Disputed English grammar

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Cases of disputed English grammar arise when individuals disagree about what should be considered correct English in particular grammatical constructions.

Such disagreements are often quite impassioned, using a variety of different arguments. One common kind of argument will justify on the basis of logic or functionality that a particular usage is better. Another kind of argument is one based on an appeal to precedent, asserting that a particular usage should be accepted or preferred because the best writers have used it in the past, or conversely, that it should be rejected because it is a neologism. This kind of argument can become very complicated, as not everyone always agrees on whether a usage is a new one: for example, if a usage was common until the 1800s, but was hardly ever seen in the 1900s, then some might consider it new if it regained currency, while others might not. (For example, certain Shakespearean constructions, such as the use of "his" for "its", or "an" for "if", are not considered correct today.) Yet another common argument follows what might be called a democratic principle: it asserts that, since language changes naturally over time, a usage should be considered correct if it is common.

Writing about usage tends to be most useful to other people if it makes clear what kind of impression a particular usage will make on particular kinds of readers. Some usages will strike some readers as "barbarous" and uneducated. Other usages pose the opposite risk, that they will strike some readers as pretentious. Ideally, good advice will help a writer to best adapt his or her writing to the intended audience. Unfortunately, there are also cases where no single usage will please all readers: one choice will sound vulgar to some readers and another pretentious to different readers. For an example, see the discussion of usage in the article tempo.

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Split infinitives

Template:Main A split infinitive is a grammatical construction in which a word or phrase, usually an adverb or adverbial phrase, occurs between the marker to and the bare infinitive (uninflected) form of the verb.

One famous example is from the television series Star Trek: "to boldly go where no man has gone before." Here, the presence of the adverb boldly between the parts of the infinitive, to and go, creates a split infinitive. The construction can often be avoided by placing the intervening words after the verb or before the to marker: "to go boldly where no man has gone before" or "boldly to go where no man has gone before." However, these two rephrasings do not have identical meanings — the former attaches the boldness to the manner of going, while the latter attaches the boldness to the complete act of going "where no man has gone before."

Descriptively speaking, split infinitives are common in most varieties of English. However, their status as part of the standard language is controversial. In the 19th century, some grammatical authorities sought to introduce a prescriptive rule that split infinitives should not be used in English. Most experts on language from the last 100 years, however, agree that this rule was misguided, and indeed that the split infinitive construction can sometimes reduce ambiguity.

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Object and subject in prepositional phrases

Sentences containing a prepositional phrase like to Joe and me are often changed to to Joe and I in the belief that "...and I" is always correct. The use of subject pronouns (e.g. I, he) in prepositional phrases goes back several centuries but is considered incorrect by prescriptivists. Another example of such usage is described in the section Between you and I below.

Prescriptivists would mandate the same form of the first person singular pronoun as would be used without the other noun. For example, Lucy gave a dollar to Joe and me would be mandated because Lucy gave a dollar to me is universally considered correct, as opposed to Lucy gave a dollar to I.

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It's I vs. It's me

The I in "It's I." is a subject complement. Subject complements are used only with a class of verbs called linking verbs, of which to be is the most common. Unlike object complements, subject complements are not affected by the action of the verb, and they describe or explain the subject. In this case, I is not affected by the action of the verb is, and it specifies exactly who the subject It is. The subject complement therefore takes the subjective case. Usually, this makes no difference in the sentence because English nouns no longer distinguish between subjective and objective case. But English pronouns make the distinction, and the subject complement takes I instead of me. It's I sounds strange to many English speakers, but is considered correct by prescriptivists. In other contexts, the subject complement may sound less strange, such as "This is she" rather than "This is her."

At this point, the use of the subjective in the subject complement has almost entirely disappeared. Both usages are still current, but the use of subjective in the subject complement is much less common.

It should be noted that the use of a nominative complement ("It is I") is by no means universal in other languages. For example, French-speakers say "c'est moi" (it's me) not "c'est je".

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Between you and I

An example of this phrase occurs in Shakespeare;

All debts are cleered betweene you and I...

It was also used by the Restoration playwrights. This phrase was acceptable in Tudor and Restoration England, but today, most educated people, including the authors of style manuals, would consider it ungrammatical. The principle that is cited is that prepositions always take object pronouns, and it does not matter whether the pronouns occur singly or are joined with a conjunction.

A comparison that sheds further light on the phenomenon is the following:

All debts are cleared between you and us.
All debts are cleared between you and we.

Here, the subjective case sounds clearly wrong to most writers, and is almost never used in current written English. The example suggests that "between you and I" is in fact an idiom; it has been used so frequently for so many centuries that it tends to sound fairly acceptable in comparison to "between you and me". Indeed, "between you and I", though avoided in writing, would be considered acceptable in oral use by many educated speakers.

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Singular they

Template:Main This is another controversial topic in grammar. According to many grammarians, they, them, and their are always plural. In everyday speech, however, "they" is often used to signify a singular antecedent, as in this example:

Someone who smokes damages their health.

