Subject:
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Re: Who James Isn't (was:Re: New Castle Sucks (so far...)
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.fun
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Date:
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Wed, 29 Dec 1999 18:05:11 GMT
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Viewed:
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1658 times
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> > The "rule" about prepositions ending sentences is an archaic Victorianism, an
> > effort to "Latinize" English. Since English is a Germanic language, and
> > German has prepositions at the end of sentences all of the time (separable
> > prefixes and all that), as does Dutch, there's no reason why we can't do it
> > too. The rule about "no split infinitives" is from the same stupid era of
> > haughty stylistics, not to mention just dumb, because once you "split" an
> > infinitive, it's not an infinitive anymore--"to" becomes a different part of
> > speech.
What part of speech would it be then, exactly?
> It basically boils down to this: if you give in on prepositions, then before
> you know it, we will be saying "ain't", "chilrun", and "me and her went".
> It's about preserving the language from the illiterates, who are legion.
That's not really a strong argument, because why should the "literate"
minority hold sway over the masses? Seems kind of elitist to me. Further,
that slippery-slope reasoning is inherently falacious; one concession doesn't
mandate another.
At any rate, I don't have a particularly strong opinion on the split
infinitive thing; I don't use them, but I don't cringe when I hear them,
either. However, the sentence-ending-in-a-preposition has always annoyed me--
not out of some anal adherence to grammatical rules, but simply because it's
often redundant and therefore unnecessary. This, I think, is the "real"
reason that such prepositions are out of favor.
As far as the origins of English serving as a defense for current lapses in
grammar, I don't buy it. English hasn't been German in over 1000 years, and
it hasn't been especially French in over 500 years, either. As such, we can't
simply circumvent today's conventions by calling on our heritage. We might as
well assert that we should be able to breathe water because our ancestors
could... (I know, I know--it's a facetious analogy!)
> Don't get me started on Ebonics...
Well, Ebonics is a nightmare on all fronts, and probably the best (that is,
worst) single way I've ever encountered by which minorities could have been
permanently guaranteed never to hold professional positions.
Dave!
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