I often suggest that people not assume that "erroneous" usages are some sort of innovation. Here's one example that came up in an exchange with an academic friend of mine: the singular "they." Feel free to dislike it, and to urge people not to use it. But suggesting that it's some sort of innovation runs up against, among other people, Shakespeare:
There's not a man I meet but doth salute meOr how about Thackeray, in Vanity Fair, "A person can't help their birth"? The Merriam-Webster Webster's Dictionary of English Usage has many more examples.
As if I were their well-acquiainted friend.
I'd go further and suggest that if a certain usage was good enough for some of the leading writers in the English language, it's hard to see just what can be so wrong with it (unless it's archaic, which this usage is not). But at the very least we should acknowledge the historical fact that the usage is not new; and even if it is somewhat more common now, a matter on which I'll remain skeptical until I see hard data, it was common enough back then.
Special bonus to our very few Russophone readers: Note how the Shakespeare quote above is channeled by Cheburashka:
Теперь я - Чебурашка, и каждая дворняжка
При встрече сразу лапу подает.
Not quite. Cheburashka does not say that every mutt proffers him "their" paw. True, the possessive pronoun is not required in Russian, but it's "proffers a paw", not "proffer" or "paws". Incidentally, unlike Shakespearean England or Cheburashian Russia, greeting everybody in sight is non-exceptional in the U.S. of A.
"most unkindest" -"most unkindest cut"
suggests that "most unkindest" is archaic: It yields only 94 results (the first page says 217, but if you go to the 10th page, you'll see it's just 94), and of those most are references to that particular phrase. But, yes, in a counterfactual world in which Shakespeare had used it, Thackeray had used it, and people used it commonly today, I would think it's perfectly good. And even in the real world, "most unkindest" is not some innovation, but rather the opposite -- an archaicism.
As to split infinitives, if they become more frequent in the 19th century, it's hard to see their frequent use as "genuinely new." Come to think of it, even if "comprise" for "compose" was rare until the early twentieth century, that still wouldn't make it genuinely new today.
As to the "correct possessive form of words ending in 's,'" which form do you think is correct, and what's the authority for that view? Fowler's Dictionary of Modern English Usage (1926) reports that "It was formerly customary, when a word ended in -s, to write its possessive with an apostrophe but no additional s .... In verse, &in poetic or reverential contexts, this custom is retained .... But elsewhere we now add the s ..., [e.g.,] Charles's Wain, S. James's not St James'.
Note that those are proper names, and the "rule" I've always followed is that if a proper name ends in "s", form the possessive by adding " 's ". (But then I read Fowler...)
A currently common misusage is 'they' in place of 'he or she.' I agree that 'he or she' is awkward, but I have never found a sentence that couldn't be rewritten to avoid both 'he and she' and the inappropriate 'they.'
Awkward example: When a customer comes into the deli, he or she should take a number.
Bad rewrite: When a customer comes into the deli, they should take a number.
My rewrite: Each customer should take a number after entering the deli.
I truly dislike the belief that grammar rules can be tossed away based on poor excuses and a handful of ancient examples from literary 'giants.' I believe that precision in writing is important, especially in scientific, technical, medical, and legal writings.
And then there's the awful "s/he."
(1) Is it that this is a "rule"? In which case, who made up this rule? I deny that it's a rule; or, if indeed you can point me to someone who claims it's a rule (I know there are many such people!), why should I believe them?
(2) Or perhaps is it that the mismatching of plural with singular is inherently bad?
(2a) If so, is it bad because it's unclear? But there's no actual unclarity in your example. Why not have a rule that one should avoid being unclear, and limit the application of this principle to, at most, sentences where using "they" would actually be unclear?
(2b) Or is it bad because plural and singular are inherently incompatible? If so, I don't see why identity of number is something one should strive for by always rewriting one's sentences.
