But...Why Not?

       Ellipses are being over employed and misused across writing. The real and only purpose of an ellipses is to omit words from sentence. Society and social networks have used these so differently that I never actually knew its only correct use until know. Facebook, twitter, texting and others have all led me to believe that I can use it to replace "um" and "uh'', make a pause, change the topic, or leave a conversation open ended. Society has had such an impact on me that I've even used these incorrect forms of ellipses in formal papers.

      While reading Mateo Wiesner's blog post in which he criticises Cristina Angel I could not agree more with him. He calls Cristina out for claiming that ellipses should be used only in the academic way, in formal writing (which is for omission). Whatever happened to letting language evolve? Now that we have completely changed the use of this grammatical punctuation we might as well change the rules.

       Ellipses are something that I use and see every single day while texting. The reason for this could be as Malady explains: "The relationship between the alphabet and talking was progressively broken as people learned to sound things out in their heads. Now we’re seeing a moment of reversal, where people are trying to use alphabets like we’re talking, and it’s ... hard. So we reach for the ellipsis".

English Darwinism

       A “descriptivist" tries to describe language as it is used. A “prescriptivist,” focuses on how language should be used. After reading and reflecting about this article I agree with Robert Greene and his descriptivist ideas. The English language is ever-changing and should not follow all the ancient grammar rules like: "Which" introduces a "nonrestrictive" relative clause, and "that" introduces a restrictive clause. These ancient rules are complex and in my opinion do not form part of the "normal" usage of the english language. I am sure that if someone with good modern grammatical knowledge traveled 400 years back and attended an English lesson there would be an outrage, teachers and scholars would complain about his inappropriate use of grammar. This language is suppose to evolve along with society. I agree with Greene's proposed meta-rule "When a proposed rule and actual usage conflict, the proposed rule is false, and actual usage should be our guide". 

       By no means am I saying that grammar is not important. It is an essential part of writing, and especially formal writing. Proper grammar rules should be taught at every school and it is important we all know our grammatical basics. All I am saying is that people have to be open to the changes in our language and should not try and shove ancient rules down our throats. 

       It seems to me that language, having its roots in the spoken word rather than the written one, should be judged by how it is spoken in our every-day lives. It is wrong to reject our evolving language while trying to enforce unused rules which might seem ridiculous to us now. The point of grammar rules is so that our messages are conveyed clearly, but if we can do so without the old complex rules than that is fine.

Making a Mountain Out of a Molehill

       In my past post I insisted that our English language is ever changing and old strict grammar rules are being used less and less; however, I believe that  Matthew J.X. Malady is going too far by saying that commas will not be used in the future. Yes it is true that rules should change if we no longer use them, but the problem is that we still use commas a lot. These essential punctuation marks make our writing flow nicely and be more clear. The "Let's eat grandma" and "Let's eat, grandma" is a silly example, yet it explains how powerful commas can be in affecting the meaning of a sentence.

       I had not noticed this until someone pointed it out in class, but Malady managed to write his article without commas. This just shows how a clear essay can be written without commas and still flow; nonetheless, I am sure that he did not do this naturally. Matthew probably had this in mind and tried to avoid commas while writing the essay, which made it harder for him. So why would we stop using commas if they help us? The argument that Robert Greene used to fight the importance of complex grammar rules was that we no longer used them. Commas we use everyday, even when we pause during speech and while we text (at least me and my friends do).

       I also find Malady's "Ketchup" and "Mustard" analogy of commas lacking a lot sense. According to him, ketchup and mustard are things we love but do not need, just like commas (I agree with this). However, because we love them and use them so much they have not disappeared. I am sure these sauces have been around for longer than 10-20 years, yet we still use them today (and a lot). For this same reason we will not witness the vanishment of commas, because although we don't need them we like them. As you can see, this post is FILLED with commas which made the writing process much easier. SO WHY GET RID OF THEM???