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Cargando... Accidence Will Happen: The Non-Pedantic Guide to English Usagepor Oliver Kamm
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Inscríbete en LibraryThing para averiguar si este libro te gustará. Actualmente no hay Conversaciones sobre este libro. I love this book's attitude and approach to unsubstansiated rules of grammar, and the gentle acceptance it shows towards non-standard, but regionally used, turns of phrase. However, Oliver Kamm's own writing style is somewhat pompous. He demonstrates that his vocabularly is extensive, leading me to scribble definition in the margins. As much as I enjoy learning new words, I can imagine that for many this would make the book more of an ordeal than desired. ( ) Imagine that, a language style guide that permits virtually anything you want to say virtually any way you want to say it! It's like a libertarian law book. That's what Oliver Kamm, chief columnist for the London Times, gives us in “Accidence Will Happen” (2016). The book represents a slap in the face to what Kamm refers to a pedants, amateur grammarians, sticklers, prescriptivists and other less flattering terms. These are the people who get worked up over split infinitives and prepositions at the end of sentences. What these people call rules, Kamm calls conventions, at best, and superstitions, at worst. While pedants worry that the English language is endangered, Kamm says, "If there is one language that isn't endangered, it's English. The language is changing because that's what a living language does." He devotes most of the book to his permissive style guide in which he not only explains why usages frowned upon by the pedants are perfectly acceptable and often more clear than so-called proper usage but also provides examples of their use by many of the most respected writers in the English language. If Jane Austen can use they as a singular pronoun, why can't you? If Herman Melville and Thomas Hardy can use the phrase "under the circumstances," why shouldn't you? He finds nothing wrong with the word hopefully, with the phrase "free gift" or with a phrase like "less people." Only a pedant would say, "It's I." The rest of us say, "It's me," and Kamm thinks that's just fine. Kamm does concede that certain usages are more conventional than others and are preferable in certain situations. What's important to him is to be understood and to avoid sounding stuffy. Thus when you are in doubt about whether to say who or whom, Kamm advises us to stick with who. "Nobody but a stickler will fault you for anything worse than informality, and that is no sin," he writes. While he writes a column about being pedantic he really prefers following usage rather than being pedantic with English and while he acknowledges that sometimes formal English Grammar has it's place he also points out that a lot of it is quite arbitrary and that there are plenty of well-regarded writers who break the rules. I loved the quotes from GAA reportage that litter the examples. Entertaining and while he does get a little bogged down occasionally he was quite entertaining and thorough. Boils down to: Find your own voice; make it sound like you're saying it; ignore sticklers (someone will always find fault anyway); enjoy and if you are asked to; follow local usage, which includes style guides where applicable. sin reseñas | añadir una reseña
Are standards of English alright{OCLCbr#95}or should that be all right? To knowingly split an infinitive or not to? And what about ending a sentence with preposition, or for that matter beginning one with "and"? We learn language by instinct, but good English, the pedants tell us, requires rules. Yet, as Oliver Kamm cleverly demonstrates in this new book, many of the purists' prohibitions are bogus and can be cheerfully disregarded. Accidence Will Happen is an authoritative and deeply reassuring guide to grammar, style, and the linguistic conundrums we all face. No se han encontrado descripciones de biblioteca. |
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Google Books — Cargando... GénerosSistema Decimal Melvil (DDC)428Language English Standard English usage (Prescriptive linguistics)Clasificación de la Biblioteca del CongresoValoraciónPromedio:
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