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The Fight for English

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how language pundits ate, shot, and left

David Crystal is a prolific writer on the subject of English language and the way it is used. His output ranges from scholarly works of reference such as The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language, to popular studies of modern usage such as his recent Words, Words, Words which tries to keep track of concepts of language. This latest book The Fight for English is his defence of descriptive grammar. In a sense it’s his riposte to the very popular work by Lynne Truss, Eats, Shoots, and Leaves which knocked Harry Potter off the best-seller lists two or three years ago.

Descriptive grammarShe was arguing for an adherence to traditional notions of grammar and correctness. Crystal is here saying that language changes all the time and that there is nothing you can do about it. What he offers is a historical tour through what has been written about the English language. This tour takes him from AElfric in 1000 AD to the present. Our language started with a cultural mix of Latin, English, and French (with English very much at the bottom of the prestige table) but all the time it was absorbing an enormous number of loan words. (This is why the lexicon in English is bigger than other languages – and why there are so many irregularities of spelling and grammar.)

The advent of printing began the process of standardisation – though it was hampered at first by lots of regional variations. Then early attempts at spelling reform were thwarted by lack of agreement between competing suggestions.

The first textbooks on grammar began to appear in the late sixteenth century and were followed by attempts to ‘regulate’ language via institutions such as the Royal Society. These too were unsuccessful – just as those of the Academie Francaise continue to be today.

Crystal has a high regard for Dr Johnson, compiler of the first really authoritative dictionary in English – but as he points out, even Johnson realised, after his monumental efforts to pin down the spelling and meaning of words, that language changes:

This is a lesson everyone who studies language eventually learns. You cannot stop language change. You may not like it; you may regret the arrival of new forms and the passing of old ones; but there is not the slightest thing you can do about it.

He makes what can be a complex issue easy to understand by breaking his argument down into separate short chapters – Standards, Grammar, Punctuation, Spelling – and so on. And he presents the whole development of English as a constant flux, with tensions between linguistic pedants and actual popular usage. It’s a process which he sees as self-correcting:

Languages seem to operate with an unconsciously held system of checks and balances. If a group of people go wildly off in one linguistic direction, using a crate of new words, eventually—if they want to continue as part of society and be understood by its other members—they will be pulled back, and they will drop some of their neologisms. At the same time, a few of the new words will have been picked upon by the rest of the community. And so a language grows.

He mounts a vigorous attack on prescriptive grammarians, then the same on the pronunciation police – demolishing all their pontifications with the same argument – that the ‘standards’ which they claim to be absolute are often either recent innovations, or are already out of date.

The latter part of the book is an assessment of the current state of English language teaching in schools, and an explanation of why he finds hope in the National Curriculum, which he helped to frame. This is a user-friendly book, written in a plain-speaking style, and his arguments are ultimately convincing. But he’s not as funny as Lynne Truss.

© Roy Johnson 2007

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David Crystal, The Fight for English, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007, pp.256, ISBN: 0199229694

The Global English Style Guide

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writing clear documentation for a global market

Many people who do not speak English as a first language struggle to understand English texts. Human translation is expensive. Machine translation (MT) frequently does not work. Global English offers a solution to these three related problems. Many good style guides exist. Why do technical writers need another guide to writing style? But unlike many other guides, The Global English Style Guide covers grammatical structures, not only particular terms.

The Global English Style Guide The book has more than 200 pages of text (plus 4 appendices) that give detailed explanations of both good practice and bad practice. John Kohl writes clearly, and he explains the reasons for the guidelines. His guidelines are based on practical work at SAS Institute, where he works as a technical author. Most technical writers know some of the guidelines already. For example, restrict the use of the passive voice; use language literally; and simplify the writing style. However, many guidelines may be new. For instance, until I read the book, I used all these sentence structures:

  • However, you can put an adverb in many locations.
  • You can, however, put an adverb in many locations.
  • You can put an adverb in many locations, however.

