Grammars written by women

These authors are responsible for perennial issues in English prescriptive grammar. Apart from the disapproval of prepositional final sentences mentioned about one has the prohibition on the split infinitive, as in to angrily reply to a question. These are senseless proscriptions which derive from the entirely subjective opinions of non-linguists. The list with time grew longer and longer and today includes many elements which stem from current changes in English, for instance the indecisiveness about the preposition with the adjective different (from, as or to depending on your personal inclinations) and the condemnation of less for fewer with plural nouns as in prescribed He has fewer books than she rather than He has less books than she. Another evergreen in this gallery is the demand for I as first person pronoun. English usage today is that I only occurs in immediately pre-verbal position; in all other instances me occurs: I came but It’s me, Who’s there? Me. The prescriptivists insist absurdly that I be used on such occasions and even ask for it in phrases like between you and me, i.e. between you and I where it never occurred anyway as here the pronoun is in an oblique case whose form was never I.

Elocution

Apart from prescriptive grammar there was another favourite linguistic pastime in the 18th century and later: teaching benighted regional speakers of English correct pronounciation, what is called elocution. This strange flower blossomed in particular on the fringe of the British Isles, in those regions where the enlightened felt there was particular need for remedial activity on their part. For instance the Scot John Walker produced a Pronouncing Dictionary of English in 1774. The Irishman Thomas Sheridan — the father of the playwright Richard Brinsley Sheridan — was also active in this field and in 1781 published a Rhetorical Grammar of the English Language with an appendix in which he attempted to rid Dublin English of its worst excesses in pronunciation and bring it into line with southern mainland English. Like Walker, Sheridan travelled on his linguistic mission of improving the speech of the unenlightened. Despite such benign, well-meant but ultimately misguided efforts, English has retained its regional varieties and the behaviour of the masses has not been affected by the notions of the proscribing few.

Source: www.uni-due.de

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