Grammar

[vilking]

This article by Steven Pinker, the language theorist, in the New York Times, is ostensibly about Obama's bungled oath of office, but it also contains a few passages that nicely encapsulate my approach to grammar.

'Language pedants hew to an oral tradition of shibboleths that have no basis in logic or style, that have been defied by great writers for

Comments

[magicalsushi]

Agree completely about split infinitives. I'm also a big fan of Oxford commas - they match the pattern of actual speech, and they make everything look clearer and less intimidating

[andy_godfrey]

I'm sure Grace accused you of being a grammar pedant yourself you know :p Though I totally agree with you. We talked about it at work just this week in fact, though I only had the Star Trek example and not the Dolly Parton one. I do find I've been made more pedantic about some things as a result of what I've studied though - I use "whom" because German has cases, and never use "amount" to mean "number" because of maths.

My flatmate here is a bit of a grammar pedant - and yet she herself does this dialectical thing which is equivalent to splitting the verb and its preposition (up with which Churchill would not put).

[aidansean]

I love Steven Pinker. He's wonderful. Have you seen the talk he gave at TED?