Tag: education

Why is this not headline news?!

May 30th, 2013

Dangling prepositions, also known as “preposition stranding,” are not, in fact, grammatically incorrect.

Let me say that again. Or let Mike Vuolo say it in Slate magazine’s inaugural, deliciously dorky Lexicon Valley podcast episode, “A Sin of Which None is Guilty:”

“It really is one of the biggest myths in the English language, this idea that we’re not supposed to end sentences with prepositions.”

What?! Where have I been all these years?

This is possibly the most deeply-ingrained grammatical rule I remember (besides split infinitives), and is the rule I chide myself about in my own writing and edit mentally when I read someone else’s work. It’s the rule that jars me both when it’s broken (because I get stuck on a sentence’s grammatical incorrectness) and when it is adhered to (because “for what this butterfly mind is made” sounds so unnatural). While I feel not a shred of remorse over a writing a sentence fragment to facilitate pacing or punch, or a run-on sentence to create rhythm, I agonize over leaving a preposition dangling. I feel guilty for stranding it.

No more.

It turns out that the question of dangling prepositions is a common topic of conversation in grammar circles (yes, I just said grammar circles), and often tops the list of frequently asked questions about the English language. Slate magazine felt so strongly about it that they launched their Lexicon Valley podcast with it, and Grammar Girl, endorsed by Writer’s Digest as one of the 101 best websites for writers, addresses it not only in her Top Ten Grammar Myths, but in its very own Ending a Sentence with a Preposition post as well.

So what’s the deal? Why are we slapped with the metaphorical ruler on our metaphorical knuckles over and over again for this mythical rule? Apparently, according the Grumpy Grammarian John McWhorter, in a piece in The New Republic, “this fake grammar rule [has] a particular distinction: Its legendary smackdown is as well known as the rule itself.”

Whoa. A grammar smackdown.

The smackdown boils down to this: in the 1670s, about half a decade after Shakespeare, a poet/playwright, John Drydon, was trying to distinguish himself in the new age of England’s post-puritanical reopening of theater. He wanted to say, “Hey, we don’t need those old guys, Shakespeare and Ben Jonson. Look at me! I’m John Drydon. I’ve got something to say.” And then he criticized Ben Jonson, writing, “The preposition in the end of the sentence, [is] a common fault with him.” As Mike and Bob at Lexicon Valley point out, “This is the first really clear statement of anyone having specific trouble with prepositions at the end of a sentence.”

After Drydon, the “rule” was popularized by men of the cloth who also fancied themselves language scholars. First was Robert Lowth, a Bishop in London’s Church of England in his A Short Introduction to English Grammar. He suggested there that grabbing onto those prepositions and snuggling them safely inside the sentence was “more graceful” than dangling them at the end. And then in the 1860s, Henry Alford, in his The Queen’s English, wrote, “There is a peculiar use of prepositions which is allowable in moderation but must not be too often resorted to. It is the placing them at the end of a sentence, as I have just done in the words ‘resorted to.’”

And the tradition carried on from there. Now, before we go crazy and start hanging prepositions off every available sentence-cliff, it is recommended by Henry Alford and others that, as with all super fun things, the dangling preposition be used in moderation. The “rule” is widely believed as grammatical dogma, and as Grammer Girl advises:

“When you’re writing a cover letter to a potential employer, don’t end a sentence with a preposition. The person reading the letter could see it as an error.”

You and I can smile smugly as we tuck our prepositions in for those unlearned employers. Because as the Grumpy Grammarian quotes Kingsley Amis, the dangling preposition rule is “one of those fancied prohibitions dear to ignorant slobs.”

Thanks to the gloriously geeky Lexicon Valley, I am not an ignorant slob anymore. And now, neither are you.

P.S. If your favorite grammar joke looks like this,

Poor ignorant slob: “Where’s it at?”
Grammar police: “Behind the ‘at.’”

have no fear. According to Grammar Girl’s Top Ten Grammar Myths “Where are you at?” is still technically wrong. She says, “You shouldn’t end a sentence with a preposition when the sentence would mean the same thing if you left off the preposition. That means “Where are you at?” is wrong because “Where are you?” means the same thing.” In other words, you can still use your nerdalicious comeback, “Behind the ‘at’.” Unless that comeback is grammatically wrong. Which is quite possibly the case. If anyone has insight on this, please comment with your reasoning below.

We all learned you’re not supposed to end a sentence with a preposition. But from where did this alleged rule come? And why does it encumber us with such labored sentences as the one preceding this? In the first episode of Slate’s new language program Lexicon Valley, producer Mike Vuolo and On the Media co-host Bob Garfield explore the history of the terminal preposition rule, and whether there are good reasons to follow it.

