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3 grammar rules that you don’t need to follow anymore - Arika Okrent
3 grammar rules that you don’t need to follow anymore - Arika Okrent
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Legendas (77)
0:06
In 1954, Winston Cigarettes launched an ad so controversial
0:12
broadcasters refused to say it on the air.
0:15
But the uproar had nothing to do with the dangerous product being advertised—
0:19
people were appalled by the ad’s grammar.
0:24
Specifically, using “like” as a conjunction instead of “as.”
0:28
Grammatical incidents like this have caused outrage
0:31
in various regions and languages for centuries.
0:34
But while we know people take grammar seriously,
0:37
what’s less clear is, why?
0:40
Where do these seemingly random rules come from?
0:43
And which, if any, actually matter?
0:46
The answers to these questions vary from rule to rule,
0:50
so let’s look at three particularly famous English examples.
0:54
First up, the idea that you should never end a sentence with a preposition.
0:59
Prepositions are small, common words like with, on, for, or to,
1:05
that often come before nouns.
1:07
So, for example, a grammar stickler would consider
1:10
“where does this rule come from?”
1:12
incorrect, preferring instead, “from where does this rule come?”
1:19
This rule comes from 18th century England, when etiquette was all the rage.
1:24
And amidst countless guides on how to act properly,
1:28
grammarians flooded the market with books on how to speak properly.
1:33
Many of the rules in these guides were taken from Latin—
1:36
a language that was commonly used for written scholarship.
1:39
But no one had spoken Latin conversationally in 1,000 years,
1:45
and imposing its rules on speech was awkward to say the least.
1:49
The rule to never strand a preposition without a noun
1:52
was one such revived relic.
1:54
And while the scholars who proposed it presented the idea as a stylistic choice,
2:00
subsequent writers turned their suggestion into a hard rule.
2:04
Other rules have origins that are perhaps less arbitrary,
2:07
but significantly more petty.
2:10
Consider the idea that you should use “fewer”
2:13
when referring to countable nouns— like water bottles—
2:16
and “less” when referring to nouns we don’t count— like water.
2:22
This rule comes from another 18th century grammarian called Robert Baker,
2:26
who, for reasons unknown, believed “less” was inelegant
2:31
when used with countable nouns.
2:34
This might seem strange,
2:36
but people today wage similar wars on so-called lesser language,
2:41
such as “like” or “literally.”
2:44
Besides, Baker's preference was part of a larger craze for codifying English.
2:49
For centuries after the Norman Conquest in 1066,
2:53
French was the language of nobility in England,
2:56
while English was seen as the language of commoners.
3:00
While the English had long reclaimed their kingdom by Baker’s time,
3:04
this insecurity lingered in the hearts of many English grammarians.
3:08
In fact, Baker also wanted King George to establish an Academy of Letters
3:13
with 50 officials to protect the English language.
3:17
That’s ten more officials than were employed in France’s grammar guard—
3:22
L’Académie Française.
3:24
Many English grammar rules have similarly silly origins,
3:28
such as efforts to distinguish “over” from “more than,”
3:33
or our attachment to Latin plurals like fungi and formulae.
3:37
The stakes of all these grammatical debates are mostly academic.
3:41
But one frequently discussed rule does have some real-world consequences.
3:47
For centuries, “they” has been used in classic literature and everyday speech
3:52
as both a plural and a singular pronoun.
3:56
And today, many non-binary and transgender individuals
3:59
prefer to use “they/them” as singular pronouns to refer to themselves.
4:04
19th century grammarians, however,
4:07
believed that “they” should be an exclusively plural pronoun.
4:12
Furthermore, in cases where “they” could be used as a singular pronoun,
4:17
they argued the word should be swapped for the generic “he.”
4:21
This was an obviously patriarchal decision,
4:24
and during the 1970s,
4:26
activists eventually convinced some usage guides to begin using “he or she.”
4:32
But today, this quibble continues to cause confusion,
4:36
even though most official grammar guides have accepted “they”
4:39
as both a singular and plural pronoun.
4:43
This isn’t the first time we’ve had this kind of pronoun predicament.
4:47
For centuries, “you” was also considered an exclusively plural pronoun,
4:53
and yet today it's completely accepted in singular situations.
4:58
And that’s because grammar isn’t a hard science—
5:02
it’s something we all build together to reflect the people using it.
5:07
So however strange a rule's origins may be,
5:09
the usage we choose to respect today is far from arbitrary.
3 grammar rules that you don’t need to follow anymore - Arika Okrent - Video học tiếng Anh
