In which writer Barry Carozzi laments the sharp decline in correct grammar usage.
Remember the old Monty Python song called ‘Worried’? It includes:
I’m so worried about my hair falling out.
And the state of the world today
I’m so worried about my hair falling out.
And the state of the world today
Well – me too! Not so much about my air falling out. But I’m certainly worried about the ‘state of the world’ today – very worried. Everywhere it seems to be the way Yeats described:
Things fall apart, the center will not hold
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.
And nowhere is that more apparent than in the use of language.
Now I know what they say: ‘When you start saying things like “It wasn’t like this in MY day” or “The young people of today …” – it means that you are getting old, that you’re becoming a curmudgeon!
Well, that may be true. However I can’t just stand idly by while our language is ripped to shreds, trampled in the dust and spat upon by linguistic barbarians.
That’s why I have decided to do my best to turn this tide of illiteracy, and to challenge my readers to put yourselves through the following test of your grammatical knowledge. I hope both of you do well.
Complete the test below, and then check your answers against the correct answers that I’ve provided. Don’t cheat.
Grammar Test
Here is a chance to check out what you already understand about grammar:
Things fall apart, the center will not hold
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.
And nowhere is that more apparent than in the use of language.
Now I know what they say: ‘When you start saying things like “It wasn’t like this in MY day” or “The young people of today …” – it means that you are getting old, that you’re becoming a curmudgeon!
Well, that may be true. However I can’t just stand idly by while our language is ripped to shreds, trampled in the dust and spat upon by linguistic barbarians.
That’s why I have decided to do my best to turn this tide of illiteracy, and to challenge my readers to put yourselves through the following test of your grammatical knowledge. I hope both of you do well.
Complete the test below, and then check your answers against the correct answers that I’ve provided. Don’t cheat.
Grammar Test
Here is a chance to check out what you already understand about grammar:
1. Grammar is an old lady. T F
2. An adjective is:
A an insult
B a word that refers to some aspect of a thing
C a goal or aim
D a person who adjects
3. Is there anything wrong with the following sentence? If so, what:
B a word that refers to some aspect of a thing
C a goal or aim
D a person who adjects
3. Is there anything wrong with the following sentence? If so, what:
He wented to the shops to buy some milk..
4. What is wrong with the following sentence:
He completed his work quick.
5. Which of the following sentences is correct:
A The yolk of an egg is white.
B The yolk of an egg are white.
6. Is there anything you think is incorrect in the following sentence?
75 out of every 100 people who study grammar find it boring.
7. Would you want to change the following sentence in any way? If so, how?
I wondered lonely as a cloud.
8. Which of the following contains a simile?
A. I wondered lonely as a cloud. Y N
B. I am as parched as a parrot. Y N
C. Parched parrot rarely sing. Y N
D. He stormed into the room. Y N
E. She rarely laughs when the going gets tough. Y N
9. Can you see anything wrong with this sentence?
Personally, I myself can see nothing wrong with this sentence.
10. And what about this one?
Speeding along the road at least 80 km an hour, I was nearly run down a hoon, and had to step back on to the kerb.
11. Fewer people these days are making less and less money that they did in the past.
Are there any problems here?
12. What word is used to refer to the following kinds of statements?
There’s many a slip twixt the cup and the lip.
Rolling stones gather no moss.
A rich man is everybody’s friend.
13. Does anything need to be done to this sentence?
If I was the Queen, I’d soon pull the Royal brats into line.
14. Anything to correct here?
Whilst you have dinner the tour guide will set out blankets in a good position.
15. From a report on cricket in a local newspaper. Any problems you can see?
Let it be known right now - if Hastings avoids relegation this season, it will be thereabouts in this division again in 2004.
16. The boy showed us his tickets someone gave them to him.
Anything wrong here?
17. At an early age his parents sent him to a preparatory school and this was followed by him attending Harrow School.
Anything wrong here?
