Grammar is a contentious point. Some argue that it’s horrifyingly appalling that ANYONE would ever utter the words “I drive pretty good”. (This, of course, is because good is an adjective, good is modifying drive, which is a verb, and our forefathers fought and died so that verbs would never be subjugated by adjectives.) Some would even argue that you are a fool, an ill-educated ass, and a corner-dwelling dunce if you managed to emerge from your schooling without learning that periods are properly placed INSIDE of quotation marks.
I am not a member of these groups, and I’m fighting back. Grammar should not be articles of faith handed down to us from those on high who never split infinitives but always split hairs. Grammar should be rules that allow us to communicate more efficiently, clearly, and understandably. I’m not advocating the abolition of grammar, but rather its justification. I’m not quite sure what that will entail in the end, but I’m starting out by pointing out grammar rules that just don’t make sense, don’t work, or don’t have any justification. All I want is for our rules of grammar to be well-motivated.
If you have any thoughts on this, especially if you have grammar rules that need motivated, drop me a line. [motivatedgrammar gmail com]
And about me: I’m Gabe Doyle, a graduate student and doctoral candidate in Linguistics at the University of California, San Diego. I have a Bachelor’s degree in Mathematics from Princeton University and a Master’s in Linguistics from UCSD.
I’m a computational psycholinguist, which means that I use computers to model how people think about, understand, and use language. Some of my recent projects include looking at what influences people’s decisions about when to use needs to be done and when to use needs doing, the effect of relative pronoun choice on the ease of processing relative clauses, and how readers maintain uncertainty about what they have read in a sentence. I have also worked in the Computer Science and Electrical Engineering departments on joint models of text and image information, as well as topic models for large text corpora.
My dissertation work is a model of how infants use multiple sources of information to learn how to segment the language they hear around them into words. If you’d like to learn more about me or my research for some reason, head over to my website.
Motivated Grammar 
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October 19, 2008 at 8:44 am
HLB
Get on LinkedIn, dude. So folks can connect.
After all, life isn’t about who you know. It’s about who they know. And how they can help you achieve your purposes in this life.
HLB
Mt. Lebanon, PA
BTW: When I got out of the Navy, I headed back to San Diego. All of my friends, save one [another engineer], were at USD. Law students. They all owned a sailboat together. And when they weren’t sailing, scuba diving, having lobster roasts, and laughing about our Navy days sailing the seas, they went to class and wrote briefs. “Those were the days, my friend.”
February 21, 2009 at 2:03 pm
Boyd Brown
May I ask a question? What is the purpose of not splitting an infinitive? I read it is a rule from Latin and the author apparently saw nothing wrong with the splitting. The beginning of the original Star Trek series says “to go boldly forth … .” What’s the problem?
Thank you,
Boyd
February 26, 2009 at 9:49 am
Emily Schleier
Hello!
My name is Emily Schleier and I’m the Assistant Editor for a new media start-up publication titled The Printed Blog. You can download our latest issues at http://www.theprintedblog.com.
The Printed Blog is exactly that – a printed news publication with 100% of its content pulled from blogs and other user generated content. We are a new model of print publication based out of Chicago that has taken on the challenge of reviving the newspaper industry and turning in to a more community-based, interactive and user-generated medium. .
There are many advantages to our approach at forming a new type of newspaper. First and foremost, all of our content is taken from the internet and then put through an editorial process so that we’re sure our readers are only getting the best of the best when it comes to blogs, photos, music, events, etc.
With this being said, we think that your blog falls under the “best of the best” category and would feel extremely privileged if we were able to take articles from it to include in our publication. High profile blogs such as, Mashable, Daily Kos, The Bloggess, American Express and Bastard Life are all on The Printed Blog team!
All of the content that we use from the web is also completely accredited to the author and blog that it originated from, so this would be a great way to gain some exposure and bring traffic to your site.
The Printed Blog has been the point of discussion amongst many journalists and media representatives from all around the WORLD. We have been featured in many of the world’s leading publications such as The New York Times, The Chicago Tribune, Business Week, Wired magazine, as well as publications in France, Spain, Brazil, Egypt and many more!