The use of "they" as a singular generic pronoun has been common since the fourteenth century; this usage mirrors the introduction of "you" as a singular pronoun - it was originally the plural equivalent of "thee" and later, after the Norman invasion, "thou." Singular "they" was also the appropriate pronoun for an unknown number of people in Shakespeare's time. English-speakers never stopped using the term in casual speech and it sometimes appears even in formal literary writing. In recent decades, some grammarians, linguists, and advocates of non-sexist language have argued that the prescription against "singular they" is unjustified and should be dropped entirely. Many grammarians, however, argue that use of "singular they" with a determinate antecedent is injudicious, signifying more than one person when the speaker intends only one person and leading to possible confusion. It is also notable that many people use the singular they when the gender is known. This is one possible example:

I answered the door and a man was standing there. They told me that they needed to use my phone.

See also:

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Double copula

Template:Main In informal speech, a person may use two copulas in succession when only one is necessary:

The thing is, is that I was sleeping.

This should not be confused with legitimate (though sometimes unwieldy) uses of successive copulas:

What this is is a trap.
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Generic you

Template:Main In casual speech, the second person pronoun "you" is regularly (perhaps unconsciously) used as a generic pronoun:

You should never expectorate in public.

Reflecting current usage, modern style guides <ref> {{cite book 

| last = Fowler
| first = Henry Ramsey
| coauthors = Jane E. Aaron
| title = The Little, Brown Handbook
| edition = 5th edn.
| year = 1992
| publisher = HarperCollins
| location =
| id = ISBN 067352132X
| pages =
| chapter =

}} </ref> accept "you" as an acceptable generic pronoun. The older form (possibly still recommended in some regions) of "one" is now rarely used in North America, with style guide recommendations and current usage limited to only specific instances where the generic "you" is either confusing or too direct for diplomatic usage. This alternative is sometimes perceived as stilted or pretentious, particularly when spoken: "One should never expectorate in public."

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Pronoun whose antecedent is a possessive

In the 1960s <ref>Template:Cite web</ref>, some usage guides started to reject such sentences as:

Winston Churchill's history shows him to have been a good writer.

These guides argue that a pronoun's antecedent cannot be a noun in a possessive construct; in this case, they contend that Winston Churchill, embedded as it is in the construct Winston Churchill's, cannot serve as the antecedent for the pronoun him.

The basis for this contention is that a pronoun's antecedent must be a noun, so that if Winston Churchill's is an adjective, then a pronoun cannot refer back to it. For example, consider the following sentence:

*The big green history shows him to have been a good writer.

Here, him lacks any clear antecedent - it certainly cannot refer back to the big green - and the sentence must be ungrammatical, or at least meaningless, unless a previous sentence provides an antecedent.

This rule does not reflect ordinary English usage, and it is commonly ignored (intentionally or otherwise) even by those who have heard of it. However, the concern that it reflects is meaningful in a sentence such as this one:

I talked to William's brother today; it seems he's not feeling well.

Here, it is not clear whether he refers to William or to his brother. Many grammarians suggest that in this kind of sentence, "he" should not be used at all. (Note that it here is a dummy pronoun, and requires no antecedent.)

See also:

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Stranded prepositions

Some guidelines object to preposition stranding in the English language (commonly expressed as "A sentence should never end with a preposition"). For example, prescriptivists would argue that the preposition with in the sentence

"This is the man I live with"

is "stranded" and that the correct expression would be

"This is the man with whom I live".

It is probable that this view is influenced by Latin grammar, where a sentence can never end with a preposition. The word "preposition" comes from a Latin word meaning "a putting before"; in Latin, pronouns appear directly before their nouns ("sub arbore"). However, it is usual in spoken English to end a sentence with a preposition, rather than to use complex pronounal construction. This is due primarily to the abundance of phrasal verbs in English. Such constructions have been common since at least the 14th Century, and are also normal constructions in Danish, Norwegian and Swedish. It must be remembered that Old Norse is a predecessor of all these languages and English.

Efforts to avoid a stranded preposition often end in making the sentence more awkward. A famous example is attributed to Churchill: "This is the sort of [arrant] nonsense up with which I will not put."<ref>Churchill vs. editorial nonsense, Language Log entry tracing the origins of the misquoting.</ref> Despite this, it is still less common for written English to end sentences with a preposition than in spoken English.

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Reverend (religious honorific)

Traditionally, in addressing clergy (particularly Christian clergy), the word Reverend is considered an honorific. As such, it functions more like an adjective than a noun, unlike titles (Mister, Doctor, Professor, Pastor, Father, Chaplain, etc.). A similarly functioning address would be that of "Honorable" for members of the United States House of Representatives: honorific = "Honorable", title = "Representative" (or "Congressman", although this is not gender inclusive). Thus, under this standard, the following usages would be correct/incorrect:

  • Correct: We will hear from the Reverend Susan Smith. (We will hear from the Honorable Susan Smith.)
  • Correct: We will hear from the Reverend Ms. Smith. (We will hear from the Honorable Ms. Smith.)
  • Incorrect: We will hear from Reverend Smith. (We will hear from Honorable Smith.)
  • Incorrect: We will hear from the reverend. (We will hear from the Honorable.)

In American usage, however, these two latter usages are increasingly common. Speakers and writers not wishing to use a long formal address (the Reverend Susan Smith or the Reverend Ms. Smith) can avoid the incorrect usages by inserting the title of the person:

  • Correct: We will hear from Pastor Smith. (We will hear from Representative Smith.)
  • Correct: We will hear from the pastor. (We will hear from the representative.)
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References

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See also

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External links

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