Deference and erroneous deference - a hobbyhorse

Deferring to a linguistic authority figure is always wrong but “she lives a long way from John and I” is doubly wrong.

Not only is the speaker deferring to an authority figure; but they have misinterpreted what the authority figure actually said. No teacher ever told you to put the nominative after a preposition.  Of all linguistic mistakes the erroneous deference grates with me most.  No child naturally says “from John and I”. You have to teach yourself to say “from John and I”.  And teach yourself wrong!  Bah!

A common instance of mere deference, as opposed to erroneous deference, is avoiding the split infinitive. It’s usually harmless but occasionally sounds a bit contrived.  The supreme example of a good split infinitive is “to boldly go”.  The context is the introductory text spoken at the beginning of Star Trek episodes : “To boldly go where no man has gone before”.  Does it work?  Yes. Does it sound good?  Yes. Therefore it's good English.

The rule against the split infinitive has indeed been promulgated, so in that narrow sense, deferring to it isn't erroneous.  But whoever promulgated the rule acted without authority, for there can be no authority in language.  (Apart, that is, from your humble servant.)

Note added since I first wrote this. The technical term for avoiding one grammatical trap only to fall into another is hypercorrection.

Ending a sentence with a preposition

Digressing from my theme, another rule that isn't a rule is “never end a sentence with a preposition”.  Actually it’s one of the glories of the Germanic languages that you can end a sentence with a preposition.  Churchill had his faults but he knew his English.  Once, when a civil servant re-cast a sentence of Churchill’s to avoid this alleged error, he reinstated the original word order adding in the margin: “this is the sort of pedantry up with which I will not put.”   The anecdote comes in many varieties and seems to be undocumented, but even so it’s one of those stories that just has to be true.  The version I have given comes from a fabulous English teacher I had when I was 12.

And no, fellow pedants, I don’t mean that my English teacher was mythical!

Things that annoy me. No 3, “The Nanny State”

There are two things that annoy me more than people going on about the nanny state, although they happen to escape me just now.

Felicity Lawrence wrote a good article in the Guardian on 8th July heaping scorn on health minister Lansley. Eager to show that the Tories are a front for unscrupulous businesses, he says no need to regulate the food industry, lets treat obesity as a moral failure, all we need is for everyone to just eat more responsibly.

Lets take a step back and survey the scene.   A privileged elite has found a way to enrich itself by creating ill-health in the population; and has created a culture in which personal freedom is deemed the highest good, which is to be interpreted to mean freedom for children to choose crisps and food companies to sell them.

Judging by the blogs at the end of the article even some Guardian readers fall for this (or are they paid by the food industry to leave these comments??)

Afterthought: I think, but I'm not sure, that the Americans conduct these discussions without benefit of the expression “nanny state”.  Even so, there's plenty of opportunity for shouting at the radio.

Listen to this American discussion of Taxing Soft Drinks.  It deals with soda pop, obesity and studies that link soft drink consumption to America's growing obesity epidemic and spiralling healthcare costs. Calls have been made for a new tax on sugary soft drinks. Hear a corporate "libertarian" argue against the proposed tax.

It’s an episode of The Diane Rehm Show (American University Radio, WAMU). October 15, 2009.