Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-xxrs7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-18T22:13:20.842Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Says Who? Teaching and Questioning the Rules of Grammar

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 October 2020

Extract

One winter morning, the student scanning cards at the front desk of the university gym noticed the “faculty” label on mine and asked which department I was in. I replied that I teach in English. A middle-aged man who checked in behind me chased me down the hall. When he caught me, he exclaimed with frustration, “English, eh? Well, could you please get students to stop using plural pronouns when they need singular ones? Everyone—they, someone—they. It's just terrible English.”

Type
The Changing Profession
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Works Cited

“Ain't.” Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage. 1994 ed. Print.Google Scholar
The American Heritage College Dictionary. 4th ed. 2002. Print.Google Scholar
Bailey, Richard W. Images of English. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 1991. Print.Google Scholar
Balhorn, Mark. “The Rise of Epicene They.” Journal of English Linguistics 32.4 (2004): 79104. Print.10.1177/0075424204265824CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Biber, Douglas, et al. Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English. Harlow: Pearson, 1999. Print.Google Scholar
Bodine, Ann. “Androcentrism in Prescriptive Grammar: Singular They, Sex-Indefinite He and He or She.Language in Society 4.2 (1975): 129–46. Print.Google Scholar
Crowley, Sharon, and Hawhee, Debra. Ancient Rhetorics for Contemporary Students. 2nd ed. Boston: Allyn, 1999. Print.Google Scholar
Curzan, Anne. Gender Shifts in the History of English. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2003. Print.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Curzan, Anne. “Lexicography and Questions of Authority in the College Classroom.” Dictionaries 21 (2000): 9099. Print.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Curzan, Anne. “Teaching the Politics of Standard English.” Journal of English Linguistics 30.4 (2002): 339–52. Print.Google Scholar
Greenbaum, Sidney. Oxford English Grammar. London: Oxford UP, 1996. Print.Google Scholar
Lippi-Green, Rosina. English with an Accent: Language, Ideology, and Discrimination in the United States. London: Routledge, 1997. Print.Google Scholar
Lowth, Robert. A Short Introduction to English Grammar, with Critical Notes. London: A. Millar, R. and J. Dodsley, 1763. Print.Google Scholar
McWhorter, John. Word on the Street: Debunking the Myth of a “Pure” Standard English. Cambridge: Perseus, 1998. Print.Google Scholar
Michael, Newman. Epicene Pronouns: The Linguistics of a Prescriptive Problem. New York: Garland, 1997. Print.Google Scholar
Steven, Pinker. The Language Instinct. New York: Morrow, 1994. Print.Google Scholar
Smitherman, Geneva. “Ebonics, King, and Oakland: Some Folk Don't Believe Fat Meat Is Greasy.” Journal of English Linguistics 26.2 (1998): 97107. Print.10.1177/007542429802600202CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Truss, Lynne. Eats, Shoots and Leaves: A Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation. New York: Gotham, 2003. Print.Google Scholar