In what grade did you learn to....

@plainoldme,

Quote:

BTW, David Foster Wallace attended Amherst College, double majoring in English and philosophy. He then earned an MFA in writing.

And as I said, he knew little to nothing about grammar, about the actual mechanics of how language works. He knew, intuitively, and was brilliant at using English. The difference, again, is enormous, but it's one that so many miss, one that so many don't understand.

The assumption, given that he majored in English, that he was an accomplished writer, is that he knew how language worked. I give you EB White, [of Strunk and White fame] as a shining example that that's often not the case. His mentor, Strunk, with a PhD in English, the same, a complete dud when it came to English grammar.

1 Reply

@boomerang,

well if your curious ill tell you but im only in the 8th grade and its not ur buisness but wat ever,

Diagram a sentence: 2nd grade, diffrence: you learned in 7nth grade, me first then you.

Memorize the multiplication table: 3rd grade, diffrence: 2nd grade, you first than me.

Learn to write cursive: 3rd grade, diffrence: 2nd grade, you first than me.

your welcome! have a nice summer Smile

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@JTT,

Quote:

What I'm saying is that everyone who speaks knows all these parts of speech.

Not true. If it were true, they would not be in developmental classes.

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@JTT,

So, you're saying that he although he possessed a degree in English from one of the nation's leading liberal arts schools, he knew nothing of grammar?

I have been wondering why people dislike you so. I now know.

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@plainoldme,

No, POM, I'm saying that in spite of his degree in English, from wherever it might have been issued, the facts showed, by his numerous comments on English grammar that he knew very little about English grammar.

Why do you fall into this same silly trap? Research him and what he says about English and grammar and you'll see, his understanding of the workings of the English language were, at best, juvenile.

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@plainoldme,

The truth, she is a mighty leveler and nothing takes the wind out of one's sails, especially those sails filled with blowhard, like the truth.

Quote:

DAVID FOSTER WALLACE DEMOLISHED.

I was attacking DFW's long Harper's essay on usage in a comment on MeFi today, and the more I thought about it, the madder I got, and I finally couldn't resist letting him have it at length. Wallace's long, long article pretends to be a review of Bryan Garner's Dictionary of Modern American Usage, but that's just the pretext for yet another in the endless series of rants about how proper usage is being forgotten and language is going to hell in a handbasket that probably started in ancient Sumer and will continue until the sun goes supernova. Wallace uses cleverer rhetoric than most (establishing a folksy/learned persona that is intended to convince you of both his bona fides and his credentials, and conceding enough of his opponents' arguments that he hopes to disarm the less truculent of them), but what he's selling is the same old snake oil: "You've got to learn and use all those fourth-grade grammar rules—it's really important!" He proudly admits to being what in his family is called a SNOOT (his caps), and when he admits that some of those rules are actually silly he says (on p. 51 of the original article) "...people who insist on them... are that very most pathetic and dangerous sort of SNOOT, the SNOOT Who Is Wrong" (again, his caps). Truer words were never spoke. Let's take it from the top.

p. 41, fn. 3: "SNOOT (n) (highly colloq) is this reviewer's nuclear family's nickname à clef for a really extreme usage fanatic..." What does he mean here by "à clef"? A roman à clef is a novel with a key, a key which if you possess it (by being in the know) allows you to decipher which characters represent which real people. This is not how he uses "SNOOT" (if it were, it would be a coded designation for a single person, his mother perhaps); the word is simply family jargon. We are forced to conclude he does not know how to use the French phrase he deploys so snappily.

p. 42, fn. 8: "From personal experience, I can assure you that any kid like this is going to be at best marginalized and at worst savagely and repeatedly Wedgied." Why the capital W? We go to Webster's Third and find the answer: Wedgies is thus written. But wait! The definition is "trademark—used for shoes having a wedge heel." In other words, it has nothing whatever to do with the colloquial usage he is trying to write down (having to do with the malicious pulling up of underwear). He is more intent on proving that he knows how to use a big dictionary than in reading what it says there.

p. 43: "...the notoriously liberal Webster's Third New International Dictionary came out in 1961 and included such terms as heighth and irregardless without any monitory labels on them." The lie direct: "heighth" is labeled "chiefly dial[ect]" and "irregardless" "nonstand[ard]." Does he think nobody's going to check up on him?