Now, I put an adverb at the start of a sentence, because in that location, the adverb helps to show the reader the logical connection with the previous sentence.

Both of the following sentences are grammatically correct:

  • Set up the system.
  • Set the system up.

Now, as far as possible, I always use the first structure, and keep the parts of a phrasal verb together. Keeping the parts of the verb together increases consistency, improves machine translation, and helps non-native speakers who do not know the particular verb.

A full chapter and an appendix show how to improve readability and translatability by using syntactic cues. A syntactic cue is a part of language that helps a reader to identify parts of speech and to analyse the structure of a sentence. Sometimes, syntactic cues are optional, but excluding them can cause ambiguity. Kohl gave a humorous example. The grammatically correct sentence, “Do not dip your bread or roll in your soup” has two possible meanings:

  1. Do not dip your bread or your roll in your soup.
  2. Do not dip your bread in your soup, and do not roll in your soup.

If readers are aware of the second interpretation, they know that it is incorrect. However, with technical texts, if a writer does not include optional syntactic cues, a reader’s interpretation may be incorrect.

With Global English, a writer can use all grammatical structures and all terms, unless the guidelines prohibit the grammar or the term. Additionally, the primary rule of Global English is, ‘do not make any change that will sound unnatural to native speakers of English’.

An alternative method for writing clear text is to use a controlled language. With a controlled language, a writer can use only grammar and terms that are permitted. Despite the different methods, many of the Global English guidelines agree with controlled language guidelines.

The subtitle of the book refers to writing documentation. However, most of the guidelines apply to copywriting as much as to technical writing. All writers who want to reach a global audience, to decrease translation costs, or to make their texts as clear as possible will benefit highly from this book.

Review by Mike Unwalla © 2008

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John R, Kohl, The Global English style guide: writing clear, translatable documentation for a global market. Cary, NC: SAS Institute Inc. 2008, ISBN 9781599946573.

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The Handbook of Good English

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guide to grammar, punctuation, usage, and style

Some writing guides are not much more than a list of grammatical rules, with illustrative examples and tips on what to avoid. Even though it uses grammatical elements as its structure, The Handbook of Good English is almost the opposite of that. Edward Johnson is an editor with a passion for language and the way it is used. What he seeks to explain is not just grammatical rules but the reasons why some forms of writing are more persuasive and elegant than others.

The Handbook of Good English And he does this in a very leisurely manner, which is what makes this book so long – and comprehensive. He starts with sentences, then works his way to parts of speech and punctuation. At best, the examples and explanations he gives are good for being so succinct – as in his discussion of the gerund:

I dislike that man’s wearing a mask and I dislike that man wearing a mask are different statements. In the first, the wearing of the mask is disliked; in the second, the man is disliked. In the first statement, wearing is a gerund – that is, a special verb form that functions as a noun.

He covers every possible combination of circumstances which can arise to create problems: how to show quotations within quotations, dashes within parentheses, foreign words, and the titles of newspapers, plays, and the parts of a book. His thoroughness is almost exhausting. There are twenty-seven pages on the comma and thirty-four on the hyphen alone.

He’s what might be called a liberal or tolerant prescriptivist, because whilst permitting occasional exceptions, he does ultimately seek to establish rules:

the functionless comma does no harm, but nevertheless, commas that have no function should be omitted, just as words that have no function should be omitted (see Rule 1-4).

He takes full account of the differences between American and UK use of English, and it is interesting to note that (contrary to what UK traditionalists imagine) changes and influences operate in both directions.

Grammar issues apart, the chapter most readers will enjoy is his last – where he gives excellent advice on writing style. This covers subtle matters such as tone, diction, pace, attitude, and construction.

But at times, his approach is not so felicitous. I found it slightly annoying that a lot of his topics started off with bad examples. There are so many reasons why writing can be clumsy and ill-formed, this leads him into lengthy discussions of all the possible corrections and alternatives, after which he is forced to say:

It must be admitted that the correct versions of these sentences are much harder on the ear or eye than the incorrect versions, and that rewriting them would be advisable.

