WEBVTT 00:00:00.020 --> 00:00:04.720 There are three types of people in the world. One, the grammarian schoolmarms 00:00:04.720 --> 00:00:08.820 who love to lecture others condescendingly for their perceived sins against 00:00:08.820 --> 00:00:11.880 grammar, like don't end a sentence with a preposition. 00:00:12.480 --> 00:00:16.880 Two, those of us who see the schoolmarms as would-be authoritarians, 00:00:17.060 --> 00:00:21.580 who are peddling the very sort of bloody nonsense up with which we will not put. 00:00:22.000 --> 00:00:24.980 And three, people who didn't understand that joke. 00:00:25.480 --> 00:00:29.300 But if you're the third type, what are you doing in my audience? 00:00:30.020 --> 00:00:34.720 For the rest of us, I've just read a deeply fascinating and provocative book 00:00:34.720 --> 00:00:39.420 that affirms something I've been striving to articulate for three decades. 00:00:39.780 --> 00:00:45.300 So join me today as I explore David Crystal's The Fight for English and discover 00:00:45.300 --> 00:00:50.800 what the glorious anarchy of language has to teach us about the beautiful spontaneous 00:00:50.800 --> 00:00:53.880 order that defines our daily existence. 00:00:59.280 --> 00:01:00.220 The Corbett Report. 00:01:02.820 --> 00:01:04.320 CorbettReport.com. 00:01:08.540 --> 00:01:11.460 Welcome back, friends. Welcome back to another edition of the Corbett Report. 00:01:11.720 --> 00:01:14.820 I'm your host, James Corbett of CorbettReport.com, coming to you, 00:01:14.980 --> 00:01:20.300 as always, from the sunny climes of Western Japan here in May of 2026 with episode 00:01:20.300 --> 00:01:24.740 501 of the Corbett Report podcast, The Fight for English. 00:01:25.880 --> 00:01:33.740 And as you almost certainly don't remember, I had the occasion about a decade ago to record a short, 00:01:34.280 --> 00:01:39.940 pithy, but deeply felt message here in the sunny climes of Western Japan about 00:01:39.940 --> 00:01:41.980 the anarchy of language. 00:01:43.480 --> 00:01:48.340 Grammar Nazis. We all know them. Those people who fly into apoplectic fits of 00:01:48.340 --> 00:01:49.920 rage at a misplaced comma. 00:01:50.140 --> 00:01:52.360 People who can't countenance a misspelled word. 00:01:52.600 --> 00:01:57.300 People who will dismiss entire arguments because of a greengrocer's apostrophe. 00:01:57.300 --> 00:02:02.000 Well, here's a little tidbit to send any would-be grammar Nazi in your life into a fit of rage. 00:02:02.180 --> 00:02:05.980 Did you know that for over a century, there has been a small but notable group 00:02:05.980 --> 00:02:07.200 of writers, including G.B. 00:02:07.340 --> 00:02:12.260 Shaw and others, who have argued that there should not be apostrophes in the 00:02:12.260 --> 00:02:13.400 English language anymore? 00:02:13.660 --> 00:02:17.980 It's an archaism. It is something that the language does not need in order to 00:02:17.980 --> 00:02:19.780 actually get our point across. 00:02:19.780 --> 00:02:23.220 And there's an interesting little article on this that I'll put in the show 00:02:23.220 --> 00:02:26.760 notes so you can check it out about this history of the war on the apostrophe 00:02:26.760 --> 00:02:30.420 that makes its point by not using a single apostrophe in the entire article. 00:02:30.440 --> 00:02:34.800 But the entire article is perfectly comprehensible to anyone who can read English 00:02:34.800 --> 00:02:39.160 because we really don't need the apostrophe for the purpose of communication. 00:02:39.500 --> 00:02:45.160 And I think that's what rankles about these grammar Nazis. It's that. 00:02:45.980 --> 00:02:51.060 Want us to believe that there's some sort of system of rules and laws that must 00:02:51.060 --> 00:02:57.540 be adhered to rigidly in order for language to to effectively communicate when 00:02:57.540 --> 00:02:59.840 that is evidently not the case. 00:03:00.440 --> 00:03:05.000 And yes, certainly there are occasions and contexts in which we must adhere 00:03:05.000 --> 00:03:08.780 to whatever style guide is being used by whatever organization we're writing for. 00:03:08.780 --> 00:03:12.400 If you're writing a business proposal for some important client, 00:03:12.400 --> 00:03:15.840 if you're writing a term paper for college, of course, yes, you have to follow 00:03:15.840 --> 00:03:19.640 the norms and strictures of grammar as we have been taught. 00:03:19.640 --> 00:03:23.080 But even that is a bit of an open question because there are different style 00:03:23.080 --> 00:03:28.080 guides in different countries, different spelling variants and grammatical structures 00:03:28.080 --> 00:03:29.160 that are used in different countries. 00:03:29.240 --> 00:03:33.380 The Oxford comma, for example, not being particularly common in the United States, etc. 00:03:33.760 --> 00:03:40.200 So even what form of English do you want to adhere to is a question in and of itself. 00:03:40.340 --> 00:03:44.580 But more importantly, I think it misses the point because the real point of 00:03:44.580 --> 00:03:49.020 communication is communication, the miracle of communication. 00:03:49.020 --> 00:03:52.840 And it may be a miracle that is so mundane and everyday that we don't really 00:03:52.840 --> 00:03:54.340 even contemplate it anymore. 00:03:54.340 --> 00:03:59.800 But it is a miracle that I can take these thoughts and ideas and half formed, 00:04:00.020 --> 00:04:04.480 ambiguous, vague concepts, put them into words, force them out my mouth hole 00:04:04.480 --> 00:04:08.960 and into your ear hole, and you will get at least an understanding of what I'm talking. 00:04:09.940 --> 00:04:13.140 Is a miracle, and that is the beauty of language. 00:04:13.160 --> 00:04:18.140 And I posit to you that that is the beauty of the anarchy of language. 00:04:18.360 --> 00:04:23.000 Yes, I may not speak at all times and in all contexts in a perfectly grammatically 00:04:23.000 --> 00:04:28.240 correct way, but if I get the point across, then isn't that enough? 00:04:28.500 --> 00:04:36.280 And I would argue that yes, that is in fact not only the potential of this miracle of communication. 00:04:36.540 --> 00:04:40.080 But also, that's the delight, the play of language. 00:04:40.500 --> 00:04:44.780 That's where poetry comes from. That's where we can really play with the concept 00:04:44.780 --> 00:04:46.080 of how we communicate things. 