{"id":14469,"date":"2014-09-06T09:56:15","date_gmt":"2014-09-06T14:56:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/?p=14469"},"modified":"2014-09-07T11:12:09","modified_gmt":"2014-09-07T16:12:09","slug":"gwynne-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/?p=14469","title":{"rendered":"Gwynne again"},"content":{"rendered":"

John McIntyre, \"What to say to peevers<\/a>\", Baltimore Sun<\/em> 9\/3\/2014:<\/p>\n

A recent article in the Boston Globe<\/em>\u00a0by Britt Peterson, \"Why we love the language police<\/a><\/span>,\"\u00a0along with comments it has prompted on Facebook and other venues, shows that some people have become dangerously overstimulated by the publication of N.M. Gwynne's Gwynne's Grammar<\/em>.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I think I can speak for the rest of my LLOG colleagues in suggesting that we already devoted too much attention\u00a0to Mr. Gwynne back in May of 2013: \"Candidate for the first annual Politically Biased Peeving award<\/a>\", 5\/5\/2013; \"Hopefully no need to comment\"<\/a>, 5\/26\/2013.<\/p>\n

But I corresponded a few weeks ago with Britt Peterson during the preparation of the Globe article, answering some questions about an idea that\u00a0wound up on the cutting-room floor. Some of you might find the exchange amusing, so here it is:<\/p>\n

BP:<\/strong>\u00a0So — to start with, I'm a big fan of Language Log and have been reading it for a long time. And it looks, from your entry on Gwynne and the Bad Grammar Award, that you haven't read the book — but I expect you may have some opinions on his approach? I'm basically interested in trying to figure out what the appeal is of these feverish, pedantic, polemical books on grammar, particularly coming from the UK. I liked your connection to William Cobbett (where did you see Gwynne referencing that?) and wondered if there were other historical examples (i.e. long before Lynne Truss) of English grammarians taking advantage of, perhaps, a more trusting American public to set themselves up as experts here. If so, why exactly are Americans so willing to be lectured by the British? And in any case, why are people in general (since Gwynne clearly has an adoring British fan base as well) so willing? At the same time, why perhaps should people be skeptical?<\/span><\/p>\n

ML:\u00a0<\/strong>Gwynne\u00a0didn't reference Cobbett, at least not that I know of — Gwynne's quirky politicization of grammar simply reminded me of Cobbett's feud with Noah Webster, which I\u00a0wrote about back in 2005<\/span><\/a><\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n

But\u00a0Gwynne\u00a0is not, if you'll pardon the expression, a pimple on Cobbett's butt.<\/span><\/p>\n

William Cobbett was a self-educated working-class soldier who led\u00a0a complex and influential life<\/span><\/a><\/span>\u00a0— he founded what is now the Hansard parliamentary reports, after all, and played an important role as a pamphleteer in both British and American politics, on topics ranging from the Napoleonic wars to the corn laws, \u00a0Catholic emancipation, and parliamentary reform.<\/span><\/p>\n

Nevile\u00a0Gwynne seems to have erased his\u00a0<\/span>\"about me\" page<\/a><\/span>, but <\/span>this 2013 weblog post<\/a><\/span>\u00a0summarizes it as follows:<\/p>\n

[A]ccording to his personal website, he\u2019s an Old Etonian, Oxford-educated accountant who now teaches Latin to children and adults.<\/span><\/p>\n

And\u00a0Gwynne's political agitation seems to be limited to fulminations about the decline of civilization and the teaching of \"grammar\".<\/span><\/p>\n

It's true that Cobbett's grammar is prescriptive, in the sense that he sets out what he thinks the \"rules\" should be, irrespective of elite usage. But he is absolutely forthright about this — he asserts, with examples and arguments, that the usage of great writers and of other grammar writers is simply wrong, when it diverges from what he believes to be the natural logic of the situation. This may be arrogant and foolish, but it is honest, in contrast to the practice of most prescriptivists, who claim implicitly to have elite culture as well as logic on their side.<\/span><\/p>\n

[Long series of examples from Cobbett's <\/span>A Grammar of the English Language<\/em><\/a><\/span> elided.]<\/span><\/p>\n

BP:<\/strong>\u00a0This was great … and another question, after a long delay. Noah Webster was (and forgive the total anachronism, I'm a journalist!) kind of an early descriptivist, yes? Is there a way in which his feud with Cobbett presaged some of the prescriptivist\/descriptivist debates we see now?<\/span><\/p>\n

ML:<\/strong>\u00a0As far as I can tell, the conflict between Cobbett and Webster was purely political. In 1797, Webster criticized Cobbett for displaying a British-flag card, suggesting that Cobbett did not really support American independence, and Cobbett responded with 26 pages of fluent vituperation. \u00a0He went a long way towards making good on his closing promise:<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\n

but he doesn't say anything evocative of a descriptive\/prescriptive split.<\/span><\/p>\n

There's a complex historical association of political and linguistic ideologies, discussed e.g. here:<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Authoritarian rationalism is not conservatism<\/span><\/a><\/span>\", 12\/11\/2007<\/span>
\n \"James Kilpatrick, Linguistic Socialist<\/span><\/a><\/span>\", 3\/28\/2008<\/span>
\n \"Querkopf von Klubstick returns<\/span><\/a><\/span>\", 6\/10\/2008<\/span>
\n \"Peever politics<\/span><\/a><\/span>\", 11\/20\/2011<\/span>
\n\"The politics of 'prescriptivism'<\/span><\/a><\/span>\", 11\/20\/2011<\/span><\/p>\n

But I don't think there was any of that sort of thing in the Webster\/Cobbett kerfuffle.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

John McIntyre, \"What to say to peevers\", Baltimore Sun 9\/3\/2014: A recent article in the Boston Globe\u00a0by Britt Peterson, \"Why we love the language police,\"\u00a0along with comments it has prompted on Facebook and other venues, shows that some people have become dangerously overstimulated by the publication of N.M. Gwynne's Gwynne's Grammar.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[62],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14469","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-peeving"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14469","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14469"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14469\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14492,"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14469\/revisions\/14492"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14469"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14469"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14469"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}