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MAKE EVERY WORD TELL
IV �Your Language

None of us who have spoken English "all our lives" was born knowing how to understand or speak it. Each of us learned our "native" language in his first year or so, before he learned to speak it awkwardly. The first questions that we learn to ask � and our use of the -s plural and the -ed past tense � are internal evidence that we understand the basic structures and signals of English sentences. What we learn from then on is almost entirely (a) new words and (b) variations of the basic sentence patterns. Much that we learn in school about structure variations is at odds with both (a) the language as we have learned it and (b) the language as it really is.

Early on, when we hear a new word, we know from what we hear in the context of where we hear it whether to ask "What is a cartel?" for example (not How do you cartel?) or "How do you theorize?" (Not What is a theorize?).

When we learn a singular word like foot and want to make it plural (before we've learned to use another structure variation), we use the plural variant that we've already learned how to use with the singular words like hand � and say "both my foots" or even "both my feets" if we've heard feet and don't fully understand that it's the plural of foot. In the same way, we know to make the present tense of walk into past tense by adding -ed, so our early past tense of eat is "eated" or "ated."

If your teachers had told you to breathe through your mouth always, never through your nose, or to cross your eyes to see better, or to swing your arms in the same directions as your legs when you walk, you would have sensed the wrongness of such instructions. When we were children in grade school, we often sensed in the same way that we were being taught falsely when we were told to use "correct" English that violated our feel for the natural rules of our language. Much of the teaching that we sensed as wrong is in fact wrongand has been wrong since the eighteenth-century grammarians loaded their notions onto us as �rules of English grammar� that have never been real rules of English grammar.

But we learn organically, not analytically, so we couldn't throw-off this false teaching except by organic resistance or rejection. Now, whenever we try to be "correct" by doing the opposite of what we sense as being the linguistically correct form, we use this general "rule" with words and phrases where it doesn't apply, making our usage wrong � for example, the "correct" but linguistically wrong phrases between he and I and boldly to go instead of the linguistically correct between him and me and to boldly go.

As adults, we're supposed to learn formally and technically, by contemplation, analysis, and articulation. In our first year of life, we learned far more about the basic patterns of English sentences by simply soaking-up the language that we were hearing spoken around us, and getting a feel for it � not formally, not technically, not by conscious analysis. When school taught us differently � especially when it "corrected" certain natural English patterns � we sensed the conflict but couldn't see it clearly or put it into words. So we let the schools' teachings roll over our gut knowledge and either adopted the "English" that the schools forced on us or threw-up our hands and gave-up all hope of formally understanding the language that we speak with ease every day.

Fortunately, we still have enough of that old gut-level knowledge of English sentence structures � buried deep but accessible � to speak English, understand it, read it, and write weird forms of it. Most of our troubles come from trying to reconcile the weird forms with the natural forms. The double negative and ending sentences with prepositions, for example � despite the theoretical doctrines of the Eighteenth Century grammarian reformers � have always been legitimate English sentence structures.

Fortunately also, we have the remarkable studies conducted by Dr Charles Carpenter Fries and his researchers, who got government permission to record and study all the telephone calls made in (I think) Michigan over quite a long period about half a century ago. From this huge collection of real-world specimens of "English as she is spoke" by the full spectrum of English-speakers in a large area over a long period, the Fries researchers learned � formally and technically, by contemplation, analysis, and articulation � the natural structures of English sentences. Notably and reassuringly, the Fries studies tended to confirm the accuracy and legitimacy of the sentence structures that we learned long before we sat in funny chairs and learned to read the letters and words that our teachers chalked onto those flat, black slates on the front walls of the class rooms.

So don't lose hope, now. Don't fear "learning English" here. All this sounds a lot worse than it really is. It's all simple enough, once you get past the funny ideas about English and ignore most of the weird "grammar" terminology that we get from school.

