{"id":3124,"date":"2019-05-07T23:00:28","date_gmt":"2019-05-08T05:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/?p=3124"},"modified":"2021-07-07T10:38:54","modified_gmt":"2021-07-07T15:38:54","slug":"declining-or-just-changing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/pronouns\/declining-or-just-changing\/","title":{"rendered":"Declining or Just Changing?"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you think you know your English, Ammon Shea\u2019s Bad English<\/em>: A History of Linguistic Aggravation<\/em> might make you question your most cherished notions. The book has a lot to offer grammar sticklers with open minds, but it will challenge\u2014and enrage\u2014most traditionalists.<\/p>\n

People who care about language tend to deplore the slovenly habits of their contemporaries. The feeling persists that English is in an unprecedented state of decline. For a little perspective, consider this: \u201cOur Language is extremely imperfect; that its daily Improvements are by no means in proportion to its daily Corruptions; and the Pretenders to polish and refine it, have chiefly multiplied Abuses and Absurdities; and, that in many Instances, it offends against every Part of Grammar.\u201d<\/p>\n

It has been three hundred years since Jonathan Swift wrote those words. Swift\u2019s dismay has been echoed by grammarians in every succeeding generation. \u201cThe idea that there must be a way to get all the right-thinking people together to do something about the abuse of English,\u201d Shea says, \u201cis an idea that has almost five hundred years of failure under its belt.\u201d<\/p>\n

The point of Bad English<\/em> is that despite all the wailing, \u201cEnglish is not dying. It is behaving exactly as it should, which is to say it is changing. [But] while many people accept that our language is subject to change, they want to dictate what sort of changes will take place.\u201d<\/p>\n

And this: \u201cThere is no aspect of the English language that has been immune to change. Meanings and spellings shift, word order changes, and punctuation comes and goes.\u201d Bad English<\/em> starts with the assumption that \u201cprescribing how people should and should not use their language\u201d is both futile and reprehensible.<\/p>\n

That premise will upset many readers. But Shea is a language scholar of impeccable credentials, and he makes his case with daunting and compelling historical evidence. Shakespeare wrote \u201cbetween you and I\u201d (should be between you and me<\/em>). Thomas Jefferson used it\u2019s<\/em> to mean \u201cbelonging to it\u201d (should be its<\/em>). And Jonathan Swift used ain\u2019t<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Shea is an agitator. The book is peppered with seeming \u201cmistakes\u201d that Shea seems to have planted to provoke fussbudgets. For instance, he wastes no time using and defending the singular they<\/em><\/a>, stating in the introduction, \u201cI have opted to use the gender-neutral they<\/em> in the singular.\u201d But Shea is just getting started.<\/p>\n

See if this bothers you: \u201cIt is hard to not admire Lienau\u2019s rhetorical flourishes.\u201d Note the deliberate use of the hideous to not<\/em>, so beloved by grammar-challenged Millennials, so abhorred by their elders. Shea uses to not<\/em> any time he has the chance, and it seems downright perverse. To not <\/em>may be technically grammatical, but it is coarse and jarring. The traditional not to<\/em> simply sounds better.<\/p>\n

Shea baits the reader elsewhere with \u201ca dog who\u201d (instead of a dog that<\/em>), \u201cfor he who utters\u201d (instead of for him who utters<\/em>), \u201ceach were\u201d (instead of each was<\/em>), among many others. To language watchdogs, these are so obviously wrong that one might wonder if Shea\u2019s editors failed him. Alas, it\u2019s probably worse: one gets the queasy feeling that the author is predicting what \u201cgood English\u201d will look like in another generation or two.<\/p>\n

Shea ends Bad English<\/em> with a twenty-eight-page list of everyday words that \u201chave been frowned upon at some point in the past few hundred years.\u201d Some examples: anyhow<\/em>, celebrity<\/em>, donate<\/em>, drapes<\/em>, escalate<\/em>, hospitalize<\/em>, lesser<\/em>, mansion<\/em>, ovation<\/em>, reliable<\/em>, underprivileged<\/em>. Shea\u2019s point is clear: these words no longer bother anyone, and it seems odd that they ever did so.<\/p>\n

We pedants have to be more philosophical and less churlish as we realize that many of our cherished rules are becoming obsolete. Like it or not, if enough people say \u201cThey is coming,\u201d it will become acceptable and, eventually, unremarkable.<\/p>\n

\u2014a book report by our late writer and editor Tom Stern<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you think you know your English, Ammon Shea\u2019s Bad English: A History of Linguistic Aggravation might make you question your most cherished notions. The book has a lot to offer grammar sticklers with open minds, but it will challenge\u2014and enrage\u2014most traditionalists. People who care about language tend to deplore the slovenly habits of their […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,21,12,34,33,8,26,43,23,51,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3124","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-apostrophes","category-capitalization","category-effective-writing","category-possessives","category-prepositions","category-pronouns","category-singular-vs-plural","category-subject-and-verb-agreement","category-verbs","category-vocabulary","category-who-vs-which-vs-that"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3124"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3124"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3124\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5155,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3124\/revisions\/5155"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}