The syntactic component of a grammar must specify, for each sentence, a deep structure that determines its semantic interpretation... and a surface structure that determines its phonetic interpretation.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The Husband of To-Day ever considers his wife but as a portion of his my-ship. Nominative I.... Possessive My, or Mine. Objective Me. This is the grammar known to the Husband of To-Day.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I demand that my books be judged with utmost severity, by knowledgeable people who know the rules of grammar and of logic, and who... will seek beneath the footsteps of my commas the lice of my thought in the head of my style.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
To anyone who still feels that there must be an identity of logical form between language and reality, I can only plead that the c...onception of language as a mirror of reality is radically mistaken. We find out soon enough that the universe is not capricious: the child who learns that fire burns and knife-edges cut knows that there are inexorable limits set upon his desires. Language must conform to the discovered regularities and irregularities of experience. But in order to do so, it is enough that it should be apt for the expression of everything that is or might be the case. To be content with less would be to be satisfied to be inarticulate; to ask for more is to desire the impossible. No roads lead from grammar to metaphysics.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
It was Mabbie without the grammar school gates. And Mabbie was all of seven.... And Mabbie was cut from a chocolate bar. And Mabbie thought life was heaven.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
English grammar is so complex and confusing for the one very simple reason that its rules and terminology are based on Latin--a la...nguage with which it has precious little in common. In Latin, to take one example, it is not possible to split an infinitive. So in English, the early authorities decided, it should not be possible to split an infinitive either. But there is no reason why we shouldn't, any more than we should forsake instant coffee and air travel because they weren't available to the Romans. Making English grammar conform to Latin rules is like asking people to play baseball using the rules of football. It is a patent absurdity. But once this insane notion became established, grammarians found themselves having to draw up ever more complicated and circular arguments to accommodate the inconsistencies.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The old saying of Buffon's that style is the man himself is as near the truth as we can get--but then most men mistake grammar for... style, as they mistake correct spelling for words or schooling for education.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
There's nothing a well-regulated child hates so much as regularity. I believe a really healthy boy would thoroughly enjoy Greek Gr...ammar--if only he might stand on his head to learn it!LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The new grammar of race is constructed in a way that George Orwell would have appreciated, because its rules make some ideas impos...sible to express--unless, of course, one wants to be called a racist.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
There is a parallel between the twos and the tens. Tens are trying to test their abilities again, sizing up and experimenting to d...iscover how to fit in. They don't mean everything they do and say. They are just testing. . . . Take a good deal of your daughter's behavior with a grain of salt. Try to handle the really outrageous as matter-of-factly as you would a mistake in grammar or spelling.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »