| Chronology | Current Month | Current Thread | Current Date |
| [Year List] [Month List (current year)] | [Date Index] [Thread Index] | [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] | [Date Prev] [Date Next] |
Physics educators and others might be interested in the contribution of former Physical Review Letters editor George Trigg (1979) to the rules of grammar.
In his essay "Grammar" Trigg wrote [quoted from Richoux (undated); bracketed by lines "TTTTTT. . . . ."]
TTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT
It is said that back in the 1940's, the following message was prominently displayed at the front of the main chemistry lecture hall at a major university:
"The English language is your most versatile scientific instrument. Learn to use it with precision."
In the intervening years, the teaching of proper grammar in the public elementary and high schools fell into disfavor. The inevitable result is that manuscripts submitted to us are often full of grammatical errors, which their authors probably do not even recognize (and often would not care about if they did).
We regard this state of affairs as deplorable, and we want to do something about it. For many years we have tried to correct the grammar of papers that we publish. This is toilsome at best, and sometimes entails rather substantial rephrasing. It would obviously be preferable to have authors use correct grammar in the first place. The problem is how to get them to do it.
One fairly effective way is to provide examples of what not to do; it is particularly helpful if the examples are humorous. We have recently seen several lists of grammatical examples of this type. A few weeks ago we found taped to a colleague's office door the most complete one we have seen. (He tells us it was passed out in a class of Dartmouth - not in English - at the time a term paper was assigned). We reproduce it here in the hope that it will have some effect.
TTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT
Herewith are "Trigg's Rules of Grammar" as chronicled in the Wikipedia at <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Fumblerules>:
1. Make sure each pronoun agrees with their antecedent.
2. Just between you and I, the case of pronoun is important.
3. Watch out for irregular verbs which have crope into English.
4. Verbs has to agree in number with their subjects.
5. Don't use no double negatives.
6. Being bad grammar, a writer should not use dangling modifiers.
7. Join clauses good like a conjunction should.
8. A writer must not shift your point of view.
9. About sentence fragments.
10. Don't use run-on sentences you got to punctuate them.
11. In letters essays and reports use commas to separate items in series.
12. Don't use commas, which are not necessary.
13. Parenthetical words however should be enclosed in commas.
14. Its important to use apostrophes right in everybodys writing.
15. Don't abbrev.
16. Check to see if you any words out.
17. In the case of a report, check to see that jargonwise, it's A-OK.
18. As far as incomplete constructions, they are wrong.
19. About repetition, the repetition of a word might be real effective repetition - take, for instance the repetition of Abraham Lincoln.
20. In my opinion, I think that an author when he is writing should definitely not get into the habit of making use of too many unnecessary words that he does not really need in order to put his message across.
21. Use parallel construction not only to be concise but also clarify.
22. It behooves us all to avoid archaic expressions.
23. Mixed metaphors are a pain in the neck and ought to be weeded out.
24. Consult the dictionery to avoid mispelings.
25. To ignorantly split an infinitive is a practice to religiously avoid.
26. Last but not least, lay off clich�s.
I dare against all odds to fervently hope, that the above repeat - that is, reiteration; repetiton, recapitulation; reproduction, restatement, or duplication; of Triggs utterly you know fantastic!!! Rules of Grammer; will premote a much-neded re-formation, that is improovment (in the eye of the be-holder) or ameloration; or elevation, or much-needed enhancemint in Engl. usage in what might be called if one is trying to be polight "Discussion-List Postings." Otherwise drival.
Richard Hake, Emeritus Professor of Physics, Indiana University
24245 Hatteras Street, Woodland Hills, CA 91367
Honorary Member, Curmudgeon Lodge of Deventer, The Netherlands.
<rrhake@earthlink.net>
<http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~hake>
<http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~sdi>
REFERENCES
Richoux, D. undated. "Humorous Rules for Writing_('Fumblerules,' 'Perverse Rules,' etc.)"; online at <http://alt-usage-english.org/humorousrules.html>. This is from the Alternate Usage English (AUE) Newsgroup <http://alt-usage-english.org/index.shtml>. Unfortunately, contributions on AUE seem to be undated.
Safire, W. 1979. "On Language," New York Times, 7 October. See also Safire (1991). According to Richoux's quote of Safire, Safire like Trigg, credits anonymous others with having contributed to his list of "Fumblerules," reproduced at <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Fumblerules>. Safire wrote: "Not long ago, I advertised for perverse rules of grammar, along the lines of 'Remember to never split an infinitive' and 'The passive voice should never be used.' The notion of making a mistake while laying down rules ('Thimk,' 'We Never Make Misteaks') is highly unoriginal, and it turns out that English teachers have been circulating lists of fumblerules for years. As owner of the world's largest collection, and with thanks to scores of readers, let me pass along a bunch of these never-say-neverisms."
Safire, W. 1991. "Fumblerules (The Intrepid Linguist Library), Laurel. Amazon.com information at <http://tinyurl.com/2d89jx>.
Trigg, G.L. 1979. "Grammar," Physical Review Letters 42(12): 747-748, 19 March; online to subscribers at <http://prola.aps.org/toc/PRL/v42/i12>. For a similar list see, e.g. Safire (1979, 1991).
_______________________________________________
Forum for Physics Educators
Phys-l@carnot.physics.buffalo.edu
https://carnot.physics.buffalo.edu/mailman/listinfo/phys-l