I'm Sorry, Mr. President, You Were Saying? (Or, 'How I Learned to Stop Listening to Anything of Substance and Love the Grammar Snobs')

Some years ago, a reader of my column e-mailed me to say (if I recall the full contents of the message correctly): "'The reason is because?' You should know better than to have written that in your recent column. I think you owe your readers an apology."

That last sentence is a staple of grammar-column-reader slaps. No kiddin'. I've heard that a number of times. It bums me out because I happen to know that scathing e-mails to real journalists often conclude with the more emphatic, "Shame on you." So it shames me that I no longer qualify for the slaps that real newsmen and -women get.

Anyhoo, that e-mail was my first introduction to the idea that "the reason is because" is a no-no if Fussbudgetville. Of course, all I had to do was open up a couple of books to learn that there are plenty of experts who say it's a perfectly defensible (if less than ideal) construction.

Still, a slap is a slap. And it can go on stinging. So, ever since, I've tried to replace "the reason is because" with "the reason is that." I figured, why invite trouble?

Of course, when you do that, the grammar terrorists win. Years later, you can find yourself watching a one-hour press conference by the leader of the free world who's discussing issues of great interest to you -- healthcare, the economy, racial profiling of people who lose their house keys -- and instead of taking in all the valuable information, all you can do is count the number of times he says, "the reason is because."

(I counted three times, but I tuned in 12 minutes after it started, so who knows?)

Funny how effective bullying can be, huh?

At Long Last -- Grammar Snobbery Scientifically Explained

According to a piece on MSNBC.com, there exist people who are snobby about grammar! (Who knew?) And, as if that piece of breaking news weren't enough, the article actually goes so far as to seek out and find a scientific explanation for the phenomenon.

Experts in the article say that grammar snobbery is most definitely probably might could can be explained as follows:

1. Hanging on to some kind of rule might be comforting to people.
2. Stress can affect how forgiving people are of spelling and punctuation errors.
3. An obsession with proper usage may be related to some kind of perfectionist streak.
4. Or it could have to do with childhood patterns of wanting to please adults or teachers by doing things right.
5. Putting somebody down by pointing out their bad spelling also could be a power thing.
6. Or it could simply be part of the brain’s natural function.
7. “Attribution theory comes into this as well. ... My mistakes are caused by external circumstances, but others’ are caused by a lack of skill or a character flaw.”
8. "Character has nothing to do with it."
9. Researchers at Oxford University believe the ability to spell may have more to do with our DNA than the amount of time we spend with our nose in a dictionary.
10. Others believe nutrition and sleep patterns can affect the way our brain manages the arduous task of learning the English language.

That's right, folks. With this kind of scientific insight, I bet we're just months away from developing a pill that will cure grammar snobbery altogether. If only we could develop a cure for grasping-at-straws feature writing ...

Grammar in the News

A reader of the Oklahoman newspaper recently wrote:

"I have always believed that proper grammar has been set in stone, so to speak, and that it does not change in any society, nor in any decade.”

I always want to sit these people down and say, "Okay. Sure. But can you tell me something? Who set these rules in stone and, while we're at it, can you show me the stone (so to speak) of which you speak?"

I think it would take about five minutes to demonstrate to one of these people that they don't know what grammar is. As I've written before, it's not a list of rules someone once "legislated." It's analysis of how the language is used. People like this Oklahoman reader bought — hook, line and sinker — a long-dead teacher's long-ago spiel about absolute rights and wrongs without ever asking, "What's your source on that?"


* * *

A commenter at Tennessean.com wrote:

"OK, I confess. I am somewhat of a grammatical snob. After all, I am a writer. ... The truth is, I have no problem with "casual" grammar. It would be a rather pretentious world if we all went around sounding like college term papers. I have even been known to occasionally split an infinitive myself. "

D'oh. Why is it that the people most willing to embrace the label of grammar snob don't even know some of the most basic facts, like there's no rule against splitting infinitives?

