RSS 
Email 
Twitter
FacebookThe Pleasure of Language — Essential Listening for Hyper-corrective Grammarians
January 2nd, 2009 | Posted in Creativity 25 Comments »
Stephen Fry on the pleasure of language
This podcast from Stephen Fry on language is one of the most entertaining, thought-provoking, well-read essays on language I’ve ever heard. In the podcast, Fry says he often encounters people who consider themselves high-minded grammarians, who assume he is on their side when they express their disgust of common grammar errors, such as “12 Items or Less” signs in grocery stories (rather than “fewer”), or misuses of “disinterested,” or conversions of nouns into unconventional verbs (such as “actioned”).
Rather than become cramped by rules and purist ideas of correctness, Fry argues that language should be a source of pleasure. Language is an innate right (even a biological inheritance) that everyone is entitled to. People should be free to to bend and modify it as they please. It is a flexible and elastic source of pleasure, not merely a vehicle for communication. Like wine and cheese, which are more than just means of sustenance but rather sources of delight, Fry says language can also be used for delight.
A few months ago I attended a creative/professional writing conference in Idaho in which the keynote speaker spent thirty minutes explaining that, when you become a writer, you begin to notice grammar mistakes everywhere. She had an extensive number of clippings from newspapers detailing myriad usage errors. Although her talk was funny and light-hearted, it revealed a tragic mindset. Writing (at least the more creative kind) isn’t about learning correct grammar. It’s about learning to find pleasure in language, especially when you steer it outside convention.
Tags: Creativity, grammar, idaho, podcast, rules, stephen fry
“I attended a writers conference in Idaho… Writing isn’t about learning correct grammar. It’s about learning to find pleasure in language, especially when you steer it outside convention.”
Ah, Tom. Know your audience and all that. You are a technical communicator, and therefore, I assume that the conference was for technical writers. In a technical writing context, language is not about fun. It is about clear communication. Although non-conformance with convention can be fun, non-conformance has no place in a technical communicator’s repertoire.
Mike,
Thanks for commenting. Actually, it was a conference on both creative and professional writing. The keynote speaker was a novelist. My comment at the end was more geared toward literary writing than technical communication, which we all know has very little style. Sorry for not making that more clear. I added some more links and text in my last paragraph to clarify.
In this blog, sometimes I use the term “writer” to refer to literary writing rather than technical communication. I’ll be more careful of that in future posts.
Tom,
Thank you for the clarification.
I agree with the gist of Mr. Fry’s post–I embrace a descriptive stance toward linguistics as opposed to a prescriptive one–but language (if described in use and not in theory, in description and not prescription) is not an innate right, it is a culturally inherited one.
Language is etiquette as much as anything. Variations from the TV norm expose your character, background, attitude, education, which may or may not be appropriate in particular context.
I have to admit that I’m more on the grammarian side of things. There is beauty in language properly and professionally used. A painting done by an amateur is mostly likely not as good as a painting done by a professional artist–because the artist knows his medium and how to use his paintbrush. Similarly, for me, language is more enjoyable, beautiful, and satisfying when people use it with skill (and I’m not talking just grammatical skill).
Besides, it’s when you master the rules that you can professionally break them. Those who are cramped by the rules are those who don’t know why the rules are there and how to appropriately break them.
Ben, you have to listen to Fry’s essay to get the full rhetorical effect of his argument. I probably haven’t summarized him very well here. He isn’t arguing to accept illiteracy — for example, he’s not welcoming fused sentences, misspellings, and dangling modifiers. He’s arguing against prescriptivism and is encouraging people to embrace more free play and delight in the way they use language. He cites Shakespeare as someone who often created verbs from nouns — a practice that some purist grammarians seem to abhor.
I agree that language play is tremendously pleasurable. One of those pleasures — for me — is spotting the really bad grammar that’s out there. LOL
I don’t mind people making up new nouns — I ebay and I ipod and I blog all the time — but a lot of the language movement we see hasn’t got anything to do with pleasure. There’s nothing pleasureable about using “less” instead of “fewer.” People just think “less” means “not as many” when in fact it means “not as much.” Not that many (much?!)people know the difference between “many” and “much.”
Anyhow, I agree with Fry to a point — language play is pleasurable — but still, misused apostrophes and quotation marks (we are having a “sale”!) bug the crap out of me.
Just keeping it reelz, yo!