None of this is something that I dreamed-up after eating funny foods at bedtime. For anyone here who reveres academic study, let me insert a few words about my credentials in this area. One of the three major-level studies in my Master of Arts curriculum (1961-1963) was the history and structure of the English language, including such courses and seminars as "modern scientific linguistics" and "traditional and modern grammar." (The other two majors were 19th Century American literature, focusing mainly on Mark Twain to study his writing style, and in the famous Writers' Workshop, writing fiction.) That was just a way station on a route of language study that began in 1931 and continues (analytically since the late 1950s) to this day � and won't end soon.

Like any other language, English comprises two major components:

� Lexicon � the entire collection of "meaningful" words (those with referents, traditionally termed nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs)

� Grammar � the entire collection of meaningful patterns of sentence structure (word order; function words; word forms, prefixes, suffixes, and endings; and � in writing � punctuation, including capitalization)

To have any meaning as a sentence in any language, a string of "words" has to comprise both a number of words from the lexicon of that language and at least one sentence pattern from its grammar. One thing that we "understand" wrongly is that the main bearers of an English sentence's meaning are its lexical words. As you'll see in "English � 4-b," the main weight of a sentence's meaning rests on its structure, without which the words used have no specific meaning yet.

And for your notes, write-down this country-boy, working, field-derived definition of a sentence. Write it exactly as I've written it � each line is a study in itself. You'll see.

A sentence is
a group of words
chosen and arranged
to tell somebody
that something did something.

Like any other language, English comprises two major components: its lexicon and its grammar. An English sentence, spoken or written, also comprises both, or it isn't a sentence.

The lexicon of the English language is its entire collection of "meaningful" words (those with referents � they refer to or "stand for" something). These words, traditionally termed nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs) are symbols of lexical meaning. All by themselves, standing alone or in a nongrammatical pattern, lexical terms have no specific meaning. Is the English word spring a noun or a verb? Does it refer to a season of the year, a piece of metal, or a source of water? Or does it describe a person's act? It has all these potential meanings but no specific meaning until an English grammatical structure gives it one. (This sentence shouldn't confuse you: Each spring, the spring in the draw behind the barn flows wider, but I can still spring across it as if I had a spring in each leg.)

The grammar of the English language is its entire collection of meaningful patterns of sentence structure. These patterns � word order, word endings (-ed, -s, -ing) variations in form (-ly, -ation, -ence), function words (traditionally termed articles, pronouns, prepositions, conjunctions, interjections, these words don't have referents � we know of nothing that's called "a which," and we know of no way "to and" something called "a therefore"), and supplemented in writing by punctuation, capitalization, and format (paragraphs, headings) � give the lexical words their specific meanings.

To have any meaning as a sentence in any language, a string of "words" has to comprise both a number of words from the lexicon of that language and at least one sentence pattern from its grammar. One thing that we "understand" wrongly is that the main bearers of an English sentence's meaning are its lexical words.The main weight of a sentence's meaning rests on its structure, without which the words used have no specific meaning yet.

We grow up thinking of language as merely a set or system of words. We're taught to "clean up" or trim our sentences by taking out everything but the major words. So what do we do? We drop all those "meaningless, useless" function words that take-up so much space. Without them, we have to rearrange the remaining words in some "meaningful" order, which means that we have to drop or change the word endings and form variations that we used in an old-fashioned sentence "cluttered" with the stuff that we've just cleaned-out.

What we wind-up with is neat and trim in appearance, all right, but it isn't a normal English sentence, and its intended meaning is either hidden or missing � no matter how much it seems to say or how much sense we attribute to it or can laboriously dig out of it. There's a right way to be brief, and a wrong way. When we try the wrong way � leaving-out the prepositions, articles, conjunctions, etc, and rearranging what's left � the result is the same ancient problem that Horace complained about (Brevis esse laboro, obscurus fio � "When I struggle to be brief, I become unclear").

