Can anyone describe for me the distinction between grammar and syntax? Or are they synonymous? I ain't got no idea exactly what the diff'rence betwixt them two words be! It's enough to make a feller nauserated!
Dear Alex: being ignorant of both, I looked in my dictionary, and briefly, syntax is a subset of grammar:
Grammar: that part of the study of language which deals with the forms and structure of words (morphology), with their customary arrangement in phrases and sentences (syntax), and now often with language sounds (phonology) and word meanings (semantics)
Syntax is an aspect of grammar. It primarily involves word order. In the sentence he gave John the book the order of the direct object (book) and the indirect object (John) is a matter of syntax but the transformation of the infinitive give to the past tense gave is not.
Some writers' syntax is so distinguishable that you can recognize the writer by the way the words have been arranged. I would imagine psycholinguists eyeball closely syntactical habits of writers under investigation. And these psycholinguists would be on call by the FBI to try to determine authorship.
Once someone wrote to me under an assumed name, but I had a strong gut feeling of the author--and I was correct--simply because of syntax. Some people's syntax is positively seductive--no joke.
Best regards,
WordWonderer
Isn't that how they got the Unabomber? As I recall, his letters were published in newspapers in hopes that someone would recognize his writing style -- his syntax -- and his brother shore enuf did. How come no one has made that into a movie? It's a better story than most of the dreck being churned out in Hollywood these days.
Several times on the net, I've been able to determine that a person was posting under multiple pseudonyms, using exactly this thing. I'm not a linguist, but there are some things that are very obvious - usually things that unique to a person like a certain set of misspellings or a curious phraseology.
k
So the Amish have a different syntax than most Americans, as does Yoda ("always two there are!")but their grammar is correct.
Oliver Sacks was the first modern writer that I recognized by his writing. I had read an article of his in an old issue of Granta, but had not really noticed the author's byline. Shortly thereafter a friend loaned me "The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat" and as I read it I felt like i recognized the writer's voice. I dug out the magazine article I had read and sure enough, it was Oliver Sacks.
How come no one has made that into a movie? It's a better story than most of the dreck being churned out in Hollywood these days.Slithy, many of the stories that Hollywood gets hold of started out well. Do you want "Unabomber, the Misunderstood Makes Good" or "Unabomber, An Explosive Nix" or "Unabomber Does Dallas" or "Unabomber the Musical"?
You are so right, CK. I could visualize something in the manner of "All the President's Men." But after working in a catchy musical theme and a few rolls in the hay, they could simply call it "Bomb!", making it possible for the critics to write one-word reviews.
But the line between comedy and offense can be a fine one. For example, Mel Brooks' The Producers, or to use the title in its international release, Springtime for Hitler.