18. In 1912, the passenger liner Titanic was struck by an iceberg on its maiden voyage across the Atlantic Ocean.
Anything wrong here?
19. The beer will be marketed to over one million of the migrants now living in the United States in 12-ounce bottles, 24 to the case.
Anything wrong here?
20. And finally, bring your critical eye to bear on the following sentence. Anything wrong here?
The move from a structuralist account in which capital is understood to structure social relations in relatively homologous ways to a view of hegemony in which power relations are subject to repetition, convergence, and rearticulation brought the question of temporality into the thinking of structure, and marked a shift from a form of Althusserian theory that takes structural totalities as theoretical objects to one in which the insights into the contingent possibility of structure inaugurate a renewed conception of hegemony as bound up with the contingent sites and strategies of the rearticulation of power.
4. What is wrong with the following sentence:
He completed his work quick.
5. Which of the following sentences is correct:
A The yolk of an egg is white.
B The yolk of an egg are white.
6. Is there anything you think is incorrect in the following sentence?
75 out of every 100 people who study grammar find it boring.
7. Would you want to change the following sentence in any way? If so, how?
I wondered lonely as a cloud.
8. Which of the following contains a simile?
A. I wondered lonely as a cloud. Y N
B. I am as parched as a parrot. Y N
C. Parched parrot rarely sing. Y N
D. He stormed into the room. Y N
E. She rarely laughs when the going gets tough. Y N
9. Can you see anything wrong with this sentence?
Personally, I myself can see nothing wrong with this sentence.
10. And what about this one?
Speeding along the road at least 80 km an hour, I was nearly run down a hoon, and had to step back on to the kerb.
11. Fewer people these days are making less and less money that they did in the past.
Are there any problems here?
12. What word is used to refer to the following kinds of statements?
There’s many a slip twixt the cup and the lip.
Rolling stones gather no moss.
A rich man is everybody’s friend.
13. Does anything need to be done to this sentence?
If I was the Queen, I’d soon pull the Royal brats into line.
14. Anything to correct here?
Whilst you have dinner the tour guide will set out blankets in a good position.
15. From a report on cricket in a local newspaper. Any problems you can see?
Let it be known right now - if Hastings avoids relegation this season, it will be thereabouts in this division again in 2004.
16. The boy showed us his tickets someone gave them to him.
Anything wrong here?
17. At an early age his parents sent him to a preparatory school and this was followed by him attending Harrow School.
Anything wrong here?
18. In 1912, the passenger liner Titanic was struck by an iceberg on its maiden voyage across the Atlantic Ocean.
Anything wrong here?
19. The beer will be marketed to over one million of the migrants now living in the United States in 12-ounce bottles, 24 to the case.
Anything wrong here?
20. And finally, bring your critical eye to bear on the following sentence. Anything wrong here?
The move from a structuralist account in which capital is understood to structure social relations in relatively homologous ways to a view of hegemony in which power relations are subject to repetition, convergence, and rearticulation brought the question of temporality into the thinking of structure, and marked a shift from a form of Althusserian theory that takes structural totalities as theoretical objects to one in which the insights into the contingent possibility of structure inaugurate a renewed conception of hegemony as bound up with the contingent sites and strategies of the rearticulation of power.
And here are the answers
Here is a chance to check out what you already understand about grammar:
1. Grammar is an old lady. TRUE FALSE
If your answer was ‘TRUE’, either:
A. There is no hope for you. You are doomed to a life of illiteracy.
B. You are treating this TEST as a joke.
C. Your pen slipped.
D. The dog ate your homework.
The CORRECT answer is FALSE.
Grandma is an old lady.
Grammar is the study of the structure of sentences.
2. An adjective is: A an insult
B a word that refers to some aspect of
a thing
C a goal or aim
D a person who adjects
If you answered A, you were probably confusing the word adjective with the word INVECTIVE.
If you answered C, you were probably thinking of the word OBJECTIVE.
