pullum’s critique is that it may be misplaced. Most of what he seems to object to is bad use of S&W – using it as a formulaic way to write, rather than sometimes useful advice to improve writing. I think formulaic approaches to writing are just as bad as formulaic approaches to statistical analysis. Neither is good, and both lead to serious problems. Is it the fault of S&W that some people use it as a crutch to teach writing as a mechanized (I got tired of using the word formulaic) process?
“But Tufte provides a convincing case that the passive voice conflicts with causal reasoning.
Interesting point. If so, there is something profound about the active voice. I have heard it said that preferring the active voice helps you clarify your thinking because it forces you to think about what, exactly is doing the action.
Advice about the passive voice seems to be of great interest to Mr. Pullum. He goes into in much more depth here: http://www.lel.ed.ac.uk/~gpullum/passive_loathing.pdf. Strunk and White get called out here again, but they are not alone.
Pullum wrote:
“‘Elements’ settled in as the primary vehicle through which grammar was taught to [American?] college students and presented to the general public, and the subject was stuck in the doldrums for the rest of the 20th century.”
After I graduated and went to work, E of S was indeed used as a resource. But was it really used in college grammar courses?
Is there some tension here in which* we Americans are murdering the Queen’s English?
*Ruh roh. Not sure if I used “which” correctly.
Coincidentally, I ordered the Strunk Writing Guide. I also read Pinker’s Sense and Style, which had some nice features to it. Of course, there is the software Grammarly. It catches my commas. lol
On style, I prefer Queneau.
Sameera, please don’t read anything of Pinker’s. His books are getting worse and worse, possibly because they are getting further and further from anything he supposedly knows.
-1000
‘Sense of Style’ is worthwhile.
Seconded. The Sense of Style is highly worthwhile.
Thirded. Sense of Style is quite good in many ways. (Annoying in some others.) The book is one that gets back to things he knows quite a lot about — linguistics — something he researched and wrote about for a long time.
I have a rebellious grammar streak in me b/c I write poetry. Poets exert more writing latitude.
As a linguist named Geoff, I’d really like to ask him about the proper pronunciation of the acronym: GIF.
Sorry for the pedantic reply to a joke, but this is one of my pet peeves. Pronunciation varies by accent. There’s no more a “proper” pronunciation than there is a “proper” significance test. Pronunciation drifts, so we don’t sound British any more in the U.S. Does that mean our pronunciation is wrong? What about the Brits? They no longer sound like Shakespeare? Where did they go wrong?
As with significance tests, though, some pronunciations are better for some situations than others.
Is silence the null hypothesis?
;)
Lucien Carr and Allen Ginsberg got into a big argument about whether if a person carved a walking stick on the moon would it be art. William S. Burroughs got wind of the discussion and replied: “I have never heard of such a stupid question! It’s too starved an argument for my sword!” In other words, of course, art is just a three-letter word and it means whatever you want to define it to mean. There is no essential meaning outside of how it is used.
I suppose something similar could be said for pronunciation. That doesn’t mean the Ginsbergs and Carrs of the world won’t still argue. Or, to extend the metaphor, that people will still get their hackles up when one presumes to pronounce or use a word in a way outside their own expectation, as when Damien Hirst presumed to use the word art to describe the 9/11 attacks.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to play with my Jolden Retriever.
> would it be art
Some argue that how you process the artifact/representation makes it art –
https://www.academia.edu/38332856/Diagrams_and_the_Crossroads_Between_Aesthetics_and_Epistemology
I don’t agree, Bob. The eventual adaptation of conventions to the accumulation of errors does not imply that there were no errors in the first place. Sure, everything drifts, but drift needs to be limited to even be named.
Separately, if it were pronounced “Dzhiph” they would be .dif files. ;)
No, no, no — it’s spelt “Raymond Luxury Yach-t”, but it’s pronounced “Throatwobbler Mangrove”
It’s definitely ˈdʒi:ɪf
I prefer [ɣɨθ]. Or [ʛɪ̈ɸ].
I thought it was pretty much settled decades ago that we shouldn’t be overly pedantic about many grammar rules. Things like split infinitives and starting a sentence with “And”. Is anyone still taught those outdated, pedantic rules? I find it a little funny when people who argue against these old rules act like daring rebels who are courageously speaking their truth to long-dead grammarians.
