That’s the implicit question being raised these days in a prickly debate over English-language grammar, spelling, and style conventions. The latest excuse for the debate, which gets revived periodically by bored linguists and commentators (so far to little effect), is the rise of such Internet phenomena as blogs, self-publishing, instant messaging, the “lolspeak” argot, etc. On one side of the war are self-appointed guardians of the language who believe that barbarians (those damn kids, mostly) are about to crash the gates; on the other side are self-styled freedom-lovers who believe (as in this brief article) that the real threat to language comes from snobs who shackle it with artificial rules. In a culture where everyone’s an author, so the second argument goes, surely everyone can be an editor too.
It may come as a surprise to readers that we favor neither side—or to be precise, we think the whole war misses the point. True, language is an organic, untameable product of human culture, and all the style guides in the world can’t stop the lolcats from hazzing their cheezburgers if thousands of people want them to. But by the same token, subliterate Web chatterers are unlikely to overthrow standard English anytime soon. Curiously, people who cite the “organic” nature of language in decrying standardization never consider that standardization might itself be an organic process—that the relative stability of spelling and grammar conventions in the twentieth century as opposed to the eighteenth, the eighteenth as opposed to the sixteenth, etc., might have evolved communally and naturally and not through a conspiracy of grammar scolds.
The truth is, writers find it useful to have a baseline set of conventions to follow—or else depart from consistently, for calculated effect. That is especially true in English, which is a motley and cumbersome enough language to manage without anything-goes punctuation or variant spellings for ordinary words (both of which were common several centuries ago). That’s why dictionaries and similar reference texts caught on as innovations; Dr. Johnson and Webster were the servants of their public, not the other way around. What good writers want out of language is a vehicle through which to present ideas with maximum clarity. Inconsistent spelling, confusing grammar, and so on distract the reader, undermining the writer’s authority and control; conventions, however arbitrary, help erase these distractions.
They also create a useful norm against which controlled, creative, consistent departures pose an effective contrast. Thus works written in slang or dialect—such as Huckleberry Finn or, yes, I Can Haz Cheezburger?—far from proving conventions misguided, actually depend on them for their effects, and succeed only by establishing their own sets of internally consistent conventions. (If there were no “normal” rules in English, the cutesy grammar and spelling of “lolspeak” would lose whatever humor value they arguably have.) The same goes for works full of willfully eccentric punctuation, such as Cormac McCarthy’s novels. All of this is another way of saying that you need to learn the rules in order to break them—casual sloppiness does no one any favors.
Editors exist, then, in order to help establish a smooth consistency of style no matter what the work. But couldn’t most authors do this on their own? Take a quick spin around the blogosphere and tell us what you think. Cheer up, though: the Web may give grammarians fits for now, but as it becomes less and less a wild frontier and more and more a settled civilization, a hierarchy will assert itself in which publications whose language is clean, fluent, and consistent (as well as interesting) rise to the top. In the process, editors’ jobs will maintain their importance—though sadly, also, their utter lack of glory.
I agree completely. That’s odd considering I think commas and confetti should be used with the same effect. I am definitely a, “when in doubt, comma,” mama.
I really am working on my grammar. It seems like the courteous thing to do for all the future editors who might want to read my stories.
Cormac McCarthy drives me insane. The librarians won’t even let me in his section. Attempting to read his books is like a rabid werereader being exposed to the light of a dozen full moons.
Language is fluid, but that that fluid.
Julie
Have to disagree on that score, Julie–nothing about McCarthy’s style bothers us from an editorial perspective. From an aesthetic perspective, it sometimes becomes wildly overwrought, as does that of his literary forerunner, Faulkner. But when it’s good, as in Blood Meridian, it’s great.
Oh, the writing is beautiful, but personally, it drives me insane to try and read it. I know a lot of people adore it, but my poor brain just rebels. I don’t read anything that is painful to me and his work is.
Julie