Brief Intermission Five
HOW TO SPEAK NATURALLY
Consider this statement by Louis Bromfield, a noted author: “If I, as
a novelist, wrote dialogue for my characters which was meticulously
grammatical, the result would be the creation of a speech which
rendered the characters pompous and unreal.”
And this one by Jacques Barzun, former literary critic for Harper’s:
“Speech, after all, is in some measure an expression of character,
and flexibility in its use is a good way to tell your friends from the
robots.”
Consider also this puckish remark by the late Clarence Darrow:
“Even if you do learn to speak correct English, who are you going to
speak it to?”
These are typical reactions of professional people to the old
restrictions of formal English grammar. Do the actual teachers of
English feel the same way? Again, some typical statements:
“Experts and authorities do not make decisions and rules, by logic
or otherwise, about correctness,” said E. A. Cross, then Professor of
English at the Greeley, Colorado, College of Education. “All they can
do is observe the customs of cultivated and educated people and
report their findings.”
“Grammar is only an analysis after the facts, a post-mortem on
usage,” said Stephen Leacock in How To Write. “Usage comes first
and usage must rule.”
One way to discover current trends in usage is to poll a cross
section of people who use the language professionally, inquiring as
to their opinion of the acceptability, in everyday speech, of certain
specific and controversial expressions. A questionnaire I prepared
recently was answered by eighty-two such people—thirty-one
authors, seven book reviewers, thirty-three editors, and eleven
professors of English. The results, some of which will be detailed
below, may possibly prove startling to you if you have been
conditioned to believe, as most of us have, that correct English is
rigid, unchangeable, and exclusively dependent on grammatical
rules.
TEST YOURSELF
1. Californians boast of the healthy climate of their state.
RIGHT WRONG
2. Her new novel is not as good as her first one.
RIGHT WRONG
3. We can’t hardly believe it.
RIGHT WRONG
4. This is her.
RIGHT WRONG
5. Who are you waiting for?
RIGHT WRONG
6. Please take care of whomever is waiting.
RIGHT WRONG
7. Whom would you like to be if you weren’t yourself?
RIGHT WRONG
8. My wife has been robbed.
RIGHT WRONG
9. Is this desert fattening?
RIGHT WRONG
1. Californians boast of the healthy climate of their state.
RIGHT. There is a distinction, says formal grammar, between
healthy and healthful. A person can be healthy—I am still quoting the
rule—if he possesses good health. But climate must be healthful,
since it is conducive to health. This distinction is sometimes observed
in writing but rarely in everyday speech, as you have probably
noticed. Even the dictionaries have stopped splitting hairs—they
permit you to say healthy no matter which of the two meanings you
intend.
“Healthy climate” was accepted as current educated usage by
twenty-six
of
the
thirty-three
editors
who
answered
the
questionnaire, six of the seven book reviewers, nine of the eleven
professors of English, and twenty of the thirty-one authors. The
earlier distinction, in short, is rapidly becoming obsolete.
2. Her new novel is not as good as her first one.
RIGHT. If you have studied formal grammar, you will recall that
after a negative verb the “proper” word is so, not as. Is this rule
observed by educated speakers? Hardly ever.
In reference to the sentence under discussion, author Thomas W.
Duncan remarked: “I always say—and write—as, much to the
distress of my publisher’s copyreader. But the fellow is a wretched
purist.”
The tally on this use of as showed seventy-four for, only eight
against.
3. We can’t hardly believe it.
WRONG. Of the eighty-two professional people who answered my
questionnaire, seventy-six rejected this sentence; it is evident that
can’t hardly is far from acceptable in educated speech. Preferred
usage: We can hardly believe it.
4. This is her.
WRONG. This substitution of her where the rule requires she was
rejected by fifty-seven of my eighty-two respondents. Paradoxically
enough, although “It’s me” and “This is me” are fully established in
educated speech, “This is her” still seems to be condemned by the
majority of cultivated speakers. Nevertheless, the average person, I
imagine, may feel a bit uncomfortable saying “This is she”—it
sounds almost too sophisticated.
This is more than an academic problem. If the voice at the other
end of a telephone conversation makes the opening move with “I’d
like to speak to Jane Doe [your name, for argument’s sake],” you
are, unfortunately, on the horns of a very real dilemma. “This is she”
may sound prissy—“This is her” may give the impression that you’re
uneducated. Other choices are equally doubtful. “Talking!” is
suspiciously businesslike if the call comes to your home, and “I am
Jane Doe!” may make you feel like the opening line of a high school
tableau. The need for a decision arises several times in a busy day—
and, I am sorry to report, the English language is just deficient
enough not to be of much help. I wonder how it would be if you just
grunted affably?
5. Who are you waiting for?
RIGHT. Formal grammar not only requires whom but demands that
the word order be changed to: “For whom are you waiting?” (Just
try talking with such formality on everyday occasions and see how
long you’ll keep your friends.)
Who is the normal, popular form as the first word of a sentence,
no matter what the grammatical construction; and an opinion by
Kyle Crichton, a well-known magazine editor, is typical of the way
many educated people feel. Mr. Crichton says: “The most loathsome
word (to me at least) in the English language is whom. You can
always tell a half-educated buffoon by the care he takes in working
the word in. When he starts it, I know I am faced with a pompous
illiterate who is not going to have me long as company.”
The score for acceptance of the sentence as it stands (with who)
was sixty-six out of eighty-two. If, like most unpedantic speakers,
you prefer who to whom for informal occasions, or if you feel as
strongly about whom as Mr. Crichton does, you will be happy to
hear that modern trends in English are all on your side.
6. Please take care of whomever is waiting.
WRONG. Whomever is awkward and a little silly in this sentence and
brings to mind Franklin P. Adams’ famous remark on grammar:
“ ‘Whom are you?’ asked Cyril, for he had been to night school.” It
is also contrary to grammatical rule. People who are willing to be
sufficiently insufferable to use whomever in this construction have
been tempted into error by the adjacent word of. They believe that
since they are following a preposition with an objective pronoun
they are speaking impeccable grammar. In actuality, however,
whomever is not the object of the preposition of but the subject of
the verb is waiting. Preferable form: Please take care of whoever is
waiting.
7. Whom would you like to be if you weren’t yourself?
WRONG. Here is another and typical example of the damage which
an excessive reverence for whom can do to an innocent person’s
speech. Judged by grammatical rule, whom is incorrect in this
sentence (the verb to be requires who); judged by normal speech
patterns, it is absurd. This use of whom probably comes from an
abortive attempt to sound elegant.
8. My wife has been robbed.
RIGHT—if something your wife owns was taken by means of
thievery. However, if your wife herself was kidnapped, or in some
way talked into leaving you, she was stolen, not robbed. To rob is to
abscond with the contents of something—to steal is to walk off with
the thing itself. Needless to say, both forms of activity are highly
antisocial and equally illegal.
9. Is this desert fattening?
WRONG. The dessert that is fattening is spelled with two s’s. With
one s, it’s a desert, like the Sahara. Remember the two s’s in dessert
by thinking how much you’d like two portions, if only your waistline
permitted.