There’s a video put out by the folks of Miriam-Webster that has been floating around. It’s worth a little thinking about. It suggests that, despite what your third grade teacher taught you, a preposition might not be the most terrible thing to end a sentence with.
In fact, these language experts who, mind you, have now decided to include the nonsensical “irregardless” in their dictionary, point to the history of English to rest their case upon. They suspect it began with a little known 17th century grammarian named Joshua Poole whose work, The English Accidence, does mention that one should use prepositions following only the natural order they should appear in.
England’s first Poet Laureate John Dryden apparently agreed with him, and once took critical aim at poet Ben Johnson’s use of the line: “The bodies that those souls were frighted from.” Because Dryden used to translate his own work into Latin as a way to revise for concise and elegant language, the assumption is that he preferred the grammatical rules of Latin to force English into.
If you want to get creative with prepositions, you’ll have to think outside the box. Or in it. Or on it. Or around it. Image by Agata from Pixabay
Whether this was the real reason for his preference, however, doesn’t totally shine through. Dryden did also once take himself to task for occasionally spotting a line or two in his own work where a sentence-ending preposition had slipped out.
All writers have preferences they rarely go against. It’s certainly not a habit that I can claim to be above. Still, it’s unclear why this particular preference of this particular poet became a hard and fast rule no student could live without. What is certain is that in the wake of Miriam-Webster’s claim that the rule never was a rule, the debate has been a furious one that it may take some time to get over. This is a topic that sure gets people worked up.
I do appreciate that language evolves and I try not to be too pretentious about it, but based on this brief experiment with lackluster, and maybe even just plain strange sentence structures, I don’t think I’m ready yet to throw the rule out. All I can say is that I will certainly think it through.
This past Sunday morning I selected from my closet a pretty white dress I recently bought on sale (because it looks awesome on me). My husband looked at me and instead of saying, “You look really nice,” opted for the comment: “Good thing you’re wearing that while you can because next weekend is Labor Day.” Oh, and then he offered the obligatory compliment (because I really did look nice and he’s the kind of man who isn’t going to let that go unsaid).
But wait a minute. Although no one who knows me would accuse me of being a fashionista (which I don’t believe is a real word), I am the member of my family whose fashion sense is most often consulted. My husband rarely wears a new shirt/slacks combination without asking me if it works okay, and I often send my eight-year-old back to his room to change into clothing that at least matches a little. For my stubborn six-year-old (who on this 100° day chose to wear a long-sleeve red and gray Mario Brothers shirt with green and brown plaid shorts) there is no hope.
So, even though I probably wouldn’t have chosen to wear my pretty white dress after Labor Day, (because I was raised with a vague awareness that that is a fashion faux pas), I was stunned to hear my husband make reference to this hard and fast law of fashion.
Of course many suggest that it’s no longer a hard and fast rule, but it’s still out there and is generally followed by a lot of us. The origin of the guideline that suggests you should put away your white wardrobe between Labor Day and Memorial Day is a little unclear, but there are several theories about the social factors that may have contributed to its development.
Actually Coco Chanel wore white after Labor Day long before it was cool. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
First, summer is hot and industry is dirty. In the late 1800s, the wealthy who could escape the sweltering city summer, retreated to the country where there was significantly less industrial goop in the air and on the streets. There they were free to wear the white they could not wear in the filth of the city, where the working class wore much more practical, dirt and soot-colored clothing. Of course all good things (like summer vacation) must eventually end and so with the return of fall, came the return of drab colors.
Logically it follows that the distinction of wearing white in the summer months became closely associated with the wealthy who wished to differentiate themselves from the working class. But Industrialization brought with it lots of new money and an emerging strong middle class. Much of the population found itself needing to navigate a new social landscape and so rules developed to help. One that’s easy to remember (and enforce) is that of wearing white only between Memorial Day and Labor Day (holidays that were established in the second half of the 19th century and had come to mark the beginning and end of summer in the US).
English: Labor Day Parade, Union Square, New York, 1882 (Lithographie) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
But my favorite theory as to why this simple fashion rule stuck for so long is the most cynical. Since New York has long been the hub of American fashion trends, the experts that drive it opted for practicality (who’d have thought?). Since the region’s rainy fall begins sometime around Labor Day most years, the experts declared that at that date it was no longer acceptable to wear white, a declaration that failed to consider weather patterns elsewhere in the nation.
Whether or not there is any truth to that last theory, most fashion experts now generally agree that you can wear white year-round (and since they carry a fashion police badge, you’d better listen). Of course in the same breath they will advise you to wear “winter whites” after Labor Day, whatever that means (as far as I am concerned, if it isn’t in the Crayola box, it isn’t a color). I guess you have to be a fashionista (which is definitely not a real word, whatever Miriam-Webster has to say on the subject) to understand the subtle nuances of all the rules.
If it’s a color, you will find it in there somewhere.
But since I am (or at least was until this past Sunday) the closest thing my family has to a fashionista (a word apparently coined when I was in high school; I wasn’t one then, either), it falls on me to take the kiddos shopping. Because they hate it, this is a task I perform only when it absolutely must be done. And as they can no longer wiggle their toes inside their cramped gym shoes, it had to be done this week.