It’s a book which will probably be of most use to those people who already have a reasonable command of basic English, but who would like to know why some common grammatical problems are wrong or unacceptable – as well as how to put them right. In this sense it can be used as both a book of instruction or reference.

© Roy Johnson 2000

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Edward D. Johnson, The Handbook of Good English, New York: Washington Square Press, 1991, pp.426, ISBN: 0671707973

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The Life of Slang

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where slang comes from, and what it’s used for

The Life of Slang is a study of linguistic creation. We know that when a slang word is introduced into the language, it can become Standard English if it is adopted by enough people and put into general use. And of course the reverse can happen when a Standard English term is used in a new way and thereby becomes slang – which is what’s happened to the term gay since the end of the nineteenth century. In fact the process can continue, and by re-adoption the slang word is taken back into Standard English as a legitimate and additional meaning of the term.

The Life of SlangPeople commonly object to slang when it is first introduced – particularly if it comes from another country such as Australia or the United States. But then resistance weakens (among some groups) and people become late adopters and start to embarrass their children by employing slang which is not a natural part of their verbal register – which is why the elderly Duchess of Cornwall made herself ridiculous by describing the engagement of her stepson (and future king of England) as ‘wicked’.

Another popular misconception is that the English language is somehow ‘infected’ by slang from other languages. This is simply not true. Some terms are found useful and adopted, others are not. You don’t hear English people using ditzy, which is a perfectly normal American term for silly or scatterbrained. And Americans refer slightingly to their own lower-class as ‘trailer trash’ not ‘chavs’. Both countries are selective about the terms they wish to borrow and use.

There’s also a longstanding belief that the use of slang impoverishes somebody’s verbal skills or their range of diction. Once again, there is no evidence to support this belief. Slang is simply an additional tool for communication which is used to mark attitudes to a topic or membership of a group. In fact all speakers can switch in and out of a variety of linguistic registers with no trouble. This is an endemic feature of language use.

In this very readable study of slang, Julie Coleman examines the way in which slang is formed – which turns out to be the same way as Standard English, through word-combination, back formation, and borrowings.

How it’s imported from other countries is a different matter. She puts a great deal of store on cross fertilization between British and American troops during the first world war – but this doesn’t seem altogether convincing, given the brevity of contact between the two forces.

There’s an analysis of literary texts from Chaucer onwards that seeks to provide evidence for her claim that the use of slang increases as time goes on. In fact she claims that slang was not commonly used before the renaissance, but admits that she has no evidence to prove it. She also covers slang from other English-speaking countries – Australia, New Zealand Canada, and even India

A great deal of her exposition is a historical account of underworld cant taken to Australia by transported British felons – and despite Australian national pride, developed from the early nineteenth century onwards. Australia is particularly rich in slang since it receives its linguistic influences from two English-speaking sources – both Britain and the United States.

There is a blurred distinction between slang and colloquialism or idiom which is not always easy to disentangle. Words such as wonga and moolah are not used for anything other than slang terms for money, whereas words such as knob and beef can be used in their conventional senses of handle and meat, as well as their common use as slang terms.

She covers terms generated by the press, the music hall, cinema, pop music, television, and radio – with a generous nod to Round the Horne which ‘preserved one form of slang [Polari] that might otherwise have fallen from use altogether’.

She finishes with a survey of the most rapidly developing field of new terms of all – computer technology and its users. The Internet is the ultimate democratic medium and also the most immediate. Events on one side of the world may now be made known on the other as they are happening – via Twitter, Facebook, blogs, and video depositories such as YouTube.

Online dictionaries of slang compiled in the form of Wikis are known to vary greatly in their reliability and quality. Nevertheless, she gives a very respectful account of the user-generated Urban Dictionary. Then, after this fairly exhaustive survey she concludes by re-examining what is required in order to define slang – and it’s not easy.

