The English Language: A Guided Tour of the Language

by David Crystal

  The reason why the older generation feel so strongly about English grammar is that we were severely punished if we didn’t obey the rules! One split infinitive, one whack; two split infinitives, two whacks; and so on.

  But from the very beginning, people saw problems with this approach. Even in the eighteenth century, critics such as Joseph Priestley were arguing that it was impossible to reduce all the variation in a language to a single set of simple rules. It was pointed out that no language was perfectly neat and regular. There were always variations in usage which reflected variations in society, or individual patterns of emphasis. There would always be exceptions to the rules. And there were some very prestigious exceptions too: there are double negatives in Chaucer, Lord Macaulay split an infinitive on occasion, and one does not have to look far to find Shakespeare ending a sentence with a preposition:

  Who would fardels bear,

  To grunt and sweat under a weary life,

  But that the dread of something after death,

  The undiscovered country, from whose bourn

  No traveller returns, puzzles the will,

  And makes us rather bear those ills we have

  Than fly to others that we know not of?

  Hamlet, III, i

  But these arguments left the grammarians unmoved: their reaction would have been, ‘There you are, you see? Even Shakespeare can get it wrong!’

  The controversy continues to this day. People still argue over whether grammar should be approached from a descriptive or a prescriptive point of view. In the descriptive approach, the analyst gathers information about the way English is used, and tries to understand why such variation exists, and the different effects that come from choosing one construction rather than another. In the prescriptive approach, there is no such weighing of the evidence: one construction is considered to be a sign of educated speech or writing, and is recommended for use; the other is considered uneducated, and banned. These days, there are signs of a compromise position being worked out, as far as school teaching is concerned. Educators are trying to get children to develop a sense of the variations which exist in English, at the same time pointing out the value of learning those styles which carry extra prestige within society.

  But whichever approach is used, it is going to be necessary to talk about English grammar. Whether we take the view that all styles of English have their value, or wish to condemn all but the ‘best’ forms of standard English, or wish to develop a compromise, we will need some terms for talking about the sentence patterns which are at issue. This chapter has been no exception. I have used some familiar technical terms, such as ‘word-ending’, ‘word order’, ‘sentence’ and ‘verb’, as well as a few specialized terms, such as ‘genitive’ and ‘infinitive’. A bit of basic terminology is essential to understand the English language, in just the same way that it is needed to understand chemistry, geography, or any other area of knowledge.

  Everyone reading this book knows English grammar. They understand the sentence patterns I am using, and could use them in my place. But not everyone knows about grammar, so that they could analyse these sentence patterns into their parts, and give them such labels as subject and object, or noun and preposition. This is the knowledge which has to be learned specially, as an intellectual skill. Whether in school or beyond, the teacher’s task is to devise ways of making this learning interesting and enjoyable, so that the language is enlivened by the study of grammar, and not strangled. It is a problem which has still not been entirely solved.

  The top ten complaints about grammar

  In a survey of letters sent in to the BBC radio series English Now in 1986, the following ten points of grammar were the ones about which listeners most often complained. Very little would change if the exercise were repeated today.

  I shouldn’t be used in between you and I. The pronoun should be me after a preposition, as in Give it to me.

  COMMENT This is true; but many people are unconsciously aware of the way grammars have criticized me in other constructions, recommending It is I or He’s bigger than I as the correct form. They feel that / is somehow more polite, and as a result they begin to use it in places where it wouldn’t normally go.

  ‘Split infinitives’ should be avoided, as in to boldly go (often cited because of its use in Star Trek).

  COMMENT Grammars have long objected to the way an adverb can be used to separate to from the verb; but there are many cases where alternatives seem artificial, as in I want you to really try, where really to try and to try really are very awkward, and I really want means something different.

  Only should be next to the word to which it relates; people shouldn’t say I only saw Fred when they mean I saw only Fred.

  COMMENT. The context usually makes it obvious which sense is intended. But it is wise to be careful in writing, where ambiguity can arise. Spoken usage is hardly ever ambiguous: only is always linked with the next word that carries a strong stress. Note the difference between I only saw FRED (and no one else) and I only SAW Fred (I didn’t talk to him).

  None should never be followed by a plural verb, as in None of the cows are in the field.

  COMMENT It is argued that none is a singular form, and should therefore take a singular verb. But usage has been influenced by the plural meaning of none, especially when followed by a plural noun: none of the cows are ill = ‘they are not ill’.

  Different[ly] should be followed by from and not by to or than.

  COMMENT Grammarians were impressed by the meaning of the first syllable of this word in Latin: dis- = ‘from’. But to has come to be the more frequent British usage, perhaps because of the influence of similar to, opposed to, etc. Than is frequent in American English, and is often objected to in Britain for that reason.

