11–20 of 53 posts
"Man dog walk. Boy biscuit eat. Girl throw ball." are held up as examples of incorrect english, which is largely fair. However, none of those examples are actually ambiguous. I'm pretty sure that those examples translated word for word into any language would also be understandable.
The third one is technically incorrect because of subject-verb number disagreement -- but ignoring that is common in some vernaculars
"Lots of English writing has got simpler through use of the plain style, sticking to a logical shared syntax, especially the syntax of speech. But all the other ways of writing are still there, often showing up when we don’t expect them." My first grade teacher told me never start a sentence with but or and. In this case, the second sentence could equally have been written as just another clause
English is such an amazing language for expressing abstract thoughts.
Hm, I'd be curious to know how it is better than any of the modern developed languages such as german, french, russian, chinese or japanese ( and many others ). I could see that english borrowed many words from other cultures but other languages borrow too on as needed basis.
"Man dog walk. Boy biscuit eat. Girl throw ball." are held up as examples of incorrect english, which is largely fair. However, none of those examples are actually ambiguous. I'm pretty sure that those examples translated word for word into any language would also be understandable.
The first 2 are following latin grammar (subject-object-verb). The third one is technically incorrect because of subject-verb number disagreement -- but ignoring that is common in some vernaculars
The problem is, that when you try to reduce an example of "bad" english to the bare bones (for clarity), you often end up with quite legitimate language.
Even in Latin the occasional transgression is sort of allowed: "Alea iacta est" - that is of course "idium". I studied Latin via "Civis Romanus", "mental" and "idiot" (Mentor and Idium).
An englander would of course say something far more erudite, than a course roman general, such as: "Fucking 'ave it, you twats".
I see this much less in modern novels and articles. Where is the flavor from pausing. all. the. time?
I also see the shrinking sentence length celebrated among my scientific colleagues who abhor the dreaded "run-on sentence". Maybe it is because I have no formal literacy or linguistic training but I mourn this loss; older, classical novels used to have a tremendous flavor in their sentence structure by prioritizing the longform. Some English translations of Russian literature can run into the absurd (sentences at hal…
Doesn't mention Thomas Mann, or Proust. Two exemplars of people who felt the comma and semicolon justified parenthetical statements which run to the page count length, not the word count length, in coruscating piles. I think Proust was having a lend of us, it's "tristram shandy" shaggy dog stories brought into the modern era by an aesthete. I think Thomas Mann just didn't know how to stop.
I also see the shrinking sentence length celebrated among my scientific colleagues who abhor the dreaded "run-on sentence". Maybe it is because I have no formal literacy or linguistic training but I mourn this loss; older, classical novels used to have a tremendous flavor in their sentence structure by prioritizing the longform. Some English translations of Russian literature can run into the absurd (sentences at hal…
(as a sidenote, trying to make a point about grammar made me very self-conscious about mine, this is why I had to read a good book!)
I also see the shrinking sentence length celebrated among my scientific colleagues who abhor the dreaded "run-on sentence". Maybe it is because I have no formal literacy or linguistic training but I mourn this loss; older, classical novels used to have a tremendous flavor in their sentence structure by prioritizing the longform. Some English translations of Russian literature can run into the absurd (sentences at hal…
I recently read "The Sense Of Style", which explained the actual principle behind making an understandable run-on. The trick was to allow the brain to mentally store away the earlier parts of the sentence, and take it out of the parsing context into the logical connections context. Not going to try and remake the point from scratch, if you're curious go read the book! (as a sidenote, trying to make a point about gram…
I also see the shrinking sentence length celebrated among my scientific colleagues who abhor the dreaded "run-on sentence". Maybe it is because I have no formal literacy or linguistic training but I mourn this loss; older, classical novels used to have a tremendous flavor in their sentence structure by prioritizing the longform. Some English translations of Russian literature can run into the absurd (sentences at hal…
The vogue for artificially-short sentences removes not just shape and color, but also logical relationships. Writers and readers are unburdened of tracing chains of cause-and-effect or the dreaded wondering "why". It's part of the larger societal craving to shrug off reality and one's place in it.
Perhaps it is also due to a widening of the audience that can provide literary criticism back to the author. Only the educated wealthy individuals with connections could offer critiques in the Victorian era of fiction; now it is anyone with a social media account. Judging by the failure of widespread peer review in "hype" research fields, I'm not sure this is a good thing.