English has many rules, some of them valid
Over three decades as a newspaper copy editor, I came to realize that the schoolroom grammar of my childhood was inadequate to encompass the richness and complexity of the English language.聽
Copy editors fall into two camps: prescriptivists, who want to enforce The Rules, and descriptivists, who challenge the adequacy of those rules. I have a foot in each camp, as an informed and moderate prescriptivist.聽
Editing is inherently prescriptive, because the editor is trying to make things correct. But the descriptivists have shown that a too-rigid prescriptivism throttles the effectiveness of the language. So I no longer talk about what is 鈥渃orrect,鈥� but rather what is appropriate for the subject, the occasion, the writer, the publication, and the party most frequently neglected in these operations, the reader.聽
Some rules of English you know, some you don鈥檛, and some aren鈥檛 rules at all.
Dark Grammar 鈥� This is the basic language stored in your head since you acquired it in early childhood. English typically goes subject-verb-object and has an order of adjectives (that鈥檚 why you say 鈥渂ig old red brick school鈥� and intuitively know that 鈥渞ed old brick big school鈥� is just wrong).聽
Formal Written English 鈥� This version of English must be taught, so that you can write long sentences in which the subjects and verbs agree and dodge the language鈥檚 treacherous homonyms. Talking comes naturally, but learning to write formal English takes years (and many never do it well).聽
Conventions 鈥� Americans put commas and periods inside quotation marks; British writers put them outside. This is just what one conventionally does.聽
Superstitions 鈥� Will Rogers said, 鈥淚t ain鈥檛 what you don鈥檛 know that hurts you. It鈥檚 what you know that ain鈥檛 so.鈥� Much schoolroom grammar and usage 鈥� don鈥檛 split infinitives, don鈥檛 begin a sentence with 鈥渁nd,鈥� don鈥檛 end a sentence with a preposition 鈥� just ain鈥檛 so. Theodore M. Bernstein exploded scores of them 50 years ago in the delightful 鈥淢iss Thistlebottom鈥檚 Hobgoblins.鈥�
Shibboleths 鈥� A shibboleth is an arbitrary standard, sometimes a single word, by which people identify others of whom they approve or disapprove. 鈥淚rregardless鈥� is now a word, like it or not, and some people use it. Some people use 鈥渉opefully鈥� as a sentence adverb. Hopefully you will not fall into the moral hazard of judging people over the way they talk.聽
Personal Preferences 鈥� It鈥檚 your language too, and you are entitled to like and dislike words and phrases and constructions. Make full and free use of it.
John McIntyre was an editor for 34 years at The Baltimore Sun.聽
