Friday, April 17, 2009

Some Pig!

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Bashing Charlotte’s Ghostwriter

The Elements of Style does not deserve the enormous esteem in which it is held by American college graduates. Its advice ranges from limp platitudes to inconsistent nonsense. Its enormous influence has not improved American students’ grasp of English grammar; it has significantly degraded it. . . .

“It’s sad. Several generations of college students learned their grammar from the uninformed bossiness of Strunk and White, and the result is a nation of educated people who know they feel vaguely anxious and insecure whenever they write ‘however’ or ‘than me’ or ‘was’ or ‘which,’ but can’t tell you why. The land of the free [is?] in the grip of The Elements of Style.”
—Geoffrey K. Pullum, head of linguistics and English language at the University of Edinburgh and co-author (with Rodney Huddleston)
of The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language (Cambridge University Press, 2002).
Full sanctimonious heresy here.

Editorial Comment: Piffle! Click here for pre-rebuttal.

NewsWatch: NYTimes Editorial on Roxana Saberi.

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13 comments:

  1. Piffle? Such an un-wild-Western word. Trumpet of the Swan is still my favorite E.B. White book.

    However, having just purchased my first Chicago Manual of Style, 15th ed., I suddenly feel that White's guide was a paternal pat on the head telling me that I wasn't quite ready to understand the intricacies nor to withstand the majesty of the English language and the uses to which it could be employed.

    Pullum may have a point.

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  2. Ah, the renowned Geoffrey K. Pullum (sounds like "sputum), FSS (F**ing Stuffed Shirt)!

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  3. Ted,

    My argument with Pullum is this: in Idaho, high schools have stopped teaching grammar, and as a result, I must constantly work with journalism students on language skills. This means no prepositions at the end of sentences (you sound uninformed and questioning), the difference between “who” and “that” when referring to people, and (my personal favorite) why words such as “like” and “over” are frequently misused by the lazy mind.

    Without grammar, we will soon all be using incomprehensive texting language. R u 4 real? As a student asked yesterday. Strunk and White, over-zealots they were, yes were correct. God bless ‘em.

    Thanks for the wake-up this morning.

    Becky

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  4. Ted,

    I read that piece awhile back and loved it. I adore E.B. White and am irritated by the constant stream of invective Pullum sends his way. It’s not Elements of Grammar; it’s Elements of Style, which is precisely when we use that/which.

    If everyone studied this book, we’d all write better. I honestly don’t see what value, beyond strictly academic, the language log brings to the world. Do they help people get jobs? Write more clearly? Or just catalog the variety of ways language is used? It’s the latter, which is interesting but ultimately not terribly useful. It would be as though law professors decreed what the law is based on people’s behavior.

    Martha Brockenbrough
    THINGS THAT MAKE US [SIC]- St. Martin's Press, October 2008
    - Founder, the Society for the Promotion of Good Grammar

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  5. I say to hell with Pullum. Elements ain't perfect but it beats 99% of everything else out there, and its good-natured, authoritative voice is part of its charm. Be ready for a tsunami of criticism advising Pullum to, in S&W words, "show, not tell" (e.g., "limp platitudes," "inconsistent nonsense").

    Ed

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  6. I agree with Martha. Elements of Style wasn't intended to be a grammarian's handbook. As Ted pointed out in his tribute to White, EoS's greatest gift to young writers is the admonition to "omit needless words." I didn't come across EoS until college and by then I'd been reading badly written textbooks for 12 years. Concise writing was a revelation to me.

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  7. The man can take Pullum's sanctimony without breaking a sweat. His collection of essays, One Man's meat (1938!) remains on my Top 10 list for voice, wisdom, tone, style. Great stuff! Or, as Charlotte might have written, "Wonderful!"

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  8. Strunk and White's "Elements of Style," Longman, 4th Edition, 105 pages

    Pullum's "The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language," Cambridge University Press, 1,860 pages

    Sometimes less is much, much more.

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  9. Posted at http://askdrted.blogspot.com/2009/01/eb-whitesome-pig.html

    Harry W. Crosby said...

    Needless to say, I missed this piece in 1985 when, as now, I was involved up to my ears in in the labyrinthine process of making sense out of 18th century military housekeeping documents and transmitting my brilliant deductions by means of comprehendable English. But this brief, admiring review of E. B. White made me nod my head in retrospective approval --- and that one line about our generally belittling estimations of humorists vs. Serious Writers. Hoo Boy! That is us OK. And the hell of it is, clever humorists provide important "uppers" in this all too often downer world, and generally reach more folk than do those penetratingly revelatory philosopher psychologists who get such accolades from the cognoscenti. Right on E. B. and Mark and Ambrose and S. J. and Don Marquis and who knows how many others who showed me how to balance my perspective on life. And I pity all those who have never found and refreshed at these fountains.

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  10. Dear Mr. Pullum:

    The book is called "The Elements of STYLE," not "The Elements of Grammar,"which would be an entirely different topic. Odd that a grammarian would confuse the two.

    Sincerely,

    Hodges

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  11. I was so drop-jawed by the claims in this quote that I read the whole article in the Chronicle. What a really unpleasant piece -- this guy
    would be a real drag to spend any amount of time with. (Remind me *not* to sign up for "Linguistics 305" with Prof. Pullum the next time
    I'm at the Univ. of Edinburgh!).

    He may be technically correct on some points, but he misses the overall point: the no-nonsense directness of the book succeeds in imprinting key writing style and syntax guidelines in a way that no other guide has, no matter how well-intentioned or impeccable. Bonus: Strunk's seminal "Vigorous writing is concise" paragraph alone is worth the price of admission, and ranks, along with the opening paragraph of the Gettysburg Address as one of the finest, strongest single paragraphs ever penned by an
    American. (IMHO.)

    A great find for your collection, in any event. Whew!

    Cheers,

    --Alex.

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  12. And that's why I used the "Some Pig!" headline. The guy's a pompous jerk--sadly, exactly what one's preconceptions of academe would lead one to expect of a professor of linguistics and English Department chair at the University of Edinburgh.

    As for strong lead paragraphs, I argue to my students that the 43 words of the First Amendment are the pithiest, following only, "Let there be light."

    Ted

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  13. Ted,

    Good, if creepy, “Word” today.

    Seems like a lot of grumping for a 95-page, 74-year-old usage reminder with a touch of levity and a lot of wisdom tucked into a tiny package. Seventy-four years from now, when I’m about 140 years old, I look forward to seeing not a trace of, what’s it called? Oh yes, The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language, as I peruse the internet on a computer the size of my thumbnail looking to buy the 27th edition of Strunk & White. Any book that says “style takes its final shape more from the attitudes of mind than from principles of composition” and that reminds us of a remark from an “elderly practitioner” that “Writing is an act of faith, not a trick of grammar,” can only do good in this world. Scolds like Pullum, and my stick-rigid eighth-grade English teacher, aptly named Miss Roach, must, tragically, be endured and, one prays, overcome, as the voices of Strunk & White continue to be heard.

    Dan

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