We are currently working on our sixth issue that is set to be distributed in San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York and Chicago on Tuesday, March 3rd.
We’d love to add you to our list of blogs to pull content from in hopes to print one of your posts in an upcoming issue. Do we have your permission? We would also like to have the option of printing the images that accompany your blog posts- do you have the rights to these images? I look forward to hearing back from you and please don’t hesitate to contact me with any questions. You can follow our progress on Facebook, MySpace and Twitter!
All the best,
Emily Schleier
Assistant Editor
The Printed Blog
319.795.2117
October 5, 2009 at 5:50 pm
Richard Tibbitts
Dear Mr. Doyle –
Although you present yourself as an authority on the subject (though modestly, which shows restraint), there are a couple of grammatical errors in your About section which I would like to point out.
To begin with, it would appear that you have fallen victim to the disturbing trend of unnecessary hyphenation, to wit:
“All I want is for our rules of grammar to be well-motivated.”
That’s certainly commendable, as I think most people who are interested in language would like that as well. However, unless the rules of grammar have changed since I went to school, there is absolutely no need for a hyphen to be inserted between an adverb and the adjective it modifies. One could, of course, speak of “well-motivated rules of grammar,” but in that case, the construction “well-motivated” is functioning as an adjective. When those words stand alone, as they do in the statement I quoted above, then different rules apply. In other words, in that example, the hyphen is redundant.
Another mistake in that section involves the following sentence:
“If you have any thoughts on this, especially if you have grammar rules that need motivated, drop me a line.”
I assume you meant “need motivation,” or “need [to be] motivated,” but either way, a little proofreading goes a long way, especially considering that the usage of language is the subject of this blog.
Sincerely,
Richard Tibbitts
October 6, 2009 at 8:43 am
Gabe
Richard: I appreciate your calling these points to my attention; however, they are not errors. Regarding “well-motivated”, I have a distinct dispreference for “well motivated” in this situation; my intuition backed up by the Oxford English Dictionary, which notes on the topic of adjective phrases well-X that “In attributive use the participial formations are properly hyphened, and the hyphen is also frequently employed even when the construction is predicative.” This is a predicative usage, and so I stand by the hyphen. (Redundancy is not a sufficient reason for me to omit something; “I know you went to the doctor” is often worse than “I know THAT you went to the doctor”.) Regarding “need motivated”, this is also an intentional usage, an homage to my Pittsburghian roots, where such usages are actually the standard. Should I perhaps lose it lest I lose face when someone reads the page and mistakes it for a mistake? An argument could be made for this course of action, but I feel no need to listen to it.
January 2, 2010 at 4:50 pm
Evan Harkins
Gabe, I am with you. I am currently a 4th year philosophy major with an emphasis in ethics at UCSB. I believe that much of grammar as it is not only isn’t justified, but rather the converse is true. Much of grammar is false and fake, a forcing of acting onto others. I would like to arm you with several arguments I have developed to this end(as well as promote my anti-prescriptivist facebook group).
Prescriptive grammar runs contrary to justice! This is because the prescriptive grammar usually reflects that segment of society which just happens to be better off. Those born into rich households are much more likely to learn “Standard” English than those born in the ghettos of large cities. As “Standard” English is often a stringent requirement for advancement in life, those who are worst off are required to overcome an additional burden, the burden of losing, or learning to turn off, their dialect. This burden is in direct contradiction of Rawls’ conception of justice, where a society is just in that the worst of slice is the best off. A good example of this is the movie musical “My Fair Lady”
I would also propose that language exists to serve a human purpose. This purpose is communication. As such any rule which when disregarded does not cause people to fundamentally misunderstand each other is unneccessary and a prescription of behavior upon others. I attempt to state this in what I term the “Good Grammar Rule Principle”:
GGRP: A rule of grammar is necessary if and only if, its disregard would cause people to fundamentally misunderstand each other.