You'll find that to write well, it helps to understand with your adult mind what you learned "in your gut" as a small child � the basic meaningful structures of English sentences and how to handle them. As you've already seen, learning to write involves as much unlearning as learning. You shouldn't be surprised to find that you have to rearrange your technical thinking about the language and revert to your unconscious basic knowledge of it.

One major purpose of "Make Every Word Tell" is to reintroduce you to the basic patterns of English prose and to help you develop an adult grasp of basic English sentence structures � including how to vary them without violating them. This will get you off to a good start, I hope. You should be able to go on, on your own, at a good pace once you get the hang of it.

The complete meaning of a sentence is the sum of both (a) the specific meanings of its lexical words and (b) its grammatical meanings � its structure. Words alone, or arranged in some structure that isn't part of the language's grammar � in a list or series, for example � have no meaning at all. (Yes, I know � I've said all this before. It's still true, and repetition is a legitimate emphasis device.) What meaning do you think you can find in this series, for example?

draw, final, forty-five, have, inch, layout, long, necessary, schematic, size, use

The order in this list is alphabetical, not grammatical. Their order gives them no meaning.

At first look, grammar alone � a sentence structure without any lexical parts � seems to make no sense at all, either. But structure gives a sentence more meaning than words do. The meaning in structure alone is incomplete and unclear without the necessary lexical words there to flesh it out and make the meaning complete and clear. Consider this example of legitimate, basic English structure without any real English lexical words:

Hade the bolemo slooted for rool kayto, asting as lish a tifan lita as redadatal up to XT mituses.

Words get their meanings from their grammatical (structural) arrangements, and they in turn fill-out the partial meaning carried by the grammar. When we combine the list and the pattern above, we get a completely meaningful sentence � both lexical and grammatical meaning combined:

Have the schematic drawn for good layout, using as long a final size as necessary up to 45 inches.

Again � words not yet arranged in a sentence don't have any specific meaning yet. They always have possible or potential meanings, of course, but their potential becomes specific only in a grammatical structure that makes them into a sentence. To grasp the fact that a grammatical structure alone, in stark contrast to lexical words alone, contains a good bit of meaning without the completeness that lexical words give it, study this purely structural "sentence" without any lexical words. I've plugged-in nonwords where lexical words would go:

With a filt daker, the dorny stilberts cavishly revorted the pelthious hampol.

"No meaning!" you say? Your first impression is, no doubt, that this gibberish has no meaning at all. Look again. You'll see that it tells you more than you thought at first:

� The stilberts did something.

You don't know what a stilbert is? There's no such thing, as far as I know. I made-up the "word" to take the place of a real one. You don't know what a stilbert is, or you know there's no such thing � yet you know from this sentence that stilberts did something.

What else does it tell you? Several things. Count �em:

� There were more than one stilbert.

� They were dorny.

� They did something called revorting.

� Vorting is something that a stilbert can do.

� They did it to a hampol.

� ... not just any old hampol, but a pelthious one.

� They did it cavishly � or in a cavish way.

� They used a daker to do it.

� The daker they used was a filt one (implying that some dakers are not filt).

� The hampol had apparently been vorted already.

� There was probably only one hampol � or only one that was pelthious.

� The revorting has been done, is not being done now, and won't (as far as this sentence can say) happen in the future.

� The daker is probably something that dakes or that someone can dake with.

� There was only one daker as far as we can tell from this sentence.

In Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There, Lewis Carroll � a writer who knew English down to its roots and the marrow in his bones � wrote the poem "Jabberwocky" with his own nonwords arranged in English grammar. Several of Carroll's nonsense "words" have become real English words, by the way � including a couple from this poem:

`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!"

He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought --
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

"And, has thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!'
He chortled in his joy.

`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

After she read this poem, Alice says "Somehow it seems to fill my head with ideas � only I don't exactly know what they are! However, somebody killed something; that's clear, at any rate...." You bet it is, Alice � clear to anybody of any age who understands English.