Punctuation errors annoy me more than grammar mistakes, particularly “its” versus “it’s.” Come on! That one’s not that hard to master you know?
But bottom line, writing and speaking are about communicating. So if the audience is understanding you, what’s the big deal? Sure, as writers we should be grammatically correct because we’re professionals. But to take pleasure in chastising someone for an easy mistake is just rude and elitist.
I recommend the following book for a fun read:
Grammar Snobs Are Great Big Meanies: A Guide to Language for Fun and Spite (http://www.amazon.com/Grammar-Snobs-Are-Great-Meanies/dp/0143036831)
Nice blog. You have a new subscriber:) All the best, Braydon
You have a great blog here and it is Nice to read some well written posts that have some relevancy…keep up the good work
To repeat B.Minson’s opinion,which is quite a truism, one must master the language before one can experiment in creative writing.
As an illustration, a tennis player who has not been taught the fundamentals of the game from the beginning: the proper swing and follow through,foot work, eye-ball coordination etc., will severely inhibit any potential his game might have acquired. A player cannot attempt the unorthodox swinging-volley without having learned the basics of the game; it just won’t work.
Constantly referring to Shakespeare as an arbiter of the English language, because of his creativeness with words and grammar is frankly tedious and irrelevant. His creativeness was utilized in his writing, as was that of many other equally inventive writers. We cannot assume that Shakespeare spoke in the same manner in which he wrote, as we cannot assume that J.Joyce spoke in a stream-of=consciousness dialogue.
James Joyce and Shakespeare might have violated many syntactical principles and created words from other words, but all in the context of their writing. They undoubtedly spoke in an educated and grammatical fashion, and if they did not,which is doubtful, they certainly knew how.
That the English language has degraded is a fact,but another equally depressing fact is that the vocabulary of the average educated adult has dropped dramatically in the last fifty/sixty years. (Joyce and Shakespeare had prodigious vocabularies as did many writers of their era.)
So let’s be honest; whom do we blame,the prescriptivists or the descriptivists? I apologize for succumbing to the rhetorical.
Giuseppe Mirelli
http://tabularasacity.blogspot.com/2010/01/spelling-nazis-and-grammar-police.html
I wrote a little piece about this subject today.
I find these comments completely superfluous and unproductive. A character in one of Philip Roth’s novels claims that in today’s world everyone has an opinion but no criterion.
Jade’s blog, which I read, is a perfect example of that claim.
I don’t know whether she read my previous comment, but I thought I was quite clear on the importance of proper grammar.
She, as do many others, claim that anyone who corrects another person’s grammar is an elitist and judgmental. This assertion is absurd and inaccurate. It is precisely because grammar is not taught in schools and teachers are berated should they correct a students poor grammar that young people of today cannot properly conjugate a verb.
Jade theorizes and rationalizes with preposterous generalizations as to why people misspell words: poor nutrition[?] abuse at home[?] Lack of a proper education,(perhaps the only valid conclusion ) and a “desire to play with words”.
Jade, people who enjoy playing with words, as did the constantly referred to Shakespeare, must possess a solid vocabulary and be properly educated in grammar. Your argument that one should not correct a person’s grammar because they are not properly educated is ridiculous and actually an insult to that person’s intelligence. How is that person ever going to learn without someone correcting him?
The decline in English grammar is a fact, not an opinion. What you’ve written is based solely on opinions without any foundation. Your preposterous assertions as to why people can’t spell properly or use proper grammar is farcical;but what is more ludicrous is your reasoning as to why they shouldn’t be educated; because correcting them is essentially educating them.
Linguists are constantly rebuking grammarians and prescriptivists for their efforts in trying to preserve the integrity of the language. Observe, that they do so with an articulate and grammatical exposition. Why don’t they practice what they preach? Because they want to be understood.
Giuseppe Mirelli
I was that writer that jade spoke of in her post. I am an incest survivor and pretty much day dreamed through school but through my love of words and art I have become a respected writer in my country. Language is what you make it. it is not dead like Latin it is ever evolving and there are so many dialects even in England where you may class is its origin. this is not a war of grammar this is war of class and oppression.
be well sir
love
Ashley baker
More grammar hijinx at http://tabularasacity.blogspot.com/
There are not so many dialects in England as you erroneously claimed. There were many many years ago and it was for this reason that standard English was incorporated, so people could understand each other.
People from one region or district in England could not understand each other because of the various dialects and many of those dialects lacked grammatical content.