Same page, next paragraph: "We regular citizens..." This sort of smarmy regular-guy rhetoric from someone who knows you know he's a famous author and who is setting himself up as an all-knowing authority makes me sick.

p. 44, fn. 14: "q.v. this from the January '62 Atlantic": This is the first of at least three occasions on which he misuses "q.v." as if it were "v." (vide, Latin for 'see'). Q.v. stands for quod vide 'which see' and is used after a reference to the thing seen.

p. 45: "These guys tend to be hard-core academics, mostly linguists or Comp theorists." Comp theorists? I Googled "comp theorist" and got three (count 'em) hits, all lower-case and all apparently using "comp" for "composition." So there are two issues here: why is he using such an obscure phrase (I'm still not clear on what "comp theorists" are or why they are "hard-core academics"), and why does he upper-case the C? [For "comp theorists," see second Addendum below.]

http://www.languagehat.com/archives/000510.php

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@plainoldme,

Quote:

David Foster Wallace Grammar Challenge Challenged
December 5, 2009 @ 6:35 pm · Filed by Chris Potts under Language attitudes, Language teaching and learning, Prescriptivist Poppycock

« previous post | next post »

Jason Kottke links to a "Grammar Challenge" devised by David Foster Wallace and posted by a student of Wallace's, Amy McDaniel. What's noteworthy is that Kottke reports getting 0/10. Kottke is a thoughtful, creative English prose stylist, and Wallace thought that these questions were basic ones that should be taught in any undergraduate class. Kottke seems to think the problem lies with him. I take a different view: this test is useless. Just imagine a chemistry quiz that accomplished working chemists could not pass. What would you make of such a quiz? I myself would question its author's competence at devising chemistry quizzes.

December 5, 2009 @ 6:35 pm · Filed by Chris Potts under Language attitudes, Language teaching and learning, Prescriptivist Poppycock

http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=1939

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@plainoldme,

I, being jtt, wrote: What I'm saying is that everyone who speaks knows all these parts of speech.

Quote:

POM replied: Not true. If it were true, they would not be in
developmental classes.

Let me first note, POM, that you don't provide much to develop your two sentence denial.

But it's highly likely that you just don't understand. You can blame a lot of that on being part of the Strunk and White generation.

First to your argument;

If it were true, they would not be in developmental classes.

You are assuming that the tests developed to decide who goes into the developmental classes are valid. They might be, if once again, we assume that it is somehow instructive, with the aim of improving their reading and writing skills, to parse sentences and to instruct them in the ways of Latin or Greek.

I'm sure David F Wallace could parse sentences to beat the band, and he probably knew more than a bit about Latin and Greek and much much more.

What did it do for him in advancing his knowledge about the workings of the English language? As you've seen, if you've already read some of the postings, not much at all. And he was a really really bright guy!

Now, to address directly your position. If children didn't know all the parts of speech, and they know them intuitively, not consciously, they could never communicate with the adult world or with each other.

The facts show that they do communicate. The facts, from studies, also show that they do this with an accuracy that astounds those who study such things.

I just came across, for the umpteenth thousandth time, that children at age 3 or 4 are grammatically accurate 90% of the time. And where they err, the "mistakes" are often because they are following the rules of English, eg. "I holded the puppy".

You are confusing conscious knowledge of an exceedingly difficult area of study, the grammar of language with the unconscious knowledge that all people have of their language and its structure.

Your confusion is this confusion [already posted in another thread]

Quote:

What's noteworthy is that Kottke reports getting 0/10. Kottke is a thoughtful, creative English prose stylist, and Wallace thought that these questions were basic ones that should be taught in any undergraduate class.

Kottke seems to think the problem lies with him.

I take a different view: this test is useless. Just imagine a chemistry quiz that accomplished working chemists could not pass. What would you make of such a quiz? I myself would question its author's competence at devising chemistry quizzes.

http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=1939

Your confusion is a common one. It's borne of the belief that to know how to use the language we must know about the language.

David F Wallace is a prime example that this is false. Strunk & White are two other prime examples that this is false. Bryan Garner, one of the current know nothings, is another prime example. These are/were people who purport to know about grammar - they didn't/don't.

Thousands upon thousands of other writers, Shakespeare included, knew little to nothing, consciously, of the grammar of English.

Hating someone because they express the truth seems pretty silly, doncha think?

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Quote:

Now, to address directly your position. If children didn't know all the parts of speech, and they know them intuitively, not consciously, they could never communicate with the adult world or with each other.

Let me put this another way to help in understanding;

If we were to change the names of all the parts of speech tomorrow, I think it pretty apparent that every English teacher, professor, deeply interested layperson would be shoved into the same boat occupied by these students steered into developmental classes; no one would know the names of the parts of speech.

Would language collapse, would it cease to exist? would we all be reduced to individual babbling? would we be unable to communicate with any other individual?

Put another way.

How is it possible that we understand Shakespeare's use of English in his writings when he didn't know the names of the parts of speech? Poor William, how did he write as he did, without the benefit of a remedial developmental class?

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@JTT,

I have researched him. I don't find him interesting. The contemporary novel bores me.

You are arguing something that you know nothing about and that does not stand up to examination.

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@kittenluver97,

Quote:

well if your curious ill tell you but im only in the 8th grade and its not ur buisness but wat ever

Kid, if you think such a mundane matter is none of someone else's business, why did you answer it?

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@JTT,

You are utterly out to lunch. Stop spoiling the thread.

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@plainoldme,

Quote:

I have researched him. I don't find him interesting. The contemporary novel bores me.