Now I don’t know if you have shopped for tennis shoes in the last month or so, but as we have approached Labor Day, for some reason the tennis shoes have gone from traditional white (or occasionally gray or black, if you’re feeling a little wild) to the color of toxic waste (also known as “winter white”?). So I have to assume that the fashion experts have been lying to us and it is, in fact, a terrible fashion misstep to don white shoes at this time of year.
Call me old fashioned, but I just think this is what tennis shoes should look like, before they turn dingy gray anyway. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
I don’t have a problem with bright colors (Crayola lists a few “neons” among its collection) and actually I can’t say that I hate my eight-year-old’s choice of shoes sporting neon carrot or even my 6-year-old’s laser lemon selection (which should pair nicely with his green and brown plaid shorts). The shoes look good on them in that adorable-little-kid-who-likes-to-express-himself sort of way.
My only real complaint is that it so happens I needed new tennis shoes, too. And apparently the experts think I might also look good in toxic waste shoes (in that crazy-lady-who-talks-to-herself-on-the-subway sort of way).
I looked long and hard (on a return trip during school hours because the kiddos have no patience for this sort of thing) and I finally found a pair with an adequate toe box and arch with only a minimal amount of sea serpent blue and wild watermelon. Not really my best colors, I think, but who am I to argue with fashion? Perhaps I’ll wear my new shoes with my pretty white dress. After Memorial Day, of course.
Because even though “blogiversary” remains a made-up word, it’s still a thing.
Exactly one year ago today I posted for the first time on this blog. Unless you’re closely related to me, there’s a pretty good chance you missed it. But I am delighted that there are a few more of you out there now, some even so kind as to offer polite comments and feedback and many with fantastic blogs of your own. And so I wanted to acknowledge and celebrate my first blogiversary (mostly because I love made-up words).
The question is how does a blogger who claims to write about history write with any authority about a form of communication that can only really be traced back to 1994? The word blog itself didn’t crop up until 1999 as a portmanteau (another great word, not made-up) of “web” and “log” because a webllogging jokester decided to use the phrase “we blog” and it stuck.
Now you could say it’s just gotten plain out of hand with words like vlog (a video blog), travelog (a travel blog), and splog (a spamming blog) seeping into our language. Of course we can all thank Merriam-Webster for this trend.
Now THAT’S a dictionary. Webster’s Third New International thankyouverymuch. (Photo credit: Martin Criminale)
Back in 1961, Webster’s Third New International Dictionary hit the bookshelves and boy did it make folks mad. In this edition, editor Philip Gove had the nerve not only to eliminate English words that hadn’t been in use since before 1755, but in doing so he freed up space to include words that were commonly spoken leading up to and into 1961. He even went so far as to include alternate spellings and once wrote in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that “the basic responsibility of a dictionary is to record language, not set its style.”
He wasn’t wrong, of course. Despite the controversy, Webster’s Third went on to become a respected and widely relied upon resource even if it did contain the word “ain’t.” But I can see the concern. Without a steadfast standard what is to prevent just anybody from making up words willy-nilly (a word that has been more or less in common use since 1610 and that can still be found in Webster’s, tucked between willy-mufty and willy-wagtail).
The truth is that language evolves constantly and so do the ways in which we communicate with one another. What started out as a few escribitionists (a word that has not yet made it into most dictionaries) with online journals, blossomed into thriving online communities of people sharing their thoughts on absolutely anything until even politicians, respected journalists, and hack writers like me decided to get in on the action.
Actually this is not my first blogging experience. Twice during my graduate studies, I was required to establish and maintain edublogs in order to support class reflection and discussion. The first focused on teaching rhetoric in a university setting. I assure you it was not even as exciting as it sounds.
The second was entirely devoted to the life and works of Jane Austen. It included only the most serious of posts like when I offered a reading of Persuasion from the perspective of Avril Lavigne and wrote “Seize upon the scissors” a lot. In case you’ve never read Jane Austen’s personal letters (but who hasn’t?) you’ll have to trust me when I say that is well worth a chuckle or two.
So when I returned to blogging seven years later because a fellow writer insisted that I couldn’t get published without a blog (though like most future bestsellers I’ve yet to get published with one), I really wanted to be sure that I found the right niche that would allow me to write comfortably and consistently.
I decided on history because as a writer of historical fiction I research nitpicky and highly blog-worthy historical details all the time anyway (and that’s the reason I can use the phrase “boat-licker” properly). It seemed like a good fit. Then as I found my blog voice I discovered what I really write is part history (sometimes true, occasionally made-up) and part personal essay (usually true, often exaggerated). I have also been known to throw in a little math and science or food from time to time. And, I’d like to think, a little splash of wit.
So since I’ve been at this a year now, I’m thinking I should come up with a word that accurately describes the type of writing I attempt here in my little corner of the blogosphere. I’m also thinking that it should contain the word blog. Maybe more than once. I’m open to suggestions.
Author Sarah Angleton 