It’s not necessarily new, or linguistically unusual, or associated with uneducated people, or necessarily vulgar. It’s not just colloquial language taken to an extreme. It doesn’t include dialect or jargon, although local and professional slang do occur. It doesn’t include swearing, though some swearing is slang. Neither is it restricted to the spoken language to the extent that it once was. It isn’t necessarily used for deliberate effect. Slanginess isn’t a quality of words or meanings: what’s slang in one context wouldn’t be slang in another.

In the end she opts to describe it as an attitude to language use which is recognised by fellow users in certain groups. This might seem disappointing to those seeking the reassurance of a quasi-scientific definition. But it strikes me as a step forward, a clearing of the decks from what was once thought to be a simple matter of making word lists and labelling the contents ‘slang’.

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&copy Roy Johnson 2012

Julie Coleman, The Life of Slang, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012, pp.354, ISBN: 0199571996

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The Oxford Comma

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also known as the serial or the Harvard comma

What is the Oxford Comma?

the Oxford comma
The Oxford comma is a name given to the mark of punctuation used before the final and when listing a series of items. Here’s an example.

There were a number of items on the table: a handbag, a penknife, a clock, and a walking stick.

The Oxford comma is the comma which comes before the last item – , and a walking stick.

The Oxford comma gets its name from the fact that is has traditionally been recommended by the Oxford University Press in its instructions to typesetters and printers. The latest OUP style guide, New Hart’s Rules continues to urge its use. It’s also known as the ‘serial comma’, or the ‘Harvard comma’ in the USA.

When a number of items are listed in a sentence, the normal way to present them is separated by commas. However, there are two schools of thought about the need for the final comma.

The sentence above would still be understandable if it were written as follows:

There were a number of items on the table: a handbag, a penknife, a clock and a walking stick.

Some people argue that the final comma can be omitted in many cases because it breaks up the natural flow of the sentence. That’s true in this example – but only because all the items are quite distinct and carry equal weight. The comma in this case can be used or omitted. However, in other cases ambiguity can easily arise if the comma is omitted.

This is particularly true if the list includes things of a different kind.

cider, real ales, meat and vegetable pies and sandwiches

This example could mean that in addition to cider and real ales, the list includes meat, plus vegetable pies, plus sandwiches. But is more likely to mean meat and vegetable pies, plus sandwiches.

A famous instance of the same thing is that attributed to the American science fiction writer Teresa Hayden, who dedicated one of her books in the following way.

To my parents, Ayn Rand and God.

What she meant of course was ‘I am dedicating this book to my parents, to Ayn Rand, and to God’. Even that would have been pretentious enough, but the way she has expressed it, without the Oxford comma, the implication is that her parents were Ayn Rand and God.

A comma after the final and is not required when the last two items are a single expression or a ‘pair’

The menu offered us several options: roast beef, pasta bake, lamb chops, or fish and chips.

The comma should also be used if there is a grammatical extension to the list, as in this example.

brass, copper, bronze, and other non-ferrous materials

The need for the final comma become more acute when the list is a series of clauses in a single sentence.

The main points to consider are whether the competitors are skilful enough to complete the course, whether they have trained sufficiently for such a long race, and whether they are used to running at high altitude in these temperatures.

The commas in this example help the reader to understand a long statement made up of complex parts.

When the clauses in a complex sentence are themselves puctuated by commas, the separate clauses should be punctuated using the semicolon.

The outbreak of war was caused by a number of factors: Hitler’s determination to occupy Austria, Czechoslovakia, and Poland; the longstanding desire of Chamberlain and Daladier, as opposed to Winston Churchill, to avoid war at all costs; and Stalin’s cynical, last-minute pact with Hitler.

Even though the comma before the final ‘and’ is sometimes not required, it’s worth noting that it is never wrong. This is a good argument for always using it – to remove any possible ambiguity.

