Pop grammar's tone is probably innocent enough when confined to the newspapers and magazines. But it gets nastier when it begins to work its way into our schools.

L. Pearce Williams, a history professor at Cornell University, managed to accumulate so much pop grammar anger at the school's permissive introductory English course that he proposed to take it over and teach it himself. I quote Professor Williams, from an article in The Washington Post:

"My method is the same as that used by the Marine Corps Drill Sergeant. I take the Freshman apart and put them together as literates. You may say I destroy them. I am a believer in the total assault method."

We all know what the total assault concept means—that's the kind of English teacher who ridicules and abuses students by pretending to misunderstand sentences if they lack a comma or violate a textbook pronoun reference; the kind of teacher who produces two kinds of graduates: the ones who will absoultely refuse, from fear, to ever write anything again, and the ones who are as snotty and brutal as he.

But that's beside the point. The point is that if a professor of history wanted to take over the introductory mathematics course at Cornell University, and annoounced that fact, his friends—after they sobered him up—would say, "Look, we know you believe in reciting the multiplication tables, and drill in long division. We know you're against teaching this highfalutin stuff called calculus. But it's probably better to leave the introductory courses to the professionals. Or at least to get a little professional training before proposing to take over the entire mathematics program."

But there are no professionals in pop grammar—pop grammar's only prerequisite, it seems, is that you have no language training at all.

Just a little more about Professor Williams's teaching methods. Imagine a orofessor at a school with the reputation of Cornell—or any university, with any kind of reputation—saying he was going to teach chemistry by totalling destroying the student reconstituting him as someone who knows the atomic number of argon. Imagine anyone, in any kind of school, proposing to teach any kind of language by the total assault method.

[Jim Quinn. 1980. American Tongue and Cheek: A Populist Guide to Our Language, pp.14f.].

[Fixed typo, capitalization of I.]

This message has been edited. Last edited by: zmježd,

I'm back at college next week. I'll raise the "total assault method" as a feasible alternative for all those others we get taught. Behaviourism? I'll give you behaviourism you won't believe!

Just kidding of course.

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I take the Freshman apart and put them together as literates. You may say i destroy them.

So what exactly would he do with one of his students who put together a phrase as ungrammatical as this, I wonder?

So what exactly would he do with one of his students who put together a phrase as ungrammatical as this, I wonder?

Not sure. What's wrong with the sentence? I notice, that the quoted professor also seems to suffer from ACNSS (or Ancient Capitalization of Nouns Substantive Syndrome).

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I take the Freshman apart and put them together as literates. You may say i destroy them.

Well, I know it is now being accepted to use the pronoun "them" to represent a singular noun whose gender isn't known, but I think that is quite unnecessary here.

If the phrase were to be: "I take the Freshmen apart and put them together as literates. You may say I destroy them." treating the Freshmen as plural throughout, that would seem to me to be a far more elegant solution.

I have to assume that "Freshman", a term not used in England, is the singular noun it appears to be.

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Well, I know it is now being accepted to use the pronoun "them" to represent a singular noun whose gender isn't known, but I think that is quite unnecessary here.

Thanks. I literally did not see it. Though, the construction has been used for almost 600 years.

And whos fyndeth hym out of swich blame,
They wol come up ...
[Chaucer. 1395. "Pardoner's Tale"]

The use of him in the Professor's sentence above only dates to the 18th century.

Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage has this to say:

One more point needs to be made. Simon 1980 writes:

"... I bristle at Miller and Swift's advocacy of they. their, etc., as singular pronouns because "reputable writers and speakers" have used them with indefinite antecedents ... But the lapses of the great ones do not make a wrong right ..."

The examples here of the "great ones" from Chaucer to the present are not lapses. They are uses following a normal pattern in English that was established four centuries before the 18th-century grammarians invented the solecism. The plural pronoun is one solution devised by native speakers of English to a grammatical problem inherent in that language—and it is by no means the worse solution.

We must remember that the English pronoun system is not fixed. Several centuries ago the objective plural you drove the nominative and objective singulars thou and thee and the nominative plural ye out of general use. It appears to have happened for social reasons. They, their, them have been used continuously in singular reference for about six centuries, and have been disparaged in use for about two centuries. Now the influence of social forces is making their use even more attractive. Thomas Pyles (Modern Language Notes, December 1955) sums up their position: "The use of they, their, and them as singular relative pronouns of indeterminate gender has long been established, even in formal contexts." ... But remember that in this case (unlike in the case of you) you have a choice; you can use the plural pronouns when they seem natural and you can use the singular pronouns when they seem natural.

I just don't see a better response to "The customer wants something" than "Give it to them". I honestly can't think of any other acceptable thing to say in that situation with the same meaning.

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I just don't see a better response to "The customer wants something" than "Give it to them". I honestly can't think of any other acceptable thing to say in that situation with the same meaning.

You are quite right; there is no better way of answering.

However, it is only in the written word when this problem occurs since in real life, when talking about a person, we would usually know whether it was a man or a woman - and if we didn't we would surely find out.

However, sentences can refer to hypothetical circumstances that may never actually happen, and so the kind of statement you suggest can happen.

My personal preference is to recast the sentence so that the problem does not arise but I fear I am on a losing wicket here. I suspect that the plural third person pronoun will soon take over from the singular in much usage, just as the plural second person pronoun has almost completely replaced the singular in all but poetic works.

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the plural second person pronoun has almost completely replaced the singular in all but poetic works.

Are ye regretting the loss of "ye"?

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Are ye regretting the loss of "ye"? Wink

Not really, although there are times when I regret the lack of a singular second person as instanced in senetences such as, "...Now I want you back here at lunchtime - no, not both of you, just you, Fred..."

But I confess it's not much of a loss and I'm sure I won't mourn its passing.