00:04:46.220 --> 00:04:49.980 And we don't always have to rigidly adhere to those grade school verities that 00:04:49.980 --> 00:04:53.600 you must not begin a sentence with a conjunction or things of that sort. 00:04:53.700 --> 00:04:57.180 As long as we get the idea, the feeling, the impression across, 00:04:58.260 --> 00:05:01.120 that's, I think, really what we should be aiming at. 00:05:01.420 --> 00:05:04.740 And I think the more perceptive people in the crowd will understand what I'm 00:05:04.740 --> 00:05:08.120 driving at here and the fact that language itself is a beautiful, 00:05:08.820 --> 00:05:13.400 spontaneous order that does not require policemen or grammar Nazis in order 00:05:13.400 --> 00:05:15.500 to tell us what to say and how to say it. 00:05:15.800 --> 00:05:20.900 It's really a negotiation that happens between people each and every day spontaneously. 00:05:20.960 --> 00:05:27.260 The spontaneous order that arises when crowds simply have to negotiate and get 00:05:27.260 --> 00:05:31.800 their point across to other people, it will happen. And it may not happen in 00:05:31.800 --> 00:05:35.520 some way that's been prescribed in some rulebook somewhere, but it will happen. 00:05:35.800 --> 00:05:37.900 And that, I think, is very beautiful. 00:05:39.000 --> 00:05:43.180 Perhaps that's a point that we can apply more broadly in more political senses. 00:05:43.500 --> 00:05:47.080 And for more on that, I will invite you to check out my previous International 00:05:47.080 --> 00:05:51.080 Forecaster editorial on the concept of spontaneous order and the ramifications 00:05:51.080 --> 00:05:55.840 it has not only for our politics, but our society and our culture at large. 00:05:56.460 --> 00:06:01.140 But that's a very heady philosophical concept to think about. 00:06:01.300 --> 00:06:04.740 So I'll leave that to Stu for a little while. Once again, this is James Corbett 00:06:04.740 --> 00:06:08.980 of CorbettReport.com here in the beautiful, sunny climes of Western Japan. 00:06:08.980 --> 00:06:10.980 Looking forward to talking to you again very soon. 00:06:12.170 --> 00:06:16.730 Now, you might have thought that was just a witty video about a trivial subject 00:06:16.730 --> 00:06:20.350 recorded by a dashing, handsome, and articulate young man in Western Japan, 00:06:20.510 --> 00:06:22.050 and you'd be mostly correct. 00:06:22.150 --> 00:06:25.790 I am dashing, handsome, and articulate, and that is a witty video. 00:06:25.930 --> 00:06:29.650 But it's not a trivial subject, and it's not intended as a joke. 00:06:29.650 --> 00:06:34.250 In fact, I'm quite serious about the topic, and I really do believe that a proper 00:06:34.250 --> 00:06:39.550 understanding of the development of language offers us an insight into how human 00:06:39.550 --> 00:06:44.050 society itself can be ordered in the absence of a central authority. 00:06:44.770 --> 00:06:47.950 Let's begin with an examination of the grammar policeman. 00:06:48.470 --> 00:06:52.950 We all know the type. The person who reads, eats, shoots, and leaves back 25 00:06:52.950 --> 00:06:58.450 years ago, and now considers themselves a self-appointed authority on the English language. 00:06:58.450 --> 00:07:04.350 A constable on patrol valiantly guarding us from dangling participles and sentence-ending prepositions. 00:07:05.030 --> 00:07:10.170 But the glorification of grammar Nazism did not begin with Lynn Truss. 00:07:10.410 --> 00:07:15.610 It is not a 21st century phenomenon. It's been around for almost as long as 00:07:15.610 --> 00:07:16.690 printed English itself. 00:07:17.390 --> 00:07:23.770 Get a load of Daniel Defoe's On Academies, an article he wrote in 1697 to propose 00:07:23.770 --> 00:07:29.010 that King William III establish a society for policing the English tongue. 00:07:29.810 --> 00:07:33.690 The work of this society should be to encourage polite learning, 00:07:33.930 --> 00:07:39.810 to polish and refine the English tongue, and advance the so much neglected faculty of correct language, 00:07:40.070 --> 00:07:44.970 to establish purity and propriety of style, and to purge it from all the irregular 00:07:44.970 --> 00:07:48.070 additions that ignorance and affectation have introduced, 00:07:48.290 --> 00:07:52.110 and all those innovations in speech, if I may call them such, 00:07:52.110 --> 00:07:55.890 which some dogmatic writers have the confidence to foster upon their native 00:07:55.890 --> 00:08:00.850 language as if their authority were sufficient to make their own fancy legitimate. 00:08:02.310 --> 00:08:06.810 That passage is positively unhinged. 00:08:07.070 --> 00:08:11.330 Just imagine this learned author frothing at the mouth, 00:08:11.550 --> 00:08:15.870 positively apoplectic over the notion that some two-bit poet would have the 00:08:15.870 --> 00:08:22.790 gall to employ an irregular edition or, heaven forbid, actually coin a new phrase, the impudence. 00:08:23.190 --> 00:08:26.770 It's even funnier when you look at the passage from our perspective. 00:08:27.570 --> 00:08:30.610 How's this guy going to lecture us on the proper use of English with all those 00:08:30.610 --> 00:08:38.110 Germanic capitalized nouns and those medial S's and what the hell even is that CT mark thing? 00:08:38.610 --> 00:08:44.390 That ain't English. That ain't even Mexican. But this is inevitably how the 00:08:44.390 --> 00:08:46.450 Grammarian fascists end up looking. 00:08:46.610 --> 00:08:52.110 Like idiots, hell-bent on enforcing the completely arbitrary rules of language 00:08:52.110 --> 00:08:57.130 with which they are already familiar and refusing to countenance the idea that 00:08:57.130 --> 00:09:00.190 language changes and that that's a good thing. 00:09:00.870 --> 00:09:05.510 Now, I've been attempting to lambaste these self-appointed policemen of language 00:09:05.510 --> 00:09:08.890 since I was an undergrad studying English at the University of Calgary. 00:09:08.930 --> 00:09:14.030 When I sensed one of my professors or fellow students were being overly prickly 00:09:14.030 --> 00:09:18.470 in their attempt to correct improper English, I would inevitably respond with 00:09:18.470 --> 00:09:23.870 the hilarious retort, Stop shutting down the polysemy of language, man. 00:09:24.890 --> 00:09:27.730 You see, the humor derives from the seeming 00:09:27.730 --> 00:09:31.970 disconnect between the implied unsophistication of the laid-back hippie and 00:09:31.970 --> 00:09:36.670 the implied high-level vocabulary demonstrated by the term polysemy of language 00:09:36.670 --> 00:09:41.910 It deconstructs the class snobbery inherent in the very act of language policing 00:09:41.910 --> 00:09:46.910 I'll give you a moment to collect yourselves from your fit of laughter Anyway, the point is, 00:09:47.110 --> 00:09:51.590 I've been thinking about language and what it shows us about the remarkable, spontaneous, 00:09:52.070 --> 00:09:55.830 anarchic self-ordering of human community for longer than some members of this 00:09:55.830 --> 00:09:56.910 audience have been alive. 