Beyond Snobbery_Grammar Need not be Cruel to be Cool.pdf

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Grammar Need Not

Be Cruel to Be Cool

By June Casagrande

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Beyond Snobbery:

It’s another radio station in another city in the overwhelming and

terrifying process known as a book tour. I’m a irst-time author on a

very controversial subject—grammar snobbery—just beginning to

realize I’m in way over my head.

The radio show host wants to know my thoughts on all those people out there who don’t

even try to use or to learn proper grammar.

Everything about my host tells me that he is, by nature, a democratic and diplomatic kind of

guy. But between the lines I think I catch the scent of something else—the passion of the

people who see my grammar column in their local newspapers and send me e-mails saying,

“As a fellow grammar and usage Nazi …” or, “Keep ighting against abuse of the language!”

In my columns, I don’t ight abuse at all. I don’t bemoan others’ crimes against English or wail

about how it’s going into the crapper. I’m not a grammar or usage Nazi. I’m not a snob, a

snoot or even a stickler. I’m not “fellow” anything to them at all. Just because I write a column

ofering help to people who want to use better English doesn’t mean that I would impose

good grammar on others.

Short of coughing and fanning the air in the

presence of a cigarette smoker, grammar provides

the easiest way for an American to get of on and

get away with looking down on others.

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I’m just giving information to the people who want it, with nothing whatsoever to say about

the people who don’t.

But grammar is exclusive with a capital “exclude.” It’s like a secret handshake between a few

who like to think of themselves as a select few. The irst thing a person learns about

grammar may be that “cat” is a noun, but the second thing he learns is that this knowledge

immediately elevates him above everyone who doesn’t share it.

Short of coughing and fanning the air in the presence of a cigarette smoker, grammar

provides the easiest way for an American to get of on and get away with looking down on

others.

And I mean that in a sympathetic way.

It’s all too human to want to feel superior. But the superiority impulse is not the only dynamic

in play. Grammar snobs’ attacks aren’t exclusively ofensive. There’s a defense motive as well.

On some level, they feel their values and priorities are under attack.

After all, if you go out of your way to learn how to use “whom,” if you go so far as to learn a

rule even most of the whom-savvy crowd don’t know—that a pronoun that is both a subject

and an object always takes subject form because it’s acting as subject of a clause—you’re

going to feel a little sting when you notice others eschewing “whom” entirely.

Was I wasting my time in learning about this in the irst place? Were my eforts for nothing?

Could I have been led astray by the beloved parent or teacher who impressed upon me that

grammar is important? Have I just been a sucker all these years?

Not a tasty pill to swallow.

The alternative—grammar snobbery—seems a perfectly natural defense mechanism.

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Human being to nutjob in sixty seconds under

the inluence of the crystal meth of academic

disciplines—grammar.

That is, for the split second it takes some people to go from, “Why you dissin’ my ‘whom’?”

to “All ye who split thine ininitives and begin sentences with ‘hopefully’ are morons of the

irst order whom I’m morally justiied in ridiculing ad ininitum.”

Human being to nutjob in sixty seconds under the inluence of the crystal meth of academic

disciplines—grammar.

And the amazing thing—the thing I can’t get over—is how many grammar bullies don’t even

bother to make sure they’ve got their facts straight. They’re so stoked about playing gotcha

that they just can’t contain themselves.

For example, not long ago I came across a guest column in a Florida newspaper written by an

English tutor. She was utterly disgusted by a whole range of other peoples’ grammar

mistakes, not the least of which was the dreaded split ininitive.

I sent the columnist/tutor an e-mail, starting of softly: “Enjoyed your column, blah blah,

impressed you also know so much about math, blah blah. And by the way, you might want to

check your source on the split ininitives stuf. The Associated Press Stylebook, The Chicago

Manual of Style, Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style, Garner’s Modern American Usage

and others all say there’s no such rule.”

The columnist wrote me back. Her response: “I could not disagree more.”

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These kinds of grammar superstitions cause problems. They distract us from more important

stuf. For example, there are a lot more people in the country who will tell you there’s a rule

against splitting ininitives than there are people who can tell you what part of speech the

word “therefore” is (it’s an adverb).

So I canned the candy coating. I sent her excerpts from a number of these style guides, and

threw in three or four more. Basically, every grammar book and style guide in my possession,

I told her, says there’s no rule against splitting ininitives. If “to go” is truly acting as a single

unit, these books all agree, there’s still no rule against putting a “boldly” right in the middle.

Some bona ide grammar books say that the very idea of a split ininitive is hooey because in

English “to” is not really part of the ininitive. “Go,” they say, is the ininitive. “To” just

introduces it.

Her response: “I still disagree.”

It’s not immaterial that much of her grammar wisdom came from her now-deceased father—

a stickler of the irst order whose parental nurturing included lessons against the evils of split

ininitives right along with loving injunctions like “eat your vegetables” and “look both ways

before crossing the street.”

In efect, I was telling her: My Garner’s and Oxford and Chicago and Strunk and White and AP

can beat up your daddy (your dead daddy).

Really, what was I expecting?

The people who go around saying that you can’t split an ininitive or end a sentence with a

preposition or begin a sentence with a conjunction are just reciting something a misinformed

parent or teacher told them decades before—something they chose to believe with a

vengeance.

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