Word: grammar
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...drill sessions include a fairly heavy dose of repetition of simple, everyday foreign phrases and imitation of the pronunciation of the instructor. Much of the homework consists of memorization of conversations which the students will then repeat during class. Work on grammar is done indirectly, for the most part; syntax is learned by the example of the phrases used and repeated...
...Scholar Bergen Evans believes firmly in a relative grammar. "No one can say how a word ought to be used." he insists. "The best anyone can do is say how it is being used...
Such frank statements, denying any final, unchanging standard of English grammar, horrify many men of letters who maintain that Evans' opinions lead straight to linguistic chaos. Last week Evans' baiters and backers were thumbing through a new, 576-page defense of his pragmatic approach to grammar, called...
About the TV show The Last Word [Aug. 5]: Is not the popularity of this show a kind of snobbishness in reverse? This excessive concern with grammar and its usage is on the level of whether one should wear this or that color, or use this or that fork, i.e., social insecurity. I have always said "I ain't." The only incorrection is to use the form in other persons: that is, you ain't. Dull people will always speak in a dull manner, whether it is correct...
While the progressive movement began as a healthy revolt, it gradually degenerated into a sterile orthodoxy. Instead of daring to criticize one another, educators spent their time seeing who could be more progressive than whom. "If one questioned the value of studying Latin grammar, a second would question the value of English grammar as a formal discipline, and a third would top both by saying that it made no difference whether a child spoke or wrote English so long as he was able to communicate...