- From: Maciej Stachowiak <mjs@apple.com>
- Date: Fri, 4 May 2007 13:59:46 -0700
- To: Jeff Schiller <codedread@gmail.com>
- Cc: tina@greytower.net, public-html@w3.org, www-html@w3.org
On May 4, 2007, at 9:27 AM, Jeff Schiller wrote: > >> Personally I'd rather have one well-written book in grammatically >> correct English than a thousand and one I couldn't make heads or >> tail >> of. > > Your sentence ends in a preposition. Yoink! > > Still think exacting, proper grammar makes communication easier? :) > > (Of course I'm waiting for the grammar experts to come down on my and > tell me that the grammar rules that I learned in grade school are now > incorrect, but until that time...) Most linguists these days subscribe to a descriptivist view, not a prescriptivist one. In other words, they try to describe how people actually do speak, rather than laying down rules for how they should. Ending a sentence with a preposition would be a nonstandard usage to be avoided when writing in a high-status dialect, but is perfectly understandable and not problematic in colloquial usage. I think we could learn a lot from the descriptivist vs. prescriptivist debate in linguistics. Some resources on the topic: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_prescription http://www.yaelf.com/swot.shtml http://journalism.nyu.edu/pubzone/vip/001227.html Regards, Maciej
Received on Friday, 4 May 2007 20:59:58 UTC