Grammar that makes you cringe

[jsabine]

Less cryptically, that's Fowler's Modern English Usage.

NB that "Modern" was originally 1926. It's been revised a couple of times and I find it reasonably interesting, but although it probably is the nearest thing to an authoritative text, it's not really a coursebook. Might also be worth looking at the Guardian and the Economist style guides, which are quite good in identifying tricky situations and giving consistent answers.

In some ways, the best way of getting this stuff ingrained is simply to read lots of conventionally well-written text. Broadsheet newspapers, literary fiction, periodicals like the Economist or Spectator or Prospect or New Statesman, some (relatively few) long-form blogs (I quite like Jack of Kent, and Charlie Stross's one at antipope.org). Read lots, and the good stuff gets ingrained while poor and ungrammatical writing just begins to feel unnatural.

(The other issue, of course, is letting go of an obsession with grammatical pedantry. It only actually matters where it starts to interfere with understanding.)

[T42]

Wreak wrought wrought.

I wish the media would get that one wright.

This ^^^^.

What's rong with that?

[drossall]

(The other issue, of course, is letting go of an obsession with grammatical pedantry. It only actually matters where it starts to interfere with understanding.)

There's truth in that, of course. However, if the writer were well-placed to spot potential misunderstandings, there would never be any. The rules of grammar also help us to avoid the misunderstandings that we do not anticipate.

[Blazer]

Thanks for your replies.

 I tracked down the Fowler book or should that be I tracked the Fowler book down, or are both correct as you know what I mean.

One website then referred me to a Bill Bryson book that (which?) received good reviews.

This has been highlighted for me (and by me) in my relatively new role where (in which?) I fall short when compared to the ability of my new boss to write concisely and correctly.

Cheers

[jsabine]

(The other issue, of course, is letting go of an obsession with grammatical pedantry. It only actually matters where it starts to interfere with understanding.)

There's truth in that, of course. However, if the writer were well-placed to spot potential misunderstandings, there would never be any. The rules of grammar also help us to avoid the misunderstandings that we do not anticipate.

I meant as a reader.

I strive for clarity in what I write (not that I always achieve it) unless I'm deliberately setting up a possible double meaning: I strive not to get wound up by errors and inconsistencies in what I read, even though grocers apostrophe's make me slightly physically uncomfortable ...

[pcolbeck]

Take a look at George Orwell's essay "Politics and the English language". It has lots of useful things to say about clear and concise writing.

https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/orwell46.htm

[jsabine]

Good call. I've not read that in ages, though it's more about style and clarity in general than about strict grammar.

[pcolbeck]

Good call. I've not read that in ages, though it's more about style and clarity in general than about strict grammar.

I know but I thought it might help Blazer in his struggles to write concisely and clearly. I am not sure I hold with Orwell when it comes to literary writing but for technical or business writing I do.

[Wowbagger]

I agree about Orwell. I think he is the greatest writer of the 20th century but purely on subject matter, output and clarity. He didn't write "beautifully".

[ian]

(The other issue, of course, is letting go of an obsession with grammatical pedantry. It only actually matters where it starts to interfere with understanding.)

There's truth in that, of course. However, if the writer were well-placed to spot potential misunderstandings, there would never be any. The rules of grammar also help us to avoid the misunderstandings that we do not anticipate.

They also create plenty of misunderstanding in the pursuit of perfection as authors contort sentences to avoid the swishing cane of Victorian grammar. Pedantry in such matters is also the main source of precariously elevated petardary. I'll start sentences with and, split infinitives wide enough to drive a bus through, and end on a deliciously dangling preposition. Write to be natural and clear and write for your audience. You wouldn't write a business process manual in the same way as a note to your girlfriend (though that has given me an idea).

Despite the petardary risk, grammar pedantry is also used a linguistic cosh seemingly to impress others. Ha, look, he missed an apostrophe. Used the wrong irregular verb form. It's neither endearing nor erudite.

I'd forget grammar. Read a sentence out loud. How does it sound? Understandable? Clear?

I always recommend Strunk and White's Elements of Style.

[Mr Larrington]

Omit needless words

[billplumtree]

Eschew obfuscation.

[Mr Larrington]

Likewise gratuitous philological exhibitionism.

[JonJo]

Daughter, who is at a (supposedly) good university has been given an essay in which she is asked to describe how a situation has been 'problematized'. WTF does that mean?

[Cudzoziemiec]

It means to see something as being a problem needing solving.
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/problematize

[Peter]

Presumably, as in: how has this situation become a problem?  That always used to work.

[Bledlow]

(The other issue, of course, is letting go of an obsession with grammatical pedantry. It only actually matters where it starts to interfere with understanding.)

There's truth in that, of course. However, if the writer were well-placed to spot potential misunderstandings, there would never be any. The rules of grammar also help us to avoid the misunderstandings that we do not anticipate.

