Dumb Grammar and Your English Teacher

Language is a living and developing entity. There are many amusing conventions –obviously coming right off the blackboard from a high-school English class, which I have encountered in customers’ documents. I have had spirited discussions about grammar with clients and, I am happy to report, I have won the hearts and souls of several of them – as least in regard to use of the language. I have put together several examples of “non-errors” which require expansion and explanation.

NEVER END A SENTENCE WITH A PREPOSITION

This rule is ridiculous. It comes from an eighteen-century fetish about maintaining Latin structures which, even then, had no logic whatsoever.

“There is no need to notify us about problems of which we are already aware” is simply clumsy and you should use: “There is no need to notify us about problems that we are already aware of”.

As Winston Churchill wrote to an editor: “This is the kind of nonsense up with which I will not put!”

NEVER BEGIN A SENTENCE WITH A CONJUNCTION

This is an arbitrary rule that has been passed from generation to generation by boring English teachers. A sentence beginning with “And”, “But” or “Well” tends to express continuity or transition and this can be a very effective way to link the various elements in a paragraph.

NEVER SPLIT AN INFINITIVE

Splitting an infinitive involves dividing “to” from the verb root and inserting an adverb between them. There are some really stupid rules that forbid this action, but you will be safe if you put a modifier directly before the word it modifies.

Take the following sentence as an example: “My mother went to school to personally thank my teacher for helping me.” The farther away that a modifier is placed, the greater is the chance that a reader will misinterpret the meaning. If we were to follow antiquated rules we would have “My mother went to school personally to thank my teacher for her help.” This implies that that only my mother went on this mission which is not the intention at all.

DISTINGUISHING BETWEEN “SINCE” AND “BECAUSE”

Usually there is no perceivable difference between “since” and “because” and you can use either as you see fit. If you had a really nit-picking English teacher, she might have told you that “since” should be reserved only for reference to time but that is nonsense.

USE “DATA” ONLY IN THE PLURAL SENSE

“Datum”, in the singular sense, has happily faded into oblivion. “Data” is a collective noun just like “information”. You can use it accordingly – “data is”.

USE “NONE” ONLY IN THE SINGULAR SENSE

Some grammar books insist that since “none” is derived from “no one” it should always be singular: “None of us is going to school”. However, in standard usage, the word is most often treated as a plural. Thus, “None of us are going to school”, will do just fine.

The following is a list of indefinite pronouns that can be used both in the singular or plural: all, any, none, some.

“OVER” VS. “MORE THAN”

Some people claim that “over” cannot be used to signify “more than, as in “Over a hundred people were hospitalized for dehydration during the marathon.” “Over,” they insist, always refers to something physically higher than something else: “The new high rise towers over the old apartment block”. For the record, “Over” has been used in the sense of “more than” for over a thousand years.

FEELING BAD

“I feel bad” is good English. “I feel badly” is an incorrect hyper-correction used by people who think they are really smart.