(2c) Finally, even if identity of number is so great for some reason or other, I deny that "they" is plural. The proof is... that great writers from Shakespeare on down have used "they" to refer to a single person! Of course one _can_ use "they" to refer to the third person plural, but I have yet to see some "proof" that it can't also be used to refer to the third person singular as a synonym for "he or she." Therefore, I consider "they" to be a pronoun with both a plural meaning and a singular meaning.
I suspect you were kidding about Bill McGonigle's "Russian." But, being an idiot, I was trying to figure out what he might have meant to type instead of "Nzu". (Reading past the comma helped me get up to speed.)
"And then there's the awful "s/he." "
I don't think "s/he" goes far wnough to erradicate hegemonic discursive narrativity. Gender is only one element in the hegemony of the third "person" pronoun. (Note one says "third PERSON"). This disappears the non-human and non-gendered from our discourse.
The only ethical correction is to replace "s/he" with "s/h/it." I think this would express well all of our feelings about this issue.
Agreed. One could take a hard line and argue that great writers should not have done it or argue that they--unlike the rest of us--have earned the prerogative of flouting conventional rules.
I have yet to see some "proof" that it can't also be used to refer to the third person singular as a synonym for "he or she." Therefore, I consider "they" to be a pronoun with both a plural meaning and a singular meaning.
It obviously can be used in such a manner, but why create such ambiguity?
(1) Because the use of "they" as a synonym for "s/he" is old, I'm not creating a double meaning (plural &singular), just using an already existing one. Many words can have two meanings, even meanings in tension with each other ("sanction," anyone?), and that's not a crime.
(2) Who says it's "ambiguity"? "Everyone should do their own thing," for instance, is in no wise ambiguous. Most sentences where "they" is used as a synonym for "s/he" are perfectly clear.
The claim in most cases is just that there's something nonetheless wrong with it because it (a) violates some rule or (b) is a neologism or (c) commits the inherent sin of mismatching number. (And, as Eugene and/or I have said at one point or another, (a) why should I believe any claim that it's a rule?, (b) historical evidence proves it's no neologism, (c1) who cares about matching number?, and (c2) I deny that "they" is plural -- in other words, the claim that this mismatches number assumes the conclusion.)
I'm all in favor of getting rid of ambiguity, but let's limit this principle to, at most, actually ambiguous sentences.
But of course that also leaves the responses listed above: (a1) Why should I believe any claim that it's a rule?, and (b1) historical evidence proves it's no neologism.
We also have no problem with pronouns with two different functions, such as "who":
1) an interrogative pronoun ("Who are these people?")
2) a relative pronoun requiring a human antecedent ("The man who knew too much ...")
Based on how we actually speak, we native speakers have no problem with two meanings for "they", "their", etc.:
1) More than one other person, not including the speaker or listener ("That's
their loss.")
2) A pronoun referring back to an indefinite antecedent, singular or plural
("Everyone should turn off their phone" and "Any student who doesn't turn
off their phone ..."). The indefiniteness of the antecedent is crucial; native
speakers don't say these: *"John should turn off their phone." and *"The
woman over there, who didn't turn off their phone, ..."
The erroneous possessives I was referring to are those in which the apostrophe is placed before the "s" when it should come after it. For instance, making "Rogers" possessive by writing "Roger's." This particular example is from a book on George Washington by an author who won a Pulitzer prize. It wasn't a typo, as it occurs consistently; the author or editor seems to think this is how it's done. The same book also features many examples of "principle" used as an adjective, even in quoted materials, where the correct spelling must have been changed. This, too, is something I don't remember seeing in books published before this century.
More fundamentally, are you arguing that there are no new usages? Or that usages once rare don't sometimes become common (as with split infinitives in the nineteenth century)? Or that once a good writer has done something, it can't be considered new, even if its frequency increases?
