Langage snobbery up with which I cannot put..."
When someone criticized Winston Churchill, the statesman and highly respected authority on the English language, for ending a sentence with a preposition, he replied, “This is nonsense up with which I cannot put.” There is nothing wrong with ending a sentence with a preposition. Often it’s the only way to form a sentence without turning the words into a pretzel and sounding ridiculous. Some people learned this meaningless rule from an English teacher, and it stuck in their memories. Now they look around for opportunities to feel superior to people who break this rule.
Sentences that end with prepositions are as clear, or clearer, than sentences twisted out of shape, just to end on a different word. Clear communication is the reason we have language. So why do we have so many rules that do not help us be clear? Answer: They’re not really rules. They’re etiquette rules, like using the right fork.
Here’s a real rule that is required for clarity:
A panda walked into a bar carrying a rifle. He munched a few nuts, then pointed the gun at a customer, shot him, then he walked out the door. The police caught him and asked why? “I’m a panda,” he said. He pulled out a dictionary, and showed the definition of Panda. “Bear-like mammal that eats, shoots, and leaves.“
An innocent man was shot because someone misapplied the comma rule: When a sentence contains a list of three or more elements, put a comma after each one. But this is not a list of three elements, so the meaning is fatally changed. “Eats shoots and leaves” needs no commas when describing a panda’s diet.
How often do you here people use the expression “between you and I.” Many people remember that’s wrong. You need to say “Between you and me.” “Between” is a preposition, and the object of a preposition must be in the objective case. “Me” is the objective case, and “I” is in the nominative case.
It’s equally clear in this example of the same “pronoun agreement” rule that “It’s me,” is wrong. It should be “It is I.” According to the same rule, “It’s us,” is wrong. The correct form is “It is we.” “It’s him” should be “It is he.” "It" is the subject of the sentence, so the pronoun referring to it must be in the nominative form.
Imagine explaining these rules to a 6th grader? Is it any wonder that most Americans firmly believe they are unable to write? They’re afraid they’ll look stupid if they break a rule that is not even a rule. Teachers return their written work covered with red pen marks and deduct points for each mark. They might say something interesting if they weren't weighed down with all these rules.
Children form millions of English sentences every day that everyone understands. When they’re old enough, they can learn the rules of standard English, hopelfully focusing on the ones needed for clarity. These other confusing rules are imposed by grammar books and teachers, to honor the historic connection between English and its Latin roots. In spoken English, or informal written English, they are not rules at all.
Primary school teachers also obsess on the distinction between “can” and “may.” They even have little mind games designed to embarrass kids in front of the class, such as “You can, but you may not.” Could anyone say "can I go to the bathroom?" and be misuderstood?
Imagine being an African-American 5-year-old from the “hood,” in the first day of kindergarten, with all the nerves and insecurities children bring to the first day of school. Then imagine the teacher saying that the way you, and everyone you know, speaks English is wrong. You’ll have to learn the right way, or you’ll never get anywhere.
The notion that he and his family are stupid, illiterate, uneducated, and below other people because they can’t speak English “right” could turn a young child off permanently to school, learning, the teacher, white society, and maybe even good behavior and paying attention. Adults who speak with a regional accent or regional dialect get the same treatment, like they just fell off the turnip truck.
To get ahead, children must master standard English. But their native language is not wrong, and adults should not say it is. It has its own grammar, syntax, and vocabulary, which allow speakers to form new, unique sentences that are easily understood by someone else who speaks the dialect. (In fact, that’s the scientific definition of a dialect.) We don’t want to teach dialect in public school, because the kids already know it. We need to show respect for native dialect while we’re teaching standard English, and explaining where dialect is appropriate and where standard English is required.
Dialects have value: they can be vivid, lyrical, and a source of words that eventually work their way into standard English. “Uptight,” “pissed off,” and “rip off” come from black ghettos and have worked their way gradually into our reputable American dictionaries. “Wellness,” a health dialect word, and “texting,” a word from technology, are now officially accepted. We get most of our “official” new words, hundreds a year, from dialects, other languages, changes in social values, and technology. They usually serve an apprenticeship in informal language before they are admitted to the dictionaries.
Dialects are becoming rare. TV and increased geographic mobility have us speaking more and more alike no matter where we’re from. We’re losing a portion of our culture. Loretta Lynn talking is as musical as Loretta Lynn singing. Same is true of the Clancy Brothers from Ireland, or anyone with a Welsh, Scottish, Jamaican, Bahamian, or British accent. The old-time Brooklyn accent, where oil is “earl” and earl is “oil,” is almost gone, as is the native New Hampshire accent, overwhelmed by the influx of flatlanders since 1970. “Pahk ya Cah at Hahvid Yahd” is also on the way out, except as the punch line of a joke.
The early poetry of Robert Frost is written in the old New Hampshire accent, and now, almost no one can read it the way he heard it. If you imitate New Hampshire dialect just a little bit wrong, it becomes Massachusetts or Maine. Even my second wife, from the New Hampshire farm, has completely lost her accent because her teacher said it was wrong.
