
Three Grammar Rules You Can (And Should) Break - tortilla
http://www.copyblogger.com/grammar-rules-to-break/
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Silentio
>Come on: “to go boldly where no man has gone before” just doesn’t have the
same ring to it as “to boldly go.” If it sounds better to split the
infinitive, then take an axe to it!

It is likely that "to boldly go" has a "ring to it" because the author has
watched hundreds of episodes of Star Trek where the infinitive is split.

To my mind there is nothing inherent about, for instance, the phrase "Man and
Wife" that gives it a special ring. Instead it is the ingrained convention of
the firstness of men that makes the phrase sound "right."

I am not saying the author is wrong about split infinitives, but the example,
"if it sounds good use it," isn't a very good one.

~~~
Zaak
"To boldly go" was used in Star Trek because it sounds better than "to go
boldly". Familiarity may have increased that effect, but it certainly didn't
create it.

~~~
mhb
And you're basing that on watching how many episodes of Star Trek?

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boredguy8
4\. Use "they" as a gender-neutral third person singular pronoun.

~~~
pg
I've started to do this. But it can be so awkward that you have to be subtle
about it.

~~~
gruseom
Jane would approve.

<http://www.google.com/search?q=jane+austen+singular+they>

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mannicken
5\. Putting "." before finishing quote. Like this: "fucking shit."

Should be: "fucking shit".

It is an archaism and Americanism and the reason it exists is nothing but
technical limitations of printing presses. It screws up with language's goal
-- to transfer information effectively.

To reach that goal, we must break any rules and evolve our language instead of
religiously following whatever we were taught.

~~~
asdflkj
The "archaic" way feels better, though. Brain (mine at least) must parse it in
a way other than the obvious way.

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danteembermage
> Three Grammar Rules You Can (And Should) Break

I see what you did there (i.e. using parentheses to denote parenthetical
comments rather than matching commas, an incorrect grammatical construction I
prefer).

"Parenthetical phrases have been used extensively in informal writing and
stream of consciousness literature. Of particular note is the southern
American author William Faulkner (see Absalom, Absalom! and the Quentin
section of The Sound and the Fury) as well as poet E. E. Cummings. In most
writing, overuse of parentheses is usually a sign of a badly structured text.
A milder effect may be obtained by using a pair of commas as the delimiter. If
the sentence contains commas for other purposes visual confusion may result."

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bracket>

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chops
_The rule even got screen time in the movie Finding Forrester, when Sean
Connery and Rob Brown have an entire conversation about it (and deliberately
start their sentences with the offending words in order to make their
points)._

This was the first thing that came to mind when reading that particular
section. It's so true, and the points they make in that scene are good points
indeed.

I think that's an underrated movie.

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Eliezer
If you're a native speaker, your brain knows which sentences are allowed and
which sentences aren't. Anything else is optional.

~~~
biohacker42
Not quite. Most parts of English fit neatly within the deep logic of natural
languages our brains are wired for. The same can be said about all other
natural languages including Latin, which have very different grammar but they
all _compile_ the same. Pardon my bad, programming based, metaphors.

However, many languages including English have parts that don't fit. They are
rules introduced by fiat. Someone at some point decided that because you can't
split infinitives in Latin, you shouldn't do it in English. But our brains are
not wired for that. You can just willy-nilly mix C++ and Python.

And here's where things get interesting, any native speaker will be fluent in
the _natural_ part of the language, but the rules introduced by fiat are often
used to distinguish class and education.

Children learn language simply by listening, but more then that our brains
will auto complete! That's how pidgin languages turn into creole languages.

This auto completion feature will lead children to naturally split infinitives
in English. And equally naturally never split them if they are native speakers
of Latin.

Not splinting infinitives has to be learned in a separate process - school,
and relies on a different part of the brain - long term memory.

That's why it's used to show of class and education.

English is not unique in mixing natural and fiat rules. Japanese for example
has parts which are natural and honorific constructs introduced by fiat.

People who left Japan as young children, can be fluent in Japanese and yet
completely not know the honorific forms, which makes them sound very lacking
even though they _are_ fluent in Japanese.

~~~
jibiki
Could you give an example of a fiat rule that isn't natural for you,
personally?

~~~
biohacker42
Good question, my native tongue doesn't have too many rules by fiat. The one
thing that always gets me is when people stick an English word in the middle
of a sentence and then modify it with a native prefix or suffix. And it's a
natural thing for people to do, grab a word you hear a lot and shim it into
your native language.

But if you're fluent in both languages that kind of mixing just sounds soooo
wrong!

~~~
jibiki
Personally, the closest I could come up with was the pen/pin distinction
(unless I concentrate on it, I pronounce both words the same way.) I'm pretty
sure that fiat English is natural English for somebody, because any unnatural
rules (like not ending a sentence with a preposition) will disappear
eventually.

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pg
<http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/churchill.html>

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banned_man
I might be wrong, but I don't think any of these 3 "rules" are formal rules of
grammar. They're guidelines to be followed most of the time but broken when
appropriate. The split-infinitive snobbery comes from Latin, in which
infinitives are one word and _can't_ be split, but it doesn't make sense for
English (although infinitives should be split rarely).

~~~
jpwagner
These are rules as much as many others are. You won't go to jail or be a
literary outcast, so you're right, like ALL grammar rules, you can break them.

That's why the critique of S&W the other day didn't make any sense. S&W is a
book on style.

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Ardit20
_Most of them have a good reason for being around; after all, clarity in
communication is a good thing. A virtue, even._

I think that sentence would sound nicer like this: Most of them have a good
reason for being around. After all, clarity in communication is a good thing,
a virtue even.

As for the rules, I think I read it in the King's English or perhaps in an
essay by Bernard that rules are made to be broken, but you must know what they
are so that you can break them, otherwise most likely you are wrong.

