People who write for a living are required to put up with regular feedback from readers complaining about their grammar and punctuation. David Loughrey attempts to boldly shed some light on a subject readers have shown much interest in. Hopefully, he succeeds.
There was a time - and the Ephraimites will back me up on this - when an unintended language gaffe could cost you your life.
Unfortunate members of the tribe of Israel, fleeing their pursuers, but indistinguishable from them, were challenged at a ford on the Jordan to say the word ‘‘shibboleth''.
Unable to pronounce it with a ‘‘sh'', their unsuccessful attempt ‘‘sibboleth'', was rewarded with a contest between a razor-sharp knife and soft flesh they were never going to win.
The outcome nowadays of veering from the course of ‘‘proper'' language may not be fatal, but there is no shortage of passion in the debate.
There is also no shortage of linguistic shibboleths: language usages no longer in vogue that drive some to distraction.
But the issue of what is, and what is not correct, is sometimes murky.
United Kingdom linguist David Crystal has written extensively on the subject.
One of his recent works, The Fight for English, is in part a response to Lynne Truss' Eats, Shoots and Leaves, a surprisingly popular book demanding a ‘‘zero tolerance'' approach to punctuation.
In The Fight for English and other publications, Prof Crystal tirelessly presents the history of language, explaining the changing trends of usage and the shaky ground on which traditional grammarians base their arguments.
He also rails against the way blind adherence to ‘‘standard English'', what is taught as the ‘‘correct'' form, can help portray the many other variations of language spoken as inferior.
Many still complain about split infinitives, but they are a good example of a ‘‘rule'' developed somewhat arbitrarily.
The construction, famously used in television programme Star Trek, ‘‘to boldly go'', - placing an adverb between ‘‘to'' and the infinitive form of the verb - has long been decried as a linguistic no-no.
Traditional grammarians claim ‘‘to go'' makes a grammatical unit that should not be separated.
As well, they argue such a construction is ungrammatical in Latin.
Considering we don't speak Latin, and that people have been splitting infinitives since time immemorial, the argument is weak at best.
The idea that not splitting infinitives will result in clearer speech, Prof Crystal describes as ‘‘a big con''.
‘‘The big con is to be told that the rules, if you follow them, will help you to be clear. ‘‘But that is what most of the rules do not do".
Irish dramatist and writer George Bernard Shaw summed up the situation neatly in an 1892 letter to the Chronicle, complaining about a columnist who criticised the split infinitive.
‘‘This man is a pedant, an ignoramus, an idiot and a self-advertising duffer... ‘‘Set him adrift and try an intelligent Newfoundland dog in his place.''
Another linguistic shibboleth is to begin a sentence with ‘‘hopefully'', as in: ‘‘Hopefully, Mary will win the race.''
A fairly modern usage, it has attracted plenty of criticism from people who argue it should be replaced with ‘‘it is hoped that'' or ‘‘I hope that''.
‘‘But ‘hopefully' is one of hundreds of adverbs which are used in this way (frankly, naturally etc.) and this general pattern has prevailed,'' Prof Crystal writes.
‘‘It is unclear why hopefully has been singled out for criticism.''
Both Shakespeare and Chaucer may have been surprised to learn they failed on one grammar ‘‘rule''; ending a sentence with a preposition.
An example is: ‘‘That is the man I was talking to.''
Prof Crystal asks how a construction used by both authors could be deemed wrong.
‘‘The short answer - and it applies to all prescriptive rules - is that somebody thought it was wrong. And that someone managed to persuade everyone else to think in the same way".