If you answered D, you were at least being creative.
If you answered B – ‘a word that refers to some aspect of a thing’ – you were correct, and get full marks.
3. Is there anything wrong with the following sentence? If so, what:
He wented to the shops to buy some milk.
ANSWER: Yes, there is. It should read:
He went to the shops to buy some milk.
Wented is not uncommon among young children, who think that you add ED to any verb to make it past tense. Sometimes they say:
I goed to the shops – which is also incorrect. Cut in a four year old, unforgivable in a literate adult.
4. What is wrong with the following sentence:
He completed his work quick.
Here’s the technical answer. ADVERBS are words that qualify VERBS – they ‘add meaning’ to a verb. The verb in this sentence is COMPLETED. An adverb ‘answers a question’ about the verb: in this case, how was the work completed. And the answer to that question is: quick – except that it should be QUICKLY.
5. Which of the following sentences is correct:
A The yolk of an egg is white.
B The yolk of an egg are white.
Don’t you love trick questions? The correct answer is NEITHER. The yolk of an egg isn’t WHITE – it’s YELLOW.
6. Is there anything you think is incorrect in the following sentence?
75 out of every 100 people who study grammar find it boring.
YES! There’s a style rule that says: Never start a sentence with numerals. If you want to get that idea across, you’d write:
Seventy five out of every hundred people who study grammar find it boring.
Numerals are okay in he middle of a sentence, but not at the start.
Eg. Out of every 100 people, 75 say hey find grammar boring.
7. Would you want to change the following sentence in any way? If so, how?
I wondered lonely as a cloud.
It should read:
I wandered lonely as a cloud …
(Mind you – a poet might well use wondered instead of wandered, and claim that it has merit as a metaphorical use of language. I wander? I wonder?
8. Which of the following contains a simile?
A. I wondered lonely as a cloud. YES
B. I am as parched as a parrot. YES
C. Parched parrot rarely sing. NO
D. He stormed into the room. NO
F. She rarely laughs when the going gets tough.
NO
9. Can you see anything wrong with this sentence?
Personally, I myself can see nothing wrong with this sentence.
Well, maybe HE can’t … but I can. This is what is technically called a TAUTOLOGY. A tautology is a piece of unnecessary repetition. Of the following three sentences, the purist would say only the last one is correct:
Personally, I myself can see nothing wrong with this sentence.
I myself can see nothing wrong with this sentence.
I can see nothing wrong with this sentence.
10. And what about this one?
Speeding along the road at least 80 km an hour, I was nearly run down a hoon, and had to step back on to the kerb.
Who was doing the speeding? It sounds like it was the ‘I’ of the sentence. But we know it was the ‘hoon’.
Here are a couple of corrected versions:
Speeding along the road at least 80 km an hour, the hoon nearly ran me down a hoon, and I had to step back on to the kerb.
The car was speeding along the road at least 80 km an hour, and I was nearly run down the hoon driver, and had to step back on to the kerb.
11. Fewer people these days are making less and less money that they did in the past.
Are there any problems here?
NO. Technically this sentence works okay. It means that more people are making more money nowadays. But by couching it in a negative way – ‘fewer’, ‘less and less’ it’s a bit hard to read.
12. What word is used to refer to the following kinds of statements?
There’s many a slip twixt the cup and the lip.
Rolling stones gather no moss.
A rich man is everybody’s friend.
Each of these is a PROVERB – a wise saying or ‘saw’ or ‘adage’.
Did you take a backward step of the mind then – when I used the word ‘saw’. Well, it’s fine… the word saw is archaic, true, but it’s correct. An old saw is a wise old saying.
There you go. You learn something every day.
13. Does anything need to be done to this sentence?
If I was the Queen, I’d soon pull the Royal brats into line.
Lots of people make this error. The sentence should read:
If I were the Queen, I’d soon pull the Royal brats into line.