I find it funny that prescriptives are attempting to use the Oxford English Dictionary, which considers itself only descriptive of people. Dictionaries in other words do not contain the true version of our language, they rather are a human attempt to describe how we speak! A rather important task, but not a task which gives us grounds to dictate how others may speak or write.
January 3, 2010 at 6:32 pm
Motivated Grammar | The Metropolis Times
[…] The About Page: “Grammar should be rules that allow us to communicate more efficiently, clearly, and […]
January 11, 2010 at 4:00 am
Stutz
I have a topic I’d love you to cover: the devolution of common phrases into idioms that no longer make logical sense. The examples I’m thinking of are “I couldn’t care less” becoming “I could care less” (which, logically speaking, means that you do care some; the intended meaning thus is nearly the opposite of the logical meaning) and “at a loss for words” being misunderstood as “lost for words” (to be “lost for” anything is nonsensical, whereas the phrase “to be at a loss” is at least common and sensible in many other situations). Not trying to be prescriptivist here, but I do cringe at common sayings and phrases being simply misheard and misunderstood by lazy speakers. Love to get your take and a few more examples.
March 3, 2010 at 11:53 am
Gin and Commas « Rabbit Hearts
[…] I’d never be able to as elegantly explain why the comma is golden as this fellow, Gabe at Motivated Grammar, has done. I don’t know who he is or what he looks like, but I am fairly sure I love him. His […]
March 25, 2010 at 5:30 am
James Gorman
Hi Gabe, regarding your comment, “Regarding “need motivated”, this is also an intentional usage, an homage to my Pittsburghian roots, where such usages are actually the standard.” I’ve never been to Pittsburgh so forgive me when I say that this usage is non-standard in the various cities I HAVE been in. I also saw this and thought it a simply typo (omission of “to be”). Now your defense of the usage when addressing folks outside the streets of Pittsburgh is odd. Why not qualify it with something like “as we say in Pittsburgh”? Still, I have no idea what the phrase is supposed to mean or why it is thus constructed.
Regarding your other objections to the prescriptivists, you are raising issues that have been long ago dealt with. Split infinitives are standard as long as there are not too many words between the “to” and the verb. The objection to ending sentences with prepositions is long dead and most grammar experts these days affirm the practice as standard. Putting the period inside the quote is an American (US) convention; it’s not standard around the English speaking world. Neither is it a law handed down from on high.
Jim
March 27, 2010 at 7:09 am
Vance
James, the pattern is indeed (by comparison with standard English) the omission of “to be”, as in “needs done”. And Gabe did clearly mark it as a Pittsburgh(ish) usage.
As for why: if you mean, why did Gabe do that, he said it was an homage. But if you mean, why does that pattern exist, there doesn’t have to be a why.
Finally, your second paragraph is firm but unsourced. Prescriptivists have really reached that consensus? Did we miss a memo?
April 5, 2010 at 1:01 pm
Vance
Gabe, I don’t know whether you take requests; but here’s a question. In the first lines of the story “The Depressed Person”, David Foster Wallace uses the word “utterness” (in a context where e.g. “completeness” would make sense). I took this to be a deliberately unusual, artificial usage (indeed if you search for it in Google Books you find that story, then a placename in a William Morris romance).
But it made me wonder about “utter” — which dictionaries often classify as an adjective, but which in several respects doesn’t behave like one. For example, “That’s offensive nonsense” and “That’s utter nonsense” are OK; but while “That nonsense is offensive” works, “That nonsense is utter” earns a big asterisk. The near-synonym “sheer” has almost the same property, except that of course we can say “That fabric is sheer”. What’s going on? Should we understand this as an idiomatic usage that’s restricted to a certain word-order?
April 5, 2010 at 1:12 pm
Vance
Huh, the factoid about Google Books search turns out to be wrong. Never mind (and I wonder what I did instead to get that result).
April 8, 2010 at 2:22 pm
Martha Hart
Hi Gabe,
Love the attitude that language is alive – especially English with its kitchen-sink heritage of words and (especially) The Great Vowel Shift, woo hoo. I’m a writer in undergrad admissions at UCSD, so my target audience is about, oh, 16 years old. I’m always trying to get a less-archaic voice to the brochures and letters and scripts and webpages I’m involved with – usually a losing battle, but wtf, someone has to fight it.