Double-talk artists raise this technique to a high skill by using real words and legitimate grammar patterns to say absolutely nothing while they give you the impression that they're saying something not only meaningful but down-right profound. Mark Twain reported that humorist Artemus Ward was a master of this technique. My uncle Tom certainly was a master � he could twist an attentive ticket agent, for example, into a quivering mass of confusion while no hint of a smile flickered even momentarily across the earnest expression on his face as he spoke of tickets and fares and schedules without actually saying or asking anything about any of them.

I don't have any of Colonel Tom Howell's double-talk masterpieces (alas!), but here's some of what Twain wrote that (he says) Ward said � using straight talk at first, then springing his trap as the thing goes along:

The vein which contains the silver is sandwiched in between casings of granite, and runs along the ground, and sticks up like a curbstone. Well, take a vein forty feet thick, for example, or eighty, for that matter, or even a hundred � say you go down on it with a shaft, straight down, you know, or with what you call "incline" � maybe you go down five hundred feet, or maybe you don't go down but two hundred � anyway, you go down, and all the time this vein grows narrower, when the casings come nearer or approach each other, you may say � that is, when they approach, which, of course, they do not always do, particularly in cases where the nature of the formation is such that they stand apart wider than they otherwise would, and which geology has failed to account for, although everything in that science goes to prove that, all things being equal, it would if it did not, or would not certainly if it did, and then, of course, they are. Do you not think it is?

There's a heap of good language learning along with the wit and humor in these examples. Isn't it great when learning is not only easy but also pleasant � even entertaining? I love it � and hope it helps.

Nobody gave you a definition of a sentence with your clean diapers. Yet in your first year of needing clean ones, you learned � in a useful way � what a sentence is. A formal or technical, analytical definition would've meant nothing to you at that age anyway. You learned first how to recognize and understand a sentence, and then you learned how to put a simple sentence together so it made sense (though your first ones may have been a bit awkward). When she was three or four, one of my daughters had no trouble spinning sentences like this one off her reel: "Sad, lonely, and in great pain, Queen Elizabeth of all England sat up on her great high throne and wondered whether she would ever see her little girl again." (Carol Anne wrote that one down when she heard it, and she took the hint � started home-schooling that tyke, and it wasn't long before our little girl could read. And I don't mean the Dr Seuss books!)

If you had known how to put into words your knowledge of the language that you heard all around you, to analyze and define a sentence as you understood it then, you could have defined a sentence � according to your field-grade, functional understanding of it � something like this:

A sentence is
a group of words
chosen and arranged
to tell somebody about
something doing something.

This is, of course, the shortest, simplest, working functional field definition of an English sentence. Something also includes somebody, and doing something also includes being something plus, sometimes, to something, with something, somewhere, somehow, etc.

This is the essential form of the basic English prose sentence. By contrast, the basic Latin prose sentence (and those of several other languages) is a group of words chosen, arranged differently, and inflected to tell somebody about something something to something somehow doing. If English sentences were arranged and inflected like Latin, they would look something like this:

Pencils yellows tens yesterday boughtI. Paul pencils fives wantedhe saidhe. Pencils fours himto gaveI

.. instead of the English forms that we've known nearly all our lives. (Yesterday, I bought ten yellow pencils. Paul said he wanted five pencils. I gave him four pencils.)

Scholars of old knew classical Latin and Greek and the sentence patterns of these old artificially contrived formal "languages," and they thought that English ought to follow the same patterns of sentence structure � as so many other languages do. They didn't discern that English was a different language altogether, with its own intrinsic "rules," its own patterns, its own evolutionary development completely independent of Latin and Greek.

The sentences of several other languages use different structural patterns, too. Where we say my three brothers, for example, Boris says three my brothers, but his equivalent of our four brown dogs would be brown four dogs. Mark Twain reduced to English wording a couple of sentences from popular German novels of his day but kept the German sentence structures:

But when he, upon the street, the in satin and silk covered now very unconstrainedly after the newest fashion dressed government counselor's wife met, ... (This isn't even the entire sentence!)

The trunks being now ready, he de- after kissing his mother and sisters, and once more pressing to his bosom his adored Gretchen, who, dressed in simple white muslin, with a single tuberose in the ample folds of her rich brown hair, had tottered feebly down the stairs, still pale from the terror and excitement of the past evening, but longing to lay her poor aching head yet once again upon the breast of him whom she loved more dearly than life itself, parted.

An American in Berlin (so the story goes) hired a translator to go with her to hear Chancellor Bismarck speak. The translator listened intently but said nothing while Bismarck spoke for some time. Finally, the American asked the translator "What is he saying?"

"Patience!" the translator said. "I'm waiting for the verb."

If our teachers had known how to make the most of what we already knew about making-up good, grammatically correct English sentences, they would've (or should've) at least told us how our working knowledge of English sentences relate to their class-room definitions of an English sentence's two main parts:

Something = "subject"

doing something = "predicate"

William Strunk was right:

"A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subjects only in outline, but that every word tell."

So � when we compose or rewrite a sentence and strive to omit or delete the unnecessary words � which words should we omit or delete to minimize confusion and misunderstanding and to leave stark and clear only the words that maximize the ease and accuracy of the reader's understanding?

Simple answer � the words that we should omit or delete � the words that don't belong � are the words that cause the reader's psycomp to work more or harder than it absolutely has to, to get the meaning of the sentence accurately the first time he reads each symbol (word) in the sequence.

The words that do belong in the well composed or well rewritten sentence are those that are well chosen and arranged to tell the reader something about something or somebody doing something, possibly to something, with something, etc � in sequence, word by word, as he reads one word after another, without having to back-track to reconsider and reinterpret the functions and meanings of earlier words in the sequence. He has already assigned those earlier words certain tentative meanings. If the sentence is well constructed, he has assigned them their right meanings and shouldn't have to reconsider them.

There you have the reason the writer must understand � and use � both (a) the reader's unconscious process of psychocomputation ("psycomp") and (b) the ways that the basic structures of the English sentence give its words their meanings and build those meanings into a message that reasonably accurately communicates something from the writer to the reader.

So let's slow the psycomp process down to extreme "slow motion" and examine how the reader reads and interprets a couple of word sequences word by word, as if we're inside a reader's mind, watching his thoughts form as he reads a single, simple sentence. This "slow motion" process requires a lot more time and conscious, analytical, technical interpretation than we ordinarily use when we read and understand sentences. But it fairly accurately demonstrates the thoughts and the work that the process requires.

Remember, each thought takes measurable time, and each word operates the speech muscles at some level of muscle tension above tone and usually below the threshold of discernible movement. So each extraneous or unnecessary thought needlessly complicates the process and sooner fatigues the reader even if it doesn't leave him confused.

First, let's watch a reader psycomp a simple "natural" sentence about something technical. On purpose and for reason, I'm going to use nonsense "words" to emphasize the necessity that the sentence must convey the message without requiring that the reader already knows a good bit about the concepts involved:

The dilone that renocts the ransmonor to the retoler dilirates by thremoning several delosers that serutole.

As the reader reads this sentence, step by step, his mind psycomps its interim and final over-all meanings word by word like this (but in the deeper recesses of his mind, not in these conscious, articulated, analytical thoughts that I have to use here to demonstrate what occurs in psycomp):

The � "Next or soon, a word will come that will be the one or more something or somebody that is, are, was, were, will be, has or have done something, is or are doing something, or will do something."

dilone � "That's it! There's just one dilone. Now, next or soon, a word will come to tell me what the dilone is, are, was, were, will be, has or have done, is or are doing, or will do."

that � "That's not it, but it's coming soon � probably next."

