Furthermore unacceptable types of ellipsis have created problems in the English Language. Unacceptable difficulties arise in various circumstances, e.g. if two auxiliary verbs that operate in different ways are placed together. One should not say or write ‘No state has or can adopt such measures. Idiom requires ‘has adopted or can adopt such measures.’ When a change of grammatical voice is involved, ellipsis spells danger. A reader cannot be expected to make the necessary adjustment from the active voice to the passive and supply an omitted part of the passive form. This example will support this argument: ‘Mr Dennett foresees a bright future for Benin if our officials will manage matters comfortably with its ‘customs,’ as they ought to have been (insert managed).’ Comparisons can also produce unacceptable sequences when unwise ellipsis are attempted: ‘The paintings of Monet are as good or better than those of Van Gogh (read as good as or better than).’ One is again reminded that an understood element must be identical with the one it matches, or at any rate be very closely allied to it.
One very common mistake in English grammar is the use of the double negative. An example is: ‘I run a family business and I don’t want no hassle.’ In this example the double negative construction is obviously a comfortably natural way of expressing the idea. The double negative emphasized the negativity and did not cancel it. There was no ambiguity, and communication was not impeded in nay way. But in the 20th century the construction is non-standard. In present-day English, closely placed self-cancelling negatives are eminently acceptable if they are not overused or too intricate: e.g. ‘it has not gone unnoticed.’ On the other hand, the use of the double or cumulative negation for emphasis is taken to be a certain indication of poor education and of linguistic deficit.
No other grammatical issue has so divided the nation since the split infinitive was declared to be a solecism in the course of the 19th century. One of the most famous examples of a split infinitive is ‘To Boldly Go.’ This is completely incorrect as it would be in Latin. In Latin infinitives can simply not be split up, one cannot say fer celeriter ro (To quickly carry). It is completely wrong, and as English is based on Latin, this idea of split infinitives is not uniform. However in my opinion no absolute taboo should be placed on the use of simply adverbs between the participle to and the verbal part of the infinitive. As Burchfield said in The Spoken Word ‘Avoid splitting infinitives whenever possible, but do not suffer undue remorse if a split infinitive is unavoidable for the natural and unambiguous completion of a sentence already begun.’
My final example of a grammatical feature that prescriptivists condemn is the placement of a preposition at the end of a sentence or clause. An example of this is: ‘he was thought of.’ In most circumstances, especially in formal writing, it is desirable to avoid placing a preposition at the end of a clause or sentence, where it has the appearance of being stranded. But there are many circumstances in which a preposition nay or even must be placed late and others where the degree of formality required governs the placing. When formality is desired, ‘of which I had already heard,’ is used unlike ‘which I had already heard of.’
There are many more features apart from those that are grammatical that ‘verbal hygienists’ like to condemn. The first issue I will talk about is the issue of ‘all right’, ‘alright’?
The use of all right, or inability to see that there is anything wrong with ‘alright,’ reveals one’s background, up-bringing, education, etc., perhaps as much as any word in the language. ‘Alright’ is the demotic form. It is common-place in private correspondence especially in that of the moderately educated young. Almost all other printed works in Britain and abroad use the more traditional form ‘all right.’ It displays the sociological divide and is under constant attention from prescriptivists. Another social issue is also seen in the public’s use of ‘gentleman.’
The use of ‘gentleman,’ like that of ESQ. Is being affected by the progress towards a less class-based society, but in more or less opposite directions. Almost any adult male these days in Britain (but not overseas) occasionally receives letters addressed to him in the style. Meanwhile the word ‘gentleman’ has largely fallen out of use as a recognizable indicator of a social class. It has remained in use in the vocative plural: ‘Ladies and Gentleman’ (at the beginning of an address); ‘Gentlemen’ (when only males are present). Agreements which are binding in honour are still called ‘gentlemen’s agreements.’ And public lavatories no longer display the sign ‘Gentlemen.’ The word is mostly used as a term of last resort, e.g. in auction room: ‘I am bid £60 by a gentleman in the second row.’ ‘Gentleman’ was once a key word in social rankings: it now lies in the straitened circumstances of formulaic phrases, modes of address, and courtly titles.
