Question:
Just one more of those 'fun with words' threads... ;-)
There are song lyrics that are grammatically incorrect: some work better
that way, but some just grate, for various reasons. The one that got me
started thinking about this is in the Burt Bacharach song 'What the
World Needs Now' (or whatever its correct title). (OK, I just re-watched
'Austin Powers' - I'm usually more of a Megadeth/Fear Factory than a
Burt Bacharach guy!)
What the world needs now, is love, sweet love
That's the only thing, there's just too little of
OK, this one grates more than usual for me because, for those of us with
non-Merkin accents (I'm Australian) it doesn't even rhyme. But it also
has a split infinitive, or a dangling participle, or something (I'm
pretty good to excellent on knowing what is correct grammar, but
completely crap at the technical terminology!) So the grammatically
correct version of the above might be something like:
What the world needs now, is love, sweet love
That's the only thing, of which there's just too little
Of course, it now neither rhymes nor scans, but it's grammatically
correct, dammit!
Can you think of other examples? I bet you can...
Answer:
See, now, I was going to make my first actual post to the group in something
of a [R]elevant strain, but you've hit on a pet peeve of mine--grammatical
snobbery.
I believe the rule you are looking for is the one against ending a sentence
with a preposition. This particular rule is one of those semi-controversial
nonrules that English is littered with. Winston Churchill once wrote an
essay with just such a sentence in it. An editor sent it back with a
notation asking for a correction; Churchill returned it unchanged with the
note, "This is the sort of errant pedantry the up with which I shall not
put." (I love the phrase "errant pedantry": when someone pets my peeves my
writing slips inevitably into unabashed errant pedantry.)
While many grammar experts (the evil, puppy kicking ones) insist on
adherence to this rule, a number of them (the kind, saintly ones) argue that
obeying rules so obviously pointless is just, well, errant pedantry.
Why so much controversy? Because back when the first English grammars were
being written, the earliest grammarians used some rather odd standards.
Instead of asking themselves "What rules are inherent to the syntax and
commonly accepted usage of the language?" they asked themselves "What do
they do in Latin?" or even better "What kind of annoying rules should I just
make up to annoy future generations of English students?" Really. That's how
the "don't end sentences with prepositions" rule came about: some guy whose
name I don't remember at the moment (and can't look up, because the book I
read about this in was lent out to someone and I haven't seen it since) was
writing an English grammar, and for some reason decided to stick this rule
in, despite the fact that people had been ending English sentences with
prepositions for hundreds of years with no one ever thinking to object. But
apparently people felt that if this guy bothered to write this rule in a
book, than it must be true, so ever since we've been mangling any number of
sentences in order to cram that inoffensive preposition anywhere but the
tail.
As an aside (why not--this entire post has been apropos of nothing) the
reason so grammarians used to ask "What do they do in Latin?" was because it
was felt that Latin was the purist and most beautiful of languages, and the
grammars of all other languages ought to be based on it. Now, I took four
years of Latin, so I'm certainly open to the argument that Latin is one of
the most beautiful languages there is. But to argue that we should base
English grammar on Latin because it is the best language ever is a little
like arguing that we should play football in ice-skates because you think
hockey is the best game ever. This is where we get that stupidest of grammar
rules: the split infinitive. According to many grammar snobs, you shouldn't
split infinitives. Why? Because they don't split them in Latin. Of course
the reason that they don't do it in Latin is because in Latin is because you
can't--in English infinitives are two words, i.e. "to lecture"; whereas in
Latin they are only one, i.e. "obiurgare". So in Latin you can't split an
infinitive--"obiurgare infinite"--while in English there is no real reason
you couldn't or shouldn't--"to interminably lecture".
I could go on like this forever (obviously) but since I I've probably
already alienated most of the website I'll stop now. I promise my next
post will be a) less boring, b) shorter, and c) more [R]elevant.
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