BTW, I dislike Strunk too. Too rambling. Much more readable guides have come out in the sixty years since Strunk. Big surprise!
@Andrew: Following Strunk and White on writing would be like following a flowchart of NHST options in applied statistics. Sure, like a broken clock, it might produce the right result some time. But it’s just clearly wrongheaded once you understand what’s really going on in natural language grammar.
@Matt Skaggs: Pullum’s American, not British. He’s a professor in Edinburgh (where I did my Ph.D.) and the Scots aren’t exactly known for their “queen’s English.” Even the queen no longer speaks the queen’s English. Here’s a link to a tabloid report from Nature.
P.S. In interest of full disclosure, I’ve known Geoff for ages. He was a co-author of my very first published paper (he was a professor at UC Santa Cruz at the time). I would recommend taking Geoff seriously about grammar the same way you’d take Andrew seriously about stats. As an example, I’d highly recommend his essay, The Great Eskimo vocabulary hoax. Like Andrew, he has a sideline in debunking nonsense adjacent to his field using actual data and reasonable theory rather than armchair speculation.
Bob:
When I wrote the above post, I figured you’d know this guy and that you’d either love him or hate him. I was curious which it would be, so I’m glad you commented!
+1
+1
Bob: what do you mean by “using actual data”? That won’t help in his grievances against Strunk & White.
As I suspected, in his talk, he actually used examples of what authors wrote to refute Strunk and White’s points. Such a thing isn’t considered data in some circles.
I see. You mean he took examples from presumed great authors that did not follow Strunk & White?
That’s data, but possibly noisy, possibly biased data.
Thanks Bob – remember being taught that Eskimo hoax and learning later it was false ;-)
> following a flowchart of NHST options in applied statistics
Or most intro stats books (e.g. _verify_ your assumptions)
The Eskimo “snow” hoax has a parallel in the Homeric hoax for colors of the sea, including the allegation Greeks (and maybe also the Romans) were color-blind. Related post: http://kiwihellenist.blogspot.com/2016/01/colours-in-homer-2-wine-dark-sea.html
Correction. Geoff’s got American citizenship and used to be a professor at UC Santa Cruz, but he’s not American. Now I want to do one of those studies like on the queen to see how his accent changed and how I could’ve possibly thought he was American.
The talk was fun, by the way.
I was fortunate in high school to have read Mark Twain’s essay, “Cooper’s Prose Style”, and in college to have discovered Ezra Pound’s book, “ABC of Reading”. In college I also read Edgar Allan Poe’s essay, “Philosophy of Composition”. Not long ago I ran across George Orwell’s essay, “Politics and the English Language.” To learn to write it helps to study great writers. And for fun, “English as She is Spoke” is hard to beat. ;)
From Ezra Pound:
Fu I
Fu I loved the high cloud and the hill,
Alas, he died of alcohol.
Li Po
And Li Po also died drunk.
He tried to embrace a moon
In the Yellow River.
I had in my possession the wedding bouquet cast after Omar Pound’s wedding ceremony held in Canada. But got lost in all our moves.
Mark Twain is one of my favorite writers, however. Thanks for the recommendation for ‘English As She Spoke’.
I would be at the talk–I will be in New York for two days–if it weren’t for a tight schedule. I too like Strunk and White, but (and?) the topic intrigues me.
If anyone, after the talk, is hankering for more discussion of language, you are encouraged to come to Book Culture (536 W. 112th St.), where, starting at 7 p.m., I will be discussing my book Mind over Memes, which takes up words and phrases that have been misused or overused in everyday speech and public discussion, from the “takeaway” to the “team” to “creativity.”
Sounds interesting.
Andrew – perhaps the mirror image could settle the matter, somewhat in the manner or right- and left-handed molecules. I learned English in a German school. The very first text we (children under age 10) were presented with at the time was Mark Twain’s “The Awful German Language”.
https://www.cs.utah.edu/~gback/awfgrmlg.html#x1
After spending several weeks deciphering it (struggling with massive print dictionaries) we were assured we had no further need of learning English grammar and only needed to read lots more English texts – we would soon get the hang of it. We did.