Happy New Year, cats and kittens! I hope your holidays were grand and that your reentry into the working world (presuming you work and are not slackers/trustifarians) hasn't been too jarring.
As for me, I never stop working.
Each year around this time I like to make resolutions about...guess what? Copyediting. I like to ask myself what I can be less of a hard-ass about, whether the year that's gone by has pushed us culturally closer to accepting formerly taboo constructs and, if so, to review what the arguments are, either for or against them. Each year I strive to add a new word to my mini style guide that goes against W11 or Chicago. Because language is usage as much as it is grammar. Will this be the year of "goodbye" (W11 still says it should be "good-bye")? Maybe so!
Someone brought a
website to my attention, and I'd like to share it with you and hopefully spark some discussion.
While I love the clever and irreverent writing style employed by the author, I don't happen to agree that these are the twenty most controversial rules in the grammar world, not least of which because very few of them are about grammar, or the technical aspects of what makes a language function, have meaning, or make sense. Many of them are about usage, or the informal agreements we share about what words mean or about what kinds of utterances are acceptable under what conditions.
Item #3, Double Negatives, is about grammar, for example. And I disagree that they can ever be grammatically correct, unless what you mean to say is something positive. They are mini logic problems, and logic always has a right answer.
The sentence "I don't have nothing for you" effectively means "I have something for you." And that is rarely what a speaker intends.
Let's break it down:
1. I don't have nothing for you.
2. It is not the case that I have nothing for you.
3. ~ (I have nothing for you.)
4. ~ (It is not the case that I have something for you.)
5. ~[~(I have something for you.)]
6. ~ ~ I have something for you.
THEREFORE
7. I have something for you.
6→7 because ~ ~ P≡P.
Meanwhile, item #17, about the correct spelling of e-mail, is more about usage. Increasingly you will see "email" used in print despite it not being endorsed by the dictionary of record. I'm not sure I'll ever accept "email," mostly because it looks like a Frenchman's name and linguistically asks to be pronounced "eh-MAYL." I have no problem with "eBooks," however, because this type of midcap style has been cemented by eBay and iPad and we know how to say those words. Perhaps instead the time has come to start a campaign for "eMail."
Anyway, there's a bunch of interesting stuff here. I hope you'll chime in with a comment to let me know your thoughts. Maybe one of you will be the catalyst for a new resolution.
Love,
Your Copyeditor
Posts
