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Learning any other language, one with a grammar sufficiently different from the grammar of one's own, at least gives us some notion about how grammars work.
That's true, but in the fifties, primary schools took care of this in our native language already. Clear and systematically. Which made the comparison with other following, (obligatory) languages more directly noticeable and gave assurance.
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My grandson told that all the grammar he really knows well, he has learned through his Latin lessons. Thus, àfter primary school.
You grandson learned the bulk of his grammar at home when he learned how to speak. The problem is that the grammar of one's spoken (first) language is definitely different from one's written formal language. It is not clear that learning some formal grammar (i.e., the terms for parts of speech and some grammatical functions) improves one's grammar. It does give you a way to talk about grammar. It's seems for most people who complain that grammar is no longer taught in schools grammar is a random bunch of usage, orthographic, and punctuation rules (masquerading as grammar), learning to identify parts of speech, and maybe some diagramming of some sort (either the Kellogg-Reed diagrams, or TG trees).
The best thing you can do, either as a kid or a grownup, is to read and write a lot. Taking a second language (like Latin) helps, too. Finally some elementary linguistics, such as pointing out that there are different registers that one uses to accommodate the social part of communication.
I think those things can be taught between the reading and composition parts of a normal English (or Dutch) curriculum.
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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That's true, but in the fifties, primary schools took care of this in our native language already. Clear and systematically. Which made the comparison with other following, (obligatory) languages more directly noticeable and gave assurance.
Unfortunately, I think, in this case, it is a case of post hoc ergo propter hoc. I think it is a lucky few of the kids who make the connection between their unconsciously learned grammar and the formal system some of us were taught in school. I myself (in the '60s and '70s) did not learn much "grammar" at school. When I took Latin in high school, I really started to understand (consciously) the grammar of English. How many kids in my Latin class? There was me. It had been canceled a decade or so before I got there, but I talked the teacher into teaching me one on one after he'd had a chance to smoke a quick cigarette in the teachers' lounge.
The truth of the matter is that a large percentage of the student body will never use grammar or algebra again after leaving school. The writers I work with are divided into two groups. The non-linguists who extol the teaching of grammar in schools as a panacea for everything wrong with today's youth and the smaller bunch of us who were exposed to some linguistics after having been scared with diagrams and parsing in Miss Thistlebottom's class.
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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Maybe my grammar and your grammar have (as a word) a somewhat different meaning. I do not have a diagram association with lessons about grammar. Never heard of. Also I don't think of grammar as something one 'uses'. It's an inner annotator that works along subconciously when one writes something. But once it was explained and conciously studied.
I would like to leave the rest to Miss Distelbodem.
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Maybe my grammar and your grammar have (as a word) a somewhat different meaning.Oh, of that I am sure. I do not have a diagram association with lessons about grammar. Never heard of.Ah, yes. That is a purely US pedagogical tool. If you can, take a look at this book on Google books ( link). For most folks who went to primary and secondary school in the US before roughly up until 1970, these diagrams were a big part of "grammar". Also I don't think of grammar as something one 'uses'. It's an inner annotator that works along subconciously when one writes something. But once it was explained and conciously studied. Well, if grammar does not get used why is it necessary? Or better yet, why teach it? I agree that it is un- or sub-consciously learned and used. Learning some formal system of grammar lets one study already existing texts, but does very little to nothing in generating those texts. (Which is exactly what a whole bunch of peevers claim, amongst other things with which they annoy me.) [Edited to correct typos.]
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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Also I don't think of grammar as something one 'uses'. It's an inner annotator that works along subconciously when one writes something. But once it was explained and conciously studied. What was explained and consciously studied was just a very small subset of English grammar, namely the parts that there was disagreement about. This teaching started in the 1700s, I think. Before that, English grammar in any form was not taught. So how did those great writers of the 1000s-1600s manage to write? Barzun says The loss of grammar and the dogma that anything said is to be treated with respect due to life itself have had the further cultural effect of encouraging the natural carelessness of talk; it even made it an asset: a new president of the United States in 1988 gained in popularity when he was found halting in speech and loose in grammar. He would have to show exactly what he means by "careless", and that talk now is more careless now than it was in the past, and more careless now than it needs to be.
Last edited by gooofy; 06/16/12 01:58 PM.
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" He would have to show exactly what he means by "careless", and that talk now is more careless now than it was in the past, and more careless now than it needs to be." How about some grammar?  ( 3 nows? )
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Yeah, there is one to many "nows"... editing mistake.
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2?  No need to tell your editor. Who cares anyway..
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I never said "no one cares." but I don't think the problem with careless talk or lax grammar or whatever is as bad as people like Barzun think it is. These complainers never provide convincing evidence for their linguapocalypse.
Last edited by gooofy; 06/17/12 08:34 PM.
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