April 13, 2009
Strunk and White
Geoffrey K. Pullum thinks the little book contains 50 years of stupid grammar advice:
There are many other cases of Strunk and White’s being in conflict with readily verifiable facts about English. Consider the claim that a sentence should not begin with “however” in its connective adverb sense (“when the meaning is ‘nevertheless’”).
Searching for “however” at the beginnings of sentences and “however” elsewhere reveals that good authors alternate between placing the adverb first and placing it after the subject. The ratios vary. Mark Liberman, of the University of Pennsylvania, checked half a dozen of Mark Twain’s books and found roughly seven instances of “however” at the beginning of a sentence for each three placed after the subject, whereas in five selected books by Henry James, the ratio was one to 15. In Dracula I found a ratio of about one to five. The evidence cannot possibly support a claim that “however” at the beginning of a sentence should be eschewed. Strunk and White are just wrong about the facts of English syntax.
The copy editor’s old bugaboo about not using “which” to introduce a restrictive relative clause is also an instance of failure to look at the evidence. Elements as revised by White endorses that rule. But 19th-century authors whose prose was never forced through a 20th-century prescriptive copy-editing mill generally alternated between “which” and “that.” (There seems to be a subtle distinction in meaning related to whether new information is being introduced.) There was never a period in the history of English when “which” at the beginning of a restrictive relative clause was an error.
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Pullum “won’t be celebrating.” I think not. Have you ever noticed how some people are able to incorporate evidence of a serious nervous condition into their prose?
Yes, but what amazes me more is the folks who can hide it.
That wasn’t a subtle slight.