  A sentence shouldn’t end with a preposition.

  COMMENT This rule was first introduced in the seventeenth century, but as we have seen (p. 28) it has been ignored, notably in recent years by Churchill, who found it something ‘up with which he would not put’. In formal English, the rule tends to be followed; but in informal usage, final prepositions are normal. Compare the formal That is the man to whom I was talking and informal That’s the man I was talking to.

  People should say I shall/you will/he will when they are referring to future time, not I will/you shall/he shall.

  COMMENT There has been a tendency to replace shall by will for well over a century. It is now hardly ever used in American, Irish, or Scots English, and is becoming less common in other varieties. Usages such as I’ll have some coffee and I’ll be thirty next week are now in the majority.

  Hopefully should not be used at the beginning of a sentence, as in Hopefully, John will win his race.

  COMMENT People argue that as it is the speaker, not John, who is being hopeful, a better construction would be It is hoped that… or I hope that… But hopefully is one of hundreds of adverbs that are used in this way: frankly, naturally, fortunately, etc. It is unclear why hopefully has come to be criticized, whereas the others have not.

  Whom should be used, not who, in such sentences as That’s the man whom you saw.

  COMMENT As the pronoun is being used as the object of the verb saw, this form is technically correct. But whom is felt to be very formal, and in informal speech people often replace it by who, or drop the pronoun altogether: That’s the man you saw.

  Double negatives, as in He hasn’t done nothing, should be avoided.

  COMMENT This construction is no longer acceptable in standard English (though it was normal in Middle English). However, it is extremely common in non-standard speech throughout the world. Note that in the non-standard use the two negatives don’t cancel each other out, and ‘make a positive’ (as two minus signs would in mathematics); they make a more emphatic negative. He hasn’t done nothing does not mean ‘He has done something’!

  Grammar and You

  All rules of grammar ultimately stem from the usage and preferences of the people who spe
ak the language as a mother tongue. But what is your usage? What are your preferences? Are they the same as everyone else’s?

  Linguists have devised several ways of finding out how people use their language. One technique involves checking to see whether all the words of a certain type actually behave in the same way. Take adjectives, for instance. These are words like big, small, red, happy, and interesting. Their general role is plain enough: they all express an aspect or feature of something: a big car, a small house, and so on. But they do not all follow exactly the same grammatical rules. We can show this by working out how one of these words behaves grammatically, and then seeing whether the other words behave in the same way.

  Happy will illustrate the point. If we look to see how this word can be used in English, we will come to such conclusions as these:

  It can be used between the and a noun: the happy child.

  It can be used after the forms of the verb be: he is happy.

  It can add the endings -er and -est happier, happiest.

  It can be used with more and most She’s more happy now than she was when she lived with Fred. It was a most happy time for all.

  It can be preceded by such words as very: the very happy child.

  It can add -ly: happily.

  Now let’s see which other words work in exactly the same way. A simple way of doing this is to construct a table in which these rules are listed across the top, and the words we want to study are listed down one side. We ask the same questions of each word: Can it be used between the and a noun? Can it be used with more and most? And so on. If the answer is ‘yes’, we mark the place in the table with a plus sign. If the answer is ‘no’, we use a minus sign. And if we don’t know, or aren’t sure, we use a question mark. There is an adjective table below, with the first few lines filled in, along with some comments.

  Can it be used after the? Can it be used after be? Can it add -er or -est? Can it take more or most? Can it take very? Can it add -ly?

  happy + + + + + +

  big + + + – + –

  short + + + – + +1

  asleep – + – –2 –2 –

  interesting + + - + + +

  red

  beautiful

  sad

  tall

  ill

  awake

  wooden

  Others?

  3

  Vocabulary

  How many words are there in English? This apparently simple little question turns out to be surprisingly complicated. Estimates have been given ranging from half a million to over 2 million. It partly depends on what you count as English words, and partly on where you go looking for them.

  Consider the problems if someone asked you to count the number of words in English. You would immediately find thousands of cases where

  ‘You wouldn’t happen to have a dictionary would you? They say there’s an axolotl on the loose.’

  Punch, 16 October 1985

  you would not be sure whether to count one word or two. In writing, it is often not clear whether something should be written as a single word, as two words, or hyphenated. Is it washing machine or washing-machine? School children or schoolchildren? Flower pot, flower-pot or flowerpot? Would you count all the items beginning with foster as new words: foster brother, foster care, foster child, foster father, foster home, etc.? Or would you treat them as combinations of old words: foster + brother, care, and so on? This is a big problem for the dictionary-makers, who often reach different conclusions about what should be done.

