Brief Intermission Three
HOW GRAMMAR CHANGES
If you think that grammar is an exact science, get ready for a
shock. Grammar is a science, all right—but it is most inexact. There
are no inflexible laws, no absolutely hard and fast rules, no
unchanging principles. Correctness varies with the times and
depends much more on geography, on social class, and on collective
human caprice than on the restrictions found in textbooks.
In mathematics, which is an exact science, five and five make ten
the country over—in the North, in the South, in the West; in Los
Angeles and Coral Gables and New York. There are no two opinions
on the matter—we are dealing, so far as we know, with a universal
and indisputable fact.
In grammar, however, since the facts are highly susceptible to
change, we have to keep an eye peeled for trends. What are
educated people saying these days? Which expressions are generally
used and accepted on educated levels, which others are more or less
restricted to the less educated levels of speech? The answers to these
questions indicate the trend of usage in the United States, and if
such trends come in conflict with academic rules, then the rules are
no longer of any great importance.
Grammar follows the speech habits of the majority of educated people
—not the other way around. That is the important point to keep in
mind.
The following notes on current trends in modern usage are
intended to help you come to a decision about certain controversial
expressions. As you read each sentence, pay particular attention to
the italicized word or words. Does the usage square with your own
language patterns? Would you be willing to phrase your thoughts in
just such terms? Decide whether the sentence is right or wrong, then
compare your conclusion with the opinions given following the test.
TEST YOURSELF
1. Let’s keep this between you and I.
RIGHT WRONG
2. I’m your best friend, ain’t I?
RIGHT WRONG
3. Five and five is ten.
RIGHT WRONG
4. I never saw a man get so mad.
RIGHT WRONG
5. Every one of his sisters are unmarried.
RIGHT WRONG
6. He visited an optometrist for an eye operation.
RIGHT WRONG
7. Do you prophecy another world war?
RIGHT WRONG
8. Leave us not mention it.
RIGHT WRONG
9. If you expect to eventually succeed, you must keep trying.
RIGHT WRONG
1. Let’s keep this between you and I.
WRONG. Children are so frequently corrected by parents and
teachers when they say me that they cannot be blamed if they begin
to think that this simple syllable is probably a naughty word.
Dialogues such as the following are certainly typical of many
households.
“Mother, can me and Johnnie go out and play?”
“No, dear, not until you say it correctly. You mean ‘May Johnnie
and I go out to play?’ ”
“Who wants a jelly apple?”
“Me!”
“Then use the proper word.”
(The child becomes a little confused at this point—there seem to
be so many “proper” and “improper” words.)
“Me, please!”
“No, dear, not me.”
“Oh. I, please?”
(This sounds terrible to a child’s ear. It completely violates his
sense of language, but he does want the jelly apple, so he grudgingly
conforms.)
“Who broke my best vase?”
“It wasn’t me!”
“Is that good English, Johnnie?”
“Okay, it wasn’t I. But honest, Mom, it wasn’t me—I didn’t even
touch it!”
And so, if the child is strong enough to survive such constant
corrections, he decides that whenever there is room for doubt, it is
safer to say I.
Some adults, conditioned in childhood by the kind of misguided
censorship detailed here, are likely to believe that “between you and
I” is the more elegant form of expression, but most educated
speakers, obeying the rule that a preposition governs the objective
pronoun, say “between you and me.”
2. I’m your best friend, ain’t I?
WRONG. As linguistic scholars have frequently pointed out, it is
unfortunate that ain’t I? is unpopular in educated speech, for the
phrase fills a long-felt need. Am I not? is too prissy for down-to-earth
people; amn’t I? is ridiculous; and aren’t I, though popular in
England, has never really caught on in America. With a sentence
like the one under discussion you are practically in a linguistic trap
—there is no way out unless you are willing to choose between
appearing illiterate, sounding prissy, or feeling ridiculous.
“What is the matter with ain’t I? for am I not?” language scholar
Wallace Rice once wrote. “Nothing whatever, save that a number of
minor grammarians object to it. Ain’t I? has a pleasant sound once
the ears are unstopped of prejudice.” Mr. Rice has a valid point
there, yet educated people avoid ain’t I? as if it were catching. In all
honesty, therefore, I must say to you: don’t use ain’t I?, except
humorously. What is a safe substitute? Apparently none exists, so I
suggest that you manage, by some linguistic calisthenics, to avoid
having to make a choice. Otherwise you may find yourself in the
position of being damned if you do and damned if you don’t.
