No Stinkin' Grammar: An Essay on Learning English: an Exceptional Language

No Stinkin’ Grammar

An Essay on Learning English: An

Exceptional Language

Joseph M. Nixon, Ph. D.

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© 2011 by Joseph M. Nixon, Ph. D. All rights reserved.

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First published by AuthorHouse 10/12/2011

ISBN: 978-1-4634-0195-5 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4634-0194-8 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4634-0193-1 (ebk)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2011907136

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Contents

Dedication

Acknowledgements

Prologue

I.

II.

III.

IV.

V.

VI.

VII.

VIII.

IX.

X.

XI.

XII.

XIII.

Dedication

I dedicate this essay to everyone who misspells words because of silent letters . To authors cringing at the sight of an editor ‘s red pen . To students standing at the board commanded to diagram a sentence . To writers estimating a 50% chance of being correct when using a possessive indicator, and figure the odds are pretty good at that. To those reading professional journals shot through with jargon . To lion hearted souls taking on English as a Second Language . To immigrants arriving on our shores greeted with something like ‘Yo Dude’ they can’t find in their translation booklets. To students memorizing the rules of grammar and stumbling across exceptions on page one. To everyone baffled by the irregularities and unconformities of English. To you all—to all y’all —this work offers up the observations of a semisuccessful English speaker in learning this language we struggle with alike.

I also dedicate this work to English Teachers everywhere. It is for you, not your students , not your Principal . Read it, enjoy it. Hopefully it will remind you this language we use can be fun, funny, and not quite so dull after all. Your work gives new meaning to the overused phrase ‘a thankless task’ for however taken for granted it may be, your mission remains crucial.

To my Father, whose own linguistic curiosity left more than a few people scratching their heads.

Finally, to Greta and Mrs. Dodd —sorry, somebody had to do it.

Acknowledgements

Although in my early years I considered the mission of English Teachers unnecessary and downright harassing, in retrospect it is hard not to appreciate their willingness to tolerate a classroom full of uninspired students day after day and still return the next. The clarity of hindsight also reveals their dedication on a larger scale as, at the end of the school year, they abandoned the whole aggravating mess and deservedly took time off. Their willingness to return the next year and do it again with a bunch of freshly unwilling students provides a model of determination—accentuated with perseverance—for all. In my mind, you deserve a raise, if not hazardous duty pay.

While not tangible, I acknowledge the quiet example of English as a Second Language students . I met many during my college years and learned courage, indeed, is required to accept the challenge of advanced education while simultaneously learning a new and alien language . Imagine yourself in a Chinese classroom on the graduate level, competing with native speakers, and you can appreciate the guts it takes to tackle such a challenge. Not one ESL student in particular, but as a group, I acknowledge your courage and example, both in your chosen fields and in linguistics . If your government allows it, you deserve a raise too.

I also recognize and appreciate the readers who perused early versions of this work and offered suggestions and comments, some incorporated, others not. Your marginally penned confusion over unclear terms and phrases contributed immensely to the sum of whatever linguistic clarity resides herein. Any remaining confusion I reserve.

To Mrs. Dodd , wherever you are, now I understand your patience and guidance when challenged with the task of turning a hard scientist into a soft one, at least literarily. Thanks too, to my IBFF (imaginary best friend forever), Greta , for being there when I needed an example. You both changed me in ways neither of you will ever know.

Prologue

There are many things I did not intend this essay to be and only one I did. To begin, it is not a text in English grammar —it includes no review of English vocabulary , syntax , or usage. Nor is it a substitute for any text purporting to teach English. I doubt any English Teacher would consider this for classroom use and few would include it on recommended reading lists. But I believe some might read it and think—that makes sense, why didn’t I think of that? Others might find humor and useful insights, may recall similar observations drawn from their experiences with English.

Regarding the product my English Teachers delivered, I would foist my understanding of English onto another no more quickly than my political beliefs. This essay is not meant to do that either. Nor does it reflect standard or accepted rules for English usage other than those that make sense—or that I have mangled so that they make sense—to me.

The one thing I meant this essay to be is a recollection of how I am learning the language we share complete with accounts of peculiarities either important in the evolution of my grammatical and syntactical education or helping later using what I ostensibly learned. Along the way, I offer some shortcuts to help understand our language —to reconcile English use and grammatical rules. I detail devices helping me order the chaos of our language and I visit places at the margins of English where the rules are fuzzy and, sometimes, contradictory.

I hope you find something here that helps understand English —your way. But if you find nothing in that regard, then enjoy this amusing and sometimes ironic look at our language . Remember, this is English my way and English your way differs, so I emphasize, this is not an effort to change how you learned, speak, write, teach, or use, English, but maybe how you think about it. I begin at the beginning of my encounter with English.

I.

MANO a MANO con INGLÉS

Ontogeny Recapitulates Phylogeny

Beginning in the early 1800s, intellectuals observed and recorded wonders of the natural world around them. The previous blind adherence to canon that allowed no questioning came into question itself. This new wave of scholars measured, compared, evaluated, and recorded observations firsthand and produced many great thinkers, some of whom history celebrates and others it proved wrong.

The idea that ‘Ontogeny Recapitulates Phylogeny’ came from that era. Big words ? Yes, even bigger to a farm kid who spent virtually all his time in the woods . But as a boy the phrase rang well with me. I did not understand or appreciate its meaning, the words just appealed to my ear. I did not know then, but I think I do now, that the charm resided in the repetition of the syllable group, ‘-ogeny.’ Therein lay the resonance, the alliteration , the peculiar phraseology, that might make a Roman poet pause. That’s what caught my attention and stuck in my mind like an annoying jingle.