I know the rules more than enough to know when and how to bend or break for effect, style, or impact – nice to see someone else who does, too.
Ciao,
June 15, 2010 at 9:16 am
David
Gabe,
Usage for effect is one thing, but common usage of the “need motivated” dropping of “to be” is interesting all by itself. Professor Higgins suggests that a person’s origins can be surmised by listening to their unique forms of speech.
I have run into this particular omission fairly frequently – frequently enough that I wonder if someone is actually teaching it somewhere. I have heard “needs fixed”, “needs scheduled” and “needs updated” as well. It seems to be [oh, there I go again!] most common with “need(s)”, but I have heard it other ways.
I still haven’t figured out where these people are from (oops), but you provide a good starting point with Pittsburgh. There seem to be quite a few in Ohio as well.
Thanks for bringing this one up!
David
btw – the Oxford comma thing is a bit strange and misguided, but I, too, love the fact that knowledge of correct grammar makes intentional misuse for effect that much more pleasing…
June 15, 2010 at 9:22 am
David
Oh, and just one more thing: my experience with this omission of “to be” after “need” or “needs” has been mostly isolated to people in a particular age group who also happen to routinely respond to “Thank You!” by saying, “No problem…” rather than “You’re welcome!” (not sure where to put the exclamation point anymore… Please let me know if it needs moved.)
June 15, 2010 at 1:04 pm
Gabe
David: The answer you are looking for is in a series of three papers, the top three in a Google Scholar search for “murray simon frazer” ( see this link: http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=murray%20simon%20frazer&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&hl=en&tab=ws ) Thomas Murray, Beth Lee Simon, and Timothy Frazer are the ones who worked on this.
There are at least three common verbs where the to-be omission is possible: “need”, “want”, and “like”. (In my idiolect, “could use” also works.) There is a hierarchy to it, where if you are okay with “likes fed”, you’re also okay with “wants fed”, and if you’re okay with “wants fed”, you’re also okay with “needs fed”. If I remember correctly, the range of this construction is through the Midlands (Pittsburgh to St. Louis), Great Plains, and Appalachia, but not along the Great Lakes. It is spread approximately equally throughout age groups and social classes within those regions.
Hope that helps!
October 8, 2010 at 2:24 pm
Denise
When I started dating a guy who grew up all over the U.S. (but whose parents are from eastern Ohio), I noticed the strangest trend in their speaking: they would leave out the “to be” when I thought it was necessary and it drove me nuts. Thus, I really appreciate this discussion!
He says things like “the floor needs swept,” and “the car needs washed.” As a native Minnesotan, I’m used to saying things like “I want the table cleared” but now I understand why my dropping of the “to be” sounds fine to me but his sounds wrong.
November 19, 2010 at 5:40 pm
Pearl
Hello! I came upon this page when your entry on facebook’s “unlike” was featured on the wordpress front page. How funny that you attend UCSD – I do, as well!
Hope to read more of your posts!
Pearl
November 20, 2010 at 12:55 pm
Ian Webster
“…who never split infinitives but always split hairs.”
Ah, to have thought of that phrase first……
January 12, 2011 at 12:40 pm
Xamuel
“There are at least three common verbs where the to-be omission is possible: “need”, “want”, and “like””
Another one is “seem”, and it’s interesting because it apparently transcends idiolect: everybody everywhere would agree that “It seems finished” and “It seems to be finished” mean the same and are both valid. At least, that’s my opinion…
Here’s my article on the subject: http://www.xamuel.com/it-needs-fixed/
May 9, 2011 at 3:38 pm
Joanne
I think that because we live in a world where texting is the norm, that text talk tends to slip into everyday life. It is important to educate children about spelling and grammar even more so now than ever before.
November 1, 2011 at 8:39 am
Dave Blaine
Gabe, your material on the website is interesting and informative. Thank you for posting. I’m getting a lot out of reading the columns and the comments.
