Washington Week: Student Voices (O)

COLUMN: Grammar grumbling
By Amanda Lowry
Indiana Daily Student (Indiana U.)
08/02/2007

(U-WIRE) BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — Not a week goes by that I don't notice one of my Facebook friends crawling across my News Feed, informing me they've joined either a group declaring the superiority of good grammar or a group that wants the Grammar Nazis to shut up.

I understand both where these people are coming from and from where they are coming.

As an English major, linguistics major and as IDS copy chief, I have conflicting grammar addictions. But for that same reason, I can't help feeling that the people who wish everyone would talk "right" and the people who want to do away with this kind of standardization altogether are missing out on the freeing capabilities of language.

Language is like any sport: To get the most out of it, you have to respect the rules.

Both the crowd that wants grammar standardized - in linguistics, we call these people "prescriptive grammarians" - and the crowd that wants language left to standardize itself without snooty people restricting it - the "descriptive grammarians" - hold the position they do because they want language to be respected.

Prescriptive grammarians think people who carelessly throw out sentences that end in prepositions and grocery store owners who post signs at express checkout counters reading "15 items or less" (if you're not aware of this old English major jab, it's supposed to be "15 items or fewer") are disrespecting language because they don't care enough about it to learn the rules.

Descriptive grammarians, on the other hand, realize prescription is dictated by upper socioeconomic classes and majorities. The reason, for instance, that you've been taught since second grade not to use "ain't" isn't because the word doesn't make sense; it's because the word makes you sound lower-class. Descriptive grammarians contend that anything a person says that makes sense to the party they are talking to should be considered "grammatical."

I agree with the descriptive grammarians. Distinctions that parade under the guise of "good grammar" are just prejudices against lower classes and minorities. But I also agree with the old proverb: Rules are made to be broken.

As long as we have upper classes we'll have prescriptive grammar rules. And yes, those rules are stupid and arbitrary. But knowing the rules and knowing how ridiculous they are gives you the power to break them.

Standardization is OK to an extent. It can improve communication by decreasing ambiguity and using structure to help people say what they mean. But it also makes people identify themselves with classes, races, genders, etc., to which they feel they do not belong because they want to avoid standing out as an inferior.

Believing in "proper grammar" is prejudiced, and believing all standardization of grammar should be abolished or ignored is unrealistic. Knowing the time and place to use standardized grammar is helpful, but saying it should be used all the time or should serve as a universal measure of intelligence is just pretentious. The best way to respect language and get the most out of it is to learn the rules, then break them as often as possible.

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