Check out John McIntyre's blog (http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/news/mcintyre/blog/) for examples of bad copy editing (or perhaps none at all). McIntyre, a copy editor himself, seems to think things are slipping. I recently read a novel, published by a reputable publisher, in which the author described "a picture of she and her aunt" and consistently referred to mechanics as "machinists." This sort of thing seldom, if ever, happened fifty years ago.
(1) Let's assume that split infinitives did become new in the 19th century. (Eugene didn't know whether that was true, and neither do I. But I'll give it to you.) The 19th century was a Long Time Ago! So that would make this an Old Usage.
(2) Once a usage is attested somewhere, then even if its frequency increases, it's at the very least not a neologism. It's just an increase in frequency of an existing use. I suspect, by the way, that the use of singular "they" is not _only_ in Shakespeare (and not even first in Shakespeare), and, indeed, I don't see the particular need for having the "original" usage be in a "good" writer. If you can show it being done in various crappy writers, that, too, is enough to show that it was being used, so a later increase in usage is not a neologism.
Of course, there's more to life than neologisms -- and in fact I don't care whether any usage of mine is a neologism or not -- like whether it's clear, elegant, etc., but the point with quoting Shakespeare was merely to deny that it's a neologism, for anyone who might care.
This is just plain awkward, so we have tended to shift to using an informal, previously deprecated form, "they." We grew up saying it, were corrected by our English teachers for saying it, mostly got out of the habit of saying it, and have easily fallen back into that informal practice.
Languages aren't static. They evolve over time (as should be patently obvious to anyone who's read Shakespeare, Chaucer, etc.). While some may wish there were some overarching authority on whom we can rely to make these types of decisions, that's just not reality.
All of us who speak English decide where it's going to go, what forms it's going to take, what words mean. It doesn't matter if we like it or not, that's still the reality that I have finally come to accept.
Wow, that's an awful lot of words just to say, "Using 'they' is cool."
As to the frequency of new usages, I can't tell you what it is, but I'd be wary of impressionistic judgments of such frequency based on one's reading, however capacious that reading may have been. Among other things, when we're reading older works, we can run across lots of usages that were new at the time but that we can't identify as such -- modern innovations are more visible to us than older innovations.
“Do not allow yourself to be browbeaten by the feminists into writing barbarisms such as ‘Each of us should paddle their own canoe.’”
Thomas Gibbs Gee, A Few of Wisdom’s Idiosyncrasies and a Few of Ignorance’s: A Judicial Style Sheet, 1 Scribes J. Legal Writing 55, 60 (1990).
Why would anyone in their right mind prefer the former crowd to the latter?
How about because it's clearer and occasions less confusion? How about because it was considered standard, correct English usage until the leftist feminists decided its use was sexist?
If we're going to use a plural pronoun to refer to a singular antecedent, then what of the following example:
Eugene Volokh is a stern grader. One need search no further than last semester, when they posted their grades on the wall outside their office.
I'm not sure why Shakespeare's quote is significantly less grotesque. If "their" can refer to "a man," then methinks the group who posted "their grades" on the wall is you.
(1) As to your claim about unclarity and confusion: I agree that we should avoid these, but where, oh where, is the confusion? If you limited your claim to cases where this would actually be confusing, then fine -- I follow such a rule every day! -- but you don't. Of course it's fine to say that a rule is good overall (even if it doesn't reduce confusion in every case) because it reduces confusion over the run of cases in general. But where's the evidence for this? I personally doubt that it's true.
(2) As to your claim that "his" was considered standard until feminists: Eugene's quotes from Shakespeare and Thackeray suggest that "they" was also considered standard. I say "suggest" and not "prove" because two examples don't prove anything; but I suspect that, once we dig deeper (and I'm sure people have done this research), these two examples will in fact turn out to just scratch the surface. Sure, "his" was also considered standard. And sure, you can use "his" on purpose just to annoy feminists, if you like. But I doubt that "they" was non-standard for the last few centuries.