renocts � "That's it! The dilone renocts � does something called renocting. But there's no period after it, so there's more. What comes next? The dilone renocts something or somehow."

the � "Next or soon, a word will come that will be the one or more something or somebody that the dilone renocts."

ransmonor � "That's it! The dilone renocts the ransmonor."

to � "There's more. What?"

the � "Next or soon, a word will come that will be the one or more something or somebody that the dilone renocts the ransmonor to."

retoler � "I get it. The dilone that renocts the ransmonor to the retoler is, was, will be, has done something, does something, is doing something, or will do something

dilirates � "Ah, there it is! The dilone that renocts the ransmonor to the retoler dilirates � but there's still no period, so there's more. I'm ready for it, whatever it is."

by � "Hmm! This indicates that the dilone that renocts the ransmonor to the retoler dilirates in some way or manner or process."

thremoning � "Ah! That's how the dilone that renocts the ransmonor to the retoler dilirates something."

several � "Hmm! The dilone that renocts the ransmonor to the retoler dilirates more than one somethings called ... "

delosers � " ... delosers. But there's more to come, because there's no period yet."

that � "The delosers are or do something that a word or words yet to come will tell me."

serutole. "That's what the delosers do. Now I understand that the dilone that renocts the ransmonor to the retoler dilirates by thremoning several delosers that serutole. There's the period, so that's the end of that message. Is there another sentence or paragraph next? I'll look for a capital letter or a paragraph break."

Then let's watch a reader psycomp a "simple" but unnatural sentence sequence that's typical of modern ideas of how to write formal, technical, or scientific sentences:

Squibs in the rudder release control mechanisms at the point of end-of-run for personnel protection purposes.

Squibs � "There's more than one something, called squibs, that are, were, will be, have done something, or are doing something, or will do something. Next or soon, a word will come that will say what the squibs are, were, will be, have done, are doing, or will do, maybe to something."

in the rudder � "Oh! Squibs in the rudder are, were, will be, have done something, or are doing something, or will do something. Next or soon, a word will come that will say what the squibs are, were, will be, have done, are doing, or will do, maybe to something."

release � "There it is! The squibs in the rudder release something. Next or soon, a word will come that says what the squibs in the rudder release."

control � "I was wrong! The squibs in the rudder don't release something. Release says something about something called a release. All right � squibs in the rudder's release (whatever that is) control something. Next or soon, a word will come that will say what the squibs in the rudder's release are, were, will be, have done, are doing, or will do, maybe to something."

mechanisms � Ah, there's what the squibs in the rudder's release control � or do the squibs release a certain group of mechanisms called control mechanisms? What do these squibs do? Release or control some kind of mechanism?"

at � "Well, whatever the squibs do, next or soon, a word will come that will say where the mechanisms they do it to are."

the point of � "All right, all right, get on with it."

end-of-run � "Oh, I see � at the point of end-of-run means that the squibs release or control something where or when the run ends. But there's still no period, so there's more."

for � "Next or soon, a word will come that will say how long or how far or why the squibs in the rudder release something � or squibs in the rudder's release control something."

personnel � "For personnel? That sounds funny � doesn't make much sense � so there's more to figure � no period yet."

protection � "Oh, for the personnel to protect something, or for the protection of the personnel. Still no period, so next or soon, a word will come that will say which."

purposes. � "Purposes? Huh! Vague and adds nothing. I still can't tell exactly where the squibs are, whether they release or control something, whether what they release are called control mechanisms, or what they control are some kind of mechanisms. Also can't tell whether the personnel protect something or they are protected by something. But that period says that I'm not going to get any more signals in this sentence, so I'll just have to give all this my best guess about what each part of it means."

The reader should never have to back-track, reinterpret, or guess to get the full, clear meaning of each part of the sentence.