00:09:57.110 --> 00:10:00.210 And in all that time, I wish I had 00:10:00.210 --> 00:10:04.790 a book that would adequately explain my frustration to the average layman. 00:10:06.100 --> 00:10:09.660 Guess what? I found the book! It's called The Fight for English. 00:10:10.040 --> 00:10:14.760 It's by David Kristol. And if you listen to nothing else I say today, listen to this. 00:10:14.860 --> 00:10:19.560 If you're interested in A, the history of English, B, the development of English 00:10:19.560 --> 00:10:24.480 grammar and spelling, and or C, the way that these subjects combine to explain 00:10:24.480 --> 00:10:26.100 the beautiful spontaneous order 00:10:26.100 --> 00:10:29.380 of the human community, then you owe it to yourself to read this book. 00:10:29.780 --> 00:10:34.840 But first, since I know people who feel personally attacked for their affinity 00:10:34.840 --> 00:10:38.280 for pointing out grammatical graphs and spelling errors are going to look for 00:10:38.280 --> 00:10:41.520 an easy excuse to dismiss the entirety of today's podcast, 00:10:41.760 --> 00:10:46.020 let me start by placating you about David Crystal's bona fides. 00:10:46.240 --> 00:10:53.180 In case you are curious, yes, he is highly qualified to talk about English. 00:10:53.180 --> 00:10:56.680 How to introduce David Crystal. 00:10:57.700 --> 00:11:06.140 Professor David Crystal, FBA, OBE, or it probably should be the other way around. 00:11:06.800 --> 00:11:13.060 Whichever, David Crystal is undoubtedly one of the foremost linguisticians in 00:11:13.060 --> 00:11:18.380 the world today, and the preeminent expert on the history, development, 00:11:18.380 --> 00:11:20.280 and usage of the English language. 00:11:20.580 --> 00:11:26.240 His OBE, perhaps uniquely, was for services to the English language. 00:11:27.040 --> 00:11:34.460 He has made numerous radio and television programs, including the BBC's Story of English series. 00:11:35.140 --> 00:11:40.660 He has been president or patron of numerous language-related organizations, 00:11:41.140 --> 00:11:45.260 including the International Association for the Teaching of English as a Foreign Language. 00:11:47.260 --> 00:11:52.580 Following his early years as a research student at UCL, working with Randolph 00:11:52.580 --> 00:11:58.760 Quirk on the Survey of English Usage project, he has taught at several and lectured 00:11:58.760 --> 00:12:01.660 at scores of universities around the world. 00:12:02.440 --> 00:12:06.900 When the Globe Theatre bravely decided to put on a performance of Romeo and 00:12:06.900 --> 00:12:12.220 Juliet in authentic Elizabethan pronunciation in 2004, 00:12:12.620 --> 00:12:17.940 it was David Crystal, naturally, who they turn to as their language consultant. 00:12:19.600 --> 00:12:25.200 Underpinning these activities, David has published around a hundred books on 00:12:25.200 --> 00:12:29.140 phonetics and phonology, on language teaching, language death, 00:12:29.460 --> 00:12:32.840 and lexicography, on grammar and stylistics, 00:12:33.240 --> 00:12:37.340 on the language of the internet, and on English as a global language. 00:12:38.340 --> 00:12:41.800 From a proprietorial cambridge standpoint 00:12:41.800 --> 00:12:45.740 and celebrating yet another anniversary it 00:12:45.740 --> 00:12:48.600 is exactly 40 years since his book 00:12:48.600 --> 00:12:54.320 prosodic systems and intonation in english inaugurated the press's flagship 00:12:54.320 --> 00:13:00.180 academic series cambridge studies in linguistics and it was in that same year 00:13:00.180 --> 00:13:07.080 1969 that david became editor of the press's flagship serial the journal of linguistics, 00:13:07.760 --> 00:13:12.180 But perhaps most significantly of all, and most appropriately for someone with 00:13:12.180 --> 00:13:14.680 so encyclopedic a range of interests, 00:13:15.140 --> 00:13:21.400 David is the author of two of the most respected and widely used reference books 00:13:21.400 --> 00:13:23.480 on the subject of language. 00:13:23.700 --> 00:13:28.260 The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language and the Cambridge Encyclopedia of the 00:13:28.260 --> 00:13:35.320 English Language, combined sales to date 475,000 copies. 00:13:37.040 --> 00:13:43.140 And if that weren't enough, in 1990, he edited the Cambridge Encyclopedia, 00:13:43.420 --> 00:13:47.260 whose entries range from the A-bomb to the zygote. 00:13:48.240 --> 00:14:02.280 All that, and he also speaks Welsh. Ladies and gentlemen, David Crystal. Thank you very much. 00:14:08.200 --> 00:14:13.260 And when and if you go and watch that lecture, or any of his other public lectures 00:14:13.260 --> 00:14:17.940 or interviews, I'm confident that even the marmiest of school marms will be 00:14:17.940 --> 00:14:22.360 suitably pleased with his Dumbledorian diction and Gandalfian grammar. 00:14:22.680 --> 00:14:29.220 Yes, Crystal has the credentials to lecture you on why you shouldn't be so uptight about language. 00:14:29.580 --> 00:14:34.500 But in the spirit of showing, not telling, let's look at an example from Crystal's book. 00:14:35.160 --> 00:14:40.960 In The Fight for English, Chapter 17, Incorrectness, Crystal explains the joke 00:14:40.960 --> 00:14:42.900 that I used to open today's episode. 00:14:43.200 --> 00:14:46.660 The joke goes that when Winston Churchill was circulating a draft of one of 00:14:46.660 --> 00:14:50.920 his speeches for input, one aide attempted to correct Churchill's grammar. 00:14:51.300 --> 00:14:54.860 Winston had apparently written a sentence that ends with a preposition. 00:14:55.340 --> 00:14:59.820 You know the rule. In proper English, you don't say, that's the man I was talking to. 00:15:00.020 --> 00:15:06.220 You say, That's the man to whom I was talking Oh goodness, look how learned I am, 00:15:07.340 --> 00:15:12.100 Churchill, for one, wasn't having any of it Irate, he responded indignantly 00:15:12.100 --> 00:15:17.220 to his aid This is the sort of bloody nonsense up with which I will not put, 00:15:18.220 --> 00:15:22.120 The story is probably apocryphal Like all great stories from history are But 00:15:22.120 --> 00:15:27.600 you get the point It's frankly ridiculous The lengths some overzealous editors 00:15:27.600 --> 00:15:33.040 will go to to conform to arbitrary rules of taste like never end a sentence with a preposition. 00:15:34.200 --> 00:15:38.740 But where does that rule come from? After all, we find end-placed prepositions 00:15:38.740 --> 00:15:43.440 in Chaucer and in Shakespeare and all over classic English literature. 