© Roy Johnson 2011

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The Oxford History of English

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academic essays on the development of English language

This is an updated version of The Oxford History of English which is now available with the claim that it’s ‘a book for everyone interested in the English language, present and past’. A reasonable claim – though one might wish to add the caveat: ‘suitable for everyone embarking on detailed academic research into the history and mechanics of English’. Because it is certainly not for beginners. It offers a detailed and scholarly history of the English language, starting as far back as 1500BC.

The Oxford History of EnglishAnd as Lynda Mugglestone’s useful introduction claims, the volume encompasses not only standard forms of English but also varieties stemming from geography, status and culture. The book comprises fourteen chapters, each written by a different linguist and representing a variety of interests, which makes the volume invaluable to students of linguistics up to post graduate level. Time-lines, language maps tables and charts complement the textual information. A phonemic table is also included and this is essential to the understanding of some language development explanations such as the Great Vowel Shift.

Nothing essential to the study of the English language is omitted and this is given zest by frequent examples from literary works or artefacts, and by the implicit enthusiasm shown by the contributors. For example, Marilyn Corrie quotes the original of a Middle English text, along with the translation, showing a homely but avid interest in study skills.

And whoever may wish to write this book out again on another occasion, I ask him that he write it correctly, just as this book teaches him.

This is a neat reminder that books at one time could only be copied by hand, one at a time.

North American English and its formation is dealt with, including citations of additions from Native American terms and usages – such as the native term Skunk. Other examples of English that have acquired semi-detached status are cited and these specifics are used to lead into the universal principles of language change, observable over thousands of years.

Techniques for the analysis of language mechanisms are eloquently explained in the chapter Dialects and Diversity. Reference to rhyme and poetic metre show the development in a quasi graphical manner that is very pleasing to read.

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle gets appropriate consideration as do various Anglo-Saxon sermons and poems. The advent of Christianity is used to demonstrate the gradual transition from paganism as reflected in poetry. The establishment of a written vernacular is documented with due reference to King Alfred as possibly the first educator in English, via The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.

The volume deals in detail with Germanic influences and the French influence that followed it. Issues such as ‘high’ and ‘low’ languages and the imprint left on a society after the departure of conquering nations are all included in a comprehensive and detailed history.

Considering more recent developments, Tom McArthur traces the status of English during the Twentieth Century with a quaint but comprehensive world map showing English language usage.

In his conclusion David Crystal not only charts the observable influences on English of the Internet and its devices, but he also gives his own prospective notions for the future of the language.

Each chapter is given its own lists of suggestions for further reading, and the book finishes with a huge bibliography. Although the level of detail is on a minute scale, the content is easily accessible, navigable and readable, given some prior knowledge on the part of the reader.

I would gladly give The Oxford History of English to anyone embarking on a language-based programme of study, or to any dedicated amateur student of the English language, its history and its prospects.

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© Roy Johnson 2013

Lynda Mugglestone (ed), The Oxford History of English, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012, pp.600, ISBN: 0199660166

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The Real McCoy

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the true stories behind our everyday phrases and sayings

English is incredibly rich language, full of colorful and unusual phrases and sayings. This is one of those books which offers explanations for commonly used expressions. For instance, why do we say ‘know your onions’, ‘straight as a die’, and ‘the apple of your eye’? The answer in the last example is that the pupil was once supposed to be round. The Real McCoy is unusual as an expression in that nobody really knows its true origin.

The Real McCoyAnother typical example is ‘Mad as a hatter’. I knew this one, because it comes from the mercury poisoning used in felt hat manufacture – a former speciality in the town where I live. Most of the entries are very short. However, there are occasional special sections dealing with groups of – such as Biblical expressions, colours, eating and drinking, foreign countries, legends and myths, parts of the body and expressions coined by Shakespeare. Most of the entries are ploddingly obvious. I think that just about everybody knows that ‘full of beans’ means ‘lively and in high spirits’ and that the origin comes from vegetable protein.

However, there were one or two expressions I had certainly not thought about, such as ‘curry favour’ which has nothing to do with cooking or the Indian subcontinent, but comes from the expression curry as in to groom a horse with a coarse brush or comb.