SHIBBOLETHS & SUPERSTITIONS

During that great century of discovery � the Eighteenth Century � as scholars began to discern order in the universe, which had been thought to be chaos, English men of learning got the notion that the English language had deteriorated into disorder from the "clean" orderliness of some pure earlier form. Scholars of those times were facile in both classical Greek and classical Latin � the languages of learning � and sought to "return" English to its "earlier" form, using those two artificial, contrived languages as models. Much of what has become the traditional standard description of English, based almost entirely on classical Latin, is false � like a monkey's tail sewn onto a kitten to turn it into a monkey.

As native speakers of English, we sensed this falseness but couldn't articulate it � so the authority of our teachers was able to establish these added, false traits as "correct English" (which they are not and never were). As a result of their drive to "purify" English, the Eighteenth Century's grammarian reformers saddled centuries of English-speakers, -writers, and -students with a host of artificially added shibboleths and superstitions that never were natural or organic to the real English language. For example:

� the double negative � Like many other languages, English has always used the double negative � even triple, quadruple, and larger multiple negatives � as emphatic negatives. "I never had nothing to do with that" is good English for emphasizing the negative. As one modern linguist remarked about this, the more we say No, the more we mean No. But in their obsession to restore order to the language, the reformers were unduly influenced by the relatively new field of mathematics, which properly sees two negatives as a positive. So they declared the linguistic double negative improper in "correct" English, citing math as their model.

� ending sentences with prepositions � Classical rhetoric recognized the whip-lash impact and strength of the last word in an artistically crafted sentence, so the classical rhetorical advice (never a grammatical rule) was "Never end a sentence with a preposition." Carried further, the advice went on to recommend, instead, using that strong terminal position to give a strong word its full strength and impact. But ending sentences with prepositions has always been legitimate English. The record � five terminal prepositions � is grammatically correct English (a little boy asked his father, who'd brought the wrong book upstairs to read to his son, "What did you bring that book that I don't want to be read to out of up for?").

� "he and I" instead of "I and he" � Etiquette, courtesy gives us this one, not grammar. It isn't "polite" to put yourself in front of somebody else. But it's legitimate English grammar. My friend Iver used to say "I and Marge" whenever he referred to himself and his wife. His grammar was English, no matter what anyone may have thought about how lacking in grace that phrase was.

� splitting the infinitive � The infinitive in classical Latin is one word, identified as the infinitive by an ending (-are, -ire, -ere) and usually translated "to do, to go, to make, etc. The grammarians saw the function word to as part of the English infinitive. But it isn't. Infinitive means essentially without tense � neither past nor present nor future. So in the English form to make, only the word make is the infinitive � essentially without tense � neither past nor present nor future. Since the function word to is separate and not an integral part of the English infinitive make, saying or writing to easily make does not split the infinitive make and is completely legitimate English grammar � it was legitmate before the Eighteenth Century and still is.

"PASSIVE VOICE"

"Passive voice" is another old misnomer. It's poor prose style, with absolutely nothing to commend it, despite its popularity among clumsy writers. Full, clear understanding of why it's weak will help you to see why it's poor style.

In the expression The aircraft was flown, the phrase was flown � traditionally called "passive voice" � is grammatically the exceedingly passive verb was and a participle, flown, formed from the verb fly but not operating grammatically here as a verb. So the phrase was flown is not a single form but two. The over-all grammatical form of was flown, in traditional grammatical terminology, is a predicate adjective, with the verb was and the participle flown functioning grammatically here as an adjective. Structurally, the expression The aircraft was flown is exactly parallel to The aircraft was green, ... was old, ... was heavy, etc � a subject with predicate adjectives.

Since no other verb is as weak and passive as any of the many forms of the verb be, the so-called passive voice is passive, all right � but the participle isn't part of the verb.

"Passive voice" is useful only when the something that's doing something is either unknown or irrelevant. Usually, "passive voice" is vastly inferior to the active form that says that something did something.