But the phrase held more than just charm, it held the promise of science and the wealth of possibilities that scientific inquiry entailed. It beckoned to something slowly awakening that would be satisfied only with a laboratory, a few reagents, and some good, hard, experimentation. It opened a door beyond which a myriad of new doors appeared labeled Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Astronomy, Geology, Paleontology, and other disciplines, all of which, under the general rubric of science, I just discovered, including the works of Herr Professor Haeckel .

Ernst Heinrich Philipp August Haeckel (1834-1919, a German) first proposed the idea ‘Ontogeny Recapitulates Phylogeny’ around 1874 (Figure 1). By ontogeny he meant the development of an individual from a fertilized ovum to maturity (Anonymous 2008). Webster defines ontogeny as a noun, originating in 1872, that refers to the . . . development or course of development especially of an individual organism (Merriam-Webster 2009). The development of the individual is at the root of the concept (and word) by either definition.

Figure 1. Ernst Heinrich Phillip August Haeckel (Wikipedia 2010).

Its antonym—referring to a group and not an individual—is ‘phylogeny.’ According to Haeckel , phylogeny focuses on . . . the development over time of a species, genus, or group… Webster (2009) adds that phylogeny is a noun coined around 1872, which has three meanings,

the evolutionary history of a kind of organism

the evolution of a genetically related group of organisms as distinguished from the development of the individual organism

the history or course of the development of something (as a word or custom).

Ontogeny , then, refers to the development of an individual whereas phylogeny denotes similar actions experienced by a group, specifically a phylum . The distinction between the two concepts is one of number: the former refers to an individual; the latter refers to a group.

So what happens when ‘ontogeny ’ undertakes to recapitulate ‘phylogeny?’ Webster (Merriam-Webster, 2009) states recapitulate means . . . to restate by heads, sum up, from Latin re—+ capitulum… [the] division[s] of a book. The authors date this transitive verb to 1556 offering three definitions,

to restate briefly or to summarize

to give new form or expression to

to repeat the principal stages or phases of.

The first definition embodies the literary use of recapitulate focused on ‘re’ or ‘again’ and capitulum (‘caput’ or ‘chapter ‘). Translated this might read ‘to do again chapters’ or ‘to summarize the focus (head) of each chapter.’ A recapitulation by this definition might be a summary assembled piece by piece. Ironically, in their explanation of the word, the authors illustrate the concept by referring the reader to the familiar, and therefore explanatory, usage, ‘Ontogeny Recapitulates Phylogeny.’

The second definition expands the meaning slightly to include the notion of creating or giving a new form to something older, to use what is given and create something different. The final definition moves the idea of restatement or summarizing to a broader purview, suggesting that recapitulation can be the repetition or restatement of the principal stages of something. It does not imply doing anything with these restated highlights, but limits the definition to the mere reiteration of what came before.

Haeckel postulated were ontogeny to recapitulate phylogeny in the biological world, the conception and generation of an individual would restate the process of evolution of the species. That is, a human embryo would pass through a series of developmental stages that repeat, reiterate, recreate—the evolution of its species.

Haeckel further argued this development passed through stages when the human embryo resembled that of other species. Wikipedia (2010) recreates some of the illustrations from Haeckel’s 1874 publication, Anthropogenie , showing very early, somewhat later and still later stages of embryos of fish… salamander… turtle… chick… pig… cow… rabbit… and human. Haeckel contended this sequence, echoed in the womb, is typical of development from the lower species to what he considered the pinnacle of evolution . His biological application of the ontogeny /phylogeny idea we now believe is not true, at least given our current understanding of science.

Haeckel ‘s thoughts implied a duality of number: the individual versus the species. This I understood as a boy. Perhaps partially the result of recurring nightmares about diagramming sentences, my young mind imagined a corresponding duality between word and language . Perhaps unconsciously, I wondered whether there might be a step or stage connection between words and languages like the one Haeckel postulated spanning the various represented species in the developing human . I had not yet looked at Webster’s thoughts on the phylogeny of word or custom or I might have abandoned science in favor of linguistics .

Although stated in terms written long after the subconscious cognitive wandering of youth, my boyhood mind speculated about the possibility that the ontogeny of a word—called its etymology —might reflect the origin of language . Could the word/individual, I contemplated, contain elements that reflect the development of the language/phylum of which it is a part?

In retrospect, Haeckel ‘s ideas received a grim verdict from History—parallel to that I reach herein concerning English . Even today, though, these boyhood musings still rattle like an annoying jingle—‘You asked for it, you got it.’

My Teachers, My English

Little of this philosophical wondering about languages, development of the individual, or the origins of phyla, occurred to a boy trying to learn a language he already spoke, trying to make sense of a persistent barrage of English classes so very entrenched in the curriculum of many (all?) elementary schools . To my thinking, these classes really did not help a youngster who when asked, ‘Why do you speak the way you do?’ would respond in nascent philosophic terms only, ‘Because.’ No, sentence diagrams, parts of speech , punctuation marks, did not inhabit space in the same universe of attention that occupied this young mind, more focused on the practicalities of the woods. I rated English Class among those unfortunate things you simply must endure.

My early