And I certainly didn’t realise that a devil’s advocate was originally an official Catholic appointment during the process of beatification. The person’s role was to challenge the case being made for sainthood.

It’s an easy and lightweight approach to the subject. The entries come with no evidence or credible sources, and there’s no bibliography or list of further reading.

This could be useful as a Xmas or birthday present for someone who hasn’t yet thought much about the quirky nature of language. For something more substantial you will need to go to books such as The Oxford Dictionary of Idioms or Michael Quinion’s Port Out, Starboard Home.

© Roy Johnson 2005

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Georgia Hole, The Real McCoy, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005, pp.200, ISBN: 0192806114

Tone – how to understand it

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Tone – definition

tone To the linguist [or speech therapist] ‘tone’ means the quality of sound produced by the voice in uttering words.

redbtn In a general sense, ‘tone’ is the attitude of the speaker or writer as revealed in the choice of vocabulary or the
intonation of speech.

redbtn This attitude might be immediately apparent — in tone of voice, for instance.

redbtn It might on the other hand be a complex and subtle manner which takes time to establish — in an extended piece of writing, for instance.

Examples

redbtn Written or spoken communication might be described as having a tone which is, for instance:

ironic serious flippant
threatening light-hearted pessimistic
Use

redbtn Tone is used to convey an attitude. This may be done consciously or unconsciously.

redbtn It could be said that there is no such thing as a text or verbal utterance without a tone.

redbtn In most cases, tone is either taken for granted, or perceived unconsciously.

redbtn NB! Tone is sometimes difficult to describe and analyse. It’s a subtle and complex matter.

redbtn Tone, taken at its most literal, is a feature of non-verbal communication. It is the physical level at which the sound of the human voice is transmitted.

redbtn Linguists and speech therapists chart intonation patterns by a system of marks on the page to suggest the rising and falling of the voice tone.

redbtn Intonation is the term by which we refer to the patterns of sound which are evident in every utterance. We sometimes use the term ‘monotone’ to imply an absence of intonation. This usually suggests some negative state of mind on the part of the speaker.

redbtn Every language has its standard set of intonation patterns. These have to be learnt by the non-native speaker as an essential constituent of the transmission of meaning.

redbtn The intonation patterns of a language are the first things a child learns in its progress as a speaker. They are the first elements a child selects from the body of ‘comprehensible imput’ which is necessary to trigger the acquisition process.

redbtn Interestingly, intonation is a difficult hurdle for the second-language learner. It seems that the intonation of one’s own native language becomes deeply internalised, and the ability to hear the intonation of a second language is not as sharp as it is in a young child.

redbtn We can, perhaps, appreciate these difficulties if we take the single word ‘hello’ and consider the variations possible in expressing it to imply an attitude. [This isn’t easy to reproduce on screen, but bear with us.]

‘Hello, hello, hello.’ stereotype policeman
‘Hello?’ ‘Is anyone there?’
‘Hello!’ ‘At last I’ve found it!’
‘Hello!’ ‘Here we go again!’
‘Hello!’ ‘Fancy meeting you.’
and of course…
‘Hello!’ Greeting a friend

redbtn Even a non-verbal utterance such as a cough or a clearing of the throat can be eloquent by means of its tone. An example of this is the cough which says ‘Be careful! People are listening in to what you’re saying’. A slightly different cough acts as a warning not to go any further with an action or an utterance.

redbtn Intonation as part of literary writing is conveyed often by narrative description as in:

‘Oh Jeremy!’ she exclaimed in a shocked tone.

‘Jeremy!’ she screamed, as she saw him leap from the parapet.

redbtn As practised readers, we infer the tone of literary dialogue without the explicit narrative description used in the first example given above. We hear the delivery in our mind’s ‘ear’ as clearly as we hear it in reality when taking part in a dialogue ourselves.

redbtn Tone is perhaps applied more widely in an almost metaphoric sense to convey a whole attitude. For instance we might receive a letter from someone expressing the sentiment that they had trusted us, but felt let down by something we had done. The letter might have an ironic tone, or an angry tone, or an indignant tone.

redbtn Tone in this sense is conveyed by an amalgam of choice of vocabulary and syntax on the part of the writer. For the reader, this selection creates an imaginary audible impression, as the tone is heard in the mind’s ear.