00:15:43.660 --> 00:15:51.620 And it makes us rather bear those ills we have than fly to others we know not all. 00:15:53.060 --> 00:15:57.840 Which pedant sought to lecture Shakespeare about his poor grammar? 00:15:58.400 --> 00:16:04.500 As Crystal explains, that pedant was John Dryden, who criticized Shakespeare, 00:16:05.000 --> 00:16:09.960 Johnson, and other giants of English literature for their use of double comparatives 00:16:09.960 --> 00:16:15.240 and end-placed prepositions and other grammatical constructions that he decided he didn't like. 00:16:16.100 --> 00:16:19.740 So, what's wrong with putting a preposition at the end of a sentence? 00:16:20.300 --> 00:16:25.960 As Crystal explains, why did Dryden not like a preposition at the end of the sentence? 00:16:26.240 --> 00:16:30.280 It was probably a mixture of things. He may have developed a stylistic taste 00:16:30.280 --> 00:16:32.280 for finishing a sentence with an important word. 00:16:32.440 --> 00:16:35.900 He may have been impressed by the different rhythms involved in the alternatives. 00:16:36.140 --> 00:16:40.600 He may have sensed that the end-placing was very common in colloquial speech. 00:16:40.940 --> 00:16:46.240 But above all, Dryden, a classical scholar, would have been influenced by Latin grammarians. 00:16:46.560 --> 00:16:52.280 In Latin, prepositions go before nouns. That is why they are called prepositions. 00:16:53.600 --> 00:16:57.960 So, there you go. Why do some of you in the audience get your panties in a twist 00:16:57.960 --> 00:17:00.640 when you see a preposition at the end of a sentence? 00:17:00.840 --> 00:17:04.720 Because some old dead guy in the 17th century decided English should be more 00:17:04.720 --> 00:17:09.080 like Latin, and generations of future pedants decided that it was a great, 00:17:09.520 --> 00:17:13.720 non-intuitive, completely arbitrary rule that could be used to separate the 00:17:13.720 --> 00:17:16.840 educated from the hoi polloi. Yay. 00:17:17.680 --> 00:17:22.260 That's just one example of many from the book where Crystal breaks down the 00:17:22.260 --> 00:17:25.840 actual roots of these so-called rules and shows their arbitrariness, 00:17:26.080 --> 00:17:28.580 their self-contradictions, and their overall stupidity. 00:17:28.940 --> 00:17:33.460 Those of you who cry out in pain every time you hear, too boldly go. 00:17:34.260 --> 00:17:38.740 Another example of Latin reasoning that was grafted onto English books, 00:17:38.860 --> 00:17:40.660 this time in the 19th century. 00:17:41.710 --> 00:17:47.130 In English, the infinitive is typically presented as two words, to love, to go. 00:17:47.490 --> 00:17:53.090 In Latin, an inflected language, there is just one, irae, amare. 00:17:53.510 --> 00:17:58.510 If you want to add an adverb to express such meanings as how or when or where 00:17:58.510 --> 00:18:02.670 you are loving, then you don't have the option to insert it within the verb 00:18:02.670 --> 00:18:07.070 to say, in effect, am adverb areae, but you do in English. 00:18:08.330 --> 00:18:13.690 In fact, as Crystal argues, the split infinitive is fitting in native English. 00:18:13.910 --> 00:18:18.590 Not only is it something that no one in English was even concerned about until 00:18:18.590 --> 00:18:23.610 the 19th century, it also breaks the natural iambic rhythm of English, 00:18:23.810 --> 00:18:26.250 around which most English verse is based. 00:18:26.490 --> 00:18:33.490 To boldly go where none have gone before, rather than boldly to go where none have gone before. 00:18:34.330 --> 00:18:39.810 In the end, though, Crystal points out that boldly to go, or to go boldly, 00:18:39.930 --> 00:18:42.550 or to boldly go is just a matter of taste. 00:18:43.190 --> 00:18:48.150 So don't be fooled when a grammarian tells you, ah, but one is clearer than the other. 00:18:48.710 --> 00:18:53.970 It isn't. The three forms above convey exactly the same meaning. 00:18:54.230 --> 00:18:58.470 If you let yourself believe otherwise, you have been taken in by the big con. 00:18:59.640 --> 00:19:05.140 And in that passage, we start to see part of the point of Crystal's book, meaning. 00:19:06.100 --> 00:19:11.280 Language is about conveying meaning, and that can be accomplished by understanding 00:19:11.280 --> 00:19:14.080 what is expected of us in various situations. 00:19:14.500 --> 00:19:18.760 If you're writing a formal academic paper, you probably should avoid ending 00:19:18.760 --> 00:19:20.040 a sentence with a preposition. 00:19:20.300 --> 00:19:24.560 If you're talking to your friend, it might be more helpful to relax and speak 00:19:24.560 --> 00:19:25.820 like a normal human being. 00:19:26.640 --> 00:19:31.420 So what is the point of the fight for English? Crystal starts the book by talking 00:19:31.420 --> 00:19:36.580 about Lynn Truss's remarkably popular 2003 screed about punctuation, 00:19:37.040 --> 00:19:38.720 Eats, Shoots, and Leaves. 00:19:39.180 --> 00:19:44.140 A lifelong student and teacher of English, Crystal expresses amazement that 00:19:44.140 --> 00:19:45.560 Truss's book became so popular. 00:19:45.880 --> 00:19:49.820 He even advised her against writing a book on the subject. I wouldn't bother, 00:19:49.960 --> 00:19:52.140 he said. Books on punctuation never sell. 00:19:52.700 --> 00:19:55.400 But it went on to become a New York Times bestseller. 00:19:56.510 --> 00:20:00.830 So, what do I know? I still have no clear idea why that book has done so well. 00:20:01.050 --> 00:20:04.010 Why did people buy it? What did they hope they would get out of it? 00:20:04.310 --> 00:20:05.450 Did they actually read it? 00:20:05.770 --> 00:20:10.230 What is it that makes people think that a book on punctuation will somehow solve 00:20:10.230 --> 00:20:12.010 their imagined language problems? 00:20:12.470 --> 00:20:15.090 And after they have read it, do they feel any better? 00:20:15.650 --> 00:20:18.130 These are some of the questions I hope to answer in this book. 00:20:18.750 --> 00:20:21.810 Having said that, my book isn't especially about eats, shoots, 00:20:21.850 --> 00:20:25.890 and leaves, but rather about the whole genre of books which that book represents. 00:20:26.630 --> 00:20:31.810 Manuals of English usage have sold well for generations, and they all make the same claims. 00:20:32.170 --> 00:20:37.450 The curious thing is that the same issues that bug people now were bugging them 250 years ago. 00:20:37.810 --> 00:20:41.210 Life and language have moved on, but still people worry. 00:20:41.810 --> 00:20:46.790 Millions feel linguistically inferior, and their inferiority complex is reinforced 00:20:46.790 --> 00:20:50.030 by the muggle who stares out at us from many a newspaper advertisement. 