Whether he is interesting or whether you like his writing wasn't/isn't the issue, POM. This was/is the issue,

So, you're saying that he although he possessed a degree in English from one of the nation's leading liberal arts schools, he knew nothing of grammar?

I think it's been established beyond any doubt that he knew very little about how English works. Don't you find that at all puzzling? Here's a guy who, as you say, "possessed a degree in English from one of the nation's leading liberal arts schools" and he knew nothing of the grammar of English.

After all that -- he was also a professor at Pomona College, I believe it was --DWF can't put together an accurate yet simple 10 question grammar challenge. Strange indeed!

David Foster writes about his grammar challenge, a 10-question grammar worksheet:

IF NO ONE HAS YET TAUGHT YOU HOW TO AVOID OR REPAIR CLAUSES LIKE THE FOLLOWING, YOU SHOULD, IN MY OPINION, THINK SERIOUSLY ABOUT SUING SOMEBODY, PERHAPS AS CO-PLAINTIFF WITH WHOEVER'S PAID YOUR TUITION

Quote:

You are arguing something that you know nothing about and that does not stand up to examination.

Excuse my frankness, for I truly don't mean to be rude, but for a college instructor/professor, you're not being very clear. Just what is it that I know nothing about? Wouldn't some give and take on whatever that might be better illustrate your point than a simple dismissal?

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@plainoldme,

Quote:

You are utterly out to lunch. Stop spoiling the thread.

I believe that this is Able2Know, POM.

How might providing the facts and discussing them, something that you've not yet done, spoil a thread?

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Well, here's the handwriting I was talking about that I find so beautiful. Look at these numbers! They're a pleasure to look at and read! Does anyone else find it sad that this is becoming a lost art ?
(The adult learner who did this work is 38 years old and was taught handwriting in school - he does know how to write in 'joined up'/cursive handwriting).

What could be wrong with encouraging this sort of beauty and attention to detail in a student's work?
What are we doing now that takes its place in any meaningful way?

1 Reply

@aidan,

It looks like he was taught cursive, Aidan.

http://www.google.ca/images?um=1&hl=en&biw=988&bih=620&tbs=isch:1&q=cursive+handwriting&revid=715892763&sa=X&ei=P65dTMrmBo-osQPrlaWqCw&ved=0CCMQ1QIoAQ

He's just modified it to suit his own style like every other person who has ever been "taught" handwriting. There's no need to spend so much time teaching it.

For a fun lesson I taught Japanese kids who knew the printed alphabet to put little tails and leads on the letters and they were "writing" in no time at all.

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@JTT,

Yes, he was taught cursive. So was I- and so were you- I presume anyway. But what I'm asking is, with what are we replacing this 'art' that is derived from a stylistic base or foundation and modified to one's own specific criteria for expression?

Typeface? Scribbling?

What are we teaching now that is more important or useful in first or second grade? Does anyone think that the first or second graders of today are being more thoroughly and appropriately educated than first and second graders forty years ago? I don't see any evidence of that.

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@aidan,

aidan wrote:

What are we teaching now that is more important or useful in first or second grade? Does anyone think that the first or second graders of today are being more thoroughly and appropriately educated than first and second graders forty years ago? I don't see any evidence of that.

Well, here in Germany (and quite a few other countries) start writing only cursive (and as Thomas and I noted before: books are printed in cursive, both school books as well as children literature).

And such happened since ... well, the Medieval times.
I can't see the point what this has to do with good or bad education - it's just ... perhaps a different approach to teach writing, IMHO.

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@Walter Hinteler,

Right - and I'm thinking that education is what we use our time in school doing. What I'm asking is what have we found that is more important or efficacious for us to use our time for than something that has been 'taught' since medieval times.

In the end, it's only personal preference and I recognize that. I'm just saying that I'd rather send my child to a school in which they are taught handwriting than one that used the same amount of time teaching typing.

But then, I love looking at medieval illuminations.
It makes me sad that what I see as an art is slowly disappearing.

I guess I'm glad- as I said and as you've alluded - that it seems to be still alive and well in Europe.

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@aidan,

I'm not at all sure what is being taught wrt writing, Aidan, and I'm not all that concerned with what is taught, other than to mention that it's not so important that it warranted the time spent. We, meaning most people, just don't do what was taught.

Lucky for forensics and handwriting experts, eh? :-)

I suspect that if the teaching was left when we were at the printing stage, everyone would still develop their own handwriting to save time and effort.

The Japanese, and probably the Chinese since they have way way more Kanji than the Japanese, are found of saying that stroke order is so important when writing Kanji. I don't know it well enough to say if that's true or not but maybe they do the same thing we do, adjust the writing of Kanji on an individual, perosnal basis.

I wonder if that fella's handwriting is as neat when he isn't writing for an assignment, Aidan. I actually wrote some papers in university, had some typed, by others. Nowadays would a prof accept a handwritten paper?

[I got a Cho Yung Diet ad on my screen. I wonder, did me using the word 'Chinese', the only one on this page of posts, cause that ad to be generated?

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