What’s in it for me? Develop a nuanced approach to evaluating speech and writing.
If you care about words – and you probably do, if you’ve made your way to this Blink – you’ve probably at some point cringed when someone said “irregardless” or pronounced “nuclear” like “nucular”. You might find yourself struggling to silence this inner grammando – that persnickety inner voice that constantly corrects other people’s linguistic mistakes. At the same time, you probably also have an inner wordie – someone who’s fascinated and delighted by language and its evolution.
The good news is that there’s a middle ground between grammando and wordie – and that’s exactly the territory this Blink explores. In it, we’ll dive into the historical contexts and social forces that shape usage, empowering us to make informed linguistic choices instead of just deferring to a prescriptive set of rules.
Are the rules really the rules?
Among linguists, the word “impact” is deeply controversial. “Only teeth can be impacted”, a newspaper editor once insisted to the author. But, undoubtedly, we’ve all seen news articles where “impact” was used as a verb to describe how various factors affect the economy. So what’s wrong with it?
Well, many grammarians and usage guides claim that “impact” as a verb is a nonsensical and unacceptable new usage.
However, this argument is based on a false premise. In fact, “impact” has been a verb in English longer than it’s been a noun. In the early seventeenth century, it meant “to press closely into something.” The noun “impact” only arose in the late eighteenth century to refer to the collision of two bodies. Within a few decades, it began to be used figuratively to talk about effects or influences.
Grammandos caught on to the growing figurative use and decided to clamp down on it. The largest professional association in the humanities, the Modern Language Association, still asserts that “impact” can’t be used in the figurative sense. Likewise, in 2001, 81 percent of the Usage Panel of the American Heritage Dictionary voted that the use of the verb “impact” to mean “to have an effect” is unacceptable.
There are signs that these usage organizations are loosening up, though. By 2015, only 50 percent of the American Heritage Dictionary Usage Panel disapproved of this use of “impact”.
So is “impact” as a verb okay or not? The answer might be: it depends. Groups like the Usage Panel – which was actually disbanded in 2018 – do play an important role in determining which linguistic usages are acceptable in formal, edited contexts.
However, their judgments are far from objective. They’re invariably influenced by the particular linguistic sensibilities and ideological leanings of their members. In other words, their votes don’t make any usage universally right or wrong. Maybe avoid the figurative “impact” in formal writing – but otherwise, go ahead.
“Political correctness” versus inclusive language
Some examples of “politically correct” language can feel excessive – just take “vertically challenged” as a replacement for “short”. Critics are quick to reference these examples to denounce political correctness as silly or equate it with censorship. But these folks are missing the bigger picture.
What’s really involved in discussions of “pc” language are questions surrounding the benefits and drawbacks of using inclusive language. Do attempts to promote respectful, inclusive terminology inappropriately limit free speech, as some claim? Or do they give voice to marginalized groups and help everyone feel respected?
Ultimately, debates about inclusive and sensitive language are about who has the power to call the shots. Our word choices and the linguistic rules we follow always reflect and reinforce power dynamics, whether we intend them to or not.
This is evident in the way certain words and usages have been stigmatized due to their association with marginalized dialects and social classes. Take the word “ain’t”, for instance. The stigma against this word largely exists because “ain’t” is used by many speakers of African American English and southern varieties of American English. But it’s not inherently any more illogical or “uneducated-sounding” than other contractions. So, when marginalized groups demand more inclusive terminology, it’s not about being “overly sensitive”. It's about challenging the status quo and insisting on greater representation.
Of course, not all attempts to promote inclusive language are perfect. Take the term Latinx, for example. This term originated in academia, but studies actually show that most members of Latina and Latino communities don’t prefer it, and many would opt for Latine over Latinx. In cases like this, the best thing to do is simply to ask what term a person or group prefers.
Overall, the project of building a more inclusive linguistic landscape is a worthy one, and we shouldn’t cherry-pick outlier examples to dismiss it. Instead, we should embrace language change with empathy and nuance as both readers and writers.
Fun, funner, funnest
Some words just rub people the wrong way. Take “funner”. Saying this one out loud might cause a grimace. But why does it sound so weird? As it turns out, the explanation is surprisingly complex and fascinating.