Plus, the idea that writers have an extraordinary grasp of grammar is silly. Perhaps the average writer is more grammar-savvy than the average stock broker, plumber, or president. But I know a lot of writers and none of them considers herself to have a good enough knowledge of grammar.

* * *

A reader of the Amarillo Globe News recently wrote to complain that Arne Duncan, President-Elect Obama's pick for education secretary, gave thanks to those " ... who gave my sister and I ..."

Commenters on the site said this was nitpicking — especially when you consider all the assaults on the English language committed by our current commander-in-chief. Others argued Duncan was speaking colloquially/idiomatically.

As someone who can't help but be peeved by certain objective uses of "I," I'm going to side with the letter-writer. Knowing when to use "my sister and I" versus "my sister and me" is basic stuff. It's not a nitpicky thing like whether you can use "have got" in place of plain old "have." The concept of subject and object pronouns is grammar 101 — important stuff. I suspect Duncan's words arose out of ignorance and not conscious choice. An education secretary nominee should demonstrate mastery of basic grammatical concepts.

Nobody Knows the Trouble With Whom He's Seen With

It was a column about grammar. So of course it caught my eye. But it was the stuff between the lines that raised my ire.

In today's New York Times, university professor and dean Stanley Fish tells a story about a frustrating experience with an AT&T customer-service rep who said, "With whom do I have the pleasure of speaking with?"

Bad grammar? You betcha. Worth writing a column about? I'd say so. Validly disturbing to a grammarphile? Sure. The premise of Fish's article poses no problem for me. But he began the column like this:

When you live in two places and decamp from one to the other every six months or so, there are any number of things that have to be done. (I know that at least 50 readers will want to rebuke me for complaining about problems only the privileged can have, but perhaps we can agree to get past that.)

There are several ways one could take this, but here's a particularly noteworthy one: He's telling readers — readers — to shut up and listen.

In the new book I'm working on, I talk a lot about the difference between what I call reader-serving writing and writer-serving writing. It's a concept that began to gel in my mind back when I was a newspaper reporter/editor and people would ask me and my colleagues to write stories "for them" or "to help them." For example, someone who was getting screwed by a landlord would try to convince our paper to write a story about him to help him get justice.

But here's what they didn't get: Our readers were not a captive audience whose attention should be exploited to achieve other ends — no matter how meaningful those ends. Our readers were not a tool to be used in the pursuit of justice. The readers were the boss. Really. Only if the story was first and foremost for the readers did we have any business running it.

There's lots of potential reader value in a column about bad grammar and bad customer service. Yet Mr. Fish couldn't deliver. He was too steeped in an attitude of "let them eat cake while I bitch about the only frustrations that matter: mine." I base this not on his second sentence alone.

Exhibit B: Fish (surprise, surprise) couldn't let the bad grammar go. He told the rep her mistake and, when that got him no satisfaction, he tried to go over her head.

Exhibit C: Fish also wrote about how AT&T gave him the runaround and failed to set up his voice mail, as he requested. This is reader-serving in its universality — we've all been there and we can all rant and cheer along with a well-delivered tirade on the subject. But think for a minute about the hubris of the guy who thinks that his getting bad customer service is so noteworthy it belongs in print. There are people who have died from bad customer service. Literally. Consider the damage a poorly run health-insurance claims department can do when mishandled red tape delays some poor person's chemotherapy. Yet Fish thought the injustice he suffered — they failed to set up his voice mail! — was worth writing about.

Exhibit D: In a day and age when so many people are losing their homes that it's taking down the whole economy, Fish had the huevos to deliver a preemptive "shut up" to anyone who would take issue with his whine about having two houses. Here's how a reader-serving writer would have dealt with his situation: Reader-serving writers omit distracting details. If you want to write an article about pothole repair in your town and you gained a lot of insights while talking to friends at an A.A. meeting, you might be better off just calling them friends and leaving it at that. By mentioning they're A.A. friends, you're raising questions you don't plan to answer. Fish didn't have to mention the two-house business. He could just as easily have told his tragic tale of delayed voice mail service without slapping the reader in the second sentence. Such omissions are not just ethical. They're standard. Every article ever written omits certain details deemed outside of the scope of the article or the reader's interest. When motivated by a desire to serve the reader, it's the right thing to do.

