Grammar, Philosophy, and Logic by Bruce Silver

Author:Bruce Silver
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Springer International Publishing, Cham

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That this retreat from expert advice might occur is not diminished if a traditionalist reminds us that the unfortunate peculiarity of very good grammar , as well as diction , is that most of us rarely conform to its stringent demands. The traditionalist might note, as we already have, that no one any longer says or reads a sentence such as “The gold and diamond necklace depends beautifully from her neck.” He can correctly maintain that the sentence is rare but grammatical. He might add that although the sentence is grammatical, it is not regarded as desirable just because we do no longer use “depends” in its original acceptation.

This observation is directed to anyone who wishes to know how we can employ an ordinary word such as “depends” and thereby turn a common sentence into one that is uncommon, dated, and precious. Building a conventional or idiosyncratic vocabulary in which “depends” works as well and as often as “hangs” is not helpful in developing writing skills or in developing a writing style that attracts readers and critics. Using common words and phrases in uncommon ways works better when for some reason we try purposefully to construct a strange or recondite sentence. Non-fiction authors rarely employ strange sentences or dated constructions to develop their narratives. Authors need not always write such a sentence by finding a place for words such as “panjandrum,” “anagnoresis,” “apopemptic,” “homoeoteleuton,” and “phrontistery,” and Pinker writes, “You can probably do without maieutic, propaedeutic, and subdoxastic.”30

Berkeley goes further than Pinker and worries that too much attention to words, especially to words that are supposed to designate abstract ideas, turns thinking and understanding from things that deserve our attention and that provide our intellectual enrichment. Implicit in his indictment of the preoccupation with words is that arguments about good grammar and stylish writing are far less important than turning from words and their use or misuse to things and to ideas. “It were, therefore, to be wished that everyone would use his utmost endeavors to obtain a clear view of the ideas he would consider, separating from them all that dress and encumbrance of words which so much contribute to blind the judgments and divide the attention.”31 Here Berkeley anticipates the attitudes of many philosophers who, like J.L. Austin , worry that we are duped by some words into making nonsensical claims.We very often also use utterances in ways beyond the scope of at least traditional grammar . It has come to be seen that many specially perplexing words embedded in apparently descriptive sentences do not serve the indicate some specially odd additional feature in the reality reported, but to indicate (not to report) the circumstances in which the statement is made or reservations to which it is subject or the way in which it is to be taken and the like.32

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