Addendum to original post (added 5/31/13):

If it is still hard for you to believe that this “DO NOT END A SENTENCE PREPOSITION” rule is wrong – and believe me, I understand the difficulty in getting over this rule – if you really can’t bear to leave those ‘at’s and ‘in’s hanging without concrete, fact-checked, externally edited, published-in-print proof that it is okay to strand your prepositions, I give you the usage note for the “preposition” entry in The American Heritage College Dictionary, Third Edition, published by Houghton Mifflin Company:

prep · o · si · tion…
Usage Note: The doctrine that a preposition may not be used to end a sentence has become one of the most venerated maxims of schoolroom grammatical lore. However, English syntax allows and sometimes requires final placement of the preposition. Such placement is the only possible one in a sentence such as That depends on what you believe in. · Even sticklers for the traditional rule can have no grounds for criticizing sentences such as Where will she end up? or It’s the most curious book I’ve ever run across. In these examples, up and across are used as adverbs, not prepositions.
I’m a genius at the end of cleaning day

May 16th, 2013

My husband had barely gotten his foot in the door last Tuesday when I pounced. I grinned up at him, “I learned how to do podcasts today!” I could feel my whole body sparking with excitement.

He looked at me blankly, suitcase in hand. Like most of the world, he discovered podcasts years ago. “You mean you learned how to make one?” he asked.

My shoulders drooped a little and he tried to hide his smile. “Or you learned how to listen to them?”

“Well, I learned how to download them onto my phone, too.”

That day, I had listened to Terry Gross interview David Sedaris while I ironed. I thought about the first time I heard David Sedaris on the radio, singing “My bologna has a first name, it’s O-S-C-A-R” in his Billie Holliday voice. I stopped ironing and wrote the story down. When that piece ended, I listened to Terry interview Barbara Natterson-Horowitz, author of Zoobiquity: What Humans Can Learn From Animal Illness. During their conversation, they discussed the topic of fainting, which was riveting to me, especially as a fainter who is writing a story about fainting. They discussed fainting (also known as syncope) in the animal world – that fear can trigger not only fight or flight as an anti-predation response, but also fainting – and how the syncope response could have evolutionary benefits. I took notes for my story then packed up the ironing, which I had finished.

I loaded up my phone with more Fresh Air episodes, then added RadioLab episodes, and This American Life episodes. For Wednesday was cleaning day.

The following day, while I scrubbed bathtubs and sinks, I listened to This American Life, to a young man’s journey across the country on foot, pushing his backpack in a baby stroller across the desert, asking folks along the way, “If you could go back and, taking all of what you’ve learned in your life, tell your 23-year-old self something, what might you say?” On Radiolab, I listened to a longtime believer suddenly lose his faith in God while I swept and mopped, and I learned about a deaf man who lived without language – no sign language, no lip reading – into his adult life. He finally learned language as a grown man, learned that a table has a name – it is named “table” – and he fell in love with words like I fell in love with my husband. The Words episode of Radiolab is possibly my favorite podcast so far.

At the end of the day, my mind felt invigorated, and I swear my IQ jumped 15 points.

This Wednesday, I discovered Book Riot’s new podcast, and while I cleaned the stove, I listened to BookRiot.com editors Rebecca Schinsky and Jeff O’Neal discuss The Great Gatsby hype and the publishing strategy of female authors using initials instead of their full names so that men won’t automatically dismiss their titles as “women’s lit.” While I cleaned bathrooms I listened to the Surgery 101 team explain how to avoid fainting in the OR. While I swept and mopped, I listened to Lee Gutkind describe the Creative Nonfiction movement. While I made salsa, I listened to Natalie Goldberg read from her new book, The Great Failure, and while I set the table I listened to Dinty W. Moore discuss “Writing it Short: The Guide to Brevity.”

Now, I’ve got a good 13 podcast episodes lined up for when I work out, for when I fold laundry, for when I unload the dishwasher. For when I shake a cocktail at the end of cleaning day to celebrate my budding genius.

—————

Here are the podcasts I currently subscribe to. Show descriptions are lifted from their About pages. I’m still looking for great podcasts, so if you have any favorites, please share them in the comments. Thanks!

All Songs Considered: All Songs Considered is home to the best new music and a community of fans always ready to share their opinions on the current music scene.

Bookrageous: Serious about books…but not exactly serious.

