We are a society of rules and laws. Whether it be in the public sphere, on the playing field or just in our interactions with each other, we have sets of guidelines that dictate our interactions, some formal, some less so. Step out of line and you risk punishment of one form or another, be it arrest and prison or arched eyebrows and mild disapproval.
In the case of laws, the establisher and arbiter is the state, and the consequences for breaking said laws are pre-determined and don't vary regardless of condition or circumstance. Penalties can run from punitive to disciplinary, from the aforementioned slammer to fines and sanctions. While there are certainly exceptions, in the main "we" generally follow them, and stay on the right side of the line.
But rules? Rules, as they say, are meant... nay, are just begging... to be broken. The second someone somewhere sets down an edict as to how you have to do something is the moment that certain members of the consuming audience go the other way. Sometimes it's intentional, other times it's not, but broken is broken. Whether it's cleaning up after yourself, keeping your dog on a leash or using your work email for personal business, the list of transgressions each of us is guilty of is long and varied. Guilty with an explanation perhaps, but guilty none-the-less.
Usually the areas where this happens are more benign than not. We take a call in the quiet car, we have more than 10 items in the checkout lane, we pour out the last of the coffee and don't start a new pot. We know we are doing wrong, and will likely piss off somebody, but the world will not cave in because of our actions. Besides, even if we get flagged, the repercussions are generally minor. Perhaps it is one more death by a thousand cuts for civil society, but we seem to be muddling through just fine even with people sharing their Netflix password.
In that same vein, as a person who bangs out proposals, overviews and yes, columns, I am conscious of the number of times my word processor flags a segment of my writing in blue, indicating a deviation from the accepted standards. We all learned those rules way back in the Wonder years, when Mrs. Howe or Mr. Jenkins taught them to us: don't split your infinitives, never start a sentence with a conjunction, pronouns and subjects should agree, and on and on. They were codified by unnamed authorities over centuries and passed down through style guides and fifth grade teachers, and whoa to those that used "it's" when they really meant "its."
However, as our primary method of written communication has shifted from handwritten missives to electronic hunt-and-peck, the state-of-play is that most of the rules are honored more in the breach than in the following. That doesn't make it "right," just accepted. It's like the Shibuya Crossing in Japan, where, when the light changes, everybody crosses the intersection from every angle. It's a madhouse, but what the hell are you going to do about it?
But (oops... there I go) occasionally there is an acknowledgement by the powers that be that recognize the reality of the situation, or at least say that perhaps the emperor doesn't have any clothes after all. Such was the case recently when Merriam-Webster, the oldest dictionary publisher in the United States, and one of the aforementioned keepers of the linguistic canon, posted on Instagram that "It is permissible in English for a preposition to be what you end a sentence with." They point out that the idea came from writers who were trying to align English with Latin, but there was indeed no ironclad rule about it. Mr. Jenkins in his grave is turning over. (See what I did there?)
To a very large extent the proper reaction is "so what?" Somewhat echoing the legal spat over originalism vs. textualism, there are indeed rules that guide us in standardizing and formalizing the written word, and we do well to use them as a template. On the other hand, language is a living, breathing thing, and has to adapt as the way we communicate changes, with those changes sometimes being productive, other times less so. It is up the user to wield the tools given to build the appropriate house, and for the consumer to decide whether to live in it or not.
I, for one, come down squarely on the side of change. If it sounds right, if it makes the point, by all means do it. Ignore that Oxford comma, use that slang, run those sentences on. Weekly you will see those efforts here, and you can decide for yourself their success or failure. While I would never elevate this beyond what it is and classify it as anything more than a weekly rant, I side with Pablo Picasso's edict: "Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist."
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Marc Wollin of Bedford tries to write to be read. His column appears weekly via email and online http://www.glancingaskance.blogspot.com/ and https://marcwollin.substack.com/, as well as via Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.
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