Self-assessment quiz follows >>>

© Roy Johnson 2004

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Verbs – how to understand them

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Verbs – definition

verbs A verb expresses an action or a state of being.

redbtn Most statements in speech and writing have a main verb.

Examples

redbtn The following verbs are expressed in their infinitive form:

to sing to eat to run
to travel to be to have
to intend to feel to paint
Use

redbtn Verbs are traditionally expressed along with the appropriate pronouns as follows:

Singular Plural
I run We run
You run You run
He runs They run
She runs —
It runs —

redbtn This is the conjugation of the verb ‘to run’.

redbtn Verbs are expressed in tenses which place the statement in a point in time. Broadly speaking these are are the past, present, and future tense:

PAST I ran [yesterday]
PRESENT I run [today]
FUTURE I shall run [tomorrow]

redbtn The verbs ‘to be’ and ‘to have’ are the most commonly used auxiliary verbs and they work alongside the main verbs in any statement.

redbtn NB! English is the only European language which doesn’t have a future tense. It uses an auxiliary verb (‘shall’) to indicate the future.

redbtn Traditionally, children are taught that verbs are doing words. This is a very simplistic definition, although it is valid for most normal purposes:

John went to the bank.
My mother arrives on Saturday.
Simple Simon met a pieman.

redbtn The verb is a very important part of the sentence. It is a necessary part of every fully expressed predicate – the part of the sentence which normally follows the subject.

redbtn The verb is the grammatical instrument which gives us information about the person or thing which is the subject.

redbtn Consider the following sentence:

Jane grasped the neckace with joy and placed it in the carved wooden box.

redbtn We are given essential information here by means of two verbs – ‘grasped’ and ‘placed’. They express the subject’s physical and psychological attitude, and they also place the action in a temporal context by the fact that they are verbs in the past tense.

redbtn These verbs in this context are lexical items, even though they are also doing essential grammatical work. They are lexical in the sense that they are giving detailed information regarding the actions of the subject.

redbtn In other contexts, the verb does take a more mechanically grammatical role, as in the following sentence:

James is absolutely sure that Alice is the right choice for the executive post..

redbtn Here the verb ‘to be’ is used twice to express the information. The verb’s function here is almost entirely grammatical rather than lexical. The lexical information is given by means of the two adverbs ‘absolutely’ and ‘sure’, the adverbial phrase ‘right choice’, and the phrase ‘executive post’.

redbtn The verb ‘is’ puts the information in the present tense and facilitates the expression of James’ state of mind.

redbtn Advertisers trade on the grammatical dynamism of the verb when space is at a premium. The following slogans all use the verb in a lexical mode, which places the focus on the action.

It’s good to talk British Telecom
Makes the going easy British Rail slogan
Wash and go shampoo ad
Pick up a Penguin chocolate biscuits
The listening bank Midland Bank ad

redbtn Road signs also need to be succinct, so verbs play a crucial part in the best known:

Keep left Stop Give way

redbtn All of these are strong imperatives. The recent ‘Kill your speed’ is not only imperative but emotive by the use of the word ‘kill’, here applied as a metaphor.

redbtn Verbs are employed to critical effect by poets. The following well known extracts show the powerful effect of the lexical verb.

My heart aches and a drowsy numbness pains my sense
As though of hemlock I had drunk one moment past
And Lethewards had sunk.

[John Keats]

redbtn Here ‘aches’ and ‘pains’ both in the present tense are strongly evocative of a listless state of being. The next active verb ‘drunk’ acts as a clear connection between the state of being and the possible cause, at the same time as shifting the action from the present to the hypothetical past. ‘Sunk’ completes the sequence by suggesting physical movement as a result of all the preceding verbal information.

redbtn Verbs can also be transformed into other grammatical functions and in many cases this results in an increased dynamism.