Believe it or not, there are people who think “fun” shouldn't even be used as an adjective – that it should only be a noun, as in “I'm having fun”. This argument stems from the fact that for the first hundred years or so of its history, “fun” was only a noun and a verb, not an adjective. “Fun” only took on adjectival duties in the mid-twentieth century, and now we can say things like, “That was a really fun party.”
While most people today accept “fun” as an adjective, the comparative forms “funner” and “funnest” still raise eyebrows. This is because of “fun”’s relatively new status as an adjective. When we use “fun” as a noun, we say that we’re having “more fun” and “the most fun”. We’re just more used to these forms, so “funner” and “funnest” sound weird. However, it's likely this will soon change, and “funner” and “funnest” will become the standard forms.
Now let’s talk about another interesting comparative: “more unique.” Shouldn't something that’s unique – meaning one-of-a-kind – not be able to have degrees of comparison? How can something be “more” one-of-a-kind? But, as with “fun”, the meaning of “unique” has shifted over time. It’s taken on a looser sense of “uncommon” or “remarkable,” in addition to its original meaning. This has allowed for the use of comparative and superlative forms like “more unique” and “most unique”.
While it may be best to avoid phrases like “quite unique” in formal writing, don’t outright dismiss these evolving usages. After all, language is always changing. The word “nice” used to mean “silly,” and “lollygag” meant “kissing” – and no one has a problem with the new meanings. These changes merely represent the flexibility and adaptability of the language.
Whom did you tell the secret to?
As an English professor, the author finds herself in a conundrum when it comes to using “who” versus “whom” in her emails. On the one hand, “whom” sounds overly formal and stuffy. But “who” often gets people in a fuss because it makes them think she doesn’t know proper grammar! So should she say “I wasn’t sure to whom to send this message” or “I wasn’t sure who to send this message to?”
The traditional grammatical rule is that “who” should be used as the subject of a sentence, while “whom” should be used as the object. So, you’d say, “Who invited you to the party?” because “who” is the subject. Conversely, you would ask, “Whom did you tell the secret to?” because “you” is the subject and “whom” is the object.
However, in modern English, this distinction is starting to break down. “Whom” often just doesn’t seem colloquial enough. “Who did you tell?” sounds more like what we would actually say, even though “Whom did you tell?” is “officially” correct.
Another issue with “whom” is that modern English is highly dependent on word order to tell us what the subject and object of a sentence are. In questions, the question word – who, why, how, and so on – always comes at the beginning. So “Whom did you tell?” makes “whom” look like the subject, even though it’s the object. Our brains get tripped up by this.
Given this, it’s actually quite amazing that “whom” has managed to cling on as long as it has. There’s evidence of confusion about the who-versus-whom question going back to at least the fifteenth century! But “whom”’s days are likely numbered, as more and more people default to using “who” in all contexts.
If you’re still a bit of a grammando about this, it’s okay – just know when to pick your battles. In an email, you’ll probably want to stick with “who” to avoid sounding overly fussy – or, worse, out of touch.
“This book is dedicated to my parents, Ayn Rand and God”
If you’ve spent any time around internet word nerds, you’ve undoubtedly come across the debate about the infamous Oxford comma. In case you haven’t, that's the comma that comes before the “and” in a list, as in “eggs, milk, and cheese”. The Oxford comma can clarify ambiguous lists, such as in the famous example: “This book is dedicated to my parents, Ayn Rand and God.” Without the Oxford comma, it seems like the speaker’s parents are . . . well, Ayn Rand and God.
But these kinds of examples are fairly infrequent, and research shows that Americans are heavily divided over whether to use the Oxford comma. Many copy editors would tell you it’s not so important which choice you make – what matters is that you’re consistent. But is consistency really that important? To answer this question, let’s take a historical detour to explore the history of punctuation more generally.
From Roman antiquity through the medieval era, manuscripts often lacked punctuation altogether. When punctuation was added, it served more as a guide for reading aloud. The arrival of the printing press in fifteenth-century England led to greater standardization of written English, including punctuation. It took centuries to really settle down, but, by the eighteenth century, prescriptive grammarians had begun to codify stricter guidelines for punctuation usage. And now we have all those pesky rules for where you can and can’t use commas.
