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I have been looking into the origins of the not ending sentences with prepositions, not splitting infinitives, and the that-which/restrictive-nonrestrictive rules, and I was wondering. What do you all consider the top ten prescriptivist rules in English. You do not have to agree or disagree with them, which are the one you run across the most in the wild?
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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Can I even think of ten? Your three top me out.
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Pooh-Bah
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dalehileman
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old hand
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not ending sentences with prepositions -
"What are you thinking of?" "What are you aiming for?" Are these wrong?
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old hand
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As referenced by you link, tautology can be used as a rhetorical device - certainly not false.
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not ending sentences with prepositions -
"What are you thinking of?" "What are you aiming for?" Are these wrong? There are those who would say that they are wrong and would expect you to say "Of what are you thinking?" "For what are you aiming?"
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"What are you thinking of?" "What are you aiming for?" Are these wrong?
Not as far as I and most others who speak and write English are concerned, but starting with Dryden, there has been a vocal minority who assert without evidence that those sentences are solecisms. (NB, I am not collecting these wrongheaded rulelets for some prescriptivist nosegay, I just want to catalog the ones still extant.)
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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here are a couple of nominees:
4) The notion that none must have a singular verb
5) A sentence may not begin with And (or But?)
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Pooh-Bah
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ws, tautology might be the wrong word. I am thinking of all unnecessary words, phrases, elucidations, etc. Circumlocutions too. Stuff like that
dalehileman
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Different from/than/to, not to mention nor.
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They as singular pronoun.
formerly known as etaoin...
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And why don't those who pule and micturate about using they as a singular pronoun also pule and micturate about you as a singular pronoun. And in the nominative case no less!
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formerly known as etaoin...
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old hand
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which are the one you run across the most in the wild?
Don't know if this fits the bill but Kiwispeak is full of double split infintive negatives.
Yeah Nah, too bloody right mate! It was definitely game of Two halves for sure eh?
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Kiwispeak is full of double split infinitive negatives.
But the question is, do Kiwi peevologists deprecate such locutions?
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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old hand
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do Kiwi peevologists deprecate such locutions?
Well,generally no. But outsiders may perceive it as being funny.
Culture and language eh?
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Don't know if this fits the bill but Kiwispeak is full of double split infintive negatives.
Yeah Nah, too bloody right mate! It was definitely game of Two halves for sure eh?
Umm. Onliest negative I see in here is "Nah" and I don't see any infinitives. Was this sposed to be an example of double split infinitive negatives?
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Pooh-Bah
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Included under unnecessary expressions are phrases such as "In my opinion", "but I think that....", "However in my own experience....", "It seems apparent to me that...." etc etc
..since if it weren't your opinion you wouldn't assert it
That's my opinion
dalehileman
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old hand
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Onliest negative I see in here is "Nah" and I don't see any infinitives.
'Too right' is the common saying the 'bloody' is added for emphasis.
Was this sposed to be an example of double split infinitive negatives?
Nah. I was trying too hard to be smart.
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BTW, re which/that, I have been reading Jonathan Swift's Proposal for Correcting, Improving, and Ascertaining the English Tongue. with the aim of seeing how he handles which/that with respect to restrictive clauses. He has a couple of restrictive clauses that he introduces with that but the vast majority he introduces with which.
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Pooh-Bah
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Included under unnecessary expressions are phrases such as "In my opinion", "but I think that....", "However in my own experience....", "It seems apparent to me that...." etc etc
..since if it weren't your opinion you wouldn't assert it
That's my opinion Dale, I am not sure what prescriptivist rule about these phrases you are referring too. the word tautalogy seems to be a descriptor rather than a rule.
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Not only that, but you can assert it if it's more than your opinion or just something you think. You may know it as an established fact. As for noting that your experience differs from others is also not a tautology. You would be remiss in claiming something as an established fact if it is only your opinion, something you think, or merely what you have yourself experienced.
Not that there's anything wrong with tautologies.
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Pooh-Bah
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Fal I guess while you would concur that in my own defense I did admit "tautology" might not conceivably be the right word, I must assert though with the most profound reservations as a matter of conjecture with which possibly few would disagree, except sometimes,
"You would be remiss in claiming something as an established fact if it is only your opinion, something you think, or merely what you have yourself experienced."