Latin is not dead as you again erroneously claim,approximately one-half of modern words in English have been borrowed from Latin.
Language is not what you “make it”, it makes you.
Your information is incorrect; I suggest you read more on language, its origin and progression, before you spew out misinformation.
GM
Giuseppe,
You may have read my blog, but you’ve completely misunderstood the meaning of it.
I was speaking of JUDGMENT, not about correcting people. I was speaking of the way people treat others who cannot spell, like they are second class citizens and not worthy of having an opinion or of writing. I was speaking of the silencing nature of the way people on forums and other sites handle others who can not spell etc. I’m not exactly sure where you read anything about correcting people being wrong, in my post? If you feel the need to correct people when they misspell, go ahead,(be assured it won’t be appreciated or make a lick of difference though) but don’t be one of the arseholes who also feel the need to put the person down in the process.
I find it interesting that you’d question the reasons I gave for why people have difficulty learning. You don’t believe that improper nutrition has an impact on a childs ability to learn? I suggest you look up some medical journals about nutrition and brain development. You don’t believe that the horrific amounts of stress that child abuse brings about would have an affect on their ability to concentrate? I suggest you look up some more medical journals about the impacts of stress on the brain. It’s all pretty simple science. What I was trying to do was to get people to think twice before they say nasty things to people who can’t spell, to think about the possibility of it not being their ‘fault’. This is why I threw out a few possible scenarios.
I’d also like to ask where on my blog did you find anything about me believing people shouldn’t be educated? I’m just not exactly sure where you’re getting this stuff from.
Lastly, to say that only people who have a firm grasp on the English language are allowed to play with words shows you to be one of the elitists I spoke of. How dare you. Words do NOT belong to you and you do NOT get to decide how others use them. In my time I have read the most poetic, moving, hilarious pieces written by people with little education and I’ve found it to be incredibly refreshing. They use words in ways that educated people never could because their relationship to language is completely different.
As a last clarification, my blog post was written in the hope that people would take the malice out of their dealings with people who can’t spell. I cited a few reasons why, which are actually backed up by modern science, but mainly I wanted to appeal to peoples humanitarian side. Hopefully this has cleared up any confusion you seem to be having.
Regards,
Jade.
Jade,
First, since this site includes grammar in addition to language and words, I feel compelled to correct the first sentence of your last comment: “You may[sic]have read my blog…” Since the sentence is in the past tense you must only use “might”.
I understood your blog completely and I disagree with all your assertions, because they are just opinions, and as I stated in my last comment, your absurd opinions have no foundation whatsoever in the context of writing, grammar, and words.
I’m inclined to think that one who judges someone’s bad grammar, or corrects it, would be defined, by your ilk, as being an elitist or a pedant. After all in your world of non-judgmental conformity those two words are analogous.
The fact that you think people might be poor spellers because of improper nutrition is ridiculous,illogical and lacks commonsense. I can also submit that people who talk too much might get throat cancer or people who smile too much might get more wrinkles. Can you comprehend how silly your argument is?
You stated that you threw out a few possible scenarios; I can throw out thousands more,but there would be no point or logic to it.
I never stated that only educated people should play with words; I wrote that people who enjoy playing with words must possess a solid vocabulary and be properly educated in grammar. That is my opinion and a suggestion for people who want to properly articulate a thought.
W.Faulkner dropped out of high school, but that should not be an indication that one does not need a proper education to become a writer, particularly a writer of his stature.
I never implied that words belonged to me,(a silly assessment). Words are available to everyone, but in order to access their availability one must educate oneself. Keep in mind,as I had alluded to earlier, an uneducated person can express himself and produce a very original piece of writing.His limited vocabulary and poor grammar,however,will prevent him from expressing himself with much greater precision and variance.
The fact that I might judge or correct someone’s grammar or spelling does not categorize me as an elitist. Your redefining the word, I suggest you look it up in the dictionary.
In seems that your definition of an elitist is anyone who doesn’t agree with your opinion. But wouldn’t that make you an elitist?
Giuseppe Mirelli
Oh dear,
Poor old Giuseppe. You have done nothing for your cause. All you have done is reconfirm ALL the beliefs I hold about dull, elitist grammarians such as yourself. Honestly, I can’t even be bothered arguing with you any more as your dry, flat writing style is giving me a headache. The thought of having to deal with any more of your banality and superfluous wordiness, puts me off answering to any of your condescending, off the wall accusations.