TECHNICAL TERMS versus BRAIN BILGE

The words diode and transistor are valid, legitimate technical terms. Before diodes and transistors came into being and required their own technical terms, there was of course no word for them. The phrases at the present moment in time and subsequent to are brain bilge � useless, unnecessary inventions to take the place of the legitimate old words now and after.

Technical terms are legitimate special words for things that no ordinary word can represent. Brain bilge is the helium-headed phony's � or his imitator's � attempts to raise himself and his statements from the ordinary, clearly communicative, and meaningful to the empty, insubstantial, and meaningless � just to make impressive noise, to sound impressively technical at the cost of sacrificing clear communication.

THE BEST ENGLISH FOR WRITING

The best English for any communicative, expressive writing uses the words and sentence structures that most people who speak the language can most easily understand, even though the subject matter of the writing may be difficult for them or even totally beyond them. The tougher it is to explain or understand the subject or the concept that you want to express, the greater is the demand for the clarity and simplicity of the people's language. The only writing that honestly requires confusing language is writing that is meant and designed to confuse the reader � and even here, plain English cleverly used does a better job. The most confused reader is the fellow who thinks he's gotten the message when he hasn't � not the fellow who knows that he's puzzled.

The idea that serious topics require stiff, stilted "serious" English is a Siamese twin to the notion that medicine has to burn, sting, or taste bad enough to turn your face inside-out if it's going to do you any good � or food that's good for you has to taste bad (and what you love is automatically "junk food") � or anything that you can do sitting down isn't work.

Ken,

That was a wonderful read. And I don't mean that I was wondering what I was reading. For 30 years I've fought a guerilla war v. traditional artificial grammar that comes wrapped in text books. The plague of standardized testing and formula writing has taken most of the joy out of reading and writing for the current generation of kids. I've had enough of bucking the system and will retire June 1.

The crafting of stories that have layers of meaning that become apparent only as the sophistication of the reader increases is not something that can be taught by applying canned formulas. Measuring grade reading levels in elementary school children with standardized tests that require them to identify literary concepts and elements is almost a guarantee that they will eventually detest reading, because it doesn't allow them to discover the layers of stories on their own. Our instant gratification society hasn't the patience to let kids leaven.

For me, reading and rereading, especially if there was sufficient time for the first reading to be assimilated, was like opening those nested balls we played with as kids. Today it's forget about reading to discover the author's message, it's the state's purpose that counts. The state's purpose is to make sure that you can identify the author's use of organization, purpose for writing, use of figurative language, fact and opinion, cause and effect, and recognize the genre of the writing. If you can successfully guess what they are from a list of choices on a multiple choice you are literate. Oh, and by-the-way you will need to answer an essay question using the formula of reflecting the question in your answer, and providing a supporting fact or detail from the reading. Just to keep it interesting we, the state, will find paired images in the reading selection and then use one of the objects in the pair as the distractor in the answer choices.

Kids love to read and write. They do it all the time. They write and pass notes. They text. They sneak paperbacks into the middle of their text books. Our need to teach them the "right way" and exercise control with tests and grades too often gets in the way of natural literacy. English is a living language that meets our needs for communicating and adapting to change. When it wears the straight jacket of traditional grammar it becomes nearly impossible for kids to use.

I'm not defending the chaos that resulted from the ignoble experiment in whole language where the result was an unwillingness by some teachers to recognize that conventions of writing are needed if the intended audience is to understand the author's writing. But I certainly had no use for the "blue haired guardians of the English language" that ruled the roosts when I was a lad. I could never understand their unyielding loyalty to the rules when the rules didn't add to meaning or understanding. That was something up with which I could not put. The world of language opened up like a mountain vista when I took my first course in natural and generative grammar. It was so beautiful.

I often wonder how many people who post messages on internet formus absolutely hated the mindless writing assignments they were given in school just to see if they could do a ten page paper, or follow some format that in all probability they'd never use in their adult lives. Yet, here they are, posting away and enjoying themselves.


I very much enjoyed reading your post.