Re: Rule about not using possessive? (Take II)

[Bruce Byfield <bbyfield -at- axionet -dot- com>]

"Hart, Geoff" wrote:
 
> The problem here likely lies
> in how all-encompassing you consider grammar to be

The problem is also that the distinction between grammar and style is
not very clear in practice. Personally, I tend to reserve "style" for
the personal choices of things like sentence length, vocabulary, and
structure above the sentence level. Many of the things you call style
seem to me to be in a gray area between style and grammar; they are so
widely used that they often seem like parts of grammar, although they
still have some element of personal choice in them.

What your view doesn't take into account is that contextual variations
do not necessarily draw on the same grammatical rules. There may be a
core of rules that most variations use, but there can also be some major
differences. For example, while commas are generally used to indicate
pauses in a sentence, there are several different sets of rules about
when to use them - which is why so many first year students are confused
by them. 

As for your statement that "you can't arbitrarily redefine verb accord
and still call the result grammatical," isn't that what is being done
when "they" is suggested as a non-sexist impersonal pronoun? :-). Maybe
an individual can't redefine, but groups can and frequently do.

Consider why you state that "it ain't so" is "not a grammatical
statement." The reason is that the educated elite of two centuries ago
decreed that a double negative was incorrect, and that is what you've
learned. Yet, if you go back a couple of centuries further you'll find
double negatives in widespread use. Even now, many people use the
construction verbally, either because it's acceptable in their dialect,
or for humor or for emphasis. If a construction is widely used and
understood, then in a purely descriptive sense, it should be considered
grammatical. Perhaps it is a special case of limited application, but it
shouldn't be dismissed as incorrect. Although I'm fluent in the language
of the educated elite, I don't see any reason except habit for making it
the correct form of English.

> Which is why _grammatical_ rules are invariant.

But they're not, as I've just tried to suggest. Even formal rules of
grammar evolve and change. Probably, a bit of prescriptive grammar is
useful so that we can communicate, but, when a rule is widely ignored,
upholding it starts to seem ridiculous, and it needs to be changed, or
at least modified. In practice, that is what tends to happen. 

As I've said before on this list, proper grammar is simply the grammar
of the educated from a couple of decades ago. It's useful as a loose
standard, but it tends to ignore modern issues in the language. It
certainly shouldn't straitjacket anyone.

-- 
Bruce Byfield 604.421.7177 bbyfield -at- axionet -dot- com

"You know there ain't no kind of dream without some kind of debt
And I don't wanna go to bed, ain't nothin' happened yet."
- The Mollys, "I Don't Wanna Go to Bed"

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