00:20:50.550 --> 00:20:52.990 Are you shamed by your mistakes in English? 00:20:53.770 --> 00:20:59.430 Deep down, everyone who bought Lynn Truss's book, and millions more who haven't, thinks yes. 00:21:01.130 --> 00:21:05.070 Now, there is some schadenfreude to be had in the fact that these grammar Nazis 00:21:05.070 --> 00:21:09.110 are inevitably hoisted with their own petard, as Truss herself was. 00:21:09.510 --> 00:21:13.670 As a New Yorker reviewer pointed out with glee when the book was first published, 00:21:13.910 --> 00:21:18.530 Truss herself didn't even make it to page one before she committed a grievous 00:21:18.530 --> 00:21:20.030 punctuation error of her own. 00:21:20.030 --> 00:21:25.890 Her book begins with a dedication To the memory of the striking Bolshevik printers of St. 00:21:26.250 --> 00:21:31.110 Petersburg Who, in 1905, demanded to be paid the same rate for punctuation marks 00:21:31.110 --> 00:21:35.190 as for letters And thereby directly precipitated the first Russian revolution, 00:21:36.380 --> 00:21:41.700 But, uh-oh, did you see the horrible mistake that Truss made there? 00:21:41.980 --> 00:21:46.500 She meant the relative clause, who demanded to be paid, to be non-restrictive. 00:21:46.620 --> 00:21:51.560 But since she didn't put the comma before who, it implies that she was differentiating 00:21:51.560 --> 00:21:55.100 printers who demanded to be paid from printers who didn't demand to be paid. 00:21:55.780 --> 00:21:59.800 What a terrible faux pas. I hope she commits seppuku immediately. 00:22:01.060 --> 00:22:05.640 Well, actually, no. Because punctuation is an art, not a science. 00:22:05.640 --> 00:22:08.480 And Truss has done what many of us would do. 00:22:08.820 --> 00:22:15.520 She used commas around in 1905 to represent the pause that a speaker would insert 00:22:15.520 --> 00:22:17.060 when reading that sentence aloud. 00:22:17.280 --> 00:22:21.080 The comma before who would be inserted for grammatical reasons, 00:22:21.080 --> 00:22:25.020 but having three commas in a row like that looks cluttered and unnatural, 00:22:25.020 --> 00:22:27.720 and so we tend to subconsciously resist it. 00:22:28.620 --> 00:22:32.160 Crystal, to his great credit, sympathizes with Truss and her predicament. 00:22:32.160 --> 00:22:36.400 I don't know how conscious of this issue Lynn was when she composed the dedication. 00:22:36.900 --> 00:22:40.000 Evidently, the phonetic criterion was foremost in her mind. 00:22:40.120 --> 00:22:43.560 But if she wanted to defend her choice against the New Yorker Review, 00:22:43.860 --> 00:22:47.960 she could do so by relying on a very important criterion, context. 00:22:48.780 --> 00:22:52.840 All Lynn has to say is that the meaning of her dedication is clear from the 00:22:52.840 --> 00:22:55.320 context, whether we use commas or not. 00:22:55.620 --> 00:22:59.700 Only sticklers would insist on making the distinction when it isn't necessary. 00:22:59.700 --> 00:23:05.840 The New Yorker reviewer Was evidently a stickler But then By her own admission 00:23:05.840 --> 00:23:10.100 So is Lynn Hoist by your own petard Comes to mind. 00:23:11.240 --> 00:23:14.620 Indeed, the stickler fellowed by fellow sticklers. 00:23:15.080 --> 00:23:19.260 But it's important to understand that this is no mere passing observation. 00:23:19.600 --> 00:23:21.320 It's actually the heart of the 00:23:21.320 --> 00:23:25.180 subject and why I am so fascinated with Crystal's book in the first place. 00:23:25.780 --> 00:23:29.100 You might think it's just a part of the jokey way we talk about the subject. 00:23:29.260 --> 00:23:30.880 We call them grammar Nazis. 00:23:31.720 --> 00:23:36.340 Truss herself subtitled her book The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation. 00:23:36.860 --> 00:23:42.340 But however jokingly such references are intended, there's actually a genuine 00:23:42.340 --> 00:23:45.360 underlying pathology being identified here. 00:23:45.800 --> 00:23:51.080 We already saw Defoe's dream of establishing a society for policing the English language. 00:23:51.640 --> 00:23:56.280 Others, like the wealthy 18th century aristocrat Lord Chesterfield, 00:23:56.440 --> 00:23:57.800 were even more explicit. 00:23:58.100 --> 00:24:05.180 We need an actual dictator to enforce an ironclad rule of the English language. 00:24:05.920 --> 00:24:08.680 Luckily, he had a candidate in mind. 00:24:09.750 --> 00:24:14.990 I give my vote for Dr. Samuel Johnson to fill that great and arduous post, 00:24:15.130 --> 00:24:21.390 and I hereby declare that I make a total surrender of all my rights and privileges 00:24:21.390 --> 00:24:26.270 in the English language as a freeborn British subject to the said Mr. 00:24:26.390 --> 00:24:29.090 Johnson during the term of his dictatorship. 00:24:29.890 --> 00:24:34.650 Nay more, I will not only obey him, like a Roman as my dictator, 00:24:34.650 --> 00:24:41.230 But like a modern Roman, I will implicitly believe in him as my pope and hold 00:24:41.230 --> 00:24:44.730 him to be infallible while in the chair, but no longer. 00:24:46.990 --> 00:24:51.630 This is the madness of the linguistic authoritarians. 00:24:51.870 --> 00:24:57.650 Their pathology belies a genuine desire for authority. 00:24:57.650 --> 00:25:05.210 There must be a dictator of English, a pope whose infallibility cannot be questioned 00:25:05.210 --> 00:25:09.210 and who we must surrender our rights and privileges to. 00:25:10.890 --> 00:25:15.030 I mean, to whom we must surrender our rights and privileges. 00:25:15.310 --> 00:25:19.310 Forgive me my transgression and don't punish me too hard, daddy dictator. 00:25:21.110 --> 00:25:26.030 There are many similar examples of linguistic zealotry that Crystal demonstrates 00:25:26.030 --> 00:25:32.450 in his book, but this, to me, is the pathology that makes this particular subject so fascinating to me. 00:25:32.610 --> 00:25:37.930 It really pains a certain segment of the population who fervently desire to 00:25:37.930 --> 00:25:39.810 be ruled over by a dictator. 00:25:40.070 --> 00:25:42.370 The language does not need a dictator. 00:25:42.650 --> 00:25:47.350 There does not need to be a society making decisions about split infinitives 00:25:47.350 --> 00:25:52.170 or a pope of English that will cast out the end-placed preposition heretics. 00:25:53.040 --> 00:25:57.540 On the contrary, language itself is one of the most powerful, 00:25:58.060 --> 00:26:04.220 undeniable, and downright beautiful illustrations of the existence of the fundamental 00:26:04.220 --> 00:26:06.160 concept of a free society. 