Talk:Disputed English grammar

I tried to make this NPOV... at least the title now doesn't have a typo. -- hike395 05:04, 4 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Is this original work? RickK 05:37, 4 Dec 2003 (UTC) <copied from Talk:It's I/It's me by Cyan>

1. Wikilinks in a title?
2. I think that the section "Joe and I" should be removed --- do any serious writers or grammarians think that it is always wrong?
3. Is there a pointer to the "debt cleered" quote of Shakespeare? I only have cleaned up versions of the plays.
4. Dr. Language (http://www.yourdictionary.com/library/drlang002.html) claims that "between you and I" is not an old idiom, but a result of poor modern English instruction. Of course, he could be full of hooey.

-- hike395 06:59, 4 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I seem to recall seeing wikilinks in the titles of other articles... if they turn you off, feel free to remove them. Cheers, Cyan 07:02, 4 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I put them down in See Also. I'm just not sure what the common Wikipedia usage is --- I once tried use them in a title, and someone else ripped them out. -- hike395 04:18, 5 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I don't know that any serious grammarians dispute it, but perhaps the intro should be changed to allow it anyway. It is a common misconception. Tuf-Kat 07:07, Dec 4, 2003 (UTC)

Tried to do this, feel free to make better -- hike395 04:18, 5 Dec 2003 (UTC)

--original poster

I seem to be clicking the wrong buttons when I try to add comments. My appologies.

Dr. Language is full of hooey. "between you and I" was used by Shakespeare, the Restoration playwrights, and other authors. According to Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage, it dissappeared in written English for about 150 years, but it returned in the 19th century. Mark Twain, among many other people, used it, and Merriam-Webster cites a couple of warnings against it dating from the mid 1800s. I can cite other authorities, if necessary.

As to whether this is original; the original contribution was. Anything that wasn't original included a citation. I assume the edits are original, but I didn't make them.

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Should false english really redirect here?

I agree --- I listed False errors in English grammer on VfD. -- hike395 05:31, 15 Dec 2003 (UTC)

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Grammer? Really, folks.

Two things that possibly should be added to this page: The possessive gerund — do you object to me adding this, or would my doing it be controversial?

The comparative and superlative, a prescriptivist invention unknown in most other languages, and frequently violated. Would this count as disputed?

ProhibitOnions

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Should using they instead of he or he or she be included do you think? fabiform | talk 00:52, 6 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I added singular they to the article because its use chafes me, and I regard it to be an important issue.

NPOV dispute

I have marked this page with the NPOV dispute tag. I can tell that some attempt has been made to contextualize the boldly prescriptive statements, but there still remain such baldly non-neutral things like "XXX is wrong" and "XXX is correct". I'm going to try to excise the offending matter but I'm afraid the page will be nothing more than stub when I'm done. --Nohat 05:09, 2004 Feb 6 (UTC)

I believe that I have excised the offending statements without diminishing the page. It seems to me that the way out of NPOV disputes is to describe who thinks something is correct. Given that prescriptivists believe in grammar rules as being absolute, then it makes sense to attribute this belief in correctness to them.

My concern now is that I've bent over backwards to accomodate the descriptivist point of view and have erred in the other direction. Some may argue that descriptivism is itself an embodiment of NPOV, and therefore it would be impossible to be "too descriptivist". Feedback on this topic is welcome.

I would, however, request that the page not become stubby. I believe it can be fixed without major excision. -- hike395 06:11, 6 Feb 2004 (UTC)

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How about including another example - "they/their" as a neutral, singular pronoun/possessive? That is something that many descriptivists accept, I believe, but which presses all the wrong buttons for prescriptivists (as far as I know). 21 Aug 2004.