This is an example of what grammar buffs call ‘the subjunctive mood’. It means: I’m not making a statement about what really happened or happens; I’m making a speculative statement:, which is signalled by the word IF.
And if I WERE you, I’d be careful to watch my use of the subjunctive. That way everyone will be impressed by your literary good manners.
14. Anything to correct here?
Whilst you have dinner the tour guide will set out blankets in a good position.
YES. Whilst and while are NOT synonyms. They don’t mean the same thing – not at all.
WHILE is used in statements about time:
While you were brushing your teeth, I was driving to work.
While the sun shines, the day will be warm.
While I was away, somebody stole my watermelons from the vine.
WHILST in NOT about time. It is a logical device, used to introduce a distinction the writer or speaker wishes to make:
WHILST you vote Democrat, I vote Republican.
WHILST it is easy to be wise after the event, it is harder to come to a good decision in he heat of the moment.
15. From a report on cricket in a local newspaper. Any problems you can see?
Let it be known right now - if Hastings avoids relegation this season, it will be thereabouts in this division again in 2004.
The problem is that the ‘thereabouts’ doesn’t refer back to anything specific.
Maybe the writer could have written:
Let it be known right now - Hastings is at the bottom of the ladder it will be thereabouts in this division again in 2004, even if it avoids relegation this season,
16. The boy showed us his tickets someone gave them to him.
Anything wrong here?
YES. This is called a run on sentence. The writer hasn’t noticed that s/he’s run two sentences together. It should read:
The boy showed us his tickets. Someone gave them to him.
17. At an early age his parents sent him to a preparatory school and this was followed by him attending Harrow School.
Anything wrong here?
YES. It’s easy enough to fix:
At an early age his parents sent him to a preparatory school and later he attended Harrow School.
Now that was easy enough, wasn’t it.
18. In 1912, the passenger liner Titanic was struck by an iceberg on its maiden voyage across the Atlantic Ocean.
Anything wrong here?
An iceberg on its maiden voyage across the Atlantic? I don’t think so. It was the Titanic that was on its maiden voyage.
And the idea that the iceberg actually did the striking… It’s as though the iceberg was moving at great speed, and ran into the ship.
We would never say: A speeding car was struck by a pedestrian today.
Maybe it would work better as follows:
In 1912, on its maiden voyage across the Atlantic Ocean, the Titanic struck an iceberg.
19. The beer will be marketed to over one million of the migrants now living in the United States in 12-ounce bottles, 24 to the case.
Anything wrong here?
You bet your priceless heirlooms there is! Migrants living in bottles? Bus shelters, maybe. Parks, maybe. Disused pipes? Maybe. But not 12 ounce bottles!
20. And finally, bring your critical eye to bear on the following sentence. Anything wrong here?
The move from a structuralist account in which capital is understood to structure social relations in relatively homologous ways to a view of hegemony in which power relations are subject to repetition, convergence, and rearticulation brought the question of temporality into the thinking of structure, and marked a shift from a form of Althusserian theory that takes structural totalities as theoretical objects to one in which the insights into the contingent possibility of structure inaugurate a renewed conception of hegemony as bound up with the contingent sites and strategies of the rearticulation of power.
This piece of writing comes from a sociological textbook, and is written by a leading academic. It was the winning entry in the Bad Writing Contest in 1998. The Bad Writing Contest ‘celebrates the most stylistically lamentable passages found in scholarly books and articles published in the last few years.’
Good luck with your attempts at understanding tis piece. If enough people COMMENT on this article, I’ll devote a whole article to deciphering the deep meaning contained within this complex 94 word sentence.
Here is a chance to check out what you already understand about grammar:
1. Grammar is an old lady. TRUE FALSE
If your answer was ‘TRUE’, either:
A. There is no hope for you. You are doomed to a life of illiteracy.
B. You are treating this TEST as a joke.
C. Your pen slipped.
D. The dog ate your homework.
The CORRECT answer is FALSE.
