Founding Grammars (24 page)

Hale's voice is clearest in a section called “The Editor's Table.” Here she offers opinion pieces and discussions of current events, focusing especially on women's place in society. Although Hale championed women's education—she was instrumental in the founding of Vassar, the first women's college—and argued for women as teachers and health care providers, she firmly opposed the organized women's movement of the time. Instead she believed that women should wield their influence as the moral and cultural arbiters of the home. Through her columns she gently shepherded
Lady's Book
readers toward high principles, appropriate behavior, and refined taste.

Hale's advice often covered language use. In her 1866 etiquette book,
Manners: Or, Happy Homes and Good Society All the Year Round,
she explains the importance of understanding the “true meaning” of everyday words. Although a knowledge of words is not enough in itself to guarantee clear thought processes, she believes that “the study of correctness is a great help to mental activity.” Furthermore, “as women are the first teachers of every human being, it follows that women must be well instructed in their own language.” Later in the book, she underlines the importance of correct language use, saying, “Words are things of mighty influence. The manner of speech indicates the habit of mind.”
37

Hale shared some of the same concerns as White and other language arbiters. One issue that offended all of them was the increasing use of
male
and
female
to refer to human beings. While indiscriminate use of
lady
and
gentleman
put people on an artificially equal footing, referring to them as males and females went to the opposite extreme. It seemed to bring people down to the same level as animals. White says of
female,
“The use of this word for
woman
is one of the most unpleasant and inexcusable of the common perversions of language.” Mathews also remarks disapprovingly on this so-called “modern improvement” in speech, insisting that
woman
is a “more elegant and more distinctive title” than
female.
38

Hale heartily agrees. The expanded use of
male
and
female
that has crept into English has “injured its precision, weakened its power, and fatally corrupted its delicacy,” she writes in an article titled “Grammatical Errors.” She repeats this criticism in her etiquette book, saying “The practice of using the term ‘female' as a synonym for ‘woman' is vulgarizing our style of writing and our mode of speech.” She says she has been writing against this “serious error” for years in the hopes of correcting it.
39

On other points, Hale and the verbal critics part ways. Although she warns her readers to avoid using fancy words that they don't completely understand, she disagrees with White's strictures against vocabulary derived from Latin. She notes that Mr. White denounces
initiate
as a long, pretentious word for
begin,
but argues that the two terms provide different shades of meaning. She points out that English is full of word pairs such as
fatherly
and
paternal
or
ripe
and
mature,
with broadly similar but not exactly synonymous connotations. In general, she says, “Anglo-Saxon gives vigor … and Latin adds learning.” “Fastidious scholars” might choose to limit themselves to simple Anglo-Saxon words, while “self-taught writers” might be tempted to search out the most elaborate terms, but the best writer is the one who “has the largest stock of words at his command, and knows how to use them accurately.”
40

Hale also takes a stand in favor of euphemisms. “There are many colloquial expressions, used by the best writers and speakers,” she says, “which do not accord with the strict laws of etymology or grammar, but which it would be highly unjust to term underbred.” She defends words that White stigmatizes as inaccurate or affected. She believes, for example, that the new meaning of
obnoxious
is acceptable because it is less harsh than saying that someone is offensive. She also approves of
persuasion
for
sect, avocation
for
employment,
and
party
for
person.
Their use “proceeds from a sentiment which is the very essence of good breeding—the desire to spare the feelings of others.” In Hale's view, courtesy encompassed knowing how to choose the right euphemism when one was called for.

Although concerned with delicacy and tact, she was broader minded than White when it came to accepting useful new words. In an essay titled “Words under Ban” she defends
reliable, donate,
and several other terms that White rejects. She concludes, “The language cannot afford to lose any word, however uncouth, which expresses an idea.”
41

Hale was especially firm in defending terms that had been feminized with the
–ess
ending, such as
authoress, editress, poetess,
and
actress.
The verbal critics felt that these forms crossed the line into overrefinement. White calls the words distasteful, although he admits that
mistress, prioress, deaconess,
and similar terms are well established and therefore
–ess
words generally should probably be allowed into the vocabulary. Gould reacts more strongly, calling them “spurious words.” He, too, recognizes the need for traditional feminine titles like
princess, baroness,
and
countess,
as well as feminine forms of words “suggestive of men”—priest, ambassador, governor, hunter—but otherwise thinks the ending is superfluous. Hale saw feminized labels differently. To her they expressed respect for a woman's unique cultural position. “Why should the cumbrous paraphrase,
female author,
be used,” she asks, “when
authoress
would more properly and elegantly express the meaning?”
42

As the guiding spirit of American women's favorite magazine, Hale wielded enormous influence. She used it partly to reinforce the notion that correct language use was a moral virtue. Women who wanted to appear well bred took care to sidestep the twin faults of vulgarity and ostentation, and to keep their language free from grammatical errors.

*   *   *

Although the verbal critics were dismissive of formal grammar study, it remained as relevant as ever for most people. Spurred on by the critiques of White and others, educators debated whether grammar should continue to be taught—a few advanced school districts even deleted it from the curriculum—but the grammar-book-using public was largely unaware of any controversy. Most children still studied grammar in school and adults consulted grammar books at home, just as they'd always done.

