Do mind the full stops

Each blog note could be a short review of something that I have seen or read, although that would not be very ambitious. However, a few days ago I quoted Melvyn Bragg, Bill Bryson, Robert Burchfield, Anthony Burgess, Lewis Carroll, David Crystal, George Orwell, Stephen Pinker, John Simpson and Lynne Truss all within one short note. I also said that I didn't entirely agree with them. That needs clarification, even correction.

It's probably best if I go one author at a time. Conveniently enough, my list was alphabetical.

Melvyn Bragg wrote The Adventure of English. An excellent book, and an excellent TV series to go with it. Very erudite and very entertaining. Facts. Nothing to disagree with.

Bill Bryson is probably more famous for his travel writing and his countryside campaigns, but I know him best for writing a book called Mother Tongue. Absolutely fantastic writing. Not only informative, funny and educational, but also very easy to read. And I completely agree with him.

Robert Burchfield has written wrote more scholarly accounts of English. I have found them tough going, but they are probably written to be reference guides rather than leisurely reads.

Anthony Burgess, better known for mangling futurespeak in his Clockwork Orange, wrote an awesome book called A Mouthful of Air. It has a very different tack from the others mentioned here as it concentrates on how words developed, how they are spoken instead of how they are written.

I leafed through David Crystal's books expecting a very prescriptive approach, and instead got a refreshing emphasis on clarity and precision of meaning, not an edict on grammar. Excellent.

Lewis Carroll was in the list on behalf of his alter ego, the legendary Humpty Dumpty. Jabberwocky is perfect poetry. Words can mean exactly what you want them to mean. A genius. The Douglas Adams of his generation.

A very different kind of genius, George Orwell is a true inspiration. Keep it simple. Never use a long word or a long sentence when a short one will do. Every journalist and politician and management consultant should pass a test in this before any public pronouncement.

And so to the books of Steven Pinker. In my opinion simply the best non-fiction written in America since 1792. The pages are fairly dense but the ideas, like all great ideas, are blindingly obvious. They are not specifically about English. But they are about grammar, about language, about communication, about what it really means to be human.

So we have had the clarification, what about the correction? Lost for Words echoes George Orwell in its hatred of deliberate obfuscation, but it also has a load of grumpy old moaning thrown in. It was written by John Humphrys. Did I really say John Simpson? How could I have confused the two? One is a highly-respected deep-voiced silver-haired BBC journalist …

It's almost lunchtime and I have a busy Saturday. I need to eat, post and leave. So I will conclude this little note by quoting some Pinker: Most of the prescriptive rules of the language mavens make no sense on any level. They are bits of folklore that originated for screwball reasons several hundred years ago and have perpetuated themselves ever since ...

The Edge of Thought

These links keep coming. That is link as in the old English meaning of "connection" rather than the new English meaning of "hyperlink page reference".

Just yesterday I pointed out the irony in the position of of the Northern Rock chairman, relating current troubles at the bank to his earlier writing. I still have not seen anyone else comment upon this. And I do have a lot more to say on the evolution of human nature - another time.

But who is featured in both the Times and the Guardian today? Professor Steven Pinker. I was unaware that his new book is being published in the UK just next week. I openly echoed his basic ideas about words and language only a few weeks ago. Yet his new book broadens scope precisely to the fundamentals of human nature that I talked about yesterday.

I bet he meets Matt Ridley for a drink while he's over here.

Frying Language

Oh frabjous day. I love it when "someone famous" expresses the same opinion that I've been banging on about here since the dawn of blogtime, especially when that "someone famous" is a linktastic legend. Five quotes almost randomly selected from 5000 words of pure bliss:

1. People seem to be able to find sensual and sensuous pleasure in almost anything but words these days. Words, it seems belong to other people, anyone who expresses themselves with originality, delight and verbal freshness is more likely to be mocked, distrusted or disliked than welcomed. The free and happy use of words appears to be considered elitist or pretentious.
Yes. Leave my words alone.

2. the only people who seem to bother with language in public today bother with it in quite the wrong way. They write letters to broadcasters and newspapers in which they are rude and haughty about other people’s usage and in which they show off their own superior ‘knowledge’ of how language should be. I hate that, and I particularly hate the fact that so many of these pedants assume that I’m on their side.
He's not, and I'm not.

3. There are all kinds of pedants around with more time to read and imitate Lynne Truss and John Humphrys than to write poems, love-letters, novels and stories [but] Do they ever yoke impossible words together for the sound-sex of it? ... Do they? I doubt it. They’re too farting busy sneering at a greengrocer’s less than perfect use of the apostrophe. Well sod them to Hades.
My echo - Trussed or Trust.

4. The worst of this sorry bunch of semi-educated losers are those who seem to glory in being irritated by nouns becoming verbs. How dense and deaf to language development do you have to be?
I call it Consultantspeak

5. I think what offends [us] when confronted with extremely informal, unpunctuated and haywire language is the implication of not caring that underlies it. ... But that is an issue of fitness, of suitability, it has nothing to do with correctness. ... Context, convention and circumstance are all.
Exactly. I actually said context and implied meaning were everything. Close enough.

He even recommends Steven Pinker! The whole blessay is excellent. However, Mr Fry, there is something to be said for conciseness too.

Five Books

1. The Language Instinct - Steven Pinker
2. The Ancestor's Tale - Richard Dawkins
3. A Mouthful of Air - Anthony Burgess
4. Spell It Out - David Crystal
5. Common Sense - Tom Paine
As for fiction, five to follow later

Words and Rules

In a conversation today, something that I said was corrected. Nothing unusual there. I had accidentally dropped in an incorrect word while saying something. Again, nothing unusual there. We all have the odd slip of the tongue, and I'm happy to clarify anything misleading.

But then my corrector got it completely wrong. He said that I was a stickler for accuracy with words. Absolutely yes in published research. Absolutely no in conversation. I know he reads the blog. I guess he misreads the blog.

Because there is a broad spectrum of people who comment on English usage, from the language mavens who truss the speaker to the language liberals who trust the speaker, and I thought it was perfectly clear that I am firmly on the Pinker side.

I can still think that incorrect spellings or extra apostrophes are ugly. I can still think it is the duty of all writers to check their work before publishing. But I keep saying - what really matters is the message not the medium.

Never mind the full stops

Something is shared by Melvyn Bragg, Bill Bryson, Robert Burchfield, Anthony Burgess, Lewis Carroll, David Crystal, George Orwell, Stephen Pinker, John Simpson and Lynne Truss. They all seem to be passionate about clear communication. But I don't entirely agree with them.

I agree that incorrect spelling is ugly. Misplaced apostrophes are hideous. So I do preach the gospel of clear English. I hope that when I want a statement to say something then it does so without equivocation. Unfortunately I sometimes aspire to hide sub-texts, and a punny word will often jump in place of an obvious one, but the principle holds true.

Yet as I have admitted before, I know very little formal grammar. I was never lucky enough to learn Latin at school. I did not even get the chance to study English Literature beyond the age of about fourteen. I found Dickens and Hardy to be impenetrable. Yet I genuinely like the sound of Shakespeare and Chaucer. Perhaps it is because they played so loosely with the rules of grammar, perhaps it is the patter of iambic pentameter, perhaps it is the tortured rhyming, perhaps I just like the stories!

So I will never get there, but I will aim in that direction. Sorry the grammar may slip, forgive me my trespasses, is it really obvious that English is not my mother tongue?