00:26:07.260 --> 00:26:13.640 Spontaneous order. In the late 19th century, the book Unuo Libro was published 00:26:13.640 --> 00:26:16.560 by a man writing under the name Dr. Esperanto. 00:26:16.840 --> 00:26:20.440 He wanted to construct the first serious international language, 00:26:20.660 --> 00:26:22.480 which came to be called Esperanto. 00:26:23.040 --> 00:26:26.800 And it was a noble plan, designed an easy-to-learn language that could be adopted 00:26:26.800 --> 00:26:29.800 universally and international cooperation would follow. 00:26:29.980 --> 00:26:33.900 But despite virtuous goals and over 130 years of development, 00:26:34.180 --> 00:26:35.920 Esperanto failed to really take off. 00:26:36.140 --> 00:26:39.240 Lots of smart people figured that this would be a perfect thing, 00:26:39.400 --> 00:26:42.520 a language that would be a universal language that everyone would adopt. 00:26:42.740 --> 00:26:44.380 And it failed massively. 00:26:44.900 --> 00:26:49.120 That's Professor Bruce Caldwell. He says that a big reason why some languages 00:26:49.120 --> 00:26:54.020 fail has a lot to do with how they're developed. And there's two main ways that can happen. 00:26:54.360 --> 00:26:57.900 The first is that a language can be constructed, much like Esperanto. 00:26:58.160 --> 00:27:02.080 Its rules are designed with intention, typically by a small group of experts. 00:27:02.480 --> 00:27:07.680 The second, and more common way, is for a language not to be designed, but to emerge. 00:27:08.500 --> 00:27:12.780 Think of it this way. This is a caveman with no formal language, 00:27:12.980 --> 00:27:16.520 and he needs to warn the rest of his tribe of a nearby predator. 00:27:17.160 --> 00:27:22.160 By using a sound they all know means run, he's able to quickly communicate the 00:27:22.160 --> 00:27:23.300 threat to everyone else. 00:27:23.460 --> 00:27:28.020 And the more they use this sound, the more it starts to resemble a word with a definition. 00:27:28.480 --> 00:27:32.600 With the exception of Esperanto, no one person designs these words. 00:27:32.860 --> 00:27:36.200 They emerge from the bottom up by people pursuing their own goals, 00:27:36.500 --> 00:27:40.400 creating words to communicate simple concepts for their own limited needs. 00:27:40.660 --> 00:27:47.540 And over time, without anyone intending it, these words come to form an orderly what we call a language. 00:27:49.820 --> 00:27:54.760 This process of creating something big and complex by no one's design but through 00:27:54.760 --> 00:27:59.720 everyone's action is what economists like Professor Caldwell call spontaneous order. 00:27:59.820 --> 00:28:03.560 Spontaneous orders are often contrasted with constructed orders. 00:28:03.840 --> 00:28:07.500 The idea that you could have something that is not deliberately constructed, 00:28:07.720 --> 00:28:10.440 that is nonetheless beneficial, is quite a wonderful one. 00:28:10.620 --> 00:28:14.380 And the idea of spontaneous order isn't unique to just language. 00:28:14.740 --> 00:28:20.000 It's everywhere, from legal systems to culture, even art. Back in 2017, 00:28:20.380 --> 00:28:22.920 Reddit conducted a three-day social experiment. 00:28:23.120 --> 00:28:27.940 They created a 1 million pixel canvas, allowing over a million users to place 00:28:27.940 --> 00:28:30.200 one pixel down every five minutes. 00:28:30.440 --> 00:28:33.820 And what emerged was at first vulgar and… silly. 00:29:02.050 --> 00:29:06.150 This battle between the German and French flags ended with users turning the 00:29:06.150 --> 00:29:10.090 intersection into the flag of the European Union in a show of harmony. 00:29:10.450 --> 00:29:13.310 But the beauty of the experiment wasn't how it ended. 00:29:13.570 --> 00:29:17.690 It was the process of how it got there. It was witnessing what people do when 00:29:17.690 --> 00:29:20.370 they face competing interests and limited resources. 00:29:20.850 --> 00:29:23.830 How they're able to achieve order without a master designer. 00:29:24.410 --> 00:29:26.650 Cooperation without a master coordinator. 00:29:27.590 --> 00:29:30.890 Spontaneous orders are easy to miss when you're not looking for them. 00:29:31.010 --> 00:29:35.930 But there are plenty of examples in everyday life. One particularly nice example 00:29:35.930 --> 00:29:38.050 is the idea of Paris getting fed. 00:29:38.330 --> 00:29:43.330 No one decides to feed Paris. What you've got are millions upon millions of people. 00:29:43.490 --> 00:29:47.290 Some of them are people who want to be fed, but lots and lots of people are 00:29:47.290 --> 00:29:49.350 cooperating in the feeding of Paris. 00:29:49.470 --> 00:29:52.290 People who produce the food, who bring it to the restaurants, 00:29:52.530 --> 00:29:56.890 people who create cutlery, napkins, tablecloths, built the restaurant, 00:29:57.030 --> 00:30:01.910 created chairs, mined the ore that was used in the creation of various utensils. 00:30:02.030 --> 00:30:04.210 None of these people said, I'm going to feed Paris. 00:30:04.470 --> 00:30:08.350 All of them cooperate in the action of feeding Paris. It's a beautiful, 00:30:08.370 --> 00:30:11.130 beautiful metaphor, and it has the virtue of being true. 00:30:11.390 --> 00:30:15.270 No one designs the outcome of feeding Paris. How could they? 00:30:15.430 --> 00:30:19.050 At any given time, they would need to know how many people are hungry, 00:30:19.310 --> 00:30:24.610 where they are, what they're hungry for, in which grocers and restaurants are 00:30:24.610 --> 00:30:26.230 best suited to feeding Paris. 00:30:26.590 --> 00:30:31.270 And getting a hold of this specific, ever-shifting knowledge from millions of people is impossible. 00:30:31.650 --> 00:30:35.330 Thankfully, Parisians don't need to have all this knowledge in order to eat. 00:30:35.510 --> 00:30:39.730 The genius of a market that's spontaneously ordered is that all this dispersed 00:30:39.730 --> 00:30:43.490 knowledge is able to be seamlessly communicated through prices. 00:30:43.850 --> 00:30:48.590 Markets emerge through people's interactions trying to improve their lives. 00:30:48.590 --> 00:30:52.310 The whole idea of supply and demand, which we can put up on a blackboard, 00:30:52.490 --> 00:30:56.090 is meant to represent the interaction that people undertake naturally. 00:30:57.880 --> 00:31:02.360 Full credit for that extended clip goes to the Institute for Humane Studies. 00:31:02.360 --> 00:31:06.060 So if you want to see the rest of that video, please do follow the link from 00:31:06.060 --> 00:31:09.460 today's show notes at corbettreport.com/english. 00:31:10.100 --> 00:31:13.460 But I trust you are starting to understand the point. 