(3) As to your claim that the problem is "us[ing] a plural pronoun to refer to a singular antecedent," where's your evidence that "they" is plural? To me, this evidence suggests that "they" has both a plural meaning and a singular meaning. Therefore, even if mismatched numbers were wrong for some reason (and why should they be wrong anyway?), I deny that there's any mismatching of numbers. "Each person should do their own thing" is a singular pronoun with a singular antecedent.
(4) As to your reductio ad absurdum using "they" to refer to Eugene: No one has ever claimed that "they" can be used as an all-purpose singular pronoun to stand for "he" or "she" in every case. As David Smallberg noted in a comment above, "they" is used in two senses: (1) to refer to several people (not including the speaker), and (2) to refer to a single person (not the speaker) of indeterminate gender.
I agree that your Eugene example is wrong, because I doubt that you can find any usage -- either used by people today, or used historically by English speakers -- that would use "they" for a single antecedent of known gender.
I'll just quote David's comment here:
According to the OED, it appears we're both right:
"they, pers. pronoun"
1.
* * *
B. Signification. I. 1. a. As pronoun of the third person plural, nom. case; the plural of he, she, or it: The persons or things in question, or last mentioned.
* * *
2. Often used in reference to a singular noun made universal by every, any, no, etc., or applicable to one of either sex (= ‘he or she’).
See Jespersen Progress in Lang. §24.
It is, indeed, a plural pronoun, and it is used in reference to a singular noun.
Even if I were to concede its use in the "everyone, everybody, anyone" context, how would you explain this usage, which I saw recently in a small-town newspaper (although I've seen similar things in the big-city dailies):
"Dr. Stanton apparently forgot to lock the outside laboratory door before leaving last night. The doctor, it seems, also forgot their keys."
Precisely whose keys did Dr. Stanton forget? It turns out that the keys were not owned or controlled by a group. Rather, the keys were his, i.e., Dr. Stanton's. And because earlier in the story the doctor had been identified by both first and last names, it was quite clear he is male.
I'm sorry, but, to me, this is evidence of the political-correctness thought-police having run amok.
Nonetheless, I wouldn't say it's wrong merely on the OED's say-so. The OED -- even though it's venerable, and massive, and very useful, and has a lot of historical usages -- is still a limited work relative to the entire English language. It doesn't pretend to be an exhaustive listing of everything. No dictionary can ever hope to do that. So there's still the possibility that this is commonly used, but the OED didn't mention it.
I would be inclined to say that it's wrong, because most English speakers would recognize it as wrong.
But "Most unkindest" carries in it a general rule: if 'appears in Shakespeare' is a sign of proper grammar, then it ought to excuse "most funnest" (18,200 google hits), "most funniest" (258,000 hits), "most cheapest" (98,700), "most happiest" (90,400), and so on, all live usages (only a small minority of which are offered ironicly) that anyone with even the slightest tinge of prescriptivism would like to be able mark as incorrect...
"Used in Shakespeare" is not the be-all-and-end-all (possibly a Shakespeare invention!) of grammatical correctness. Rather, it negates the charge of being a neologism. Some stuff used in Shakespeare (e.g. "thou") is, however, now archaic, meaning that it's not commonly used by people today. This makes it not a neologism, but rather the opposite! In any event, it's incorrect because it's not commonly used today.
Using "they" to refer to a singular indefinite noun (1) appears in Shakespeare and (2) continues to be used regularly by people today. That makes it (1) not a neologism and (2) correct as a matter of modern English.
"Most unkindest" (1) appears in Shakespeare but (2') is not commonly used by people today. So I'd say that "most unkindest" is incorrect to say in modern English -- and I say this as a full descriptivist, because people don't commonly use it now. However, if someone did use it, it would be incorrect to criticize it on the grounds that it's a neologism.
However, if you were to show me that it's a common construction in certain dialects of English, I'd say it's a correct form of that dialect of English. If you were to show me that it's a common construction generally, that would make it correct.