‘Nigger.’ The whole world knows now that the word is offensive when applied by a white person to a black, but that it may be used without offence by one black person of another. The traditional phrases ‘work like a nigger’ have been laid aside except in historical contexts or when used with an obvious implication of ethnic abuse. This is the same with the word ‘golliwog,’ which was first used in the 19th century. It was used for a ‘black faced brightly dressed soft doll with fuzzy hair.’ This word has been placed on the unfavoured list by those who disapprove of ethnic terms like Negro and Nigger.
One of the most common mistakes in the English language that prescriptivists pick up on is the debate about ‘he’ or ‘she.’ From earliest times until about the 1960s it was unquestionably acceptable to use the pronoun ‘he’ with indefinite reference to mean ‘anyone, a person (of either sex), especially after indefinite pronouns such as ‘anybody, anyone, someone, etc., gender-free words like doctor, person, etc., or in fixed phrases such as ‘Every man for himself’ or ‘One man one vote.’ One of the minor successes of the feminist campaign to dislodge sexist vocabulary from the language has been the virtual replacement of ‘he’ after indefinite pronouns or with other backward reference by ‘he’ or ‘she’; similarly with the objective and possessive forms ‘him, himself and his.’ The problem is an old one, and various methods of avoiding the use of a back-ward-referring ‘he’ have been in use over the centuries. The only change is that the process has been greatly accelerated in recent times.
Another mistaken use of present day language is the use of ‘hoi polloi.’ Coming from the Greek meaning the many, the word is nominative masculine plural. The problem with the use of this phrase is that the general population put the definite article in front of it, so it therefore means the the many. The use of this structure is widespread and persistent and it is a standard example of an attempt to force Greek grammar on to the receiving language. Furthermore by overturning the true sense, ‘hoi polloi’ has since the 1950s, come to mean ‘high society.’ This may be because people have confused it with the use of ‘Hoity toity’ meaning ‘an assumption of superiority, ‘airs’, huffiness.’
One of the most controversial English Language uses is the word ‘enormity.’ Usually meaning ‘A breach of law or morality; a transgression, crime; in later use, a gross and monstrous offence.’ The semantics of the word have changed into, ‘Excess in magnitude; hugeness, vastness.’ Nowadays, in the majority of context, ‘enormousness’ and ‘enormity’ continue to be distinguished in the most standard writings, or, to put it another way, ‘enormity’ is usually restricted to contexts of crime. While large size is indicated by a range of synonymous nouns (immensity, hugeness). Because of its relative clumsiness, ‘enormousness’ is not the most frequently used of the synonyms. But ‘enormity’ seemingly cannot be kept within bounds and is encroaching on the territory set aside for ‘enormousness’ and synonyms. There are also numerous occasions in which the notions of wickedness and hugeness coincide, and it is in these that the difficulty arises.
Difficulty has also arisen in the English Language because of emailing and texting. The language of technology has adapted our standard language and may even have created a new cryptolect. It is the language of speed; such examples are ‘m8’ instead of mate, ‘lol’ instead of laugh out loud and ‘ppl’ instead of people. These abbreviations have been created to make communication faster and easier, without sacrificing the problem of misunderstanding words. One could also argue that the attitude of the young generations is that they can speak how they want to, because they can and they will. These people might feel that they feel comfortable on trampling on the prescriptive ideas of the parents and also want to progress the language into the future. The general attitude of the young generation and me is that prescriptivism is an artificial restraint on the English Language, which it simply cannot bare, whereas descriptivism is the process of observing language dispassionately. Given any particular language controversy, prescription and description represent quite different, though not necessarily incompatible, approaches to thinking about it.
In conclusion prescription easily becomes controversial. A number of issues pose potential pitfalls for prescriptivists. For example: prescription has a tendency to favour the language of one particular region or social class over others, and thus mitigates against linguistic diversity. Frequently a standard dialect is associated with the upper class, as for example Great Britain’s Received Pronunciation. RP has now lost much of its status as the Anglophone standard, being replaced by the dual standards of General American and British NRP (non-regional pronunciation). While these have democratic base, they are still standards which exclude large parts of the English-speaking world: Scottish, Irish, Australian or African-American speakers of English may feel the standard is slanted against them. Thus prescriptivism has clear political consequences. In the past, prescription was used consciously as a political tool; today, prescription usually attempts to avoid this pitfall, but this can be difficult to do.
