Everyday Grammar: 3 Grammar Rules That Are Dying

Everyday Grammar: 3 Grammar Rules That Are Dying

For VOA Learning English, this is Everyday Grammar.

Today we have good news for English learners.

Just as words come and go in English, so do grammar rules. Today we will show you three difficult grammar rules that are disappearing from American English.

Don’t end a sentence with a preposition

When I was in school, my English teacher told me that it is wrong to end a sentence with a preposition. For example, “Who are you talking to?”

The last word of the sentence, to, is a preposition. In traditional grammar, you would have to move the preposition before the subject.

“To whom are you talking?”

The rule applies to statements as well as questions.

“I know where you’re from,” would be, “I know from where you come.” Today, it sounds very old--fashioned to speak this way.

The rule against ending a sentence with a preposition goes back to the 18th century, when it was fashionable to borrow grammar rules from Latin.

British grammarians celebrated¹ Latin as a pure and logical language. They thought they could improve English by importing Latin grammar rules.

One of the Latin rules that survives in English is the ban on ending a sentence with a preposition.

But some of the most common phrases in everyday English ignore the rule.

Who are you talking to?

I don’t know what you’re talking about.

Who are you waiting for?

Did you notice how all of these sentences end in prepositions? If you followed the Latin grammar rule, they would sound like this:

To whom are you talking?

I don’t know about what you are talking.

For whom are you waiting?

As you might hear, these sentences sound overly formal, even a bit snobbish². The word order, borrowed from Latin, does not feel natural in English.

Fortunately, the prohibition³ against ending a sentence with a preposition is disappearing. A large number of writers and editors say it is acceptable to end a sentence with a preposition. The Economist⁴, a 150--year-old British news magazine, called the rule “an invented bit of silliness rightly ignored by many excellent publications.”

Whom as an object pronoun

Another rule that is disappearing is the requirement of using whom when referring to an object pronoun.

Whom is the object form of who. Grammatically speaking, whom has the same function as other object pronouns, such as me, him, her, and them. For example, “There’s the man about whom I was speaking.”

If you put a preposition before whom, you can easily avoid ending a sentence with a preposition. For example, “Who did you go with?” becomes very the formal “With whom did you go?”

Does all this sound unnecessary and confusing?

It is.

Fortunately, whom is rarely used in spoken American English today. More and more publications have stopped using it. In fact, whom has been dying for the past 200 years.

But it still has a place in formal writing. And test makers⁵ often make questions with whom to confuse students. A few pronouns have died completely, including ye, thee, thy, and thine. They do, however, still appear in religious texts and classic literature.

Their cannot be used with a singular pronoun

A third dying rule involved third-person pronouns. English does not have a single word to say both he and she. In other words, there is no gender⁶-neutral singular third--person pronoun. So what do you say when you do not know if someone is male or female?

In the past, people used the male pronoun he to refer to all people. “Every student has his own opinion.” In later years, his or her came into use. “Everybody has his or her own opinion.” The change from his to his or her reflected the power of the women’s movement in the 1970s.

But many speakers found that his or her sounded a little strange, especially in conversation.

Today more people say, “Every student has their own opinion.” This example uses the plural⁷ their with the singular student. Their means the subject could be male or female. But it breaks a very old and very basic grammar rule: Pronouns and their antecedents are supposed to agree in number.

But when you say, “Every student has their own opinion”, the singular student does not match the plural their. So is it wrong to say, “Every student has their own opinion”? Well, it depends on who (or whom!) you ask.

More and more mainstream⁸ media organizations are allowing they, them, and their as a gender- neutral pronoun. But disagreement remains⁹. Like fashion and etiquette¹⁰, grammar changes over time.

Why not invent a gender- neutral pronoun for English? After all, languages like Swedish and Indonesian have one. Plenty of people have tried. However, more than 100 attempts to create a gender -neutral pronoun in English have failed.