All I can say is I pity you and leave it at that. Feel free to unleash another boring, but oh so correctly placed, torrent of words, I certainly won’t be reading it anyway. I learned a long time ago that it’s pointless to try and talk to people like you. Go forth and correct your little heart out you pompous bully, I’m sure it makes you feel so much better than everyone else and after all, that’s what words are for, right? Adios.
I have touched a nerve and a very raw one indeed;I detect an underlying anger, but I understand;the truth always hurts. You shouldn’t take it so personally.
Your affected and flowery writing is relegated to vapidness.
By assiduously trying to be unconventional you’ve become a cliche.
My point was made four comments ago and it was a bull’s-eye; it spurred all that vitriol from a dying woman.
G.Mirelli
So no jibes about how incest is just a mythical reason?
So lets get to the main course, what about Cheshire, Cumbrian, Geordie, Lancastrian, Scouse, Mancunian, Mackem Northumbrian, Pitmatic, Yorkshire, Black Country English, Brummie, Potteries, Cockney, East Anglican, Estuary, Kentish and Multicultural London English? All recognised dialects in England. Some English dialects are almost unintelligible from one region to another and they each use their own grammar,pronunciation and vocabulary. Are you aware that ‘Standard English’ doesn’t actually have any rules officially? There is no linguistic body governing it so what may I ask is your authoritative work of reference? There are many and just because you believe in one, doesn’t make it any more real than what others believe in.
Latin is not the language of any nation, and hasn’t been for thousands of years, Id say that means its dead. Just because some words have been absorbed into the vernacular doesn’t mean it’s alive.Thankyou for this lively discussion sir but I don’t like being called a liar. I merely have a different point of view than you and I am sure you will call all my facts baseless but I am also sure if you do some research you will find works that back up my point of view.
so be well sir
kisses
Ashley baker
I must assume by your comment that I called you a liar, since you believe that language is what you make it,that this allows you also to redefine what somebody else has written or vocalized.
I only claimed that your information was incorrect and that you should not misinform. I never called you a liar. Naturally, since you think one can change the meaning of words at one’s whim, you arbitrarily changed the meaning of my claim.
Regarding your profuse list of English dialects–which does not impress me–you essentially repeat what I claimed in my previous comment;that dialects are unintelligible from one region to another.Furthermore, many of these dialects that you referred to are almost obsolete and are spoken by a minority of people.
Your claim that Standard English has no rules “officially”is an ambiguous assertion. There are rules in “English grammar”; the rules that you adhered to in your comments to me. These grammatical rules one must follow to articulate an intelligent argument.
Your claim that there is no linguistic body governing English is nonsensical and silly. There are no mathematical bodies governing mathematics nor are there any official representatives governing many other subjects. Your not using logic.
Your assertion that Latin is not the language of any nation and has not been for “thousands” of years is incorrect;and again you misinform. Latin is to this day the official tongue of the Vatican City and the official language of the Roman Catholic Church. Francis Bacon, as did many of his contemporaries, preferred writing in Latin;he thought it to be the proper medium of scholarship.
Furthermore, Latin was spoken and studied well into the beginning of the Twentieth Century. Francis Bacon was living in the 16th and 17th Centuries, therefore, your emphatic declaration that Latin has been dead for “thousands” of years” is false. Approximately fifty to sixty percent of English words derive from Latin, in fact the majority of words in my comments and yours stem from Latin. They are not “just… some words” that “have been absorbed into the vernacular” as you so defiantly and ignorantly asserted. Do you now understand the inaccuracies of your arguments?
P.S. I’m completely uninterested in the fact that you’re an incest survivor. It’s completely irrelevant to our correspondence and frankly I find it quite pathetic that you seem to think it to be a badge of honor or privilege.
G.M.
Giuseppe,
Ash and I are both bowing out of this, I’m sure you’ll choose to see it as us admitting defeat as you did when I left last time, but that’s just because an ego your size can’t handle the thought that you’re just an awful, tedious, nasty person to try and debate with. All I did was post a link to a blog about how I believe its not ok to put people down if they can’t spell or use grammar properly, and you turned it into a slinging match. In short, you’re a bully and you resorted to insults in our debate which ended up making me do the same which I don’t like. Insults in a debate are the refuge of the desperate and we won’t be pulled down to your level again.