00:31:13.740 --> 00:31:17.640 Our intuitions and our desires often fail us. 00:31:17.640 --> 00:31:22.080 And our intuition that the creation of something as complex as the feeding of 00:31:22.080 --> 00:31:28.820 Paris or as complex as the English language itself cannot possibly happen unless 00:31:28.820 --> 00:31:30.500 there is a coordinating authority, 00:31:30.860 --> 00:31:36.320 a dictator, or at the very least a learned society of experts directing the 00:31:36.320 --> 00:31:37.700 process from the top down. 00:31:37.720 --> 00:31:43.780 But that is not how the most complex and the most stable orders emerge. 00:31:44.220 --> 00:31:53.080 Esperanto failed. English lives. Dictatorships by technocrats form orders that people reject. 00:31:53.440 --> 00:31:58.560 Communities of free people form spontaneous orders that thrive, 00:31:58.840 --> 00:32:02.380 survive, and change naturally over time. 00:32:03.240 --> 00:32:06.580 Of course, this leads to the surprising conclusion that there are many people, 00:32:06.720 --> 00:32:11.180 including people in my audience right now, who mouth words about freedom, 00:32:11.320 --> 00:32:13.220 who pretend to be opposed to dictators, 00:32:13.420 --> 00:32:19.780 but who actually desire authority to rule over them, to set the rules which 00:32:19.780 --> 00:32:22.980 we must all obey linguistically and otherwise. 00:32:23.680 --> 00:32:29.240 Now, the question why so many people desire to be ruled over is an interesting one. 00:32:29.420 --> 00:32:34.440 And like all interesting questions, it admits of a number of overlapping explanations. 00:32:34.960 --> 00:32:38.680 For one, it certainly makes things easier for the average person. 00:32:38.820 --> 00:32:42.400 You don't have to think about how to express yourself. You don't have to engage 00:32:42.400 --> 00:32:48.420 in the negotiation that is the process of coming to an understanding with others through language. 00:32:48.800 --> 00:32:51.560 You just let someone else make the rules and then follow them. 00:32:51.560 --> 00:32:55.400 And police others so that they also follow the rules. 00:32:55.860 --> 00:33:01.660 We could psychoanalyze the phenomenon, of course. I've pointed out before that 00:33:01.660 --> 00:33:05.520 the state is the family writ large on the societal scale. 00:33:05.800 --> 00:33:09.220 Rule me harder, daddy government, is not just a metaphor. 00:33:09.740 --> 00:33:13.140 Take care of me, mommy government, is not just a metaphor. 00:33:13.440 --> 00:33:18.100 We desire to have the same perceived stability in our relations in the world 00:33:18.100 --> 00:33:24.320 as we did in our own homes growing up. or that we wished we had in our homes growing up. 00:33:25.540 --> 00:33:31.520 Kristol, for his part, gestures to another motivator of the grammarian prescriptivists 00:33:31.520 --> 00:33:35.340 who are so adamant about enforcing the rules of English. 00:33:35.860 --> 00:33:40.520 When I presented a program on split infinitives on Radio 4 in the 1980s, 00:33:40.680 --> 00:33:42.460 I got this letter from a listener. 00:33:42.900 --> 00:33:47.460 The reason why the older generation feel so strongly about English grammar is 00:33:47.460 --> 00:33:50.300 that we were severely punished if we didn't obey the rules. 00:33:50.880 --> 00:33:55.560 One split infinitive, one whack. Two split infinitives, two whacks, and so on. 00:33:56.300 --> 00:33:59.560 He would have been punished for saying, the reason why, too. 00:33:59.960 --> 00:34:02.240 That was another usage which was frowned upon. 00:34:03.300 --> 00:34:07.440 But Crystal being the eminently reasonable and empathetic scholar that he is, 00:34:07.560 --> 00:34:11.520 he even goes on to concede that there is a place for pedants in the fight for English. 00:34:12.200 --> 00:34:16.580 As I said earlier, the language pundits play an important role in alerting us 00:34:16.580 --> 00:34:19.760 to the ways in which difficulties can be caused by language change. 00:34:20.040 --> 00:34:23.180 Changes can't be stopped, but it does need to be managed. 00:34:23.180 --> 00:34:27.180 They also provide a critical perspective for uses of language where the users 00:34:27.180 --> 00:34:31.640 have let everyone down by genuine examples of laziness, carelessness, 00:34:32.020 --> 00:34:35.820 lack of training, lack of thought, or deliberate attempt to obfuscate. 00:34:36.160 --> 00:34:41.340 These are not appropriate or acceptable behaviors. They break my basic principles. 00:34:42.520 --> 00:34:48.000 A principle you can learn more about in Chapter 16 of The Fight for English on appropriateness, 00:34:48.380 --> 00:34:52.580 where Crystal makes perhaps the most important point to be made on the subject 00:34:52.580 --> 00:34:59.740 of when and how and in what way to apply and enforce various grammatical and orthographical rules. 00:35:00.700 --> 00:35:04.480 Appropriateness in language is the same as appropriateness in other walks of life. 00:35:04.880 --> 00:35:09.840 Take clothing. If you looked into your wardrobe and found there only one suit 00:35:09.840 --> 00:35:16.860 of clothes or one dress, how prepared would you feel to face the sartorial demands upon you by society? 00:35:17.480 --> 00:35:22.160 No one would be happy if they had only the one option for all types of formal 00:35:22.160 --> 00:35:26.060 and informal occasion, for different days of the week or for different functions, 00:35:26.260 --> 00:35:28.820 such as swimming, gardening, or washing a car. 00:35:29.180 --> 00:35:31.660 The more types of clothing we have, the better. 00:35:32.220 --> 00:35:37.520 But having a large and varied wardrobe is only useful if we have developed a clothes sense. 00:35:38.200 --> 00:35:42.380 The application of this analogy is probably obvious, so just a few lines are 00:35:42.380 --> 00:35:43.360 needed to illustrate it. 00:35:43.480 --> 00:35:49.080 If children have only one variety of language to use, it is like having a single-item wardrobe. 00:35:49.480 --> 00:35:53.600 On the other hand, if they have been made aware of all the varieties in a language, 00:35:53.600 --> 00:35:57.820 by degrees, of course, during a language syllabus of several years, 00:35:58.380 --> 00:36:01.180 they leave school linguistically fully dressed. 00:36:01.800 --> 00:36:05.540 And the more that adults who may have missed out on this kind of training take 00:36:05.540 --> 00:36:08.940 steps to familiarize themselves with the stylistic range of English, 00:36:08.940 --> 00:36:13.660 the more prepared they will be to interact effectively with people from all walks of life. 00:36:15.120 --> 00:36:20.460 Wow, a reasonable and balanced perspective on the value of learning a language. 