New column-type thingy

[BlackBlade]

I live in the mid atlantic until I was 17,

So like St. Helena island?

[pooka]

It's a thing:
http://md.water.usgs.gov/publications/wrir-97-4139/html.htm

[BlackBlade]

It's a thing:
http://md.water.usgs.gov/publications/wrir-97-4139/html.htm

Huh. So mid-atlantic seaboard then?

[Tante Shvester]

I'm surprised that people don't know about this.  It's the part of the East Coast between New England and the Southeast.  Then again, being from there may make me more aware of it.

[BlackBlade]

I'm surprised that people don't know about this.  It's the part of the East Coast between New England and the Southeast.  Then again, being from there may make me more aware of it.

Nobody calls Hong Kong the anything Pacific.

[Jonathon]

Lynne Truss and Chicken Little

Ruth thought the last one was a bit presumptuous, but I decided to leave it in anyway.

[BlackBlade]

I loved that you quoted Beowulf,

"HWÆT, WE GAR-DEna in geardagum,
þeodcyninga þrym gefrunon,
hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon!"

I remember my 6th grade teacher playing a recording of those lines in Old English, and I was like, "Duuuuuuude." English isn't English anymore!

[Jonathon]

No kidding! People think Shakespeare's hard to understand, but he's pretty easy compared to Chaucer. And someone without any training can still muddle their way through Chaucer and understand a little of it. But Beowulf? Nope. No way.

[Tante Shvester]

Linguistic Apocalypse sounds like a cool band name.

[pooka]

“we might as well all gooff and kill ourselves.”

FTFY

[pooka]

Maybe linguists are like meteorologists who observe that, contrary to the claims of some individuals, the sky is not actually falling.

This might not be the best analogy, unless you are a global warming denier, or possibly a manmade global warming denier.  The latter would be very consistent with the point you're trying to make. 

[Jonathon]

I thought about that, but I decided to ignore it and go with the analogy anyway to stick with the Chicken Little theme.

[Jonathon]

Why Teach Grammar?

[Tante Shvester]

Teaching grammar for its own sake is fine, but learning grammar can also be a tool for upward mobility, for people whose native grammar is nonstandard.  Like with Eliza Doolittle and her posh accent lessons with George Bernard Shaw.

[Ela]

I liked this line: "Good writing breaks these rules all the time, and following all the rules does little if anything to make bad writing good."

I'm not saying it was good writing or anything, but it still bugs me that a sixth grade teacher changed a word of a poem I wrote for an assignment because he didn't think the word I used was grammatically correct. But the word he wanted me to use wasn't what I meant!

(Ironically, I don't even remember the actual poem anymore, just the incident.)

[Jonathon]

Teaching grammar for its own sake is fine, but learning grammar can also be a tool for upward mobility, for people whose native grammar is nonstandard.  Like with Eliza Doolittle and her posh accent lessons with George Bernard Shaw.

I wholeheartedly agree that people—especially nonnatives or those who speak nonstandard English—ought to learn to read, write, and speak Standard English. But that's not the same thing as learning grammar.

I liked this line: "Good writing breaks these rules all the time, and following all the rules does little if anything to make bad writing good."

I'm not saying it was good writing or anything, but it still bugs me that a sixth grade teacher changed a word of a poem I wrote for an assignment because he didn't think the word I used was grammatically correct. But the word he wanted me to use wasn't what I meant!

(Ironically, I don't even remember the actual poem anymore, just the incident.)

I would wager that a lot of people have had incidents like that, and this is precisely why a lot of people are so insecure about their writing or their speech. They hear the message over and over again that they're doing it wrong because they haven't mastered an arcane list of rules, and eventually they just give up. A few others can overcome this because they have enough natural aptitude (usually because they're excellent readers, I think) to absorb the rules or to realize that the rules aren't all they're cracked up to be.

[rivka]

Some of us loved grammar class and think many of the rules are cool.

[Ela]

I liked grammar in school, don't get me wrong. I was jokingly called the "grammar buff" in high school. (That started after an English teacher said to me, "You certainly are a grammar buff.")

And certain grammar errors bug me a lot.

But I don't think we need to be obsessive about the rules.

[Jonathon]

And now I have a guest post on the Macmillan Dictionary blog: "Grammar and Grammar".

[Jonathon]

Some of us loved grammar class and think many of the rules are cool.

I would have loved it if it had been taught better—I certainly loved grammar once I got to college. And many of the rules are cool, but I think it's important to recognize which rules are valid and which aren't and to teach kids the difference.

[rivka]

And now I have a guest post on the Macmillan Dictionary blog: "Grammar and Grammar".

And last I checked, linguists are people too, and they have just as much of a say as anyone else. Language is the ultimate democracy, and everyone gets a vote. I vote for greater understanding of what grammar really is.

Nice.

I would have loved it if it had been taught better—I certainly loved grammar once I got to college. And many of the rules are cool, but I think it's important to recognize which rules are valid and which aren't and to teach kids the difference.

I had some decent English teachers, who emphasized that these are the rules, but if you know what you are doing you can sometimes break them. I also had some crappy ones, who clearly hated teaching grammar as much as most of my classmates hated learning it.

[Jonathon]

And last I checked, linguists are people too, and they have just as much of a say as anyone else. Language is the ultimate democracy, and everyone gets a vote. I vote for greater understanding of what grammar really is.

Nice.

Thanks.

[Jonathon]

I'm trying out a new theme. I'm still ironing out some minor style issues, but let me know if you see anything weird or buggy.

[Jonathon]

Over has always meant more than. Get over it.

[rivka]

http://youtu.be/qSK8k_nyUQE?t=1m20s