Grammar

Last evening I picked up a book on Advanced Grammar and read the first chapter. I've had this book for some years now, something free I picked up at a book fair, and have to say that I'm glad I'm finally getting around to reading it. Though I don't always use correct grammar, and who does, I do like knowing the rules. 

Some interesting things I discovered about those grammar rules that we all hate—such as not using "ain't" or splitting infinitives or ending a clause with a preposition—come from 18th century doodle pies who were interested in codifying the English language so that the newbies of the growing middle class could differentiate themselves from all the laboring folks. Yes, my friends, as some of us may have guessed, it all started with pretension. So some egg heads decided to apply the rules of Latin (!) and/or mathematics to English. Interestingly, English as a language did have certain rules that were different from math or Latin, and were changed only a few centuries ago, simply for the sake of making them fit into particular systems of logic. For instance, an Appalachian favorite, the double (or triple or quadruple)-negative, had always been used for emphasis (even by Shakespeare). But some dude decided to apply math to it and, yes, made up the rule. How he got so many people to follow it is simply a testament to human vanity. 

I exclaimated Latin above because Latin is a very, very different language than English and to apply that system to English is just silly. For example, take the split infinitive. In Latin it is impossible to split an infinitive because it is only one word. So somehow, the logic goes, English speakers and writers shouldn't split because Romans couldn't. Hmmmm.... This rule, I learned, ignores the fact even way back when in Old English, one could perfectly legally split infinitives:) Of course, this is my favorite grammar vice so I relished this little factoid.