They also create plenty of misunderstanding in the pursuit of perfection as authors contort sentences to avoid the swishing cane of Victorian grammar. Pedantry in such matters is also the main source of precariously elevated petardary. I'll start sentences with and, split infinitives wide enough to drive a bus through, and end on a deliciously dangling preposition.

Good for you!

American grammar nazis seem to be the worst, contorting sentences awfully to avoid the horror of a split infinitive. What do Strunk & White say on that?

[Bledlow]

Less cryptically, that's Fowler's Modern English Usage.

NB that "Modern" was originally 1926. It's been revised a couple of times and I find it reasonably interesting, but although it probably is the nearest thing to an authoritative text, it's not really a coursebook. Might also be worth looking at the Guardian and the Economist style guides, which are quite good in identifying tricky situations and giving consistent answers.

In some ways, the best way of getting this stuff ingrained is simply to read lots of conventionally well-written text. Broadsheet newspapers, literary fiction, periodicals like the Economist or Spectator or Prospect or New Statesman, some (relatively few) long-form blogs (I quite like Jack of Kent, and Charlie Stross's one at antipope.org). Read lots, and the good stuff gets ingrained while poor and ungrammatical writing just begins to feel unnatural.

(The other issue, of course, is letting go of an obsession with grammatical pedantry. It only actually matters where it starts to interfere with understanding.)

+1

[Bledlow]

Hmm. I am currently proofreading an article on issues in media culture for a professional journal on studies in journalism & mass communication, written by a professor at an Australian university.

"It would not be an over-exaggeration to say ". 


"Re-essentialization", "problematize" (yes!), "overdetermined", "(re)constitution",  "re)conceptualize", "(cyber)nationalism",

Oh, I wish I could slash & burn! But I must confine myself to typos & the like. Professor X would not be happy to have his obscure jargon turned into clear English. It may not be the professor's first language, but the mastery of jargon-riddled bollocks displayed is impressive, in a depressing way.

What really pisses me off is that underneath the bollocks I think he's making some good points about what's really happening in East Asian popular culture & western perceptions of it, but the only people who'll notice are the few who can be bothered to wade through the language of academic sociology/media & cultural studies.

The historicity of K-pop & J-pop. 

[Mr Larrington]

Daughter, who is at a (supposedly) good university has been given an essay in which she is asked to describe how a situation has been 'problematized'. WTF does that mean?

The "more insane management speak..." thread is down there VVVV

[ian]

(The other issue, of course, is letting go of an obsession with grammatical pedantry. It only actually matters where it starts to interfere with understanding.)

There's truth in that, of course. However, if the writer were well-placed to spot potential misunderstandings, there would never be any. The rules of grammar also help us to avoid the misunderstandings that we do not anticipate.

They also create plenty of misunderstanding in the pursuit of perfection as authors contort sentences to avoid the swishing cane of Victorian grammar. Pedantry in such matters is also the main source of precariously elevated petardary. I'll start sentences with and, split infinitives wide enough to drive a bus through, and end on a deliciously dangling preposition.

Good for you!

American grammar nazis seem to be the worst, contorting sentences awfully to avoid the horror of a split infinitive. What do Strunk & White say on that?

Go with the ear.

The split infinitive is another trick of rhetoric in which the ear must be quicker than the handbook. Some infinitives seem to improve on being split, just as a stick of round stovewood does. "I cannot bring myself to fully like the fellow." The sentence is relaxed, the meaning is clear, the violation is harmless and scarcely perceptible. Put the other way the sentence becomes stiff, needlessly formal. A matter of ear. (p78)

I'd dispense with all 'rules' of grammar and go with naturalistic sentences that sound good to the ear and mind. I'm not sure American grammar nazis are any worse than British ones, at least they tend not to get their jackboots in a twist over 'crude Americanisms' and the like.

[Bledlow]

Go with the ear. Yes!

[Ian H]

American grammar nazis seem to be the worst, contorting sentences awfully to avoid the horror of a split infinitive. What do Strunk & White say on that?

This reminded me of something: Timespeak: Backward ran sentences until reeled the mind.

[ian]

American grammar nazis seem to be the worst, contorting sentences awfully to avoid the horror of a split infinitive. What do Strunk & White say on that?

This reminded me of something: Timespeak: Backward ran sentences until reeled the mind.

Wolcott Gibbs is sorely under-read if you like that flavour of acerbic prose that glittered so much in the pre-war New Yorker (à la Thurber, EB White, Parker).

[Bledlow]

....I'm not sure American grammar nazis are any worse than British ones, at least they tend not to get their jackboots in a twist over 'crude Americanisms' and the like.

P.S. "Problematize" is, of course, a crude Americanism, unlike our own dear 'problematise'.