Words in the Story

snobbish – adj. having or showing the attitude of people who think they are better than other people : of or relating to people who are snobs¹¹

gender -neutral – adj. a word or expression that cannot be taken to refer to one gender only

antecedent – n. a thing that comes before something else

mainstream – adj. the ideas, attitudes, or activities that are regarded as normal or conventional; the dominant¹² trend in opinion, fashion, or the arts

etiquette – n. the customary code of polite behavior in society or among members of a particular profession or group

1 celebrated   

adj.有名的，声誉卓著的

参考例句：

• He was soon one of the most celebrated young painters in England.不久他就成了英格兰最负盛名的年轻画家之一。
• The celebrated violinist was mobbed by the audience.观众团团围住了这位著名的小提琴演奏家。

2 snobbish   

adj.势利的，谄上欺下的

参考例句：

• She's much too snobbish to stay at that plain hotel.她很势利，不愿住在那个普通旅馆。
• I'd expected her to be snobbish but she was warm and friendly.我原以为她会非常势利，但她却非常热情和友好。

3 prohibition   

n.禁止；禁令，禁律

参考例句：

• The prohibition against drunken driving will save many lives.禁止酒后开车将会减少许多死亡事故。
• They voted in favour of the prohibition of smoking in public areas.他们投票赞成禁止在公共场所吸烟。

4 economist   

n.经济学家，经济专家，节俭的人

参考例句：

• He cast a professional economist's eyes on the problem.他以经济学行家的眼光审视这个问题。
• He's an economist who thinks he knows all the answers.他是个经济学家，自以为什么都懂。

5 makers   

n.制造者，制造商（maker的复数形式）

参考例句：

• The makers of the product assured us that there had been no sacrifice of quality. 这一产品的制造商向我们保证说他们没有牺牲质量。
• The makers are about to launch out a new product. 制造商们马上要生产一种新产品。 来自《简明英汉词典》

6 gender   

n.（生理上的）性，（名词、代词等的）性

参考例句：

• French differs from English in having gender for all nouns.法语不同于英语，所有的名词都有性。
• Women are sometimes denied opportunities solely because of their gender.妇女有时仅仅因为性别而无法获得种种机会。

7 plural   

n.复数；复数形式；adj.复数的

参考例句：

• Most plural nouns in English end in's '.英语的复数名词多以s结尾。
• Here you should use plural pronoun.这里你应该用复数代词。

8 mainstream   

n.（思想或行为的）主流；adj.主流的

参考例句：

• Their views lie outside the mainstream of current medical opinion.他们的观点不属于当今医学界观点的主流。
• Polls are still largely reflects the mainstream sentiment.民调还在很大程度上反映了社会主流情绪。

9 remains   

n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹

参考例句：

• He ate the remains of food hungrily.他狼吞虎咽地吃剩余的食物。
• The remains of the meal were fed to the dog.残羹剩饭喂狗了。

10 etiquette   

n.礼仪，礼节；规矩

参考例句：

• The rules of etiquette are not so strict nowadays.如今的礼仪规则已不那么严格了。
• According to etiquette,you should stand up to meet a guest.按照礼节你应该站起来接待客人。

11 snobs   

（谄上傲下的）势利小人( snob的名词复数 )； 自高自大者，自命不凡者

参考例句：

• She dislikes snobs intensely. 她极其厌恶势利小人。
• Most of the people who worshipped her, who read every tidbit about her in the gossip press and hung up pictures of her in their rooms, were not social snobs. 崇敬她大多数的人不会放过每一篇报导她的八卦新闻，甚至在他们的房间中悬挂黛妃的画像，这些人并非都是傲慢成性。

12 dominant   

adj.支配的，统治的；占优势的；显性的；n.主因，要素，主要的人(或物)；显性基因

参考例句：

• The British were formerly dominant in India.英国人从前统治印度。
• She was a dominant figure in the French film industry.她在法国电影界是个举足轻重的人物。