*A sentence cannot end in a preposition.
Was it not Winston Churchill who comically illustrated this point with “this
is the sort of nonsense up with which I will not put”? I think this ‘rule’ refers
to using a preposition with a relative clause (‘with which’ in this case)
rather than phrasal-prepositional verbs (‘to put up’ in the case). But putting
the preposition at the end is a completely legitimate part of English syntax
(even more so in its sister language, Dutch) and it is rather the style that
governs its usage.
*A sentence cannot
start with "and" or "but"
This practice has actually been around for
centuries. Perhaps it is because they are classed as conjunctions that a
misconception has arisen in the belief that they must join two (or more)
independent clauses within one sentence. But no...(see what I did there?). They
can join two or more ideas, not bound by full stops. Again, this boils down to
style. I would do my utmost to avoid starting a sentence with ‘and’ or ‘but’ in
a legal text, a technical manual or another situation requiring a formal style.
Otherwise, if you want to personalise your text, or adopt a marketing approach,
go for it!
*The passive voice is incorrect.
With its strictest spelling and grammar settings applied, Microsoft
Word often puts a green squiggly line under any passive constructions. However, they actually serve some very practical
purposes. We may not know who the subject is in order to use the active voice,
or we may want to place emphasis on the action rather than the agent.
*Contractions aren't appropriate in ‘proper’ English.
Humans have always sought ways
to economise their spoken language. It’s particularly trendy amongst the youth
nowadays to shrink adverbs, such as “totes” from totally. We have atrocious
programmes like Made in Chelsea to thank for these. I don’t think this
highly colloquial phenomenon will catch on to subsequent generations, in the
same way that we don’t say ‘groovy’ anymore.
Nevertheless, contracted verbs did catch on in spoken language and we needed to reflect this change in writing. On the other hand, this grammar myth can ring true when it comes to style. We may write contractions, but only where the less formal context allows.
*‘Me and you’ is incorrect.
Ah, an interesting point. A
few years ago, a friend of mine went to an Oxford University open day, where
some of his peers ‘corrected’ his use of ‘me and you’ to ‘you and I’.
Unfortunately for them, they were wrong:
We must look at the grammatical context in this case.
Using two object pronouns (me/you) in the place of subject pronouns (I/you) is
obviously incorrect, for example ‘me and him are going to the cinema’ instead
of the grammatically correct ‘he and I are going to the cinema’, although the
former is more acceptable in colloquial usage, but the linguists amongst us will continue to hold this contempt.
But there are those who hear ‘me and you’ without
listening to the words that precede and follow it, automatically assuming that
this set phrase (and similar ones involving her/him/them etc.) is incorrect.
Of course, these object pronouns are correctly used
as...well...objects. And after prepositions too. So, phrases like ‘she is
looking at you and me’ or ‘that present is for me and him’ are correct. Try
replacing ‘me’ with ‘I’ in those sentences and you’ll see what I mean.
Let us remember that the
English language, unfortunately, does not have a regulatory body unlike French
and Spanish, so there is no single authority to tell us what is and is not
‘correct’. Most of these myths result from the disdain of one certain
linguist towards a certain grammar point, who publishes his opinion and
centuries later it is taken as the word of God. So, let’s take the time to analyse these
so-called rules from now on, as we
are in charge of our language, not the other way around.
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