Adverbs ‘Thats nice’ he said mockingly, as she tried her best to pick up the broken vase.
Adjectives The moving finger writes, and having writ moves on.
Nouns He always insisted on doing all his own washing.

redbtn Conversely, other parts of speech can be used as verbs. American English is replete with such usages, some of which have been assimilated into British English.

redbtn Young people now go ‘clubbing’ on Saturday evenings. ‘Parenting’ has now become the term for child-rearing. A recent court case in America revealed that the defendent had been ‘incested’.

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© Roy Johnson 2004

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Vocabulary – how to use it correctly

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Vocabulary – definition

vocabulary Vocabulary is a general term to describe the particular selection or type of words chosen in speech or writing.

redbtn It refers to individual items of content such as words.

redbtn Stylistic analysis picks out specific vocabulary items and analyses them as distinct from the grammar of the statement.

Examples

redbtn Here is a statement [from the world of computer technology] with certain vocabulary items selected for analysis.

“JavaScript is not a standalone programming language, and JavaScript programs cannot run outside the context of a Web browser.”

JavaScript technical jargon and the proper name for a programming language
standalone a recent coinage used as an adjective describing the nature of the programming language
program an American borrowing, useful as it distinguishes it from the English ‘programme’ which is now kept for reference to theatrical or TV content lists
Web more technical jargon, and the [abbreviated] proper name of the World Wide Web
browser the name of software for exploring the Web [a very recent coinage]
Use

redbtn Every individual has a collection of vocabulary items stored up in memory for use in speech and writing.

redbtn This collection can be referred to as a person’s lexicon.

redbtn The lexicon of any group is the sum-total of its word-stock.

redbtn This public lexicon is recorded in dictionaries — which have to be kept up to date as word meanings change and new items of vocabulary are created.

redbtn Vocabulary (or ‘lexis’) is usefully distinguished from grammar in textual analysis. The grammar of any utterance is the underlying structure. The vocabulary or the lexical level is the immediate content or subject-matter of a statement.

redbtn The passage which follows contains a normal mixture of grammatical items and vocabulary items.

Bananas are cheap and plentiful and can be used in many interesting ways, either as desserts or in main meals.

redbtn With the grammatical items removed, the sentence still makes some sense.

Bananas cheap plentiful used many interesting ways either desserts main meals.

redbtn Without the lexical items however, the grammar words mean nothing as a sequence.

are and can be in as or in

redbtn As part of the language acquisition process, children build up a vocabulary which is like a personal archive of words or utterances. These may be called on as part of the natural act of speaking.

redbtn Much research has been carried out to assess the volume of a child’s vocabulary at a young age. It has been impossible to gain accurate results in this field because a child utters only a fraction of its total vocabulary.

redbtn Saussure applied the terms langue and parole to this phenomenon. Langue referred to the total individual vocabulary comprising the words learnt and understood (but not necessarily uttered). Parole referred to the vocabulary actually spoken.

redbtn There is an added complexity surrounding this topic. That is the definition of ‘knowing’ a vocabulary item. A person could utter a word or a phrase without knowing its meaning. Moreover, the quality of understanding is not always easy to assess, especially in children.

redbtn Vocabulary is one level of stylistic analysis, along with graphology, phonology, grammar and semantics.

redbtn In anylysing the vocabulary of a text or a speech, patterns of usage would be the subject of comment. For instance, the frequent occurrence of technical terms in car repair manual, or of emotive terms in a tabloid newspaper article.

redbtn Aberrant usage would also be of interest. In advertising for instance, words are sometimes spelt deviantly as in Beanz meanz Heinz. Coinages are also used, as is rhyme and onomatopoeia. All these features become issues of vocabulary in stylistics.

Self-assessment quiz follows >>>

© Roy Johnson 2004

English Language 3.0 program
Books on language
More on grammar

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