Fal I somewhat hesitatingly, I believe most might argue, thank you, though to some extent I feel compelled to in effect somewhat totally disagree. I would maintain with only personal presentiments there may be some special conditions in which you might contend to my satisfaction a qualifier possibly to be be appropriate but in my opinion, in general they're unnecessary except conceivably sometimes when the opposite tack is apparently called for, it seems to me, despite some possible ingemination, you must agree
Obviously to most of us of course it would be remiss under certain specific conditions to maintain "It is an established fact that Obama doesn't believe in God" though on the other hand in my estimation it would of course be all right to say, "Obviously he is lying," I think many might assert if properly approached under the right circumstances
But getting back to iteracy (if that's the right word) another of my pet peeves is the redundancy in expressions like "lift up" or "slash down" although I suppose you could credibly disagree, or so it might appear, at least in my own way of looking at things, wouldn't you say
...though I opine, with your permission, somewhat querulously to be sure, at least in the way a prescriptivist considers the proposition, that although you might not accord in toto, that many if not most participants might if asked endorse the elimination of much unnecessary verbiage
dalehileman
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Pooh-Bah
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The unnecessary verbiage may be annoying but there is no concise rule about it that I know.
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yes, it certainly does seem to be annoying. furthermoreover, and in the second place, it doesn't seem to fit, and detracts from, what zmjezhd is looking for?! (zmj, how about a summary of what you've got out of this so far, if anything..)
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Fal I somewhat hesitatingly, I believe most might argue, thank you, though to some extent I feel compelled to in effect somewhat totally disagree. I would maintain with only personal presentiments there may be some special conditions in which you might contend to my satisfaction a qualifier possibly to be be appropriate but in my opinion, in general they're unnecessary except conceivably sometimes when the opposite tack is apparently called for, it seems to me, despite some possible ingemination, you must agree
I couldn't fail to disagree with you less.
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how about a summary of what you've got out of this so far, if anything
Sure.
1. Not splitting infinitives.
2. Not ending sentences with a preposition.
3. Not starting a sentence with a conjunction.
4. Not using they as a singular non-gender-specific pronoun.
5. Eschewing the passive voice.
6. Eschewing tautology or redundancy.
7a. Not verbing nouns.
7b. Not nouning verbs.
8. Not using decimate with the sense of destroy.
9. Not using none or all of with the plural form of verbs.
10. The that-which rule.
11. Not using modifiers with unique.
They fall into a couple of broad categories:
a. Usage preferences mis-categorized as grammatical rules.
b. Eschewing polysemy in lexical items.
[Added some I forgot about earlier.]
Last edited by zmjezhd; 09/05/2009 2:58 PM.
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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that/which would give you ten, or have you dropped that?
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that/which would give you ten, or have you dropped that?
Yes, I added that and the unqualified unique ukase, too.
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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Pooh-Bah
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Here's a listing up with which I cannot put
dalehileman
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Here's a listing up with which I cannot put You will note that if you un-pied-pipe the "up with" you will get Here's a listing which I cannot put up with that violates the which/that rule.
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if you un-pied-pipe the "up with"Pied-piping was one of the many linguistic neologisms coined by the John R Ross ( link). Ross is also well known for his onomastic fecundity; he has coined many new terms describing syntactic phenomena that are well-known to this day, including copula switch, Do-Gobbling, freeze(s), gapping, heavy NP shift, (inner) islands, myopia, the penthouse principle, pied piping, pruning, scrambling, siamese sentences. sluicing, slifting, sloppy identity, sounding, squib, squishes, viability, and syntactic islands. Relating to syntactic islands, he also coined the terms "left-branch condition", "complex-np constraint", "coordinate structure constraint", and "sentential subject constraint". In phonology, he suggested the term conspiracy to Charles Kisseberth.
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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o avoid adjectives and adverbs
o avoid fancy words(!)
o [and for daleh, and Faldo too; see #6 above] avoid needless words
give White some credit though, for (in his added chapter, An Approach to Style) relaxing some strictures such as those against split-infinitives and prepositional endings.
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What a great thread! I can't think of any, though I have wracked my brain. Will post if I come up with one. Hmm--maybe the rule about using among or between; but that's prolly too weak to be a top-tenner.
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What a great thread! I can't think of any, though I have wracked my brain. Will post if I come up with one. Hmm--maybe the rule about using among or between; but that's prolly too weak to be a top-tenner. But there might be a whole class of rules that have their seeds in the old dual vs. plural numbers.
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old dual vs. plural numbers
Ah, yes. The between or among nonsense. And, isn't there something about couple, few, and several?
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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I'm also thinking of things like "May the best man win" when there's only two guys competing.
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I'm also thinking of things like "May the best man win" when there's only two guys competing. that's one I've never heard *anyone complain about.
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that's one I've never heard *anyone complain about
Oh, I have. Thanks for the nudge in the noggin, Faldo.
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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enthusiast
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that's one I've never heard *anyone complain about
Oh, I have. Thanks for the nudge in the noggin, Faldo. i have not heard this but is the complaint alleging that it should be "better" not "best"?
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