February 13, 2012 at 1:43 pm
Mr. Teflon
Xamuel – I havent worked through the grammatical rules; but to me, “It seems finished” seems Ok as it describes a state of being. “It needs finished,” on the other hand, drives my ear crazy; to me it omits a necessary part of a verb. The commenter above who referenced Pittsburgh to St, Louis gives me comfort, as I have heard the missing “to be” from Philly to Kansas. I’ve seen confliting websites, including posts by a colleg professor who insists its’ correct, and s/o who advises it’s correct Scottish construction. Perhaps I need corrected …
July 9, 2012 at 9:38 pm
gelolopez
I found this blog after my boss called me for using “some sort of” and she said that it is ungrammatical. Read your about and I agree with you. Although I am quick to judge against people with bad grammar, it is good to see that someone is out there providing justification of these rules. Admit it, grammar rules are intimidating and they frequently terrorized me from school up until today.
I am looking forward in reading your articles. thanks.
August 16, 2012 at 5:04 am
Ryan Potter
Gabe, I’m an author and blog about writing, books, music, and film over at NotSoMainstream.com. Just found your blog and love it. Very informative and entertaining. Also, I think the famous author Elmore Leonard would be a fan. One of his writing rules is “If proper usage gets in the way, it may have to go. I can’t allow what we learned in English composition to disrupt the sound and rhythm of the narrative.”
March 6, 2013 at 2:49 pm
Rachel
I just happened to find this blog, and am I ever glad I did. I’ve long been pounced upon by grammar bullies for usages they consider to be “incorrect” or “substandard,” and I now have some ammunition with which to defend myself. I can’t say I’m a diehard prescriptivist, nor can I say I’m fully descriptivist either. I do think there should be (or is that “ought to be?”) rules, but there should be/ought to be a certain amount of flexibility.=)
Since I have no place else to post these questions, I’d like to ask the following here:
1. What is your opinion of “It’s me” instead of “It is I”? I feel the latter is far too rigid and laughably formal in everyday situations, the equivalent of wearing a dinner jacket to McDonald’s. But try telling that to a prescriptivist.
2. Does the persistent use of “use to” rather than “used to” bother you as much as it does me? I can’t read the sentence “I use to live there” without clenching my jaw.
May 6, 2013 at 3:41 pm
Marco
Language is a living thing; always changing, always adapting.
I have been trying to find an email to contact you but only found a tweeter account.
I have so many questions and almost no answer to them. I was shocked when I realized that English doesn’t have a Real Academy to rule the language as Spanish does, so is either Cambridge or Oxford who will dictate the changes.
Would you mind to explain why the second singular and plural persons conjugate the verbs the same way?
I have searched for an answer to this question everywhere but none of them have satisfied my curiosity.
I guessed the reason why some people in the USA conjugate the singular as you is but it has to be a more logical reason for it.
Well, I will really appreciate if you write about this topic, I have plenty of more questions that won’t make sense to a Spanish speaking guy like me.
Thanks in advance and kudos for such a great blog.
September 24, 2013 at 10:16 am
John Lawler
Anyone interested in real English rules is welcome to read or download Haj Ross’s latest list of the top 200+ English syntax rules at
Click to access Preliminarybufattenedlistoftransformations.pdf
December 21, 2013 at 5:42 pm
joyinthearts
Your email address, listed above, only gets a “not recognized as a valid email” from Gmail when I tried to email you. Can you please list a valid contact email. Thank you.
JMS
August 22, 2014 at 6:03 pm
Silverspoon
Love what I’m reading! I, too, was taught to know the rules and know when to break them!
Language evolution is something I’m very interested in. I think of how we’ve looked back at, say, Middle English. And, comparatively, how others will look back with wonder and say, “They spelled ‘you’ with 3 letters, not ‘u’? What a waste!”
September 25, 2014 at 11:55 am
Susan
But Gabe, you’re from Pittsburgh (or someone who raised you and taught you to speak was), you would say “Needs done.” :-)