3. Five and five is ten.
RIGHT. But don’t jump to the conclusion that “five and five are ten”
is wrong—both verbs are equally acceptable in this or any similar
construction. If you prefer to think of “five-and-five” as a single
mathematical concept, say is. If you find it more reasonable to
consider “five and five” a plural idea, say are. The teachers I’ve
polled on this point are about evenly divided in preference, and so, I
imagine, are the rest of us. Use whichever verb has the greater
appeal to your sense of logic.
4. I never saw a man get so mad.
RIGHT. When I questioned a number of authors and editors about
their opinion of the acceptability of mad as a synonym for angry, the
typical reaction was: “Yes, I say mad, but I always feel a little guilty
when I do.”
Most people do say mad when they are sure there is no English
teacher listening; it’s a good sharp word, everybody understands
exactly what it means, and it’s a lot stronger than angry, though not
quite as violent as furious or enraged. In short, mad has a special
implication offered by no other word in the English language; as a
consequence, educated people use it as the occasion demands and it
is perfectly correct. So correct, in fact, that every authoritative
dictionary lists it as a completely acceptable usage. If you feel guilty
when you say mad, even though you don’t mean insane, it’s time you
stopped plaguing your conscience with trivialities.
5. Every one of his sisters are unmarried.
WRONG. Are is perhaps the more logical word, since the sentence
implies that he has more than one sister and they are all unmarried.
In educated speech, however, the tendency is to make the verb
agree with the subject, even if logic is violated in the process—and
the better choice here would be is, agreeing with the singular
subject, every one.
6. He visited an optometrist for an eye operation.
WRONG. If the gentleman in question did indeed need an operation,
he went to the wrong doctor. In most states, optometrists are
forbidden by law to perform surgery or administer drugs—they may
only prescribe and fit glasses. And they are not medical doctors. The
M.D. who specializes in the treatment of eye diseases, and who may
operate when necessary, is an ophthalmologist. (See Chapter 4.)
7. Do you prophecy another world war?
WRONG. Use prophecy only when you mean prediction, a noun.
When you mean predict, a verb, as in this sentence, use prophesy.
This distinction is simple and foolproof. Therefore we properly say:
“His prophecy (prediction) turned out to be true,” but “He really
seems able to prophesy (predict) political trends.” There is a
distinction also in the pronunciation of these two words. Prophecy is
pronounced PROF′-Ə-see; prophesy is pronunced PROF′-Ə-sī′.
8. Leave us not mention it.
WRONG. On the less sophisticated levels of American speech, leave
is a popular substitute for let. On educated levels, the following
distinction is carefully observed: let means allow; leave means depart.
(There are a few idiomatic exceptions to this rule, but they present
no problem.) “Let me go” is preferable to “Leave me go” even on the
most informal of occasions, and a sentence like “Leave us not
mention it” is not considered standard English.
9. If you expect to eventually succeed, you must keep trying.
RIGHT. We have here, in case you’re puzzled, an example of that
notorious bugbear of academic grammar, the “split infinitive.” (An
infinitive is a verb preceded by to: to succeed, to fail, to remember.)
Splitting an infinitive is not at all difficult—you need only insert a
word between the to and the verb: to eventually succeed, to completely
fail, to quickly remember.
Now that you know how to split an infinitive, the important
question is, is it legal to do so? I am happy to be able to report to
you that it is not only legal, it is also ethical, moral, and sometimes
more effective than to not split it. Benjamin Franklin, Washington
Irving, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Theodore Roosevelt, and Woodrow
Wilson, among many others, were unconscionable infinitive
splitters. And modern writers are equally partial to the construction.
To bring this report up to the minute, I asked a number of editors
about their attitude toward the split infinitive. Here are two typical
reactions.
An editor at Doubleday and Company: “The restriction against the
split infinitive is, to my mind, the most artificial of all grammatical
rules. I find that most educated people split infinitives regularly in
their speech, and only eliminate them from their writing when they
rewrite and polish their material.”
An editor at Reader’s Digest: “I want to defend the split infinitive.
The construction adds to the strength of the sentence—it’s compact
and clear. This is to loudly say that I split an infinitive whenever I
can catch one.”
And here, finally, is the opinion of humorist James Thurber, as
quoted by Rudolf Flesch in The Art of Plain Talk: “Word has
somehow got around that the split infinitive is always wrong. This is
of a piece with the outworn notion that it is always wrong to strike
a lady.”
I think the evidence is conclusive enough—it is perfectly correct
to consciously split an infinitive whenever such an act increases the
strength or clarity of your sentence.