Given the arbitrariness of these “rules”, we can ask a radical question that brings us back to the Oxford comma: What if we just used the Oxford comma when it was useful and skipped it when it wasn’t? Or, going even further, what if we did that with all commas? Perhaps “incorrect” punctuation could help us place emphasis differently or improve the flow of a piece of writing?
Ultimately, we should keep in mind that writing conventions are never absolute truths; they’re decisions made by a community of editors and language authorities. As English evolves, perhaps we can all be a little more playful with punctuation.
When writing flows
Writing that “flows” is often touted as a hallmark of good prose. But what does it actually mean for writing to “flow” – or, conversely, to be “choppy”? And how do you make it not choppy?
In general, a choppy piece of writing is one where the connections between sentences aren’t clear. It’s when readers’ expectations about where the writing is headed are not being met, which makes for a jarring reading experience.
To get to the root of this issue, we need to discuss the concept of the known-new contract. This term describes the implicit expectation that sentences will begin with familiar information and progress logically to new ideas. By understanding and adhering to this principle, writers can guide readers intuitively from one point to the next.
Here’s an example of a “choppy” piece of writing, which the author adapted from an Atlantic article: “A new study – conducted by Mueller and Oppenheimer – finds that people remember lectures better when they’ve taken handwritten notes, rather than typed ones. Adolescents these days suffer from short attention spans. The educational system must respond to new technologies. Perhaps it is time to bring back the pencil.”
This passage jumps around a lot. Every sentence is about a new topic, disconnected from the preceding ones. We don’t return to the first topic – handwritten notes – until the fourth sentence. Readers are being asked to do a lot of work to figure out how all of these topics are connected.
Contrast that with the original, non-choppy version: “A new study—conducted by Mueller and Oppenheimer—finds that people remember lectures better when they’ve taken handwritten notes, rather than typed ones. What’s more, knowing how and why typed notes can be bad doesn’t seem to improve their quality. Even if you warn laptop-notetakers ahead of time, it doesn’t make a difference.”
Much better! The second sentence takes off where the first one left off, on the topic of typed notes, and the third sentence remains on this topic.
So, how to proceed? It’s simple: remember that complex thought doesn’t require complex expression. By obeying simple rules, like the known-new contract, we can shape our sentences in readable, accessible ways while still preserving depth of thought.
And so we began with conjunctions
Many of us grow up learning the “rule” that you shouldn’t start sentences with words like “and” or “but”. But, as it turns out, this is far from a hard-and-fast rule. All the way back in the 1920s, notorious grammarian H. W. Fowler called the idea that you can’t start a sentence with “and” a “faintly lingering superstition”.
The origins of this supposed “rule” can probably be traced back to English teachers trying to encourage kids to write in a more formal, less colloquial style. They wanted to steer them away from stringing together too many short, simple sentences using “and”, which would be their natural tendency when speaking. Interestingly, the preference for more formal sentence structures is a relatively recent development in the English language. In Old English, written text often mirrored the grammar of speech, with fewer restrictions on how to begin sentences.
Today, programs like Microsoft Word insist on flagging sentences starting with “and” and “but” as errors. However, the reality is that it’s quite common to find these sentences in both formal and informal writing. You can see it all over academic writing, in literature, and even in the Bible. A diversity of sentence structures – including those starting with “and” or “but” – can make writing more engaging and effective.
How about another controversial sentence opener – the word “so”? In spoken language, “so” can function as a discourse marker – a word or phrase that carries interpersonal meaning rather than literal meaning. Discourse markers might signal a speaker’s intent or manage the flow of conversation. For example, “so” could indicate the speaker’s eagerness to share information, as in: “So, as I was driving to work this morning …”
So, you might want to think twice before getting haughty if you hear someone starting a sentence with “so”, “and”, or “but”. As we’ve seen time and time again, effective speakers and writers know how to strategically break the “rules” to achieve their desired tone and flow.
Final summary
Many linguistic “rules” and usage conventions are not as firmly established or objectively justified as some experts would claim. Words like “impact” and “funner” have faced resistance despite their natural evolution, and debates over “politically correct” language are often about power dynamics rather than etiquette. Overall, word lovers should adopt a nuanced stance on language change and try to be more flexible and context-driven over adhering strictly to conventional rules.