{"id":759,"date":"2013-02-17T16:21:29","date_gmt":"2013-02-17T03:21:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/?p=759"},"modified":"2013-02-17T16:21:29","modified_gmt":"2013-02-17T03:21:29","slug":"listen-to-your-writing-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/?p=759","title":{"rendered":"Listen to your writing"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"JoanDidion\"<\/a>\u2018Grammar is a piano I play by ear.\u2019 \u2013 Joan Didion<\/i><\/p>\n

Every now and then I seem to get into a discussion \u2013 OK, an argument \u2013 with one of the many self-appointed members of the language police.<\/p>\n

\u2018You must not begin a sentence with And,\u2019 one of them insists.<\/p>\n

\u2018Never?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Never.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Why is that?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018It\u2019s bad grammar.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018The authors of the King James Version of The Bible didn\u2019t seem to think so.\u00a0 They seemed to think that And was a perfectly good way to start a sentence.\u00a0 And so did Shakespeare.\u00a0 And more recently, Joseph Epstein, a writer who has been described as \u201cincapable of writing a boring sentence\u201d, has been quite happy to begin several sentences with And.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Well, it\u2019s still bad grammar.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018And it\u2019s bad grammar to start a sentence with But,\u2019 another tells me.<\/p>\n

\u2018Have you mentioned this to William Zinsser, author of the classic non-fiction writer\u2019s guide On Writing Well<\/i>?\u00a0 He seems to be quite at home starting a sentence with But.\u2019<\/p>\n

The language police are also vigilant on such matters as splitting infinitives, using contractions, and ending sentences with prepositions.\u00a0 (\u2018A preposition must not be used to end a sentence with.\u2019)<\/p>\n

But what I find most depressing about the language police is that while they know all the \u2018rules\u2019, few if any of them are capable of writing a good, clear, concise and interesting sentence.\u00a0 Almost without exception, their prose is flat-footed, often convoluted, and frequently ambiguous.<\/p>\n

English is a wonderful language.\u00a0 And, while it has a few conventions (a capital letter at the beginning of a sentence, a full stop or period at the end), it doesn\u2019t really have any rules.\u00a0 What the language police think of as rules are really just someone else\u2019s preferences and prejudices.<\/p>\n

Good English is what works, what sounds<\/i> right.\u00a0 And if it works, then it\u2019s good English \u2013 regardless of what the language police say.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u2018Grammar is a piano I play by ear.\u2019 \u2013 Joan Didion Every now and then I seem to get into a discussion \u2013 OK, an argument \u2013 with one of the many self-appointed members of the language police. \u2018You must … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3,6,4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/759"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=759"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/759\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":761,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/759\/revisions\/761"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=759"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=759"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=759"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}