Excerpt from today's NYT Book Review by William Logan re Joelle Biele's 'Elizabeth Bishop and The New Yorker, The Complete Correspondence'

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("Punctuation is my Waterloo," she wrote glumly)...The magazine had a somewhat strait-laced view of grammatical rules... the book's editor.. has crammed in footnotes that record every comma the editors introduced, or failed to introduce, or asked the gods of punctuation for permission to introduce... These footnotes are possibly the dullest ever written."

The magazine had a somewhat strait-laced view of grammatical rules...

Punctuation is not grammar; and vice versa.

?

!!

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Originally posted by zmježd:
Punctuation is not grammar

But in popular usage and some dictionaries it clearly is.

But in popular usage and some dictionaries it clearly is.

Yep. Still don't make it so. (For me.)

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Yep. Still don't make it so. (For me.)

Surely you're not taking a prescriptive view of the word, Zmj?

Surely you're not taking a prescriptive view of the word

Nope. To be prescriptive, I would have to allege that my way is "correct" and that all others must use it. (I do no such thing.)

Yes, that is one thing I've learned on WC. I had always before considered punctuation to be a part of grammar. The problem with this newly learned information is that now I am foggy on what grammar really is.

In linguistics, grammar is the rules that let speakers produce and comprehend utterances. In other words, phonology, morphology and syntax. Grammar is what tells you that 1 is a well-formed sentence and 2 is not.

1 I explained the problem to him.
2 *explained I him problem the.

All languages have grammar, but not all languages have writing.

All languages have grammar, but not all languages have writing.

Yes, in fact, most languages do not have writing.

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In linguistics, grammar is the rules that let speakers produce and comprehend utterances. In other words, phonology, morphology and syntax. Grammar is what tells you that 1 is a well-formed sentence and 2 is not.

I wonder if there is a word for this, but here's the thing, goofy. That may be what the word "grammar" means, but I would think about 98% of the people don't realize it. To them, grammar is more punctuation and correct use of tenses; correct use of sentence parts, such as verbs, subjects of the sentence, objects, prepositions, and the like. For instance, the use of "whom" verses "who" or "that" versus "which." Just ask any English teacher.

Perhaps you're saying that with "morphology" and "phronology" and "syntax," but I am not sure.

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Originally posted by Kalleh:
I wonder if there is a word for this, but here's the thing, goofy. That may be what the word "grammar" means, but I would think about 98% of the people don't realize it. To them, grammar is more punctuation

Yeah, I know, that's why I said that in common usage and even in some dictionaries, "grammar" includes punctuation.

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and correct use of tenses; correct use of sentence parts, such as verbs, subjects of the sentence, objects, prepositions, and the like. For instance, the use of "whom" verses "who" or "that" versus "which." Just ask any English teacher.

And for a lot of people "grammar" refers to only the parts of usage that people disagree about, like "who/whom" and "that/which". The common usage of the word is not the same as its use in the field of linguistics.

I had a conversation once where I said that children don't need to learn grammar in school because they acquire it before they start school - meaning "grammar" in the linguistic sense. Someone responded that this was ridiculous - children need to learn grammar in school or else they use "impact" as a verb. We were talking about two different things.

Perhaps you're saying that with "morphology" and "phronology" and "syntax," but I am not sure.

Yes, those three parts of grammar do cover things like pronunciation, tenses, moods, the arrangement of words into phrases and sentences. The big difference between grammar in the linguistic sense and grammar in the common sense of the word is that the latter includes things which linguistics would not include in grammar, e.g., punctuation, spelling, usage. Certainly those things are important and need to be taught in school, but that does not mean they are a part of grammar (in the narrow, linguistic sense of the word). The thing is that linguists are familiar with both senses of the word, while most everybody else (including folks who are passionate about language) do not. In fact many people are uncomfortable with the very idea that a word can have more than one meaning. But, then why do words like set not upset them, while words like decimate and moot do? That is because most of what people learn as grammar (in the common sense of the word) is learned by rote and without a sufficient understanding of how the various pieces fit into the bigger linguistic system. Sure, some of the usage rules come with canned bits of rationale, but those reasons are usually outside of the language (and its grammar) like logic or supposed conspiracies of political correctness and the like.

That's why I can understand both sides of the argument in goofy's example of using grammar in two different ways. A child has acquired most of the grammar of its native language(s) by the time it goes to school. What really needs to be taught in school are things like register and how dialects differ. Most children do not come to school speaking the standard English of the nation state that they were reared in, but the local regional dialect, which sometimes can be rather different from that national standard. they ought not to be taught that the grammar they learned (unconsciously) while growing up is incorrect, wrong, deviant, what-have-you, but that it is different, and that if they want to continue in education and possibly getting a better job, they need to become familiar with the standard language (actually just another dialect, but a privileged one), standard pronunciation, etc., and when to use those two different dialects.

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children need to learn grammar in school or else they use "impact" as a verb. We were talking about two different things.

Well, impact is a verb, at least according the dictionary.

The one area I don't think most people call "grammar" is spelling.

Just curious. Why should set upset people? I am sure we've discussed it, but I don't remember the specifics. I do remember that it has about 1400 definitions.

The point is that set shouldn't and doesn't upset anyone. With all the pages and pages of different meanings it has in the OED nobody ever manages to confuse them in use and nobody gets even slightly bothered by it.

On the other hand people, including me* though I know it's irrational, get bothered by the idea that someone is using "enormity" to mean size rather than wickedness even though the context virtually always makes it clear which is intended.

(* Actually, in my case, not bothered as such but I do notice. I hear it and the thought immediately flashes through my head that it's wrong... followed almost as quickly by the thought that the "wrong" usage is probably more common than the right one so who the hell cares.)

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Originally posted by Kalleh:Well, impact is a verb, at least according the dictionary.

I'm not sure if you've understood me? "Impact" as a verb is a something that people disagree about, like "who/whom" and "which/that". Lots of people think that it isn't "proper grammar".

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(* Actually, in my case, not bothered as such but I do notice. I hear it and the thought immediately flashes through my head that it's wrong... followed almost as quickly by the thought that the "wrong" usage is probably more common than the right one so who the hell cares.)

We all have ours, don't we? One of mine is "fewer" and "less." I, too, know that it doesn't make an iota of difference, in the history of life, which is used. However, I still notice and turn up my nose when people say, "less coins," or whatever. Strange.

Goofy, I am vaguely aware of our talk about "impact" on this board, and that's why I looked it up. However, if a use of a word is in the dictionary, as the verb form of "impact" is, I'd think the die has been cast on that one. I'd consider the complainer to be wrong.