Indigo Jo Blogs: Dumbing down English grammar

Earlier this year I bought the CD by Lynne Truss, Cutting a Dash, a BBC Radio 4 series on which Eats, Shoots and Leaves was based. The first episode was about the apostrophe, a punctuation mark which exists only in the written word - all the others (comma, colon, semicolon, full stop) represent pauses in speech. A linguist called Kate Burridge has published a book, Weeds in the Garden of Words, recommending among other things that the possessive apostrophe be dropped from the language.

Burridge says that she could not have predicted the outcry or known that people were so passionate about it. I guess some people, when they have learned the rules of something, get very annoyed when they see that other people don't care. My mother is very fussy about table manners and hates seeing people stick their knife in their mouths; I see that as a pointless bit of English custom which dates from a time when people cut their food with sharp knives. While not passionate enough about it to leave cards telling people to sort their punctuation out, like one of the people Lynne Truss interviewed, I would take someone less seriously if their formal writing had repeated missing or out-of-place apostrophes.

The written word, let's face it, does have a different purpose to the spoken word, which is why it has rules which the spoken word doesn't. And compared to the complexities of English spelling, the possessive apostrophe rules are relatively mild and logical. The most common infraction is the so-called "greengrocers' apostrophe" - that is, using them when writing the plural: orange's, pear's, cabbage's, and so on. I would personally add one exception to this, which is when pluralising abbreviations, particularly unfamiliar ones. This is because abbreviations often mix cases, so for example DVDs could be a type of DVD; there is no grammatically correct way of distinguishing between a plural abbreviation and a mixed-case one. (And apostrophes are for representing missing letters, as in should've - and abbreviations obviously miss out letters.)

Burridge contends that the possessive apostrophe is made unnecessary by context, but I disagree. For example, "the sisters books" could mean "the sister's books" (belonging to one sister) or "the sisters' books" (belonging to two), or even "the Sisters books" (of a hypothetical series called Sisters). The context may not always be enough to clear up all confusion, and sometimes in speech, people will ask the speaker to clarify which of two meanings applies. In the written word, it's all the more important to make meanings crystal-clear, because the writer is likely not to be around to explain these things to his or her readers - they may well be in a different country.

And why does mobile phone txt speak always get mentioned in these kinds of debates? Txt speak is intended to abbreviate in order to reduce the number of keypresses on phones where one letter can require a button to be pressed four times (S and Z); this purpose has been obsoleted by predictive text phones, but it's still sometimes necessary to fit more words into the system's letter limit. It also makes instant message conversations flow better as they are quicker to type. But these types of communication are more like speech - they facilitate speech-like conversation within the limitations of the written word. There are other contexts where economising is important - in Braille for example, where a symbol representing a common word, like "and", is used in any word containing that sequence of letters, so "band", for example, would contain two symbols rather than four.

But in the formal written word, it's still important to express ourselves clearly, and this is usually done best by punctuating correctly. Of all the reforms we could make to English spelling and grammar, this would be among the most stupid and counter-productive.

Comments

The apostrophe does have a function, and Burridge doesn't provide any valid or pressing reason to change it. It would be different if apostrophes were not in use at all Ã¢ÂÂ perhaps we should revisit the issue when the apostrophe is near obsolete. I do admit to being a bit of a stickler in terms of punctuation and grammar. I don't claim mastery of the English language, but I canÃ¢ÂÂt take a piece of writing seriously if there are glaring errors in it.

Getting rid of the semicolon might be a wiser venture, both because I think it lacks a well-defined purpose, and because IÃ¢ÂÂm never really sure when to use it. :-)

You know what would be really useful? Having someone look at my blog entries and point out my punctuation and grammar errors. You up to it, Yusuf?

Posted by: Safiyyah | June 21, 2005 5:06 PM

I'll have a look this evening insha Allah. Going through people's blogs with a fine-tooth comb looking for punctuation problems is not always appreciated - this sort of behaviour has led to flame-wars in the past. I haven't noticed any on your blog, and I do tend to.

Posted by: Yusuf Smith | June 21, 2005 6:06 PM

Asslamu Alakum, you would do good as an English teacher Yusuf, people are already asking you to correct thier blogs for them :)

Posted by: Lady | June 21, 2005 9:06 PM

I've always wanted to have someone analyze my writings with a more critical eye. So long as the commentator isn't obnoxious (or anonymous), there's little risk of a flame-war breaking out.

Question: Have you read either "Eats, Shoots and Leaves" by Lynn Truss or Burridge's "Weeds in the Garden of Words"? I'm wondering whether you'd recommend either of them.

Posted by: Safiyyah | June 22, 2005 10:06 PM

I've read bits of Truss' book, but only heard of Weeds when I read that report yesterday. Yes, ES&L is quite an interesting read.

Posted by: Yusuf Smith | June 22, 2005 10:06 PM

And how's that for some very poor English?

Posted by: Shappir | June 22, 2005 11:06 PM

Salam,

One book I think clears things up if I'm stuck is "Sin and Syntax". But I think having little things like the rules around the apostrophe and strange spellings like 'Mosque'.

Anyway, you've tagged (http://oraculo.blog.com/blog/shappir/239203/) you if you're not too busy.

Salaam 'alalikum.

This non-use of the apostrophe has always seemed insane to me, a political correctness applied to punctuation. (No one can possess anything through the use of an apostrophe? Get real.) A couple years ago, when last I taught English, I struggled through a British-published English textbook with all its odd vocabulary and English usage (especially prepositions). My curse in front of the students became, "Those crazy British!" ;)

Fortunately, the non-use of the apostrophe doesn't seem to have spread much around the Commonwealth yet (at least not in this part of the world). On the other hand, I'm still trying to cope with Singlish (Singaporean English), lah!

Posted by: JD | June 24, 2005 12:06 AM

Salaam;

Very well said, masha'Allah. The dumbing-down of English grammar has always been a pet peeve of mine; when I was in school, I remember clearly my teacher telling us that the comma was being rendered obsolete, and that teaching us the rules of comma placement was no longer really necessary.

It's insanity! Commas, like apostrophes, are essential to understanding the written word. It's no wonder at all that so few people are able to write coherently anymore.

Posted by: b. | July 5, 2005 5:07 PM

Indigo Jo Blogs

In which an unemployed graduate has an excuse to use his politics degree. Religious, tech and media issues (and anything I fancy).

Dumbing down English grammar

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