  What would you do with get at, get by, get in, get off, get over, and the dozens of other cases where get is used with an additional word? Would you count get once, for all of these, or would you say that, because these items have different meanings (get at, for example, can mean ‘nag’), they should be counted separately? In which case, what about get it?, get your own back, get your act together, and all the other ‘idioms’? Would you say that these had to be counted separately too? Would you count kick the bucket (meaning ‘die’) as three familiar words or as a single idiom? It hardly seems sensible to count the words separately, for kick here has nothing to do with moving the foot, nor is bucket a container.

  If you let the meaning influence you (as it should), then you will find your word count growing very rapidly indeed. But as soon as you do this, you will start to worry about other meanings, even in single words. Is there a single meaning for high in high tea, high priest and high season? Is the lock on a door the same basic meaning as the lock on a canal? Should ring (the shape) be kept separate from ring (the sound) ? Are such cases ‘the same word with different meanings’ or ‘different words’? These are the daily decisions that any word-counter (or dictionary-compiler) must make.

  Whose English are we counting?

  Sooner or later, the question would arise about the kind of vocabulary to include in the count. There wouldn’t be a difficulty if the words were part of standard English – used by educated people throughout the English-speaking world (see p. 280). Obviously these have to be counted. But what about the vast numbers of words which are not found everywhere – words which are restricted to a particular country (such as Canada, Britain, India, or Australia), or to a particular part of a country (such as Wales, Yorkshire, or Liverpool) ?

  They will include words like stroller (pushchair) and station (stock farm) from Australia, bach (holiday cottage) and pakeha (white person) from New Zealand, dorp (village) and indaba (conference) from South Africa, cwm (valley) and eisteddfod (competitive arts festival) from Wales, faucet (tap) and fall (autumn) from North America, fortnight (two weeks) and nappy (baby wear) from Britain, loch (lake) and wee (small) from Scotland, dunny (money) and duppy (ghost) from Jamaica, lakh (a hundred thousand) and crore (ten million) from India, and thousands more.

  Regional dialect words have every right to be included in an English vocabulary count. They are English words, after all – even if they are used only in a single locality. But no one knows how many there are. Several big dictionary projects exist, cataloguing the local words used in some of these areas, but in many parts of the world where English is a mother-tongue or second language (see p. 2) there has been little or no research. And the smaller the locality, the greater the problem. Everyone knows that ‘local’ words exist: ‘we have our own word for such-and-such round here’. Local dialect societies sometimes print lists of them, and dialect surveys try to keep records of them. But surveys are lengthy and expensive enterprises, and not many have been completed. As a result, most regional vocabulary – especially that used in cities – is never recorded. There must be thousands of distinctive words inhabiting such areas as Brooklyn, the East End of London, San Francisco, Edinburgh and Liverpool, none of which has ever appeared in any dictionary.

  The more colloquial varieties of English, and slang in particular, also tend to be given inadequate treatment. In dictionary-writing, the tradition has been to take material only from the written language, and this has led to the compilers concentrating on educated, standard forms. They commonly leave out non-standard expressions, such as everyday slang and obscenities, as well as the slang of specific social groups and areas, such as the army, sport, thieves, public school, banking, or medicine. In 1937 Eric Partridge devoted a whole dictionary to this world of ‘slang and unconventional English’. Some of the words it contained were thought to be so shocking that for several years many libraries banned it from their open shelves!

  Keeping track of slang, though, is one of the most difficult tasks in vocabulary study, because it can be so shifting and short-lived. The life-span of a word or phrase may be only a few years – or even months. The expression might fall out of use in one social group, and reappear some time later in another. Who knows exactly how much use is still made today of such early jazz-world words as groovy, hip, square, solid, cat, and have a ball? Or how much use is made of the new slang terms derived from computers, such as he’s integrated (= organized) or she’s high res (= very alert, from
‘high resolution’) ? Which words for ‘being drunk’ are now still current: canned, blotto, squiffy, jagged, paralytic, smashed…? And how do we get at the vast special vocabulary which has now grown up in the drugs world? Word-lovers from time to time make collections, but the feeling always exists that the items listed are only the tip of a huge lexical iceberg.

  Dialect words

  A small sample of local vocabulary from Liverpool – a dialect that has come to be widely heard in recent years, in records, films, television serials, and plays. Several of the words are also found elsewhere (though not always with the same meaning).

  airyated

  upset, excited

  bevvy

  drink

  chippy

  fish and chip shop

  cob

  bad mood (as in

  He’s got a cob on)

  diddyman

  small man

  entry

  back alley

  gear

  excellent, fine

  jam butty

  bread and jam