00:36:20.760 --> 00:36:24.940 Not just the dictates of the schoolmarm, but a broad and deep understanding 00:36:24.940 --> 00:36:28.900 of all the choices that one makes when navigating the grand, 00:36:29.480 --> 00:36:35.140 spontaneously ordered, ongoing negotiation that is communication with your fellow men and women. 00:36:35.880 --> 00:36:41.620 Now, I should definitely caution that I have not even begun to scratch the surface 00:36:41.620 --> 00:36:45.440 when it comes to the fight for English. It's a fascinating book, 00:36:45.460 --> 00:36:46.960 and it covers a lot of ground. 00:36:47.260 --> 00:36:51.300 This book traces the historical roots of the grammarian prescriptivists, 00:36:51.520 --> 00:36:57.220 the reformers and the systematizers alike, in the demographic upheaval that 00:36:57.220 --> 00:37:01.800 turned London and Western Europe on its head in the 16th century, 00:37:01.860 --> 00:37:07.920 and the attendant worries about signaling class identity and social status through one's speech. 00:37:08.780 --> 00:37:13.160 And Crystal gives many fascinating examples of how and why English grammar and 00:37:13.160 --> 00:37:16.700 spelling and punctuation and pronunciation evolved as it did. 00:37:16.900 --> 00:37:20.260 Do you know why there are so many words in English with silent letters? 00:37:20.560 --> 00:37:23.160 Why do we spell debt with a B? 00:37:23.800 --> 00:37:28.520 Because some grammar Nazi of the distant past decided it would help make English 00:37:28.520 --> 00:37:33.880 easier if we included nods to the etymological roots of our words. 00:37:33.880 --> 00:37:39.240 So that's why the Old English debt, D-E-T, became dept with a B. 00:37:39.540 --> 00:37:43.140 And now everyone knows that it came from the Latin debitum. 00:37:44.420 --> 00:37:48.560 There's also much more in the book about Crystal's own ideas for how English 00:37:48.560 --> 00:37:50.300 education should take place. 00:37:50.480 --> 00:37:55.040 And in case I've given anyone the wrong impression, Crystal is crystal clear 00:37:55.040 --> 00:37:59.060 that he is not an anything-goes kind of anti-grammarian. 00:37:59.060 --> 00:38:05.120 On the contrary, he just has a bone to pick with the overly and inappropriately 00:38:05.120 --> 00:38:08.060 rigid prescriptive grammarians. 00:38:09.030 --> 00:38:14.230 The error of the prescriptive grammarians is that they adopted a normative stance about usage. 00:38:14.530 --> 00:38:19.150 They assumed that one variety of language, the standard as seen in formal written 00:38:19.150 --> 00:38:23.010 English, was the only variety worth using, the norm for everyone. 00:38:23.330 --> 00:38:27.770 They asserted that the rules of that variety were the only ones which could be called correct. 00:38:28.250 --> 00:38:32.010 Everything else was rubbish. Informal writing, informal speaking, 00:38:32.370 --> 00:38:36.790 regional speaking or writing. This approach to grammar, or to any other aspect 00:38:36.790 --> 00:38:41.610 of language, is not one we should espouse That is the chief argument of this book. 00:38:43.130 --> 00:38:47.650 All that being said, let me reiterate, if you are at all interested in this 00:38:47.650 --> 00:38:51.490 subject, and if you've made it this far in the podcast, I'm going to assume 00:38:51.490 --> 00:38:54.090 you are, then this book will provoke, 00:38:54.670 --> 00:38:59.050 inform, and entertain in good measure. 10 out of 10 do recommend. 00:38:59.950 --> 00:39:05.710 But if you're still puzzled after all of this explanation as to why I am covering 00:39:05.710 --> 00:39:08.890 a book about grammar and pronunciation on the Corbett Report, 00:39:08.890 --> 00:39:15.130 it's because my takeaway from this book revolves around another one of its key insights. 00:39:15.810 --> 00:39:20.650 Studying language change is important because it gives us unique insight into 00:39:20.650 --> 00:39:22.670 human society and identity. 00:39:23.510 --> 00:39:29.010 That's right. This isn't ultimately about grammar and spelling. 00:39:29.310 --> 00:39:32.170 This is about humanity and freedom. 00:39:32.530 --> 00:39:38.110 It's about our ability to negotiate with others in the grand unfolding story 00:39:38.110 --> 00:39:40.030 of the formation of human community. 00:39:40.270 --> 00:39:47.670 And that spontaneous order, not governed by popes or dictators or learned societies 00:39:47.670 --> 00:39:49.250 of technocratic experts, 00:39:49.530 --> 00:39:55.930 is a beautiful and remarkable example of how humanity can govern itself. 00:39:57.490 --> 00:40:03.490 Thank you for your time and attention. Please see corbettreport.com/english 00:40:03.490 --> 00:40:06.230 for links to everything I've cited to date. 00:40:06.810 --> 00:40:09.010 I'm James Corbett of corbettreport.com. 00:40:10.670 --> 00:40:15.790 Do you know what the most beautiful example of anarchism is that is just beyond 00:40:15.790 --> 00:40:19.870 beautiful when you stop to think about it? I'm not being tongue-in-cheek. Language. 00:40:21.650 --> 00:40:28.330 There's infinite languages. The things that language can be used for bring tears 00:40:28.330 --> 00:40:29.530 to people's eyes, quite literally. 00:40:30.370 --> 00:40:36.050 It's also used for basic things. No one is forcing us. We speak two languages each, at least. 00:40:36.270 --> 00:40:40.670 No one's forcing us to use English. No one's forcing us to use this dialect of English. 00:40:41.390 --> 00:40:45.650 It's a way, and despite there being so many different languages, 00:40:46.570 --> 00:40:49.730 lingua franca emerge, you know, the language that everyone is, Latin. 00:40:50.210 --> 00:40:54.110 Even in North Korea, they refer to the fish and the different animals by the 00:40:54.110 --> 00:40:57.590 Latin scientific, no one decided this. 00:40:57.690 --> 00:41:00.670 Sure, there's an organization that sets a binomial nomenclature, 00:41:00.830 --> 00:41:06.430 but there's no gun to anyone's head referring to sea moth as a pegasus species. 00:41:06.990 --> 00:41:12.350 And when you think about how amazing language is, And some other contexts would 00:41:12.350 --> 00:41:16.050 say like, well, you need to have a world government and they're deciding which 00:41:16.050 --> 00:41:19.850 is the verbs and you have to have an official definition and an official dictionary. 00:41:20.230 --> 00:41:24.430 And none of that's happened. And I think anyone, even if they don't agree with 00:41:24.430 --> 00:41:30.170 my politics or my worldview, cannot deny that the creation of language is one 00:41:30.170 --> 00:41:33.650 of humanity's most miraculous, beautiful achievements.