Grandma is an old lady.
Grammar is the study of the structure of sentences.
2. An adjective is: A an insult
B a word that refers to some aspect of
a thing
C a goal or aim
D a person who adjects
If you answered A, you were probably confusing the word adjective with the word INVECTIVE.
If you answered C, you were probably thinking of the word OBJECTIVE.
If you answered D, you were at least being creative.
If you answered B – ‘a word that refers to some aspect of a thing’ – you were correct, and get full marks.
3. Is there anything wrong with the following sentence? If so, what:
He wented to the shops to buy some milk.
ANSWER: Yes, there is. It should read:
He went to the shops to buy some milk.
Wented is not uncommon among young children, who think that you add ED to any verb to make it past tense. Sometimes they say:
I goed to the shops – which is also incorrect. Cut in a four year old, unforgivable in a literate adult.
4. What is wrong with the following sentence:
He completed his work quick.
Here’s the technical answer. ADVERBS are words that qualify VERBS – they ‘add meaning’ to a verb. The verb in this sentence is COMPLETED. An adverb ‘answers a question’ about the verb: in this case, how was the work completed. And the answer to that question is: quick – except that it should be QUICKLY.
5. Which of the following sentences is correct:
A The yolk of an egg is white.
B The yolk of an egg are white.
Don’t you love trick questions? The correct answer is NEITHER. The yolk of an egg isn’t WHITE – it’s YELLOW.
6. Is there anything you think is incorrect in the following sentence?
75 out of every 100 people who study grammar find it boring.
YES! There’s a style rule that says: Never start a sentence with numerals. If you want to get that idea across, you’d write:
Seventy five out of every hundred people who study grammar find it boring.
Numerals are okay in he middle of a sentence, but not at the start.
Eg. Out of every 100 people, 75 say hey find grammar boring.
7. Would you want to change the following sentence in any way? If so, how?
I wondered lonely as a cloud.
It should read:
I wandered lonely as a cloud …
(Mind you – a poet might well use wondered instead of wandered, and claim that it has merit as a metaphorical use of language. I wander? I wonder?
8. Which of the following contains a simile?
A. I wondered lonely as a cloud. YES
B. I am as parched as a parrot. YES
C. Parched parrot rarely sing. NO
D. He stormed into the room. NO
F. She rarely laughs when the going gets tough.
NO
9. Can you see anything wrong with this sentence?
Personally, I myself can see nothing wrong with this sentence.
Well, maybe HE can’t … but I can. This is what is technically called a TAUTOLOGY. A tautology is a piece of unnecessary repetition. Of the following three sentences, the purist would say only the last one is correct:
Personally, I myself can see nothing wrong with this sentence.
I myself can see nothing wrong with this sentence.
I can see nothing wrong with this sentence.
10. And what about this one?
Speeding along the road at least 80 km an hour, I was nearly run down a hoon, and had to step back on to the kerb.
Who was doing the speeding? It sounds like it was the ‘I’ of the sentence. But we know it was the ‘hoon’.
Here are a couple of corrected versions:
Speeding along the road at least 80 km an hour, the hoon nearly ran me down a hoon, and I had to step back on to the kerb.
The car was speeding along the road at least 80 km an hour, and I was nearly run down the hoon driver, and had to step back on to the kerb.
11. Fewer people these days are making less and less money that they did in the past.
Are there any problems here?
NO. Technically this sentence works okay. It means that more people are making more money nowadays. But by couching it in a negative way – ‘fewer’, ‘less and less’ it’s a bit hard to read.
12. What word is used to refer to the following kinds of statements?
There’s many a slip twixt the cup and the lip.
Rolling stones gather no moss.
A rich man is everybody’s friend.
Each of these is a PROVERB – a wise saying or ‘saw’ or ‘adage’.
Did you take a backward step of the mind then – when I used the word ‘saw’. Well, it’s fine… the word saw is archaic, true, but it’s correct. An old saw is a wise old saying.
