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Re: describing the minority as literate is a circular argument?
Subject:Re: describing the minority as literate is a circular argument? From:Bruce Byfield <bbyfield -at- axionet -dot- com> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Mon, 16 Aug 2004 09:05:52 -0700
Quoting "nosnivel -at- netvision -dot- net -dot- il" <nosnivel -at- netvision -dot- net -dot- il>:
>
> On the contrary, virtually every sentence we
> write is a success for prescriptive grammar.
> Mostly, we use the grammar that we were
> taught. Our parents prescriptively correct
> us, our teachers prescriptively correct us,
> and their lasting success goes unnoticed.
> Only the rare challenge to prescriptive grammar
> attracts attention.
On the contrary to your contrary :->: grammar is usually not picked up by formal
teaching. If it were, then people - including those on this list - would be a
good deal less insecure and uncertain about it. For most people, formal grammar
teaching is the least reliable way to learn a language. People absorb a grammar
in the daily context.
It's true that written grammar tends to be more conservative than the spoken
grammar, and, to that extent, prescriptive grammar succeeds. However, the
history of prescriptive grammar in all languages is a record of rear-guard
actions and constant retreat. Prescriptive grammar inevitably reacts in horror
to any innovation, simply because it is an innovation, one or two people
campaign against it, and then, if it is useful, in a decade or two it creeps
into the language. Linguistic evolution tends to come from the spoken language
rather than the written, and even an educated person's spoken language is
generally much less "grammatical" than his or her written language.
> I've been out of academe for many years, but I
> think that when university literary magazines stink,
> it's because the elite is lax in observing its own
> standards.
Several people have written to me assuming that I was slamming literary
magazines for their style and their pretension. However, if you look closely, I
wasn't. I was saying that the writing in them isn't notably better than the
writing you can find elsewhere. My point was that, if command of grammar was
directly connected to the quality of writing, you would expect to find better
writing in literary magazines than anywhere else, yet you don't.
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