Book Riot: A weekly news and talk show about what’s new, cool, and worth talking about in the world of books and reading, brought to you by the editors of BookRiot.com

Fresh Air: Fresh Air from WHYY, the Peabody Award-winning weekday magazine of contemporary arts and issues, is one of public radio’s most popular programs. Hosted by Terry Gross, the show features intimate conversations with today’s biggest luminaries

Podlit: A podcast devoted to the creative nonfiction genre and other aspects of the literary world. It’s the podcast for writers, readers, students, teachers, and anyone else seeking the newest reports and latest discussions of the literary and publishing industries. Brought to you by Creative Nonfiction Magazine.

Radiolab: Radiolab is a show about curiosity. Where sound illuminates ideas, and the boundaries blur between science, philosophy, and human experience.

This American Life: This American Life is a weekly public radio show produced by Chicago Public Media and distributed by Public Radio International.

The Writer’s Almanac: Daily poems, prose, and literary history with Garrison Keillor
We talked to our kids about sex

February 5th, 2013
When we lived in Minnesota, we enrolled our daughter in the state sponsored Early Childhood Family Education (ECFE) program. We paid a small fee, sent her to preschool two mornings per week, and twice a month I joined her in her classroom. On parent days, the moms would spend an hour with our kids, then we’d go to our own classroom, with coffee and snacks and our own teacher.

Midway through the year, we started building up to “safe touch” week. The kids were going to learn about safe touch in their classroom, and the parent educator helped us prepare ourselves and our children for that discussion. Naturally, we had lots of questions.

“So, how do we help our kids understand why some parts of their body are private? Why we always cover certain areas? Why it’s okay for someone to touch some places but not others? How these parts are private, but not something to be ashamed of?”

All of which led, of course, into sex talk, and that four is just as good an age as any to start talking about sex.

I was shocked. An equally stunned mom thought out loud, “I would have never thought to start talking this early about sex!”

She looked at the ceiling, still thinking. “But then again, by the time my parents wanted to talk to me, my hormones had already kicked in and I thought, ‘eeeewwww! I’m not talking to you about that!’”

Our resident expert mom, who had already been through the program three times with her other children, and who was my personal put-together-even-though-I-have-four-kids idol, pshawed us all and said, “Talking about sex is easy at this age! They’re not embarrassed. They’ll probably just ask for ice cream when you’re done.”

She added, “It’s easier than telling them about Santa.”

Our instructor suggested a book for us all, What’s the Big Secret, and I picked it up at the library that afternoon while the kids got their Magic Treehouse books (We hadn’t talked to our son about sex yet either. He was six at the time.) At home, I pre-read the book in the bathroom, the only room for privacy as any parent will know. I found it satisfactory, left it on the counter, and then went into the kitchen to start working on dinner.

When my husband came home from work, I was in full cooking mode, the oven fan running full blast, and I couldn’t hear a thing. He kissed me on the cheek and said, “Uhhhh, the kids are looking at this book…”

Crap! I hadn’t told him yet.

“Oh yeah,” I laughed nervously, “They must have found it in the bathroom. I was going to read it to them tonight.”

I poked my head into the living room where they were huddled together on the couch, giggling and pointing. I wiped my hands and asked my husband, “Maybe we should just do it now?”

My heart pounded faster than a hummingbird’s, and my palms were sweaty. I think my voice might have cracked when I said, “Hey kids, do you want to read that book together?”

“Yeah!”

Our son had asked me once how babies get out of their mom’s bellies, and without thinking, I said, “They come out through the mom’s vagina.” He and our daughter looked horrified. Then he laughed and pointed at his sister and said, “You’re going to have to do that one day!” I’m pretty sure that was the day she decided she wanted to be a boy.

It was obvious that I needed help in the tact department when it came to things like this, so I sat between them, wiped my hands on my jeans again, and started reading. I don’t remember a word of the book. I just remember the relief I felt as I turned each page, thinking, we’re doing this. We’re really doing it.

The kids giggled and pointed at the drawings of penises. Our daughter was fascinated by the diagram of a baby inside a mother’s womb. My husband and I answered any questions they had, but they didn’t have many.

When we were all finished, I asked, “Do y’all have any more questions?”

And our son said, “What’s for dinner?”

Alcohol for me, buddy. Spaghetti for you.

The expert mom was right. It really was easy. But we haven’t had the courage to tell them about Santa yet. I wonder if there’s a book for that…

That was three years ago, and our kids don’t remember any of it. But we’ve laid the groundwork and have gotten nerves out of the way. So when our daughter started asking questions the other night, I answered them as well as I could, reminded her of the book, and she said she wanted to look at it again. I ordered our own copy yesterday.

What’s the Big Secret? Talking about Sex with Girls and Boys by Laurie Krasny Brown, illustrated by Marc Brown

Tag: education

Why is this not headline news?!

I’m a genius at the end of cleaning day

We talked to our kids about sex