There you go. You learn something every day.
13. Does anything need to be done to this sentence?
If I was the Queen, I’d soon pull the Royal brats into line.
Lots of people make this error. The sentence should read:
If I were the Queen, I’d soon pull the Royal brats into line.
This is an example of what grammar buffs call ‘the subjunctive mood’. It means: I’m not making a statement about what really happened or happens; I’m making a speculative statement:, which is signalled by the word IF.
And if I WERE you, I’d be careful to watch my use of the subjunctive. That way everyone will be impressed by your literary good manners.
14. Anything to correct here?
Whilst you have dinner the tour guide will set out blankets in a good position.
YES. Whilst and while are NOT synonyms. They don’t mean the same thing – not at all.
WHILE is used in statements about time:
While you were brushing your teeth, I was driving to work.
While the sun shines, the day will be warm.
While I was away, somebody stole my watermelons from the vine.
WHILST in NOT about time. It is a logical device, used to introduce a distinction the writer or speaker wishes to make:
WHILST you vote Democrat, I vote Republican.
WHILST it is easy to be wise after the event, it is harder to come to a good decision in he heat of the moment.
15. From a report on cricket in a local newspaper. Any problems you can see?
Let it be known right now - if Hastings avoids relegation this season, it will be thereabouts in this division again in 2004.
The problem is that the ‘thereabouts’ doesn’t refer back to anything specific.
Maybe the writer could have written:
Let it be known right now - Hastings is at the bottom of the ladder it will be thereabouts in this division again in 2004, even if it avoids relegation this season,
16. The boy showed us his tickets someone gave them to him.
Anything wrong here?
YES. This is called a run on sentence. The writer hasn’t noticed that s/he’s run two sentences together. It should read:
The boy showed us his tickets. Someone gave them to him.
17. At an early age his parents sent him to a preparatory school and this was followed by him attending Harrow School.
Anything wrong here?
YES. It’s easy enough to fix:
At an early age his parents sent him to a preparatory school and later he attended Harrow School.
Now that was easy enough, wasn’t it.
18. In 1912, the passenger liner Titanic was struck by an iceberg on its maiden voyage across the Atlantic Ocean.
Anything wrong here?
An iceberg on its maiden voyage across the Atlantic? I don’t think so. It was the Titanic that was on its maiden voyage.
And the idea that the iceberg actually did the striking… It’s as though the iceberg was moving at great speed, and ran into the ship.
We would never say: A speeding car was struck by a pedestrian today.
Maybe it would work better as follows:
In 1912, on its maiden voyage across the Atlantic Ocean, the Titanic struck an iceberg.
19. The beer will be marketed to over one million of the migrants now living in the United States in 12-ounce bottles, 24 to the case.
Anything wrong here?
You bet your priceless heirlooms there is! Migrants living in bottles? Bus shelters, maybe. Parks, maybe. Disused pipes? Maybe. But not 12 ounce bottles!
20. And finally, bring your critical eye to bear on the following sentence. Anything wrong here?
The move from a structuralist account in which capital is understood to structure social relations in relatively homologous ways to a view of hegemony in which power relations are subject to repetition, convergence, and rearticulation brought the question of temporality into the thinking of structure, and marked a shift from a form of Althusserian theory that takes structural totalities as theoretical objects to one in which the insights into the contingent possibility of structure inaugurate a renewed conception of hegemony as bound up with the contingent sites and strategies of the rearticulation of power.
This piece of writing comes from a sociological textbook, and is written by a leading academic. It was the winning entry in the Bad Writing Contest in 1998. The Bad Writing Contest ‘celebrates the most stylistically lamentable passages found in scholarly books and articles published in the last few years.’
Good luck with your attempts at understanding tis piece. If enough people COMMENT on this article, I’ll devote a whole article to deciphering the deep meaning contained within this complex 94 word sentence.
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