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Bryan Westbrook wrote:
> This does, however, raise the question of what truly constitutes a rule in
a
> living language. Grammatical rules were originally based upon common
usage
> and evolve as the culture that created them does.
>
> When does a grammar practice become a rule? If everybody believes that a
> preference is a rule and follows it (at least those who care about such
> things and take the time to bother) does that not make it a rule? Or is
the
> final determination made by those who write style guides and textbooks?
"Rules" arise out of usage. Academicians study the language, and then,
reasoning backward from the patterns they notice, infer that the language
has "rules" which generate individual statements. There is no justification
whatsoever for this inference.
All rules are descriptive, even when the rule-makers think they are being
prescriptive.
Even basic matters such as verbs agreeing with subjects are best described
as "habits" of English-speaking people.
If you want to be understood (and not thought of as terribly backwoods)
within the community of English speakers, you will say "The window
appears..." rather than "The window appear...".
People are free to speak and write as they choose. If they wish their
utterances to be transparent, i.e. not interfere with their intended
meaning, they will make these utterances conform to the habits of the
linguistic community within which they speak or write.
As areas of study, Grammar and Rhetoric were treated by the ancients as
practical arts, not "sciences".
They were useful when they wanted to argue a case, win a political debate,
or in any other way convince someone of something,
including selling goods and services to someone.
In the 17th century, the rising bourgeoisie needed "handbooks" (crib-sheets)
for all manner of manners, including how to speak and write "correctly". It
is a characteristic of bourgeois culture to assume that there exists for
every area of life "objective" facts, or "laws",
a priori to any actual existent. Needless to say, since the bourgeois were
making lots of money, pedants flocked to supply this market with
instructions and self-help books. The French dramatist Moliere supplies a
hilarious example of this in action in the comedy "Le Bourgeois
Gentilhomme", where the pedant makes much of the arriviste poseur "speaking
prose".
When I started writing, I devoured the experts' advice
Now, my advice for technical writers is: make your prose so simple and
straight-forward that as few grammatical "issues" arise as possible.
Having a lot of fun on my day off "real work",
Christopher Knight, Technical Communicator
E-mail: cknight -at- attcanada -dot- ca
Phone: (604) 877-0074
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