Exhibit E: Fish is credited as the author of a book called Save the World on Your Own Time. When I check Amazon.com, I see this:

Fish's lively polemic skewers the popular perspective that universities have an obligation to foster ethical, social, and political virtues ...

I haven't read the book, but the premise seems to be that colleges should teach and not preach. I'll buy that. I know nothing about academic administration, but, unless I'm missing something, I'd say this is a right position. But when I look at Fish's title, I smell a rat. The title is written in the imperative. It's a command. Which leads us to wonder: Who's he talking to? and leaves us with only one possible answer: His own reader.

It's quite possible that this title is just for effect and that the contents of the book are as valid and reader-serving as any other treatise on any other subject. Were it not for his New York Times column, I would assume that was the case. But this is one of the parts that, summed up, form something bigger than the whole. It's like me writing a book titled, "Stop driving SUVs because you're rudely obstructing my view of traffic." Readers are not people you boss around, Mr. Fish. When you're writing, they're your boss.

Exhibit F, from Fish's column:

I reached someone who assured me that I would have voice mail the next day, and he turned out to be right. But by that time I was beyond caring. I told him that I had decided to write a column about my AT&T adventures and that, in fairness, I thought I should talk to someone in the corporate structure.

It's quite possible that "fairness" and journalistic principles governed his decision to tell an AT&T rep that he was writing a column. However, it's also possible that he was using readers as a tool — a blunt instrument with which to intimidate and clobber his enemies. We can't know. But here's what I can know: Fish doesn't get that every reader is a reader you should be grateful for any more than he gets what's wrong with a column about the sufferings of a dude with two houses in an economy with record foreclosures.

My closing argument: Fish is an A-hole. And I hope very much that you found some value in this rant, otherwise, I'm right there with him.

Refresh My Memory: I Like Grammar WHY?

Sometimes, to get focused in the morning, I do a Google news search for the word “grammar.” I like to see* what people and publications are saying on the subject -- make sure I’m abreast of any grammar-related news, stuff like that.

Then I pick up my coffee cup and bonk myself on the head with it.

It’s always the same thing: Some columnist in Polukaville has written a column about how readers shredded her for using “their” to refer to a singular. Invariably, the columnist concludes that there are a lot of people out there who like to play gotcha (who knew?). Then some clown posts a comment ranting about how the New York Times (gasp) split an infinitive and another clown bemoans the widespread horror of people using “healthy” to mean “healthful.”

(None of these linguistic crimes is actually a crime, by the way. Split infinitives, if there exist such things, are fine. “Healthy” now means “healthful” and the use of “their” to refer to a singular is defended by some of the nation’s top language authorities.)

And then I remember why so many people hate grammar: Because the people who claim to love it give it a bad name.

To me, grammar is more about understanding phrase and clause structure and using that understanding to write the most effective sentences possible. But not today. Today it’s about a never-ending bumble dance between anti-split-infinitive thugs and dazed columnists who never saw ’em coming.

So today, instead of writing my column or some other grammar-related project, I’m going to work on my novel. To give you an idea of how dedicated I am to my fiction writing, here’s a picture of the space in my home set up specifically for fiction writing. To encourage me to write more fiction. (Note that the only evidence of life is of feline life -- cat hair on the tree thing).


And here’s where I usually write my columns and other grammar stuff. (Note the actual signs of human life.)

Wish me luck.

* If you want to try this grammar search at home, kids, do an “advanced” search and specify that you want hits only from the United States. Otherwise, you’ll have to sift through hundreds of hits from news sources in countries where they actually teach grammar.