One thing I will address is your claim that Ash was using his incest survival as an excuse, and I’m only doing this because in all the examples we now have of you being nasty, this was the biggest. Not once did Ash claim his awful experience was a ‘badge of honour’ or a ‘privilege’. It was actually the most horrific experience of his young life. All he was saying was that it impeded his ability to learn which was one of the things I addressed in my post.
Other than that I have only one more thing to say to you. This whole experience has been amazing for us, it’s sent us on a wonderful research mission and the things we’ve found out about language and the history of it has been incredible. If it wasn’t for your bizarre, off the wall misunderstandings of what we both were saying, we would never have discovered all the things we did. We’re both enriched by this experience and hold even closer to our original views than we did before you came into our lives.
We’re both off to enjoy our gorgeous family and pledge to write even more fervently in our own styles than we did before, from now on. We leave you to have the last word as we know you’re the kind of guy that desperately has to. I hope it keeps you warm at night Giuseppe.
Bye Bye!
P.S. In the 5th paragraph of your last comment, you should have used ‘you’re’ not ‘your’. Also you really need to put spaces in between your fullstops, commas, semicolons…etc. There’s a few other fuck ups I could ‘educate’ you on, but hey, I seriously can’t be bothered. One of the awful things about being a self proclaimed grammarian is that you end up spending ridiculous amounts of time laboring over your writing so you don’t seem like a hypocrite, but unfortunately for you, mistakes get made and your writing becomes dry and unreadable and everyone ends up seeing you for the meanie you truly are.
I do understand the difference between the possessive, your, and the contraction, you’re, I also was aware of my typographical error,which is what it was, as you well know.
Your error,however, was grammatical, and obviously not a typo; you just had no knowledge of the difference. I won’t bother to respond regarding the proper spacing between letters, because I can’t rely on your accreditation as a grammarian; simply because you’re an opponent to rules and regulations. My other”fuck-ups”, as you so eloquently phrased,(I admire your choice of vocabulary, a demonstration of your vast vocabulary and love of words)must be also considered innocuous, in light of the pettiness of your other critiques. Interesting that you punctiliously try to follow grammatical rules in your silly comments, which indicates an inclination to be understood, and an unacknowledged admittance that to be understood you must adhere to those rules.
I’m flattered that you assiduously studied my comments and reread them numerous times to detect the slightest error; errors that you find in almost every book printed,even after being scrupulously perused by its editors.(You obviously, COULD, be bothered). I’m more flattered,however, that you dedicated your time to my peccadilloes in grammar, since you are a huge proponent of descriptivism. You label me to be a grammarian, which I never claimed,nor do I spend ridiculous amounts of time composing these absurd comments,(you flatter yourself) as you presume. I therefore accept it as a compliment, since you detect a formality in my writing.
I only commented on the inaccuracies and misinformation of your blog. I never resorted to ad hominem attacks as you did; but because I criticized your silly blog you immediately became defensive and attacked me personally rather than argue your point.
You, and your pitiful friend, can certainly dish it out, but both of you dismantle to any slight criticism. We had no debate, as you indicated, because both of you could never refute any of my arguments, you were too caught up in your ridiculous philosophical inanities that had nothing to do with writing or words. Your friends assertion that Latin has been a dead language for thousands of years is incorrect, but do you or he acknowledge the error that he so ignorantly claimed for everyone to read. You just throw things out there to serve whatever silly purpose, but you lose creditability because of your erroneous claims and preposterous theories.
You and your little friend are nonentities to me; I have no personal feelings for either of you. I only have facts that verifiably oppose your opinions and theories that are based solely on emotion rather than truth.
In conclusion to my futile comments directed at stubborn, agenda-driven ears I’m compelled to educate you concerning the importance of words and grammar and its relationship to writing, but more importantly to the art of writing.
Oscar Wilde, as he was working on a poem in the morning, took out a comma; in the afternoon he put it back in.
Herman Melville would dedicate one week on one word in a sentence; changing it numerous times until he was satisfied that it was the right word.
The majority of great writers produce mediocrity, and then they dedicate days, weeks, months, and years to revising,rewriting and reconfiguring until they submit their masterpiece.
I’ve edified you sufficiently, whereas you have just substantiated my opinion on people who live in denial. Good luck in your world of ideological stupidity.
P.S.
If you want to fight me with words I suggest you do your fighting with your boyfriend, who will undoubtedly break down should you refer to him as a “meanie”; such a powerful word.
Giuseppe,
Good grief.