Etiquette books—a burgeoning form of literature aimed at the rising middle class—always included a section on proper speech. A typical example,
American Etiquette and Rules of Politeness,
advises, “To use correct language in conversation is another matter of very great importance. It is exceedingly unpleasant to hear the English language butchered by bad grammar.” The author goes on to recommend simplicity and purity in speech. Echoing the verbal critics, he says, “It is the uneducated and those who are only half-educated that use long words and high-sounding phrases.” Vulgarisms and slang—like
good gracious
and
immensely jolly
—should likewise be avoided.
43

The verbal critics themselves felt the necessity to touch on grammar at least briefly in their books. Besides the issues that White addresses, like incorrect use of
shall,
the critics were especially bothered by the kinds of mistakes that arise from trying too hard to be correct. They pointed out, for instance, the use of
whom
as an embedded subject, as in
I don't know whom else is expected,
and the appearance of nominative pronouns after a verb or preposition, as in
It's pointless for you and I to quarrel.

These usages were not new. Early grammar book authors occasionally note them, along with examples of their appearance in Shakespeare, Milton, or the Bible. Murray discusses the incorrect use of nominative pronouns and
whom.
Frequently, however, eighteenth-century grammarians either didn't discuss these issues at all or limited them to a footnote. Presumably, most grammarians of that time didn't consider them serious errors. That attitude was now beginning to change. “Split” infinitives, which were not a concern for eighteenth-century grammar book writers, also began to draw attention. By the turn of the twentieth century inserting an adverb between
to
and a verb would emerge as a full-blown grammatical outrage.

Grammar teaching had also changed since the early days. New grammar books in the 1870s were designed to elicit the principles of grammar naturally rather than asking students to memorize the rules. William Swinton's popular
New Language Lessons
is an example of this approach to grammar teaching. The author explains in his preface that his object is to help children acquire good grammar by “practice and habit” rather than the study of rules and definitions. He tells teachers, “the bristling array of classifications, nomenclatures, and paradigms has been wholly discarded.” Pupils are encouraged to “deal with speech” and “handle sentences” so they can see correct grammar in action.
44

Yet Murray cast a long shadow. Swinton's students may have started out traveling a different path from those long-ago children who memorized Murray's
English Grammar,
but in the end they arrived at the same place. The book's first section, “Classes of Words,” begins with a list of sentences in which the nouns are italicized. The sentences are followed by analysis—“The word ‘Columbus' is the name of a person; the word ‘America' is the name of a place;” and so on, until all the nouns have been identified. After the analysis comes the explanation—“Words that are used as names of persons, places, things, actions, or qualities … are called nouns.” These familiar words are followed by a definition that reaches even further into the past. Swinton's “A noun is the name of anything existing or conceived by the mind” closely paraphrases Murray's (originally Lowth's) “a noun is the name of any thing conceived to subsist, or of which we have any notion.”
45

A Practical Grammar of the English Language
by Thomas Harvey, first published in 1868, is more conventional than Swinton. Harvey divides his book into the time-honored four sections of orthography, etymology, syntax, and prosody. Although many definitions are modernized, the usual parts of speech make their appearance, along with the typical verb conjugations, parsing exercises, and examples of false syntax.

Harvey includes all the standard usage rules as well. “Avoid the use of two negatives to express negative,” he tells students, and “a noun or pronoun, used as the predicate of a proposition, is in the nominative case.”
It is me
is just as wrong as it was in the days of Murray. So are sentence-final prepositions. Harvey warns, “Such expressions as ‘Whom are you talking to?' are inelegant, if not ungrammatical.” More recent concerns also make an appearance. The author explains in detail the rules for using
shall
and
will,
and includes the ban on separating
to
from the infinitive verb.
46

Gone are the literary examples of grammar mistakes, the improving fables, and the biblical excerpts. Otherwise,
A Practical Grammar
could easily have found a place in Noah Webster's first schoolroom. Yet the last edition of Harvey's book appeared in 1906. More than 130 years after Lowth's
Short Introduction to English Grammar
arrived on American shores, grammar students were still ingesting Lowth's rules with very few changes.

By the late 1870s the ideal of educated word use was well entrenched. At the same time, grammar rules remained as firmly fixed as ever, at least in most classrooms. Newspapers and magazines featured regular columns on proper speech and linguistic advice books continued to sell well. That included traditional grammar books. Although their format had evolved over the years, their basic message remained the same—educated people followed the rules.

Verbal purists had not yet won the day, however. They were beginning to come under attack from a new direction—the expanding field of linguistic science. Armed with new discoveries and up-to-date methods, practitioners in this field were exploring English usage from a whole new perspective. Their conclusions were significantly different from those of White and his fellow critics. As serious academic scholars, the linguists considered themselves professionals, while they saw the verbal critics as ignorant amateurs. The two groups were headed for an explosive collision.

 

6.

The Science of Grammar

The title of Richard Grant White's June 1871
Galaxy
article—“Words and Their Uses: The Author's Humble Apology for Having Written His Book”—must have startled his regular readers. A quick scan of the first paragraph, however, would have reassured them. The “apology” was actually a determined defense of his work. White seldom needed to take such a step. As he explains in the article, his book has provoked much “intelligent and decided” discussion, nearly all of it positive. A glaring exception has recently come to his notice—a series of hostile articles that appeared in the Yale
College Courant
from November 19, 1870, through January 28, 1871.