I say potatoes and you say potato's

MEMBERS OF THE GREEN INK Brigade (GIB) get a rougher press than they deserve. They’re the same species as nosey parkers and every society needs its nosey parkers. The old lady who lives alone and spends her time peering out from behind her net curtains might also be the one who spots the yobs vandalising cars — or worse. The nosey parker might be the person who notices that the old lady has stopped twitching the curtains and might have had a stroke. They may be a nuisance but they do tend to spot when something is going wrong. So it is with GIB.

I speak on this subject with authority. Anyone who makes a living from broadcasting will get more than his share of GIB letters. Anyone who dares to write a book about the English language had better change his address if he’s not prepared to be swamped. Yes, it can be profoundly irritating. A Green Inker will always spot the mistake. So will many other readers but the GI will write to tell you about it. And if any GIs are reading, I know that the first edition of my last book awarded a distinguished academic the Noble Prize. What I don’t know is how it slipped past me, my editor, the proof reader and on into infinity. But it did. Thank you for pointing it out — but please, no more letters.

All of which leads me to wonder how David Crystal manages to get anything done. He has probably written more books about the English language than any other living soul and that in itself would make him a fat target for the GIB. But it’s what he says in them that makes me worry for him. How the hell does he cope with the GIB when he comes out with this sort of thing: his contention that, for instance, aberrant apostrophes don’t necessarily matter.

When he sees a greengrocer selling “potato’s” he does not reach for his horsewhip; he merely points out that in the 18th century it would have been perfectly acceptable. Indeed, he says, it is perfectly acceptable in the 21st century because there is no room for ambiguity. Everyone knows it must be a plural for the obvious reason that we know potatoes do not have the ability to possess things.

Can you begin to imagine the effect such heresy will have on the GIB? Here is a learned academic, arguably the most respected scholar of the structure of the English language in the land, telling us that Lynne Truss — and, by extension, every pedant in the land — is wrong. He goes farther. He compares people who pontificate on language and think they can sort out language problems with people who can fix our car when it goes wrong — and the language lot come off the worst. Some people, he says, “without any training at all even go so far as to write repair manuals about language and expect other people to live by their recommendations”.

Professor Crystal takes particular exception to those who think a large proportion of the population is “linguistically criminal”. They believe in the small set of rules they have managed themselves to acquire. They condemn others who have not had the same educational opportunities for not following those same rules: “Enthused by the Stalinesque policing metaphor, they advocate a policy of zero tolerance to eradicate all traces of the aberrant behaviour.”

Well now, steady on, professor. Lynne Truss can perfectly well defend herself without any help from me; she has a couple of million devoted readers to call on if she needs to. But I’ve never really thought of myself as Stalinesque — even if I do get a bit cross with people who break certain basic rules when they should know better. The truth is, it depends on the rule.

Alert readers will have spotted that I am not averse to beginning sentences with conjunctions or ending them with prepositions. Indeed, I applaud the rather gauche young man from the Deep South who, I was told when I was writing my book, won a scholarship to Harvard. On his first day there he approached a couple of elegant young New Englanders who clearly knew their way around.

“Hey y’all. Can you tell me where the library’s at?” One of them looked down at him with disdain and sneered: “At Harvard, we tend not to end sentences with prepositions.”

The young man thought for a moment. “OK,” he said. “Can you tell me where the library’s at . . . asshole?” Now that shows a fine understanding of English as well as a proper contempt for linguistic snobbery. But it is neither snobbish nor Stalinesque to argue for “a system beneath the apparent chaos of usage”. That system must be based on some rules.

Crystal began studying English more than half a century ago. There is a gulf as wide as the Pacific between his knowledge of the subject and mine. But by the time I left school at the age of 15 I had at least been taught the basic rules of grammar and it was enough (with a little judicious lying about my years at school) to get me a job on a local newspaper. It gave me a start.

I wrote my book mostly because an entire generation of children has been denied that basic knowledge. Idiotic experts decided for idiotic reasons that there was no reason to teach children grammar. Many believed that it would somehow constrain their imaginations. The truth is the opposite: a knowledge of grammar is empowering and liberating.

For all that, Professor Crystal’s latest book is essential reading for everyone who is fascinated by language. He cheerfully admits that some of it has appeared in his earlier books. What he has done is take familiar ideas and rethink them with a focus on the “how”, rather than on the “what” or the “why”. There are no fewer than 72 chapters beginning with the word “how”: everything from how we make speech sounds to how writing differs from speech to how children “learn to mean”.

It seems that a three-year-old has an active vocabulary of at least 2,000 words. I hope, in some future book, he will consider my own pet theory — based on vast research involving my own small child — that children have an instinctive understanding of grammar, much of which they manage to unlearn as the years go by. How else to explain that, since he was 3, my son has invariably put “only” in the correct place in the sentence (“I’m taking only one dinosaur to nursery”) and would never dream of saying “James and me are . . .”? Granted, he may be a genius and will turn into the next David Crystal, but there may be a more prosaic explanation.

Let’s hope there will be many more Crystal books. The man is a national treasure. Just one word of warning: I spotted several solecisms. And that means the GIB will spot them too. Stand by for the letters, professor.

[From TimesOnline]